To my personal support team and cheerleading squad:
Mom, Dad, Zaida and Chris.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Jay Poynor and Erica Orloff
for their enthusiasm, support and friendship—
and middle-of-the-night e-mails!

To Natashya Wilson
for asking me to join the Athena Force series
and to Stacy Boyd for her editorial eye.

Chapter One

He pulled tight around her throat, choking her.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

Francesca Thorne was accustomed to gathering information from criminals in what wasn’t said, whether it was through a look, a nervous tic despite attempts to mask such a giveaway, or simply a change in vocal pitch.

It was what an opponent did not say that aided in the patchwork of piecing together a personality. Her role was simply to watch. Observe. Filter the subtleties of the subconscious into her puzzle-solving mind.

Whereas she would normally calculate facial expressions and measure the pupil dilation of her suspect, waiting for a flinch to reveal so much more than well-selected words, the opportunity had not been given with this particular hunt.

Instead, she had to count on the sound of his breath, the weight of his grasp as he held one arm tightly around her neck, choke-holding her into submission with her back facing him, unable to meet his eyes.

He had snuck up on her.

Though she had returned to the scene to analyze its meaning, determine why the killer had chosen this location for his latest victim, Francesca had not been counting on his presence. Not yet.

His attack had caught her by surprise.

The killer had demonstrated an odd pattern of returning to the scene of his crimes only to enact another, but in between he always committed a murder at a different location. That was his MO. Or at least the first five murders had suggested as much with his leapfrog style.

One location, then another, then back again.

By their calculations, he should have been somewhere else preparing to commit the sixth. She had chosen to come here with the hopes she could piece something together about his selection process, quickly enough to determine where the next crime would take place.

But his MO had changed.

It was inevitable he would switch it up.

Knowing his back-and-forth actions as she now did, he would have been caught sooner or later, with the FBI knowing to stake out his previous playground. And, really, it was just child’s play for him.

“You like taking risks,” she said, holding her voice steady, not allowing even a shred of fear to show as the pressure of his grip grooved over her oesophagus. “Yet you refuse to show your face. Slightly passive-aggressive, don’t you think?”

When in close contact with a serial killer, Francesca Thorne—lauded forensic psychologist for the FBI—pulled no punches in calling it as she saw it. That included tempting fate by asking somewhat dangerous questions, or igniting a suspect’s volatile nature. It was a trait for which she was known.

Setting herself up for increased risk was part of the job. The very act of trying to diagnose the criminal mentality meant opening up a whole world of unknown psyche. But it was within that very process that she was able to collect the critical data needed to prove or disprove a profiling theory, much like a forensic scientist would test the boundaries of physical evidence.

In this case, mocking her captor only made sense. Her action would cause a telling reaction on his part.

His breath, moist as he exhaled along her ear where his lips barely slid over the curve of her skin, was calm, masking any trace of anger or excitement.

With his body held snug against hers, she could begin to create an image of his physical presence in her mind. Not the specifics such as eye or hair colour, but from his stance she could estimate his height.

From his breadth against her, she could make calculations of his weight.

It was the non visual clues he gave, such as his scent, his body temperature, and his reaction to her teasing that would matter most. And with what little headway they had made with this case, these variables would not only help her plan a manoeuvre away from his grasp, they would also lend a hand in solving the identity of their prey.

She closed her eyes, banning their sense from interrupting her analytical intake. She filtered in a deep breath, letting the combination of scents register within.

Ignoring the aroma of a nearby Laundromat, bypassing the scent of rain in the air, she centred on the slight trace of chicory and breathed it in from the cuff of his sleeve.

The sleeve itself belonged to a blue-collar worker. She could tell by its wear and tear, the threads of cheaply made industrial fabric worn with sweat stains and something dark—oil, perhaps?

She inhaled deeply, pinpointing the smell.

It was oil. Like that used on machinery, perhaps in a factory or even an auto mechanic shop.

Knowing what trace evidence could do for fine-tuning such variables, Francesca made a minuscule movement within her captor’s grasp, aiming to transfer even a hint of the physical evidence to her body. If she made it out of there—when she made it out—the lab would be able to study every fibre of her clothing, each thread where this man had left evidence of his identity.

“It won’t be that easy,” he said, no doubt presuming her manoeuvres were an attempt to flee his grasp. “You and I are friends now.”

