Bait Read Free

is personal, Sam started to remind him, but before he could get the words out, his cell phone rang.
    His heart jumped. Adrenaline shot through his blood like an injection of speed. Fumbling to get the phone out of his pocket, he suddenly wasn’t tired anymore.
    Error, the ID window on his phone read. He stiffened even as he flipped the thing open.
    â€œMcCabe,” he growled.
    â€œClose but no cigar.” It was him: the sick fuck who had just whacked Wendell and Tammy Sue, who had killed at least three times previously that Sam knew for sure about, who was leading him and his team on a murderous wild-goose chase that had started with the killing of a retired federal judge in Richmond three weeks before and was proceeding south and westward, around the skirt of the country. The voice was distorted, digitally masked as usual, but by now Sam knew it better than his own.
    â€œWhere are you, you bastard?” Sam’s fingers tightened on the phone as if they were gripping the caller’s neck. He scanned his surroundings—the artfully placed groves of trees, the nearby houses, the shining black lake—without success. “Where are you?”
    A chuckle was his only answer. “Ready for your next clue?”
    â€œJust help me understand,” Sam said, desperate to keep him talking. “Why? What do you want? What’s the point of ...?”
    â€œHere goes,” the voice said. “Where in the world is—Madeline?”
    â€œLook—” Sam began, but it was no use: The phone went dead. Whatever else he was, the guy wasn’t stupid; he would know they were trying to trace his calls, just like he would know they were recording them. Cursing under his breath, Sam pressed a button.
    â€œYou called, master?” Gardner answered. The technical expert of Sam’s team, she was back at the Comfort Inn just off I-264 that was serving as their temporary local headquarters.
    â€œYou get that?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAnything?”
    â€œWorking on it. But I doubt it. He’s probably using a prepaid phone card just like before.”
    â€œSick bastard beat us again. We got two more dead.” Sam’s voice was glum. He could hear the flat tone of it himself. “Call the locals, would you, see if they can set up a roadblock around the perimeter, say, five miles out, check IDs, look out for suspicious characters, that type of thing. I’d handle it, but the guy in charge here doesn’t seem to like me too much.”
    Gardner chuckled. “Big surprise.”
    â€œLove you, too,” Sam said sourly, and hung up. Wynne was looking at him, tense, frowning, his eyes narrowed.
    â€œMadeline.” Sam was suddenly bone-tired again. “This time he’s going after some woman named Madeline.”
    Wynne expelled his breath in a whistling sigh. “Shit.”
    â€œYeah.”
    They headed for the car and got in without another word. After all, what was there to say? They were back on the clock again and they both knew it. If the pattern held, they had exactly seven days to find out who this Madeline was and get to her before the killer did.
    If they lost this race like they’d lost the last three, Madeline, whoever the hell she was, was dead.

TWO
    Thursday, August 14
    Â 
    Â 
    Okay, so she was afraid of the dark.
    It was stupid, Maddie Fitzgerald knew, but she just couldn’t help it: Lying there in her hotel room bed, staring up into nothingness, her hand still in the process of withdrawing from the lamp she had just turned off, she felt as shivery as if she’d just plunged headfirst into a pool of icy water.
    â€œPretty pathetic,” she said aloud, hoping that hearing her own voice might provide an antidote to the cold sweat she could feel popping out along her hairline. It didn’t. Instead of being reassuring, the sound made her cringe as she immediately wondered who or what might be lurking there in the