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“dancing” in the wilds of the White Mountains, her mutilated arms tied to tree limbs high above. The most horrifying crime he committed occurred at a local pub. The victims were posed in various places throughout the bar—some standing, some sitting, and some engaged in a kind of revelry on the dance floor. All held in place by ropes and wires.
Perhaps more disturbing than the Sculptor himself was the fact that when Brookline closed, no trace of the Sculptor could be found.…
    Dan was riveted. A serial killer had been a patient here, in this building. Where had they kept him? What kind of treatment had he received? And where had he gone ?
    Dan closed his laptop and lay back on his bed. Just as he was drifting off he remembered the photo of the struggling patient and wondered if that could have been Dennis Heimline. Maybe his parents had been right to worry about him coming here. Having a speckled past was one thing, but a serial killer? Treatment photos? Well, he wouldn’t be sharing these discoveries with Paul and Sandy, that was for sure.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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    CHAPTER
N o  6 
    “N o offense, Dan, but you look like crap. Did you have trouble sleeping or something?”
    Abby’s voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a pool. Realizing he’d begun to nod off, Dan roused himself enough to lift his head and shove a bite of cereal into his mouth. He wondered if the halo of fuzzy light that looked so at home around her head was from the morning sun through the skylight or from his almost total lack of sleep.
    He decided against telling Abby about what he’d found online, because he was worried it would sound too weird—that it would make him sound too weird. He was only just getting to know her; he didn’t want to blow it in the first twenty-four hours.
    “Felix snores. Like he swallowed a frog. Or a lion.”
    “That bad?”
    “Yeah, and then he was up at the crack of dawn to go work out, of all things. Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep this summer.”
    “You sure you’re not just worn out from our little ordeal last night?” She didn’t beat around the bush. He liked that.
    “I guess it was pretty intense,” he said. She had certainly seemed enamored of that one photo. They’d almost had a fight over it. Dan frowned; he couldn’t even remember now why he’d been so adamant about her leaving it there.
    A stab of pain in his head made his eye twitch. “Damn it. I did not want to feel like this on the first full day.”
    Abby pushed a cup of coffee across the table. “Try that. It’s strong enough to fuel a jet.”
    He turned the cup, careful to avoid the little smudge of pink she’d left on the rim. He took a sip and tasted something between lighter fluid and maple syrup and rushed to swallow before the sweet sludge could make its way back out. “Wow! How do you drink that?”
    “I actually hate the taste of coffee, but the sugar helps cover it up,” she admitted. “And you can’t be an artist and not drink coffee. It’s just … not done. Every installation I’ve ever gone to has either coffee or wine, so you’ve got to suck it up and deal.”
    Dan laughed. Abby didn’t seem like she cared if she fit in or not, but maybe everyone made a few concessions here and there. Just last year he’d broken down and bought a tan corduroy blazer to wear to a community college lecture on Jung’s last years. He’d sat in a sea of tan and navy sports jackets, wondering what his favorite psychoanalyst would say about so many people trying so desperately not to stand out.
    “Hey,” Dan said, forcing a smile as he sat up straighter. He remembered something Abby had said yesterday. “So you took a bus here?” Dan had flown from Pittsburgh, and then taken a taxi from the tiny airport that looked like it had just one runway.
    “A couple buses, actually. Pops