you might be better positioned to respond. We’ve got a new body.”
Zoe blinked. Petrovski knew nothing. The rookie hadn’t told her, for whatever reason, and Petrovski must have thought that Zoe was still the senior agent on the case. “He has struck again?” Zoe asked, her mind racing. How long had it been since the last murder? She hadn’t heard the time of death estimation, but from her own observations it had happened maybe nine hours before they’d arrived at the scene. That meant it was only a maximum of eleven hours between two kills.
“Not exactly,” Petrovski replied. There was something in her voice, something that she wasn’t saying. “You’d better come out here and see this for yourself.”
“Right,” Zoe said, then hesitated. “Agent Flynn has our rental car.”
“I’ll have someone come by and pick you up,” Petrovski replied. “We need you on the scene here, as soon as possible. I know you’re chasing down leads, but this might be a big one.”
“Of course,” Zoe murmured, giving the sheriff the details of where the deputy should pick her up.
Another body. She knew she was supposed to be backing off, going home, but this was big. Important. And if Flynn was otherwise occupied, the least she could do would be to go and take notes for him, be a body on the ground.
At least, that was what Zoe told herself—because there was no way in hell she was walking away now, with a mysterious body that had to be seen to be understood and what could possibly be an escalation of the behavior of a serial killer.
***
Flynn pulled up outside the apartment complex, barely waiting for the engine to stop rumbling before he was leaping out onto the sidewalk. He glanced up at the building, trying to figure out what kind of situation he was walking into. The apartments appeared well-kept from the outside, many of them set up with tables and chairs on small balconies if not flowering plants, and there was no graffiti or sign of vandalism. It looked like a nice enough area.
He just hoped that rang true for the people living inside—and that he wasn’t about to run into serious problems trying to tackle a murderer.
He strode in toward the doors and hit a number at random on the intercom. When the resident answered, he barked, “Delivery for you,” and was soon inside the building. Not the most honest way to gain entry, but there was always the worry that people would deliberately exclude law enforcement. He could worry about explaining that later. Right now, he had a murderer to stop.
Flynn rushed up the stairs to the second floor, reading signs as he went that directed visitors to the outdoor pool, the basement laundry room, the upstairs apartment numbers. He turned left as soon as he reached the next stairwell to head in the right direction. Apartment 415 was on the left-hand side of the hall, the opposite to the side of the building he had been able to see from outside. Flynn hesitated for the first time; he leaned his head against the door for a moment silently, listening. There wasn’t a hint of movement inside, but it didn’t mean there was no one there.
Flynn checked his gun, made sure he had easy access to it, but left it holstered. He didn’t want to exacerbate the situation—there was a chance that the man would come calmly now that he knew he’d been caught. Or else use the arrogance that tended to come along with serial killers, believing that he could talk his way out of it.
Flynn squared his shoulders, then reached out and rapped smartly on the door. “Open up,” he shouted, following the procedure he knew was the safest, both for him and the suspect and anyone else who might be inside. “FBI!”
There was a pause, and Flynn thought he heard footsteps behind the door. There was a scrambling sound then, and footsteps moving rapidly away, and he swore under his breath. Something was happening. The suspect, this Tom Taylor, had looked through the peephole to verify who was knocking for him, and now he was running—either to try to escape or to locate a weapon, or even to destroy evidence, Flynn couldn’t be sure.
But he couldn’t just wait out here in the corridor to find out. He gritted his teeth and stepped back, bracing himself against the opposite wall before using his full force to kick out at the door, right below the handle.