The oh crap handle was cutting grooves into my palm by the time we leveled off, high above the trees.
Four identical black SUVs crowded a patch of raw earth exposed from a clearcutting in progress.
“We’ve got company.” Clay whistled from the back. “Four teams.” He leaned forward. “Plus us.”
That was excessive, even by Black Hat standards. Yet it sent relief cascading through me. The director was in a bind if he was allocating these types of resources to a single case. That made my reclassification less a personal matter and more a professional decision. That I could handle better than the alternative.
“Marty’s been lead on this, but that changes now that you’re here.” Clay clasped my shoulder. “We’re about to relieve him of his command.” He squeezed. “Just like old times.”
Not half as excited as him to butt heads with former coworkers, I cringed from his enthusiasm. “He’s going to love that.”
Marty Talbot hated me. He used to call me the director’s pet. I had been more like a caged animal.
He probably threw an office party the day I vanished and invited all his favorite haters to attend.
Asa wedged the SUV in the only open space available, and we piled out into the muck to wade in.
The woods began again less than a dozen yards from our makeshift parking lot, the trees mostly pines. It was beautiful up here, peaceful, and part of me understood why the killer had chosen it as his hunting ground.
That predatory sense was the reason why I was here, just as much as my experience with the Silver Stag.
Four or five agents had gathered around a small stream. The rest stood as far away as they could get.
“Clay.” One of the queasier agents, a warg from the looks of him, had spotted a lifeline. “Good to see you, man.”
“Hey, Billy.” He shook hands with him. “How’d you end up here?”
“I go where I’m told.” He jerked his chin toward a man standing near the water. “You know how it is.”
“I do.” He waved to one of what must be the senior agents. “We better get in there.”
While I had been kept isolated from other agents, for the most part, Clay had been a Black Hat forever. He knew everyone, and everyone knew him. He was a walking Bureau roster, which came in handy.
“Sure thing.” He leaned around Clay to better see me. “I’m Billy Kidd, by the way.”
“Rue Hollis.” I declined the hand he offered me. “The bodies are over there?”
“Yeah.” To save face, he raked that same hand through his hair. “It’s brutal.”
“I can handle it.”
Eager as a puppy to please, he kept chatting. “What do you think they’ll call this guy?”
“Copycat.” I watched his face fall. “He doesn’t deserve more recognition than that.”
No serial killers deserved glorified monikers that praised and popularized their depravity.
Clay hung back to check on the other guys, who were all green around the gills, but Asa followed me.
“You two didn’t exchange pleasantries.” I cut him a look. “You’re not a team player?”
“The others are afraid of me,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s easier if they pretend they can’t see me.”
“Those sweet, sweet children,” I crooned in my best wicked witch voice. “Raised to believe if they ignore the monster under their bed, it won’t get them.” I smiled at him. “I don’t care if their eyes are shut when I grab their ankles, do you?”
Lumping us together smoothed a subtle tension from his shoulders I hadn’t noticed he carried until now.
“I thought you were dead.” My old nemesis swept his gaze over me. “What are you doing here?”