That was it. The first time his voice made contact with her sense of hearing. She listened to each syllable he projected, to what was being said and how, not once overlooking the quiet beat of a pause between each word he selected.

“Is that what you wanted from them? Friendship?” she asked, opening up dialogue with the man her team had been tracking for several weeks.

It started with one body, as it usually does, but it quickly became obvious someone was on the hunt for more action with the discovery of the second victim.

The most disturbing element to the case was that he was a smart criminal, relatively speaking. He knew how to disguise himself, how to leave little trace of evidence, and thereby bring the forensics team to a standstill, waiting…for him to mess up.

“I am not who you think I am,” he said, his one arm holding tight against her neck. The other arm reached around, wrapping against Francesca’s midsection as though this were a perfectly natural position for him. There was no trembling, no jittery movement. He felt completely at ease clenching his ownership around her body.

“Then tell me,” she said aloud while inside her mind a thousand thoughts scrambled for a plan on how to make her move.

An agent from the Baton Rouge resident office had accompanied her to the crime scene, though he remained at the car guarding the scene from the outset. His presence would do her no good at such a distance. “Tell me who you are. How you see yourself.”

He scoffed at her. “What—you some kind of shrink?”

Francesca registered the curve in vocal pitch, his agitation showing fluctuation in the short response. She had hit a nerve, without trying much at all. His own suggestion was fuelling his irritation, based on one simple request for him to explain his assumed persona. And now she would use it against him.

“I like to help people, with their thoughts,” she began, noticing the heat rise from his body.

The dewy evening air, signalling an early April rain shower was on its way, carried his scent swiftly to her senses, and she was able to detect a rising pulse. “I could be your confidante. Listen to what you have to say. I bet you feel as though no one understands you, but perhaps I could. If you let me.”

It didn’t mean she would like him or appreciate his actions, but Francesca could use her skills in understanding human behaviour to at least empathize with him, see what it was that motivated him to strike out against humanity. It was something for which she strived every day, with every criminal she came across.

Her pursuit had begun as a young child, during events she rarely cared to recall. It was those events, however, that prompted her pursuit of understanding why people do the things they do, and led her to study behavioural science.

At first it was simply a curiosity, one she explored through watching others, even as a child. Then she became enthralled by the lessons learned in psychology classes at the Athena Academy for the Advancement of Women, a prep school that encouraged the study of such scientific interests.

By the time Francesca earned her graduate degree in forensic psychology, profiling personalities had become an obsession. One for which she was quickly recognized within the field, handling seemingly impossible cases for the FBI, even those reaching far beyond her home base in Richmond, Virginia.

“I don’t need a shrink.” His voice, increasingly harsh, told her she needed to make a move. Fast. His agitation would only escalate and there was only so much fire she wanted to tempt within him. He was, after all, a serial killer.

One who baited young women, dragged them out to isolated buildings, beat them, assaulted them and finally killed them.

Above all else, Francesca needed to remember that one obvious trait within a killer’s personality—they liked to kill.

Although her own preference was for capturing her suspects and wielding information about their psyche, to analyze and put them through a tougher sentence than death, she had to admit to having a simpler fantasy as his tongue traced the outer edge of her earlobe.

Though she wanted to put an end to his existence when he said, “Maybe you have something else I want.” There had to be a better way for her to flee his entrapment and bring him down.

Killing was what she studied, not what she did. There had to be something she could do to not only escape his captivity, but also ensure he was stopped from ever committing another crime again.

And then she spoke.

“Maybe you have something I need,” she said, playing on the notion he was a sexual predator and using that to her advantage as she slowly, carefully reached her hand around to settle into the small groove of space between her behind and his crotch.

Earlier, as he attacked her in surprise, the man had quickly removed her handgun from her person and tossed it far from her reach.

But what he didn’t know was about to hurt him.

Under the guise of giving him what he wanted, Francesca began to move her hand over the small bulge in his pants, twisting her gesture until her palm faced the small of her back, and while she listened to his breathing accelerate under her touch, she slowly moved one finger, then the next, into the gap between her flesh and her jeans until she felt it.

“I do, don’t I?” he asked of her.

“You most certainly do,” she cooed to egg him on, as she cautiously slid out the small knife from the sheath buried in the back of her pants. Within a heartbeat, she twisted its edge into him, stabbing the blade into his left hip as she said, “Your DNA.”

Caught off guard by her attack, the suspect stumbled back to let the moment register, but he quickly set off on foot.

