Strings of Fate (Mistresses of Fate) (22 page)

Chris didn’t really want to think about her current situation. When she thought about it, she freaked the fuck out. She wanted to pretend that nothing was fucking wrong except that a hot guy was interested in her and if that was self-delusion, then she was all for it.

Their waiter tiptoed into the silence and set Tavey’s coffee down on the table before hurrying away as if he’d just fallen into the lion cage at the zoo.

When he left, Chris turned back to her friends. “Fine,” she muttered. “You want me to say I’m terrified, you got it. I’m fucking terrified. Happy? But I’m not going to stop trying to help them catch this guy. You know I can’t stop trying to help.”

Raquel and Tavey fell silent. They knew. They also loved her and were worried for her.

Remembering that, Chris unfolded her arms. “Sorry. I know you’re just worried. I’m worried, but I can’t do anything but try to stop him. I can’t sit and do nothing.”

“I know, sweetie.” Raquel wrapped an arm around her.

Tavey scowled into her coffee. “Fine, as long as you’re being careful and someone is looking out for you, I’ll trust you to know what you’re doing.”

“Thank you.” Chris inclined her head graciously.

“So what are you doing with the Fed?”

Chris pouted. “Nothing yet.”

“Good,” Tavey sniffed. “He’s on a case and you’re a key part of it. It would be unethical to get involved with you.”

Chris wasn’t sure exactly what possessed her to say what she said next, but she knew it was ill-advised before it came out of her mouth. “Oh, yeah? Well, Tyler is the one that told him I wasn’t helping a serial killer, so I can thank him if Ryan shows an interest beyond the case.” Mentioning Tyler was a sure way of making Tavey back down—they had a hate-hate relationship, but it was one that seemed to hurt Tavey for some reason that she’d never fully explained.

“Damn.” Raquel winced. “Shit, girl, you’re mean this morning.”

Tavey looked like she’d just been whipped with a downed electrical line, her pretty brown eyes wide, her mouth parted.

Chris made an oh-shit-I-fucked-up face, pressing her teeth together and squinting her eyes as if expecting a slap, but Tavey recovered and just answered with ladylike grace, “Well, Tyler always did like you.”

Tyler had considered Chris a little sister; Tavey was the one he’d stared at as if she’d invented the blow job or Rice Krispies treats—when he wasn’t glaring at her with loathing, that is.

“Okay.” Chris set that one aside and hoped it walked away under its own power. “Well, you’re probably right. He’ll probably behave himself, and all I’ll have to show for my trouble is a lifelong obsession for freckled men in glasses.”

“He has freckles?”

“He has glasses?”

Raquel and Tavey spoke at the same time, their expressions equally skeptical.

Chris shrugged. “And then there’s the bladelike cheekbones and the jaw that could cut glass, the lean muscled body, and gray eyes the color of sexy fog.”

“Oooh.” Raquel laughed. “Sexy fog? You’re crazy.”

Chris knew, but she was still hoping that Ryan wouldn’t be too furious with her, that the promise of that almost-touch would be realized when she saw him again, though she didn’t know when that would be. She hadn’t heard from him so far this morning and didn’t know if there’d been some kind of development in the case.

“He does sound nice,” Tavey admitted, clearly willing to forgive Chris her breach in best-friend etiquette.

Chris thought about that. Nice? She didn’t know about nice. He was impatient, driven, conservative, and, if she had to guess, a Republican, but she liked him anyway. There was a tiny, tiny part of her that thought maybe he’d admire her boldness, her self-sacrifice . . . and then he’d toss her over his shoulder and carry her to bed. A girl could hope, anyway. He
was
from Texas.

AN HOUR LATER,
while Chris prepped the room for the start of class and Tavey dealt with an issue with the new groomer at Dog, the students in Chris’s class began filing in earlier than usual.

“Damn,” Raquel muttered. “Is it always this crowded quarter to ten a.m. on a Thursday?”

Chris looked doubtfully at the crowd of students. In addition to the stay-at-homes and the college students, the Four Senior Ladies of the Apocalypse had decided to take the early class, and several other older women from the church were in attendance as well. Mr. Ward had also made an appearance, though he looked decidedly uncomfortable surrounded by all the women.

“No.” Chris turned away and stuck the CD of calming ocean waves into the player. “It is not usually this crowded. I think that between the serial killer and the sexy agent I was seen having dinner with yesterday, half the town has turned out to see if I get killed or laid here in class this morning.”

Raquel nodded as if the situation made perfect sense. “Yoga’s gotten more exciting than I remember.”

“Nonstop action in this bitch,” Chris agreed.

“You’re lucky the press hasn’t caught on to you yet.”

But as the words were leaving her mouth, a TV crew pressed into the room like a pack of hounds on a scent, a hard-eyed reporter with a helmet of blond hair leading the way with a microphone thrust out like a lance.

“Miss Pascal, is it true that the serial killer known as the Boyfriend has been in communication with you?”

Chris backed away in self-defense, nearly falling over to get away from the sparkly white teeth, the glare of the lights, and the black object being pointed at her face.

