Four

      Economy Inn, West South Boulevard

      Saturday, August 27, 1:30 a.m.

      Nick Shade taped another photo of Detective Bobbie Gentry on the wall. He stood back and surveyed the new additions to the timeline he had created. The data he’d collected during this hunt were far more extensive than he usually gathered. The instinct he’d recently started to ignore warned again that he had ventured too close on this one.

      What the hell had he been thinking going to her house?

      He plowed his hands through his hair. He hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem. But had there really been a choice? He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Gaylon Perry had proven significantly more resourceful than he had anticipated. For such a singularly focused killer, whose carefully choreographed world had been so abruptly turned upside down, Perry had regained his balance and scurried out of reach in the blink of an eye.

      Nick could only watch and wait for his return.

      Fury tightened his jaw. “I knew you’d come eventually.”

      Nick studied a photo of the forty-year-old English teacher. His generic brown hair and eyes were less than memorable. His soft jaw and weak chin along with a slim build disguised his physical strength. Classroom videos showed a soft-spoken man who interacted comfortably with his students. Those same students, as well as Perry’s colleagues at the high school, considered him to be kind and compassionate. And yet fourteen murders, not counting Gentry’s husband, had been attributed to him. The community of Lincoln, Nebraska, was still reeling from the news. Parents were sickened at the idea that their impressionable teenagers had been taught by a sadistic serial killer.

      According to the statements Gentry had given, Perry had mentioned other murders. A total of twenty-three. Based on his sophisticated signature, Nick felt confident that number was closer to right than the one previously thought. The Storyteller’s first victim, as far as the cops knew, had been dumped in a quiet Louisiana town when Perry was twenty-seven. He had followed that pattern annually until last year. The MO was simplistic, yet it was that very simplicity that had protected Perry for so long. Each year between June 1 and mid-July, he took a victim from one of the southern states, kept her for three to four weeks, torturing her relentlessly before tattooing a sadistic poem on her back and then murdering her. The body was immediately dumped in another state. Each step was carefully planned and executed.

      Nick considered the photos of the crime scenes where the bodies were discovered. Perry did more than dump his victims. He posed them in prominent places so they would be found quickly while his poetic masterpieces were still fresh. No one, not the FBI or any other law enforcement agency, had come close to identifying him, much less catching him, until Detective Gentry survived, providing a break in the case.

      Even before Nick had known his name, he had understood one thing with complete certainty. As long as he was still breathing, the Storyteller would return to Montgomery for the one that got away.

      “What have you been waiting for?” Nick rubbed at the tense muscles in his neck. He’d been in Montgomery watching Gentry for nearly four months—since her release from the rehabilitation center. His gaze narrowed with the only possible conclusion. “You waited for her to go back to work, didn’t you, you sick fuck?”

      Perry would see having the damaged hero cop resume duty before he murdered her a more dramatic and poignant chapter in his killing history. Nick’s gaze settled on the photo he’d snapped of Gentry entering the Criminal Investigation Division last month on her first day back. She’d worn a pair of dark trousers and a matching suit jacket. Muted pink blouse. Rubber-soled loafers. No jewelry. No scarves or other accessories. Her stride had exuded strength and confidence. Watching her from afar, no one would have suspected she had spent long, grueling hours in physical therapy day in and day out for months to regain that strength and confidence. Not to mention the hours of psychiatric counseling. Continuing the counseling was a condition of her return to work. Nick had watched her leave the department psychiatrist’s office each week knowing she had played the part everyone wanted to see. She presented the picture of strength and determination except when she thought no one was watching.

      Those were the moments he couldn’t get out of his head.

      He reached out and traced her face. “Why did the FBI ever let you anywhere near this case?”

      She was a perfect example of Perry’s typical victim. She was tall and thin with long, lush brunette hair that sharply contrasted her pale skin. Her facial features were delicate and finely sculpted. Her eyes were an uncommonly pale blue. Perry wasn’t particular when it came to the color of the eyes, but each victim had a uniquely light hue and eyes slightly larger than average.

      Gentry’s eyes brought to mind a clear blue sky. Nick blinked away the notion. How long had it been since he’d noticed the sky beyond assessing coming weather conditions? He couldn’t remember. Research and tracking his prey consumed his nights and his days. One case became another, and then another. Home was wherever his work took him—the desert or the mountains, under a city overpass or in an abandoned house deep in the woods.

      Nick moved to the map of Montgomery County he’d tacked to the wall. Every minute he didn’t have eyes on Gentry, he was poring over aerials of the area using Google Earth and driving to remote locations similar to those Perry had utilized before. If Nick was lucky, he would find Perry before he made a play for Gentry.

      His phone sounded a warning. Nick reached for it and checked the status of the tracking device he’d planted on Gentry’s car. “Can’t sleep either, eh?”

      He snatched up his keys and headed for the door. Apparently neither of them was going to get any sleep tonight. He wasn’t surprised. She went for middle-of-the-night drives several times a week. Detective Gentry went to great lengths to make herself available for the taking. Nick suspected Perry wanted her to suffer a little more before he obliged her and made a move.

      “You won’t get away this time.” However else he had screwed up on this one, Nick would see to it that Perry didn’t escape.

      The streets of Montgomery were quiet. Most of the bars and clubs would be closed by now. He checked the blinking dot that represented Gentry’s progress and took the necessary turns. When he spotted her black Challenger, he shook his head. The police cruiser was right on her tail. He thought of the neighborhood—a neighborhood known for serious drug and gang problems—where she currently resided.

      “You like punishing yourself for surviving—don’t you, Bobbie?” He didn’t have to wonder how she explained that one to her psychiatrist. He’d slipped into the doctor’s office and read over his notes more than once. I need the space to get back to who I am.

      “Liar.” She still owned the house she and her husband built before their son was born. She had closed the place up four months ago. The cars she and her husband had driven were still in the garage. A lawn service kept the exterior maintained. Gentry had taken nothing, not even her clothes from the home. She’d bought a new muscle car and moved into the Gardendale house to “find herself.”

      He shook his head as he watched her taillights in the distance. “I’ve got you all figured out, Bobbie.”

      Trouble was, learning her so well had cost him. Too early just yet to tell how much.

      She made a left onto Commerce Street. After parking on the Dexter Avenue side of Court Square, she emerged from her car. The cruiser parked a few yards beyond her. Nick eased to the curb half a block away. Gentry walked to the fountain in the center of the square. Montgomery’s historic downtown district centered on the 1880s fountain, but the fountain’s historic significance and the goddess of youth statue that topped it weren’t the reasons she had come.

      It was in this cobblestoned square that Perry had left his last victim before abducting