Split Read Free Page A

best asset. Once, in a state of extreme passion, Makedde Vanderwall had kissed his toes. He never quite understood how she managed that, but he’d liked it. That woman was capable of all kinds of surprises.
    Focus …
    The duvet was peeled back and he lay on top of the sheets dressed only in his boxer shorts. The room was cool, but he felt hot. A trace of perspiration beaded on his chest.
    Mak.
    Thankfully, he had managed to secure a separate dormitory room at Quantico this time around, and at this moment he was particularly grateful for it. It would have been embarrassing to have to ask another officer, or an agent, to leave the room while he made this call.
    An overstuffed Filofax rested on his trim stomach. Mak had kissed that too, but it was best not to think about that now. He opened the address portion andflipped to “V”, then closed his eyes for a moment and once again considered the wisdom of what he was doing. Just call . He propped the pages up and scanned the row of addresses. There she was. Second entry on the right-hand side.
    Andy only had the number for her father’s place on Vancouver Island, but he knew she often spent her weekends there. Perhaps he’d be in luck. He rested the book in his lap and raised his index finger to the keypad on the phone, then hesitated.
    Should I?
    It had been almost a year since he’d last seen Makedde, and things had been messy. Although they’d spoken on the phone a couple of times at the beginning of the year, that was a far cry from seeing each other face to face. He wasn’t sure how she would react to the prospect of seeing him.
    He knew he couldn’t put the call off any longer though. He would be attending a conference at the University of British Columbia in a couple of weeks. One of his mentors, Dr Bob Harris, a Profiler with the FBI, was flying up to do a presentation on psychopathy and crime scene analysis. He had invited Andy to come along. That was how he had first heard about it. The conference would also feature a talk from highly respected psychopath expert Dr Robert Hare, who was a Professor Emeritus at the university. The “Two Bobs” knew each other well.
    The problem was that the University of BritishColumbia also happened to be where Makedde Vanderwall was studying. Of course, this wasn’t really a problem as he saw it, but rather a good excuse to re-establish contact.
    Until now, Andy had procrastinated over whether or not to tell Makedde about his visit, but the UBC conference was fast approaching. Mak had done her Masters in Forensic Psychology, and there was more than a good chance that she would be attending the conference herself. He knew it would not be considered appropriate to just show up and surprise her, so he thought he’d call first.
    Although he was looking forward to the conference, for the most part it was likely to be material he’d heard before. He had attended Dr Hare’s guest lectures at Quantico and he was quite familiar with the profiling techniques his friend Dr Harris would present. The truth was, he wanted to see Makedde. Finally they were on the same continent. This was the closest to her that he had been for a long time, and as the distance between them shrank, his urge to see her had grown. If nothing else, seeing her again might get her out of his system. Perhaps seeing her would be a let-down, the spark gone.
    Not likely.
    His mind was suddenly filled with her, memories of Makedde grinning, playful and exciting. The weekend they spent together was impossible to forget—entwined in her bed, making love at all hours, lost inecstasy as the candles slowly burned to the floor. And then…
    Then it all went wrong.
    Beep.
    Beep.
    Beep.
    The phone emitted a rhythmic pulse.
    Andy realised that his finger was still poised over the number pad. He shook his head, pulling back from that vivid memory and hung up the receiver.
    He picked it up again.
    Mak.
    Hesitation.
    Maybe I should cancel my spot at the conference and forget