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cheek grazed the fuzzy nylon of the carpet. Instinct took over, and her fist closed around the pencil in a death grip.
    â€œStay still,” he whispered, leaning closer. There was the faintest of metallic sounds, and tremors of horror raced over her skin as she felt his right hand move. Instantly she visualized what he was doing: positioning the gun.
    To shoot her ...
    Galvanized, she gave it her last, best shot. Ramming the pencil up and back, she felt it thrust into something substantial, something firm but yielding, something that made her think of a fork sinking into meat ...
    He screamed.
    â€œFucking bitch!” he howled, falling back.
    Just as quick as that, she was free. Rocketing to her feet, she hurled herself at the door, latching on to the knob with both hands and yanking for all she was worth.
    It opened. Light so bright that it was blinding spilled over her. With every last bit of strength she possessed, she leaped into the light. A single terrified glance over her shoulder as she fled told her that he was already coming after her, hauling the closing door open again, a huge dark menacing shadow lurching in horrifyingly swift pursuit.
    She ripped the duct tape from her mouth and screamed to wake the dead.

THREE
    Friday, August 15
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    What in hell does she have in common with the others?” Sam muttered, mostly to himself. Hands thrust into the front pockets of his jeans, seething with barely contained frustration, he was standing in an inner hall of the New Orleans medical examiner’s office, watching through a Plexiglas window as the county coroner, Dr. Lurlene Deland, made the initial Y-shaped incision in the body of Madeline Fitzgerald. His badge had been enough to grant him access to the autopsy. His grim-faced demeanor kept the flunkies who walked past from hassling him about the whys and wherefores of his right to watch. This time, he and Wynne hadn’t even been close, arriving at the crime scene—a Holiday Inn Express—just as the body was being loaded into the coroner’s van to be taken away.
    â€œCould be anything. Or nothing. You ever thought about that? Maybe he’s just picking victims at random. Playing with us.”
    Wynne was beside him, leaning heavily against the dull beige concrete wall, electing not to look through the window. Having just stuffed his face with half a dozen Krispy Kremes in a desperate bid to counter exhaustion with a blood-sugar rush, Wynne had turned green around the gills as soon as they had walked through the swinging doors that separated the office from the working area and the formaldehyde-based smell of the place hit him in the face. Sam had passed on the Krispy Kremes and was now heartily glad. Wynne was looking sick enough for the pair of them.
    â€œThere’s something.”
    Sam watched as a thin line of blood marked the progress of Deland’s scalpel. Naked, waxy-skinned, the victim lay on a sloped metal table, the upper half of which was textured to keep the body from sliding; running water flowed along the table into a shallow tub beneath a grate at the lower end.
    To catch the effluvia, as another coroner had once told him.
    â€œNothing’s turned up so far,” Wynne said.
    Sam grimaced. Wynne was right. Despite ongoing searches into each victim’s background, they’d uncovered no links between them. Nothing to connect them at all. Not even the serial killer’s special of age, sex, or race.
    â€œSomething will. There’s a link, and we’ll find it and we’ll catch him. Sooner or later, he’ll make a mistake.”
    â€œI hope he hurries the hell up. This case is losing its charm real fast.”
    Sam grunted agreement. Christ, he felt bad. The bright fluorescent lights on the other side of the glass were giving him a killer headache. Or maybe it was the chronic lack of sleep. Or the gnawing emptiness in his stomach. Or maybe even the sheer damned futility of the effort.