"Right."
Victoria stepped out of Andie's office and closed the door behind her. Andie went back to the phone. The hold line was blinking. Her mother was waiting, primed to hash out a problem that now seemed more trivial than ever.
Andie punched the button and deliberately disconnected.
In the solitude of his bedroom, he held a pendant in his hand. His newest acquisition was already his favorite. The long braided chain weaved in and out between his fingers like golden rope. He held it higher, toward the light, allowing it full extension. No bigger than a dime, the heart-shaped pendant dangled at the end of the strand. It was a gold frame of diamonds, hollow in the middle. The fluorescent desk lamp made it sparkle. With his eyes narrowed, it looked curiously like the noose at the end of rope. That was what he loved about it.
The so-called experts would have called it a trophy--a keepsake taken from the victim. That was one of those terms he had picked up from the multitude of books written by former criminal profilers. He'd read them all and knew their secrets. It amused him the way those authors denied they were making it possible for future serial killers to avoid apprehension. Sociopaths are psychologically compelled to engage in certain conduct, the experts argued, so publication of those traits couldn't possibly prompt a serial killer to change his behavior and make himself more difficult to catch. They were overlooking one crucial fact. Their assumptions were based on the assholes who got caught.
He turned the chain in his hand, let it twist slowly. Spinning round and round, it reminded him of those afternoons in his garage as a curious teenager. His own body suspended by the neck, hanging for as long as it took to lose consciousness, then falling to the ground with the release of the rope. For added effect he had taken to twisting the cord like a kid on a tire swing. He could spin as fast or as slow as he wanted, depending on how tightly he wound it. Just an added rush for the average fifteen-year-old boy hanging by the neck with an erection to be proud of.
Carefully, almost lovingly, he lowered the gold chain back into the box. It coiled into a felt-lined compartment, next to a pair of earrings. A pearl necklace. A wristwatch. A ring. Each piece brought back its own memory. The ring, however, was a sea of mixed emotions.
It had belonged to someone special.
He closed the lid on the jewelry box and stepped toward the bed. On bended knee he pulled a late manila envelope from between the mattress and the box spring. He emptied it on the bedspread, spilling a collection of Polaroid snapshots. Mostly young women, a. few men. Some naked, some clothed. Frightened faces mixed in with peaceful expressions. It all depended on whether it was before or after.
He stared down at them and a heat rose from within him. It was cool in the room, but he was beginning to perspire. Such were his powers of concentration. He was focused on the details of each deadly pose. The position of the hands. The tilt of the head. The display of the victim. This wasn't simple reminiscing. He regarded these photos not as windows to the past but as blueprints--for the future. It all had to be perfect.
He left the photos neatly arranged on the bed beside him and crawled beneath the covers. Naked and somewhat aroused, he checked the clock on the nightstand. Not quite four P. M. Just enough time to revel in his fantasy. Then to work.
He rolled onto his back and closed his eyes.
Chapter Thirteen.
Andie didn't normally fret over what people thought about her, but Victoria was different. Competition for a spot with the elite ISU was almost prohibitive. A good word from Victoria could go a long way. A bad word would slam the door.
In truth, Andie wanted more than just one woman's approval. Certain colleagues in the office refused to let her wedding disaster die quietly. Just today some jerk had left a doctored photocopy of the FBI shield in her in-box with the FBI motto--Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity--changed to Infidelity, etc. Though it was the groom who had slept with the maid of honor, the joke was on the bride who had announced it at the ceremony. A bang-up job as profile coordinator might silence the morons at the watercooler.
Victoria had seemed mildly impressed by Andie's torture analysis at the task force meeting, which was borne out by the photographs from Minneapolis. But without so much as a word to Andie, she had spent the rest of the day studying the files alone in a small, windowless office that was the perfect home-away-from-home for a special agent from the ISU. The Investigative Support Unit was quite literally buried beneath the earth back at the FBI Academy in Quantico, two stories below the gun vault.