Edge of Midnight. Leslie Tentler

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СКАЧАТЬ John announced in an authoritative tone, removing his weapon. Tommy stood beside him, already in shooting stance, his gun’s barrel pointed into the trees. “Come out slowly with your hands on your head!”

       The form remained motionless.

       “Come out now!” John stepped carefully closer and focused the flashlight’s beam directly on the figure.

       “You think we won’t shoot you, asshole?” Tommy yelled. “There’s two of us and only one of—”

       John laid a hand on his partner’s arm, pushing the gun’s nose down. “Christ. Put that away.”

       The huddled form was a woman. She squatted on the ground, her slender arms wrapped around herself in a protective gesture. A curtain of sleek, dark hair concealed her face, but the flashlight illuminated her skin and the dried blood on her hands, arms and legs. At first, John thought she wore a bathing suit, but realized with a jolt it was only a skimpy pair of panties and a lace bra. She trembled in the beam’s filmy swath.

       “Ma’am? You all right?” He came a few steps closer, one hand stretched toward her. To Tommy he said, “Go back to the car, get a blanket and call for an ambulance.”

       Once Tommy had taken off, John sank on his haunches to the woman’s level. If she was aware of his presence, she gave no indication.

       “Ma’am?” he asked again. His fingers grazed her shoulder, which seemed to break the trance she was in. She cried out and scrambled backward, her chest rising and falling rapidly with her ragged breathing.

       “It’s gonna be all right. I’m a police officer. We’re sending for help.”

       Her brown eyes were wide with fear or confusion, her pupils dilated, a likely indication of a head injury, or possibly drugs. Her nose was bleeding a little but didn’t appear to be broken, and John wondered how badly she was hurt. She had a lot of blood on her, but he couldn’t ascertain its source. Her wrists, however, were red and badly abraded.

       Wherever she’d come from, she’d been tied up.

       “What’s your name?”

       The woman blinked at him warily.

       “M-Mia,” she managed to say after a long moment. She sounded uncertain, her voice barely audible above the roar of the ocean waves behind them. Even in her current distress, she appeared pretty and a little exotic, with an oval face and delicate features, and was maybe in her late twenties or early thirties. John noticed the fresh bruise shadowing her jawline.

       “Can you tell me what happened to you, Mia?”

       A fresh wave of tremors racked her body as she squeezed her eyes closed. “I—I don’t know.”

       “You don’t remember?”

       She shook her head, biting her lip. Her long, dark hair lifted in the ocean breeze. John noticed a wide section of it was several inches shorter than the rest, as if a handful of it had been carelessly lopped off.

       She jumped at the sound of Tommy bounding back across the walkover toward them.

       “It’s okay,” John assured her. “That’s my partner, Officer Haggard. I’m Officer Penotti. You’re safe now, all right?”

       Tommy appeared beside him, out of breath from his speedy trip to the cruiser. “There’s a bus on the way.”

       She recoiled as he moved forward to wrap her in the blanket he’d brought back.

       “Sorry…I’ll just hand it to you.” Tommy held it out. Her left hand shook as she inched forward, tentatively reaching out to take it.

       Two of her fingernails were completely missing, the exposed nail beds raw and oozing blood. Had they been ripped out in some kind of struggle? John swallowed hard. What appeared to be the number eight—or maybe the infinity sign—had been carved into the pale skin of her stomach, the wound angry and red. He watched as she managed to drape the scratchy blanket around herself, her petite frame nearly disappearing inside it. She continued to shiver and rock.

       “You think she was raped?” Tommy asked a short time later, voice low. They had stepped several yards from the dunes and allowed the paramedics to take over.

       “I don’t know. Maybe.” Probably. A female medic had coaxed the woman onto a gurney, and John could only catch glimpses of her through the gaggle of emergency workers. Overhead, blue-and-red flashing lights from the road reflected into the still-dark sky.

       “Hey, Carl,” John called to an EMT as he went past, headed back to the ambulance. “What’s the deal?”

       “We won’t know until we get her to the E.R. for a tox screen, but my guess is she’s on something. She’s pretty out of it. Doesn’t even remember driving here.”

       “What about all the blood on her?”

       “Other than her fingers and stomach, there are no other wounds—at least none significant enough to account for all that blood. I gotta get something out of the bus, all right?” Carl trotted away.

       Which meant what? That some of the blood belonged to someone else? John removed his uniform cap and ran a hand through his hair.

       Nearby Jacksonville was no stranger to violence. Like any large city, it had its share of assaults and homicides, drug deals gone wrong. But for the large part, the surrounding beach communities were quiet, with occasional rowdy teenagers and drunken tourists their most typical problems.

       He thought of the two women who had gone missing in Jacksonville over the past two weeks and wondered if there was a connection. Neither had been found, but to his recollection neither of them had been named Mia, either. John had heard the young woman telling the female medic that her last name was Hale. It rang some kind of bell, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

       Regardless, he didn’t like what was going on here.

      1

      FBI special agent Eric Macfarlane faced the cluster of oak trees, his suit coat discarded on the warm, pale sand. His eyes were closed, the strong ocean breeze ruffling his light brown hair, and the sun’s heat was like a brand through the back of his blue dress shirt. Seagulls cried in the air overhead.

       He tried to imagine what it felt like to crash on an isolated beach road, in a strange car and with lost hours that couldn’t be accounted for.

       Eric had read the Atlantic Beach Police incident report multiple times—in his office yesterday at the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit in Washington, D.C., then again on the plane bound for Jacksonville International Airport early that morning. Despite the warmth of the Florida climate, even now the similarities contained in the document made a chill crawl beneath his skin.

       If it was him, if he had finally resurfaced…

       The thought caused his emotions to skitter like stones skipped on water.

       “Eric.”

       He turned to see Florida Bureau agent Cameron Vartran walking toward him, looking as out of place in suit pants, tie and a dress shirt on the СКАЧАТЬ