I am, of course, disappointed, but only more determined. I find this setback only pushes me forward. Not only forward, but upward. The next project will succeed. The next subject will see my face clearly (and last), will know my voice. She will give me what her type refuses to give me.

  The first injection will ensure that.

  The second will end her.

  I wonder who she’ll be. Not that her name will matter, until after, for my logs.

  “That’s it? Nothing about when or where?”

  “Not that I’ve found, no. I’ll keep at it.”

  “Well, fuck me finally! I’m in.”

  On a huff of air, McNab opened the tablet. “He had to have paid an e-geek to secure this, because it was prime work. Just standard on the school comp, and … Shit, it’s a journal. First date’s three years ago.”

  “Go to the last entry.” Eve strode across the room, hovered at his shoulder.

  “I’ve got it. Logged today.”

  “‘Leaving now,’” Eve read. “‘It will take time to get there, and to ensure success, I need to be sure I’ve selected the most optimum location for tonight’s project.’

  “Go back, go back. We need that location.”

  “Wait, wait. Okay, bullshit, snotty-ass bullshit bragging.” McNab skimmed through as quickly as possible.

  “Stop!” Eve ordered. “‘The first time I went to Coney Island, I was not quite five. My mother took me. I was so happy she would take me on what she called an adventure. I didn’t understand then that she met her dealer there, got high. When I got sick on the rides, she laughed and laughed. I cried.

  “‘I never went back until June third of this year when I realized it would serve as the perfect place for my triumph. Since then I’ve visited that amusement park, the site of my childish humiliation, twelve times. I’ve wandered it during the day when it looks tawdry, and at night when the lights play false color and joy.’”

  “What kid talks like that?” McNab wondered.

  “He does. ‘I had planned to wait another week or even two before turning humiliation into triumph, but last night’s error convinces me it’s time. One must weigh the risks against the rewards.

  “‘Even if she screams, as the subject did last night, who will notice? She will give me what I deserve. And then I will return the favor.’

  “Coney Island. Round them up, Peabody. You’ve got the van, Feeney?”

  “A van’s too slow.” Roarke pushed to his feet. “I can have a jet-copter here in minutes.”

  “Where the hell would you land it?”

  “There’s room on the roof.”

  She thought of how much she hated flying. And thought of the traffic creeping into Brooklyn.

  “Do it. Peabody, get some uniforms to sit on this place, and call the sweepers to process every-damn-thing and start transporting to the lab. Move it and do it.”

  “Moving and doing.”

  “Feeney.”

  “I’ll get some boys down here to haul in the e’s. We’re with you.”

  Good, she thought as she ran up the stairs. Coney Island wasn’t a crowded theater. It was acres. Boardwalk, beaches, rides, arcades.

  But now, she was the hunter.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Francis Bryce knew he looked, in the vernacular, frosty. The hair, the shades, the clothes. He’d even worn the trench because he thought it added a little cachet.

  Maybe the shoes had rubbed blisters on his heels, his toes, but that was the price he had to pay to blend in with the masses.

  And he’d treated them, applied NuSkin.

  He’d planned tonight so well, every step. He’d done his research, his due diligence, calculated the timing.

  When he thought of the humiliation and ridicule he’d suffered here as a child, it seemed all the more vital he experience his triumph as a man in this place.

  He had Seal-It for his hands. He’d taken a couple of his father’s condoms. It wouldn’t do to leave any of his DNA in or on the lucky slut he chose tonight.

  As an added precaution he’d walked a full ten blocks from home before hailing a cab. He’d had the cab take him as far as SoHo before getting out, walking again, then hailing another to take him into Brooklyn.

  Another walk, a third cab to Coney Island.

  Not that the police had the slimmest clue, but 28.35 grams of prevention equaled 0.4536 liters of cure.

  He’d do the same on his return. No public transportation, with their intrusive cameras.

  Even with walking and switching cabs, he arrived at the amusement park before dark.