As she began the chase after him, slowing only to pick up her discarded handgun, she let out a contained breath, one she didn’t realize she had been holding.

Not familiar with this abandoned dumping ground of rotten buildings and wasteland, Francesca called for help by shooting one bullet into the ground, knowing this would alert the watchdog FBI agent that something had gone terribly wrong.

They had not expected to encounter their suspect today. This was simply an outing to gather mental evidence, its sole purpose to comb the area and turn thoughts inside out, hoping to accumulate enough information to pinpoint where the next victim might be saved.

Then it occurred to her.

Why would the killer come here, switching up his MO if he knew the feds were on the scene? And if he didn’t know he’d be in mixed company, why did he return to this place?

To kill his sixth victim, she thought to herself.

Francesca stopped in her tracks at the realization.

Changing her direction, she ran back to where the criminal had discarded her personal belongings, and combed through the weeds to find her cell phone. As she did, Agent Martin caught up with her location, slightly winded.

“That way,” she cried as she frantically dialled the number for the field office. “He’s run off through there, but I think we may have a body on site.”

Her words filtered through the air as Agent Martin ran off to chase down the unknown suspect. Until now, without a name, a list of potentials or DNA findings, this case had proven frustrating.

Which was exactly why the Baton Rouge team had called in the expertise of Francesca Thorne.

They needed a profile, and that’s what she aimed to provide, but now she also had a knife with his blood on it. A personal identification he had failed to ever leave at the scene of a crime, but which could be added to the file in the hopes of matching it with other physical evidence compiled from the series of events and seal the deal of his conviction.

She quickly informed the field office of their estimated whereabouts, and added, “I’m heading into the vacant building on the south-east side of the lot,” to ensure they would know where to find her.

It was from this very direction the man had come, stepping up behind her as she walked through the gravel along the outside of the building. He must have heard her from inside.

Had she even remotely suspected his presence, she would have taken every precaution to avoid the rumbling sound of loose gravel, but hindsight was a waste of time right now. There could be a sixth victim within the vicinity, and if so Francesca swore to find her.

As she stepped lightly through discarded broken glass, rusted hardware, and rodent faeces, Francesca’s attention was momentarily diverted by an incoming call from her cell phone.

She recognized the distinctive ring assigned to the caller and her breath caught, knowing Delphi was attempting to contact her. The mysterious communication leader from Oracle, a secret intel operation for which some Athena Academy grads had been recruited for their unique skills, would not expect Francesca to answer.

Instead, the simple act of hearing Delphi’s call would instruct Francesca to either check her secured e-mail account, or to return the call from a landline. Only in a pinch would the two ever communicate over the cell. Francesca simply wouldn’t trust its promise of privacy.

Though she was curious about the purpose of the call, Francesca maintained her focus on the case at hand. She would contact Delphi after this scene was declared clear, but for now her main purpose was to locate a possible victim—one she hoped was still breathing.

“Thorne?”

Francesca followed the direction of the voice. It was one belonging to Agent Sharland of the Baton Rouge team, which meant her call had been answered swiftly.

“In here. Watch your—” She grinned as Sharland nearly stepped a foot flat into something nasty as he rounded the corner, meeting her inside the decrepit building. “Step.”

His grimace replaced the opportunity to say thanks, as Francesca continued her search for a body.

Within the abandoned building, one formerly used for a textile business if she recalled correctly, there were a number of floors to clear, but within each only a select number of hallways to snake through.

“We got him. Martin’s fine, too,” Sharland said, settling Francesca’s unanswered question. “How about you? You okay?”

“Shhhh. Listen,” she said in a careful whisper. As they stepped along through the concrete landscape, there was something that caught her attention.

It could be the slight chatter of a sewer rat, the nesting of a bird, or it could be something else altogether and Francesca wanted complete silence from her fellow Fed in identifying its whereabouts.

Sharland nodded in acknowledgment of her request as they followed the sound, faintly coming from a shadowed room down the hall.

Through the doorway a small stream of natural evening light shone down against the damp concrete underfoot, and as she cautiously stepped into its illumination, Francesca noticed the small barred window facing the direction of where she had been attacked.

From inside this room, their suspect would have been able to watch her movements, gaining the upper hand in sneaking up on her as she collected intellectual data.

A muted shuffle to the left caused her attention to narrow in on a darkened corner, and as she moved closer to the sound, Francesca breathed a sigh of pained relief.