Lucky for her, Raquel was there. “Okay, this is private property. You need to leave.”

“We just want a word with—”

“Atlanta PD.” Raquel held up her badge. “Miss Pascal has no comment.”

“What’s your name? What’s Atlanta PD’s involvement?”

“Out. Now,” Raquel ordered again, and, cameras rolling, the thwarted reporter reluctantly retreated back out the door, but Chris suspected they hadn’t left the hallway.

“Shit.” Chris turned away and dug through her purse for her phone. She called down to Tavey, who answered with an unusually frazzled, “What?”

“There are reporters in the hallway.”

“Great. That’s what I needed. Okay, I’ll take care of it.”

Chris didn’t doubt it. Reporters were no match for Tavey, who could probably handle an alien invasion.

Since Tavey was busy with the groomer and likely would be late to class, if she made it at all, Raquel locked the door to the entrance so the reporters couldn’t barge in again. Chris tried to ignore the murmurs and whispers of her students, most of whom were unabashedly staring.

She pressed the play button on the peaceful ocean sounds and put on the headset and mic that she used when she had a large class.

“All right, everybody, if you’re here, then you better get ready to stretch your ass off.”

The crowd froze, seeming astonished that she actually expected them to do anything.

“You heard me,” she ordered. “Namaste, ladies; get your butts over here before I make this an aerobics class—the only dead bodies around here will be from the heart attacks.”

Grumbling and scowling, the Four Senior Ladies of the Apocalypse moved into their usual positions while everyone else filled in around them.

“Good job,” Raquel commented.

Chris turned on her. “You, too, sunshine of mine, let’s go. Sunrise salutation.”

Raquel obeyed, a tickled smile tilting up the corners of her mouth.

“Angry yoga instructor. I like this new look on you.”

Chris felt her spirit lighten even as she lifted her arms to the sky. It felt good to be doing something. Doing something was always better than being anxious.

26

JOE ABSENTLY TUGGED
on the string connecting him to the woman, who whimpered. She was curled up on the floor, asleep, though she occasionally stirred and moaned. He’d had to hurt her so that she would learn, so that she would be more careful. He’d been with her, getting gas for a drive to Atlanta, and the stupid woman had gotten out of the van to use the bathroom.

He’d told her; he’d been very clear in his directions. She’d disobeyed him. Still, perhaps he could use her mistake to his advantage.

He tugged the string again, knowing that inflicted more pain than pulling her little toes off with pliers had. He hadn’t been able to hurt her too much—she had to work in a few hours—but he was growing bored with her now that he’d taken control of her strings; she wasn’t nearly as interesting as his Creator, who’d been very busy of late.

He turned back to his monitors. Several months ago, when his Creator had first begun investigating a man named Martin Hays, who did not have very interesting strings, he’d visited Atlanta and installed cameras in the man’s home. His Creator wanted him, wanting to know what he’d done with some missing girls. Joe knew what Martin Hays had done, and he knew where the girls’ bodies were buried, but he wasn’t sure what to do with that information. He just knew it would prove important somehow.

He could give it to his Creator; he’d sent her information before, but he didn’t think she deserved it. He’d hacked into her system again, working around the small traps the FBI had laid to try to track him, and he’d been busy watching her online activities. She’d been reading about an FBI agent as well, one who had come to her house this afternoon. She was becoming no different from all the rest, just another whore, but her strings had brightened, especially the red one on her wrist and the crown on her head.

And now she’d spoken of the woods, of the place where the strings were made. He wanted to see it, wanted to know what she knew.

Using video editing software, he made a Hays montage of images from the footage he’d recorded in Martin Hays’s secret room. Each girl’s face, each girl’s body. He’d even dug one of the bodies up, getting the woman to help him. She’d seemed even more frail than usual, but she’d obeyed. That’s why they’d left the apartment in the first place, to get the proof his Creator wanted. He’d also added some music, to make it more dramatic, a song that talked about strings, and dropped it on one of the file-sharing sites that his Creator searched regularly for child predators. He named it
Summer Haven
and set an alert to notify him when it was accessed.

Walking to the window, he looked across the circle at her building. The sun was coming up behind the low clouds, the sky growing lighter and lighter gray with each passing moment. He knew where he was going to take her; he just had to find the right moment.

27

“SHE DID WHAT?”
Ryan repeated, not willing to accept what he’d just been told. He was going to kill her.

Sandeep looked reluctant to say anything more, perhaps because the man had a small crush on Chris even though he was a father of five.

“She’s written the unsub a message on the blog he’s been using to communicate.”

Ryan turned around in his chair and punched up the Web address of the
Mysteries of Fate
blog. He read it once, could barely make sense of it, and read it again.

“What the hell? We’re sure she posted this? Last night? This is crazy. I thought we had someone monitoring it for conversations with the unsub.”

“We do, sir, one of the analysts flagged it last night, but since it wasn’t from the unsub directly and we were dealing with the body, it got lost in the mix.”