  Understanding the value of blending in, he bought a Coney Island dog, a fizzy. Disgusting, of course, though he had to admit the first bite was delicious. Still, by the time he’d walked, wandered, and finished the dog, he felt vaguely nauseated.

  His mother had bought him a dog on that long-ago visit. And blue cotton candy.

  Sit on that bench, Francis. Sit right there like a good boy and eat your candy. Mommy just needs to talk to this man for a minute. Then we’ll ride all the rides!

  Her dealer, he thought, though he hadn’t known that at the time. He’d sat, obedient, and fascinated by the texture of the blue fluff on the paper cone.

  He found that taste so sweet, sting-his-teeth sweet, but ate it anyway.

  Then she’d been so bright and happy. High as Ben Franklin’s kite. He’d ridden kiddie rides. Some she could ride with him, and did with her hair blowing while she went Wooo!

  Then the bumpy cars, the revolving carousel, the spinning teacups, the swaying mini-Ferris wheel, the rocking rocket ships had combined to purge his stomach.

  Other kids had giggled or made noises of disgust. And his mother had laughed and laughed.

  Oh, Francis, isn’t that just like you! Puking up a fun afternoon.

  He’d never gone on an amusement ride again.

  Until.

  Now dusk settled at last, and those of his age group began filtering in. For the most part, his on-site research proved, afternoons were for kids with their nannies or grannies or a parent or two. Families—a lot of tourists there who took selfies in front of the classic Wonder Wheel.

  In daylight hours, he’d often observe old people—especially men—sitting on benches, looking out over the beach. Probably dreaming of the life they could have had if they’d had brains or luck or a whore wife who didn’t bitch and complain constantly.

  They were at the end of the road anyway, so too late for them.

  He was at the beginning of his road. In one year, one month, one week and three days, he’d turn eighteen. University waited, and he already had his pick there.

  He’d wait until he was into his sophomore year before arranging a tragic accident for his father. Then all the money would be his, the house would be his. He’d sell the boat due to his mal de mer along with the house in the Hamptons, as he had no interest there.

  He could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. He could buy as many whores as he wanted.

  And make them do whatever he wanted.

  He really wanted to experience—using the inaccurate vernacular—a blow job.

  But tonight, he’d experience intercourse. He’d earned it. He deserved it.

  Tonight, he’d finally know what it was like to have female breasts in his hands, to slide his tongue inside a girl’s mouth, to shove his erection inside her.

  To penetrate her, dominate her. To hurt her with his body while hers gave his pleasure.

  As thinking of it gave him that erection, he was grateful for the trench.

  The lights gleamed and flashed now and brought that—for him—false sense of excitement and a kind of tawdry glamour.

  Screams streamed down from the Cyclone as its cars and passengers dived down a run, looped around a loop.

  Insanity, as far as he was concerned.

  Air guns popped as idiots fired at various animals or cartoon villains, all to win some cheap prize. The Wonder Wheel circled. More screams from the G-Force with its passengers strapped to a spinning wheel that twisted, inverted.

  It made him feel queasy just to look at it.

  He considered several possibilities. Long-legged girls in their tiny shorts and skimpy tops, so obviously asking for what he was so anxious to give them.

  But most traveled in packs, and many had boys with them. Tall jocks with empty brains, slouching hoodlums with smirking mouths.

  He had several options for cutting one from the herd, but preferred finding a satisfactory selection who walked alone. He kept his eye on the restrooms, though for some reason females often traveled in packs even there.

  He only needed one, but he had standards. She must be pleasing to his eye, in face and figure. She must not be taller than he was.

  But he grew impatient, and jittery with it, nearly settled for one who carried more weight in her hips than he liked, another whose mouth looked pinched and ears too big.

  He found it frustrating that the ones who pleased his eye, met his standards so rarely walked alone. For this most important project, he couldn’t approach one who had companions.

  Then he saw her, and could barely believe his luck. That is, if he believed in luck at all.

  He knew her!

