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The car threaded through back roads and along dirt trails, taking the shortest possible route at the sheriff’s directions. He led the way in a battered police vehicle which had clearly seen better days, and he had no qualms about preserving the suspension or the tires. Being a rental, their car could not quite take the same level of punishment.

Zoe watched the scenery flash by the windows, clutching her seatbelt where it lay across her chest. She was always a little carsick as a passenger. Holding the belt away from her neck a touch helped.

They turned onto a highway. A large space of dirt and rocky ground ran alongside it, with trees growing beyond. It was evident that the work of human hands and machinery had cleared the space. No trees grew in straight, even lines in nature. Nature’s patterns were circles, spirals. Could it be that their killer was taking inspiration there?

The presence of two marked police cars from the sheriff’s station indicated their destination before the sheriff turned off, bringing his own vehicle to a stop beside them. Shelley audibly sighed in relief, loosening her grip on the steering wheel.

“Remind me never to get into a car with that man,” she said, shaking her head as she pulled up to a gentle stop on the shoulder of the road, far out of the way of traffic.

Zoe jumped out of the car, anxious to get to the body. She wanted to see how this one had been left. It was their first opportunity to find a real body still in position, before the crime scene had been recorded and the victim taken away to the coroner’s table. There were sure to be more clues here. Things that the investigators wouldn’t have seen. Things that only Zoe could pick out.

A pair of white-faced middle-aged men, both dressed in the drab browns and greens of hunting gear, were leaning on the hood of one of the police cars. The sheriff made a beeline for them, and Zoe followed suit, glancing behind to check that Shelley was with her.

“Sheriff, these are the two hunters who found the body,” the young deputy was saying. “They’re a little shaken, but they didn’t see much.”

“You did not see another person in the woods?” Zoe asked sharply, cutting across the sheriff’s mumbled reply.

The hunters looked at her wide-eyed, glancing over to the sheriff with confusion. With an impatient movement, Zoe took her badge from her pocket and flipped it open, allowing them to see for themselves that she was FBI.

“We didn’t hear or see anything,” one of the men said. “We were settled in the woods from the early hours, just sitting and waiting, all quiet like. We were listening for animals. Would’ve heard if something happened nearby.”

“How did you discover the body?” Zoe asked.

“We were packing up to go home,” the other explained, with a rueful smile. “Didn’t catch a thing. The birds kept screaming. Thought they must have figured out we were there and weren’t going to let nothing close to us without a warning. Usually they quiet down, but not these. So, after a few hours, we thought it best to go.”

“That’s when we saw the fox,” the other put in. “Nose right to the ground, following something. He got spooked when he saw us and ran the other way, but the sun was up and we could see what he was looking at.”

“Blood,” the first hunter clarified. “All over the ground. A trail. Great spurts of it. Thought it had to be a wounded animal at first. But when we followed it, not far away, we found—”

The men both fell silent, looking at their feet, no doubt reliving what they had seen.

“Thank you for your help, gentlemen,” Shelley said softly, as Zoe stalked away from them and into the trees. They had nothing more to tell her.

She did not have far to go. There were a series of flags and numbers laid out already, following a path across the sparse ground into the trees. Glancing back along their route, she could follow them to an access road which the sheriff had avoided taking them down, a point just far enough off the highway so as not to attract too much attention.

Zoe paused, heading back across the ground. She had a feeling that the access road was where it all started, and she wanted to do this chronologically. Lay the numbers out in a way that made sense.

By the access trail was a great spout of blood, a gush that must have come from the initial attack. A surge of adrenaline forcing the heart to beat faster, or perhaps movement as the woman pushed her killer away. This was not like the other murders—not like them at all. Zoe even had her doubts that this could be the one they were looking for.

Looking ahead, she noted the flags—each of them placed by a splash of blood. So many of them. This was a heavy wound. The spacing between them, several inches each time, told her of movement at speed. The regularity in distances between the flags, well, that was about the beat of a heart.

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Все книги серии A Zoe Prime Mystery

Face of Death
Face of Death

"A MASTERPIECE OF THRILLER AND MYSTERY. Blake Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page."–-Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone)FACE OF DEATH is book #1 in a new FBI thriller series by USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone (Book #1) (a free download) has received over 1,000 five star reviews.FBI Special Agent Zoe Prime suffers from a rare condition which also gives her a unique talent—she views the world through a lens of numbers. The numbers torment her, make her unable to relate to people, and give her a failed romantic life—yet they also allow her to see patterns that no other FBI agent can see. Zoe keeps her condition a secret, ashamed, in fear her colleagues may find out.Yet when a serial killer strikes across the Midwest, strangling women in remote places and seemingly at random, Zoe, for the first time, is stumped. Is there a pattern? Can there be no pattern at all?Or is this killer as obsessed with numbers as she is?In a mad race against time, Zoe must enter the diabolical mind of a killer who always seems to be one step ahead of her, and stop him from claiming his next victim before it's too late. At the same time, she must keep at bay her own demons, which may ultimately prove to be even more threatening.An action-packed thriller with heart-pounding suspense, FACE OF DEATH is book #1 in a riveting new series that will leave you turning pages late into the night.Books #2 and #3 in the series—FACE OF MURDER and FACE OF FEAR—are also available for pre-order.

Блейк Пирс

Триллер
Face of Murder
Face of Murder

"A MASTERPIECE OF THRILLER AND MYSTERY. Blake Pierce did a magnificent job developing characters with a psychological side so well described that we feel inside their minds, follow their fears and cheer for their success. Full of twists, this book will keep you awake until the turn of the last page."–-Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone)FACE OF MURDER is book #2 in a new FBI thriller series by USA Today bestselling author Blake Pierce, whose #1 bestseller Once Gone (Book #1) (a free download) has received over 1,000 five star reviews.FBI Special Agent Zoe Prime suffers from a rare condition which also gives her a unique talent—she views the world through a lens of numbers. The numbers torment her, make her unable to relate to people, and give her a failed romantic life—yet they also allow her to see patterns that no other FBI agent can see. Zoe keeps her condition a secret, ashamed, in fear her colleagues may find out.When women are found murdered, their bodies branded with mysterious numbers, outside Washington, D.C., the FBI, stumped, calls in Special Agent Zoe Prime to decipher the mathematical riddle and find the serial killer.Yet the numbers make no sense. Are they a pattern? A formula?Or do they have no meaning at all?Zoe, reeling from her own personal troubles, hasn't the luxury of time, as more bodies pile up, and as all eyes turn to her to solve an equation that, perhaps, cannot be solved. Will she catch the killer in time?An action-packed thriller with heart-pounding suspense, FACE OF MURDER is book #2 in a riveting new series that will leave you turning pages late into the night.Book #3 in the series—FACE OF FEAR—is also available for pre-order.

Блейк Пирс

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