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But fear or no fear, she could not deny what she was seeing in front of her. All of the pieces clicked into place, a complete picture now, and though they might be rearranged she could not imagine them telling any other story.

Now Zoe knew who their killer was. He was like her. He saw things the way that she did. He looked at those scattered pieces of candy and saw a divine signal that he was on the right track. He looked at the Rorschach pattern of wings left by a neck wound and it encouraged him to go on.

He wasn’t just making a random curve driven by necessity. He was forming a pattern.

And now that she knew him, she could catch him. She could make him stop.

The only question was whether she could do it before he took another life.

***

Zoe came back to herself, realizing that she had been staring off into the distance, thinking for quite some time. She was seeing everything from a new perspective. Everything had changed. He thought the same way that she thought—and Zoe knew how she thought better than anyone else.

Shelley had come back into the room to sit quietly looking through the files, but Zoe barely noticed that she was there. She was too focused, and her mind was swirling.

Zoe grabbed and hastily assembled each of the victim files in order, taking both the crime scene notes, the coroners’ reports for all but the latest body, and the photograph that best showed the full scene. Seeing them all side by side like this, it was clearer than ever that there was a connection. The gaping second mouths across the throats, all the same width and depth to within a millimeter, the pressure applied to precisely the same degree each time.

All the work of the same two hands. Hands that even now were clasping a steering wheel, driving him to the destination where he would meet his next victim. Zoe eyed the map on the wall, took in the curve. Saw the towns that were potentially in its path. She focused in on a particular area, the zone where the curve was likely to continue—a rural town, just a few buildings, a waypoint on the road.

No one was going to die there tonight. Not if she could do anything about it.

A deputy came and knocked on the door of the investigation room, hesitating with a brown paper bag in his hand.

“Come in,” Shelley said, offering him a smile. “Is that lunch?”

“The sheriff said I should bring you something,” he said, pausing again before stepping into the room, as if crossing a forbidden line. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a few different sandwiches. And some pastries, too.”

“That’s very kind.” Shelley smiled, taking the bag from him.

“Is it lunchtime?” Zoe asked, looking up at the old-fashioned clock mounted on the wall. Time was running away from them. She could count the number of hours before he would attempt to kill again on one hand. Certainly before midnight, there would be another body—unless she could find him first.

Zoe thanked the deputy and reached indiscriminately for a sandwich, not caring which one she lifted out. It turned out to be grilled cheese and tomato, a fact which she barely registered except to note the half-inch thickness of the bread, the fact that the slices comprised only two-thirds of a tomato, and the uneven flare of butter along each side of the interior. Whatever it was, to a brain which needed fuel, it was delicious.

The files in front of her took her attention, the numbers even clearer now than they were before. She saw at a glance their heights, their ages, the salary they earned each year, the year in which they graduated from high school (or failed to do so), the number of dependents they had, the length of their hair in millimeters. None of it provided any kind of link or pattern.

Zoe was coming up short, but it was not necessarily a bad thing. This was a sign that she was on the right track. Ruling out a link between the victims meant that her instinct was correct, and the location was the thing. She was now more sure of that than ever. The extra twenty minutes to be certain was worth it—and the evidence was in the last victim, the young woman they had identified as Rubie.

Why would the killer be so angry with the woman who ran from him that he would kick her, even after death? It didn’t make sense—not if you couldn’t see the way he thought. If you looked at it from the perspective of any other person, you might say that he was just frustrated, or dumb, or petty enough to delight in kicking a dead body. None of which was borne out by the other crime scenes.

Zoe put herself in his shoes. If she was the killer, what would she be so angry about? What on earth would make her feel mad about getting her way?

Unless, of course, she hadn’t entirely gotten her way.

That had to be it. And just like that, Zoe knew.

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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

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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.

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