Waiting. Блейк Пирс

a screw-up. You found the Madison brothers’ drug money. And that burner phone turned out to be plenty useful. It had some important phone numbers in it, which made it possible for the cops to round up a few gang members—including Malik Madison, the brother who was still at large. It was stupid of them to buy a prepaid phone and not dump it after using it. But I guess they just didn’t think anybody was going to find it.”

      He glanced her way and added, “They were wrong.”

      Riley just kept staring back at him, as if she was having trouble understanding what he was saying.

      Jake resisted the impulse to say …

      “I’m really sorry I gave you such a hard time.”

      Instead he said, “But you’ve got to follow instructions. And you’ve got to respect procedure.”

      “I understand,” Riley said tiredly. “Thanks for giving me another chance.”

      Jake growled under his breath. He reminded himself that he didn’t want to give the kid too much encouragement.

      But he did feel bad about how he’d treated her yesterday.

      I’m overreacting to things, he thought.

      He’d pissed off some colleagues at Quantico by pushing for Riley to get into the program. One agent in particular, Toby Wolsky, had wanted his nephew Jordan to be an intern this summer, but Jake had gotten Riley in instead of him. He’d thrown his considerable credentials into that effort and called in a couple of favors owed him.

      Jake didn’t think much of Wolsky as an agent, and he had no reason to think his nephew had any potential to speak of. But Wolsky had friends in Quantico who were now unhappy with Jake.

      In a way, Jake could understand why.

      For all they knew, Riley was just some ordinary college psych graduate who’d never even thought about getting into law enforcement.

      And the truth was, Jake didn’t know much more about her either—except that he’d seen her instincts at work, up close and personal. He remembered vividly how readily she’d understood the killer’s thoughts back in Lanton, with just a little coaching from him. Aside from himself, Jake had seldom met anyone with those kinds of instincts—gut-level insights that very few other agents could even understand.

      Of course, he couldn’t discount the possibility that what she’d done in Lanton had been little more than a fluke.

      Maybe today he’d get a better idea of what she could do.

      Riley asked again …

      “Where are we going?”

      “To a murder scene,” Jake said.

      He didn’t want to tell her anything more until they got there.

      He wanted to observe how she reacted to a really bizarre situation.

      And from what he’d heard, this murder scene was about as bizarre as a murder scene could get. He’d gotten called about it just a little while ago himself, and he was still having trouble believing what he’d been told.

      We’ll see what we see, I guess.

*

      Riley thought maybe she was feeling a bit better as she rode along with Agent Crivaro.

      Still, she wished he’d tell her what this was all about.

      A murder scene, he said.

      That was more than she’d bargained for in the summer program—let alone on her second day. Yesterday had been unexpected enough.

      She wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

      But she was pretty sure that Ryan wouldn’t like the idea at all.

      She realized she hadn’t yet told Ryan that she was shadowing Jake Crivaro. Ryan wouldn’t approve of that either. Ryan had mistrusted Crivaro from the start, especially for the way he had helped Riley get a glimpse into a killer’s mind.

      She remembered what Ryan had said about one of those episodes …

      “Are you telling me that FBI guy—Crivaro—played mind games with you? Why? Just for fun?”

      Of course Riley knew that Crivaro hadn’t put her through all that “just for fun.”

      He’d been dead serious about it. Those experiences had been absolutely necessary.

      They had helped make it possible to eventually catch the killer.

      But what am I in for now? Riley wondered.

      Crivaro seemed to be being deliberately cryptic.

      When he parked the car along a street with houses on one side and an open field on the other, she saw that a couple of police cars and an official van were pulled up nearby.

      Before they left the car, Crivaro wagged his finger and said to her …

      “Now remember the goddamn rules. Don’t touch anything. And don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. You’re only here to observe the rest of us at work.”

      Riley nodded. But something in Crivaro’s voice made her suspect that he expected something a little more from her than just watching quietly.

      She wished she knew what that something might be.

      Riley and Crivaro got out of the car and walked into the field. It was scattered with lots of debris, as if some kind of big public event had taken place here recently.

      Other people, some wearing police uniforms, were standing near a stand of trees and bushes. A wide area around them was cordoned off with yellow police tape.

      As Riley and Crivaro approached the group, she realized that the bushes had concealed something on the ground.

      Riley gasped at what she saw.

      Nausea swelled up in her throat again.

      Lying on the ground was a dead circus clown.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      Riley felt so dizzy that she thought she might faint.

      She managed to stay on her feet, but then she worried that she was going to throw up, like she had back at the apartment.

      This can’t be real, she thought.

      This has to be a nightmare.

      The cops and other people were standing around a body that was in a full clown outfit. The suit was puffy and brightly colored with huge pompoms as buttons. A pair of outsized shoes completed the attire.

      The stark white face had a bizarre painted smile, a bright red nose, and exaggerated eyes and eyebrows. A huge red wig framed the face. A canvas tarp was bunched up next to the body.

      It dawned on Riley that the body was actually a woman.

      Now that her head was clearing, she noticed a distinct and unpleasant odor in the air. As she looked around the area, she doubted that the smell was from the body—or at least not much of it. Trash was strewn everywhere. The morning sun was bringing out the odor of various kinds of human residue.

      A man wearing a white jacket was kneeling beside the body, studying it carefully. Crivaro introduced him as Victor Dahl, the DC medical examiner.

      Crivaro shook his head and said to Dahl, “This is even weirder than I’d expected.”

      Rising to his feet, Dahl said, “Yeah, weird. And it’s just like the last victim.”

      Riley thought …

      The last victim?

      Had another clown been killed before this one?

      “I just got briefed a little while ago,” Crivaro said to Dahl and the cops. “Maybe you folks can fill in my trainee here on what this is all about. I’m maybe not fully up to speed on this case myself.”

      Dahl looked at Riley and hesitated for a moment. Riley wondered if she looked as sick as she felt. But then the medical examiner began to explain.

      “Saturday