Agent Sharland expressed what she was thinking that very second. “He must have been distracted by you out there, before he took the time to—”

She cut him off by shaking her head. She knew it was likely true, but there was no need to fill in the details with the young woman lying before them, curled and hunched in a darkened corner, clinging to her beaten life.

Had Francesca Thorne not insisted on visiting the site to analyze the killer’s selection process, victim number six would have been dead.

At the Baton Rouge field office, Martin, Sharland, and several of the other FBI agents were combing through the newfound information, gathering a case against the man they hoped would be prosecuted for a series of murders, and one failed attempt.

The evidence always had the final say in making a charge stick, but with what they’d encountered and the crime that had been stopped in its progress, the killer hadn’t had time to cover his intentions. His DNA would certainly help, as well as the additional trace being collected off Francesca.

She stood still, careful not to disturb the process of collection, while a local team member combed through her hair, and removed all trace of the man’s presence on her body.

“My things?” she asked when the protocol was complete, determined to sign on to her laptop and check her awaiting e-mail.

Delphi had signalled for her attention and though the criminal case against this serial killer was far from over, Francesca’s role in it had come to an end. She could now offer full attention to the call from Oracle.

After her personal belongings were returned to her, Francesca took a moment to shake hands with the various agents she had come to know in this recent, but brief assignment.

“We asked for the best,” Sharland said, offering a firm shake and a rare smile. “I’m glad they went one step further.”

“I’m sure your work is just about to begin,” she said, signalling her departure with a casual salute to the brow. Never one for goodbyes, Francesca preferred to keep it simple.

Outside, she crossed the street to a cosy café that advertised a wireless high-speed Internet zone. While waiting for a taxi to take her to the airport where she would catch the earliest flight back to the familiar territory of Richmond, Virginia, Francesca settled into a booth, nursing a cup of black coffee, and then typed in the password to access her e-mail account, ready to view Delphi’s message.

It was a short one, at that. Knowing more information would be awaiting her arrival back home she couldn’t help the curiosity about what activity was calling her into action.

The message simply read assignment for you, which was enough to pique her interest.

To anyone else this would likely seem vague and cryptic.

But Francesca knew all too well what was being asked of her. An assignment from Oracle implied she would be working with highly sensitive information.

More important, Francesca knew, the request was one she would promise to execute and make top priority.

Chapter Two

Within the comfort of her own apartment, surrounded by the familiar, Francesca settled into the window seat with her laptop, taking a moment to peer down at the busy street below her. In the heart of the downtown core, the view afforded her the greatest science experiment of all—watching people in their natural habitat.

After graduate school, and her training with the FBI in Quantico, Francesca was stationed within the Richmond field office to handle some of the toughest profiling cases ever to cross an agent’s desk.

While that usually led her to work with murderers, and she had a knack within the specialty of fingerprinting serial and spree killers, her profiling skills extended to hunting down a variety of cases handed to her. Serial offenders, no matter what the charge, were some of the trickiest individuals out there when it came to the professional world of crime. But it was always the tough ones Francesca thrived on solving, loving that sense of accomplishment that would arrive when a case closed. Even though the success of one case was short-lived with the assignment of another case to crack, those minuscule moments were worth it all, reminders that her work was valued not only within the FBI, but as a productive role in society.

No matter where an assignment took her or how difficult a case she was dealt, it was her modest home retreat where she worked best, enjoying the calm it could bring in between cases, and the quiet it could shed on an overactive mind.

It was something co-workers had commented on far too many times. Francesca’s inability to leave work at work, and save the moments at home as some sort of spa-like sanctuary. Sure, it all sounded great in theory. Turning off the working mind entirely, however, was easier said than done.

This, though, was nothing to complain about, as far as she was concerned. Her mind had a way of mysteriously working, even in her sleep, and putting together the puzzle pieces of profiling cases was something she lived for. It was her passion. Her obsession. Her purpose.

And really, Chesca had so little of a social life outside of her colleagues and keeping in touch with connections made through Athena Academy, that her downtime away from work was…well, mostly focused on work. It was a stark contrast to the socialite home life she was reared in as a child, that’s for sure. But working the big cases had become her life’s carrot. It’s what made her feel whole.

Smart enough to realize life couldn’t be all work and no play, Francesca did her best to make her home environment as comfortable as possible, so that she had the best of both worlds.

