“No, my sweet, you see, you can’t.” He held up the wire and slowly stood back from the oven. He watched her, her beautiful back and hands now hugging the door frame. He caught the cautious glance she made toward her front door.

You feel you are so close and yet how far you really are, he thought. You want to run, you want to scream, but you’re too scared. As he moved toward her, she readied herself to run, bracing her feet firmly on the floor. At the end of the worktop he reached down, picked up the cookbook off the floor, and read the title.

“Oh, beautiful Edie, why do you make this hard on yourself? You won’t reach the end,” he said, taunting her as he stepped closer and closer to her. “Your beautiful legs, knees, I am afraid they won’t be able to carry you fast enough before I catch you. Perhaps you want the chase, is that what you want? Why don’t you run?”

Grabbing her chin with his gloved hand, he looked into her eyes. They spoke the one word he thrived on, terror. “Run,” he whispered into her ear and run she did. But, as he suspected, he caught her as she unlocked the bolt on the front door

“Tsk, tsk, you should be more careful, because you never know who could be outside lurking, do you?” He leaned past her and locked the front door again. “We don’t want someone coming in now, do we?”

Her legs became weak and she fell to the ground. Grabbing her hair, he pulled her up. A short high-pitched scream came out of her mouth.

Cupping her mouth with his hand, he whispered into her ear, “What are you doing? Why do you fight it? It will all be over soon.”

He ignored the stifled whimpers that came from under his hand as he dragged her down the hall. She clawed at the walls and kicked the floor trying to stand. When that failed, she attempted to reach behind and scratch him but he yanked on her hair in response. In the kitchen, she wildly threw her body up on the worktop and kicked like mad. The rack of spices flew through the air—the cumin bottle smashed in the sink sending greenish powder up in the air and tiny balls of peppercorns flew like little missiles in all directions as the bottle shattered against the fridge.

He couldn’t hold on to her and she threw herself to the floor, yanking drawers out as she fell. Cutlery landed with a deafening crash on the tile floor. He covered his ears with his hands. She crawled toward the kitchen door but yelped when his strong hand grabbed her ankle and dragged her back.

As screams emerged from her lips, he placed his hand over her mouth, and said, “Stop.”

He was getting angry now. This was not what he’d imagined. Where was his power? Where was her fear? Tired, he looked around for his wire, where was his wire? He must have lost it somewhere in the struggle.

She moved again, her hands clawed the floor, reaching for items. With a loud slap, his gloved hand connected with her face.

“Stop,” he said once again. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she began to whimper. With his body on hers to hold her down, he placed one hand on her neck—her thin tender neck—and began to squeeze. “Will you be quiet?”

When she made no movement, he squeezed her neck harder and asked again, “Will you be quiet?”

When she finally nodded yes, he took his hand off her mouth. Again he looked around for his wire. Nothing. He could feel her squirm beneath him, adjusting her body under his weight.

The smell of burning pot roast began to fill the room. Could he shut off the oven from here? He leaned back trying to reach the knobs on the hob. Just out of his reach. Damn. He slid his body back but he still couldn’t reach without taking his hand off her neck. No, no, no, he thought, this is not what he had planned. Turning back to her face, he realized he must deal with her first. She looked at him and the fear returned.

She squirmed as his second hand reached for her neck. No, she shook her head. Please, she pleaded with her eyes. Her yell was a gurgled gasp. As he watched her struggle for air, he felt a deep sharp pain radiate from his leg up his entire body. For a moment, his hands loosened from her neck and he let go. Blood pooled onto the floor from a large fork in his thigh. He reached back and yanked it out, blood gushed against the kitchen cupboard door. With anger he turned back to her. Her eyes were still on him, but she had stopped struggling for air.

Beautiful Edie Grace was no more.

Chapter Two

The sound of hoovering caused Sophia Evans to look away from her monitor. What time was it? The clock on the wall read 2:10. Where did the time go? She pressed the power button on her screen then leaned back in her chair. Her shoulders ached and she rolled her head from side to side.

She glanced around the office. Six other co-workers still sat at their stations. Three had noise-cancelling headphones over their ears. Maybe Liam Foxton was right; perhaps they had no lives. Liam would never work this late. She wondered when he had left. It was rare for him to leave without at least saying good-bye. From her bag, she pulled her mobile phone—no one had rang.

When she looked up, she saw Liam approaching her desk. “Speak of the devil,” she said.

“What’s this?” Liam asked and shook papers in front of her face. She rose and snatched them from him. He had recently followed her to the ICT unit at MI5 in a role he termed liaison—between the Intelligence Officers and ICT Specialists.

“You know, it’s after two in the morning.” She flipped through the sheets—at least he hadn’t marked them in any way. She didn’t want to have to reprint the thirty-four pages.

“I intercepted this,” he yelled over the vacuum. He jabbed at the papers.

She let out a laugh. “You didn’t intercept it; you stole it off the post cart. It’s for my boss to review.” She slammed the document down on her desk. “And you’re not my boss. It’s my speech—waiting for approval.”

“In what language?”

“Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s not English. It’s my demonstration of the Huffman Compression Function and Linguistic Stenography.”

Three or four times a year she gave a lecture at the university on various Mathematics subjects to various groups. It impressed her that students as young as eight took an interest in maths. In a way, it reminded her of herself at that age.

“Would you like me to bore you with the details?” she asked him.

“No.”

“Is this what you’ve been discussing with your superiors all afternoon?”

“What are you on about?”

“I saw you this afternoon and I know you were talking about me. I saw you looking at me. Is this what it’s about?” She held up the pages.

When he didn’t reply, she continued, “Never mind. What are you doing here so late?”

“I-I thought we could grab a coffee.”

“I don’t need more coffee, Liam. I need a bed.” She picked up her bag, umbrella, and coat from under her desk.

“It’s only that we haven’t had much time to talk . . . to discuss what happened on—”

“What? Just spit it out.” The words came out louder than she had planned. She looked round the room, but none of the other analysts had stopped typing to watch. There was enough noise in the room even to drown out the occasional game of Halo some of the analysts played. Liam attempted to drag her to his office but she stopped him.

“Well,” he whispered, “I want to make sure you’re okay. You seem really angry. Well, towards me anyways.”

“I’m all right, all right?” After a soft pat on his arm, she headed for the lift.

“Wait. Just wait for me.” He ran to his office and retrieved his coat and briefcase. She stopped and turned to him.

“The reason we haven’t discussed it,” she said when he returned, “is because I haven’t wanted to discuss it with you. I’ve already been through months of counselling. Now, I just want to put it behind me. All right?” She pressed the button. And then three more times.