It may have been considered a working playground by some, but to her it was a haven away from the office chaos. A place to concentrate. Formulate ideas. Connect the dots. And it was comfy as hell.

Though the domestic environment of her childhood home was of museum quality—harsh lines, stuffy upholsteries, over-the-top everything—Chesca preferred comfort over style when it came to home fashions. Usually this applied to her personal wardrobe as well. What was the point in having a pricy settee that no one would dare touch? Not that she entertained guests often. Which further emphasized the point of making sure her abode was the most comfortable and casual it could be.

The ultra suede couch was her most beloved furnishing in the small but ample apartment, nearly seeming overstuffed and oversized for the one-bedroom, second-floor unit. But the collection of throws, mixed-and-matched textures of pillows, and a well-placed shag carpet all catered to the sense of feeling swept off her feet.

Perhaps it was the deliberate contrast of her upbringing that led her to prefer comfort, practicality and function. Whether she was working on an all-night caseload, or drifting off to late-night infomercials, it didn’t matter so long as she could put her feet up, let her back slide into cushiony softness, and feel…at home.

Despite her reputation for being career-focused, Francesca was often regarded as a “what you see is what you get” kind of person, her simple lifestyle contrasting with the often-complex cases she’d encounter in her work world.

Alex Forsythe, fellow Athena grad and FBI forensics colleague to Francesca, had often said she admired this trait in her friend, knowing no matter how complicated the world around them could get sometimes, there was nothing better than counting on a good, solid friendship that was as clear as day, and hassle-free.

Which is exactly how Chesca preferred to keep her living situation. Hassle-free. While a substantial section of her urban apartment was dedicated as a workstation, stacked with files, case histories, and tools of the trade, this never cluttered her comfortable environment, or took over the meaning of her home.

Bringing work home, and letting it clutter her life were two very different things, and Chesca always made sure that no matter how tough a case she was working on, she knew when to file something away for the night, and how to file something as “out of sight, out of mind.”

That’s why it was so important to her to feel completely at ease in her no-nonsense style, and let the warm earthy tones of her chosen décor act as a backdrop for her office away from work. Plush decorative pillows, simple but soft fabrics, and a carpet that hugged her bare toes as she paced back and forth mentally dissecting criminal evidence allowed her to relax, focus, and get the job done while casually clad in cotton boxers or her favourite jeans.

The bare bones but earthy warmth of home was often all she needed to zone into whatever her mind needed to tackle.

But there was little peace within her mind as she sat in the window seat today, watching people below, their faces just a glazed blur as her mind reeled around something much more pressing.

The assignment from Oracle.

Since returning from the case in Baton Rouge, Chesca had managed to have a full day to unpack, unwind and await further information from her extracurricular employment.

Delphi had sent a message informing Chesca a courier would soon be delivering further information pertaining to the assignment, and the only additional hint of what was to come was the mention of something very important to Francesca. Something that would hit close to home with the many women associated with Athena Academy and all those who fought to see it succeed.

She would be profiling the notorious blackmailer Arachne, determining whether she was one and the same as the Queen of Hearts assassin.

The name Arachne was enough to raise the blood pressure of just about any of Francesca’s social circle. With her cover blown, it was now understood Arachne was behind the recent student kidnappings in an attempt to bring down the Academy.

Putting a face to the name would be Francesca’s goal, not only as part of her assignment from Oracle, but to finalize the fight her fellow Athenians had been trying to win for far too long.

Quite honestly, it was an honour to have been assigned this case by Oracle. The intel organization could have called on any of its recruits for such an assignment, but for some reason Delphi had made her selection, and Francesca was not only flattered, but personally determined to do whatever it would take to be of assistance.

Francesca wasn’t the only Athena grad to be recruited by the network, though she had little indication of who the others were, what their roles were, or why they were selected. It was rare to hear of a fellow agent’s work, though it wasn’t entirely unheard of.

For everyone’s safety, she presumed the details of the operation had to be kept secret. The one thing all participants knew, though, was the extreme importance of the intelligence gathering it conducted, as it did its part in fighting for justice even when standard institutions such as the FBI, NSA or CIA backed away.

No one really understood how the information was distributed within Oracle. Only that when an agent had carried through with an assignment, a full report was to be given to Delphi, the enigmatic handler of the operation.

Though Francesca had her suspicions from time to time, she didn’t admit to having a clue of who Delphi might be in reality. Of course it was a code name. But if she was meant to know, she would in time.

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