  Delaney—she went by Del—Brooke. She attended his school, actually had a reasonably intelligent brain. Black hair that fell in waves, golden brown eyes, perfect features. Long legs, but she met his height requirement, as he had at least an inch on her.

  She wore blue shorts to show off those legs, legs with excellent muscle tone, as she captained the school’s swim team. A tiny white top with skinny straps to show off those swimmer’s shoulders.

  He’d been her lab partner once, and they’d worked well enough together. But when he’d suggested they meet for coffee, she’d looked at him with pity that barely disguised derision, and told him she was seeing someone.

  Lies, just another lie. And he knew she’d tittered about it with her friends after.

  Here, an opportunity to have all he wanted presented itself.

  And though she talked on her ’link, for the moment, she walked alone.

  He slid a hand into the right pocket of his trench. The first syringe, the one filled with his own formula, one he’d termed Compliance.

  He imagined trademarking it one day.

  It would make her, obviously, compliant, open to suggestion, malleable, a bit sleepy.

  This time, he’d coated the needle with a numbing agent. She’d feel a prick, of course, but little more than that.

  Then his formula would do the rest.

  He nudged off the safety on the needle, and approached her.

  * * *

  Eve spent the flight working on the logistics of the operation.

  “You’ve got copies of his face and the sketch where he’s wearing the wig. He’ll be wearing it. Black baggies, black Kick Its, probably a black tee. The trench, as we didn’t find it at the residence.

  “Ditch the ties. Not you, Jenkinson. Yours makes you look right at home at a carnival. Peabody, lose the jacket. Your shirt’s long enough to cover your sidearm. You’re with McNab. He always looks at home at a carnival.”

  Though she didn’t like knowing she stood over sky, she stood, pointed to the screen and its image of the park.

  “Santiago, Carmichael, take the north side. Jenkinson, Reineke, take the east, and try to look less like cops. Peabody, McNab, the south. Feeney, do the crisscross, and Roarke and I will go straight down the middle heading west. Skip the kiddie area. He isn’t interested in that.”

  “Two minutes,” Roarke called out.

  “You’ve got earbuds, use them. Keep in contact. The locals should be in place, along the beachfront, entrances, exits. Remember, he’s armed. The syringe is lethal.”

  She sat, strapped in. “McNab, any more on the journal?”

  “There’s a hell of a lot of crazy and ugly, LT, and whoever prosecutes this is going to do cartwheels, but he doesn’t say where, the exact location in the park. Just how he’s going to start off his senior year with—he writes—metaphorically, a bang. And how he’ll enjoy the screams as he ejaculates into a female. He actually writes like that. It’s whack.”

  She felt the copter’s descent in her gut.

  “Pattern here is to write the details afterward, like a report. I’m back to last March when he goes off bragging about successfully creating a formula. He calls it Compliance. Here’s a quote.

  “‘The popular term is date-rape drug, but rape is a lie perpetuated by women in their endless quest to emasculate men, to deny us our rights.’ It’s how he thinks,” McNab concluded.

  “He can spend the rest of his life thinking like that, in a cage where his ‘rights’ will be severely limited.”

  She glanced toward the front and saw the lights, the iconic wheel turning, flashing, with the buildings spearing up ahead, the sand and water spreading behind.

  Then the water came very, very close, so she turned her head and just let herself breathe through the beach landing.

  Glad that part was over, she unstrapped, stood.

  “We’re go. Let’s find the fucker, save the girl.”

  While they worked their way to the entrance with its big, grinning-face logo, she coordinated with the local cops. For now, she wanted them as backup only. She already had ten cops and a consultant going in.

  Enough, she thought, to cover the park, and maybe not get made as cops too quickly. The locals covered the beach areas, the ins and outs.

  “Have to cover the beaches, the city areas in case he plans to lure her out. But he’s inside.”

  The two cops on the entrance nodded her in.

  “He wouldn’t do this on one of the exterior rides.” Roarke took her hand as he spoke, then just smiled as she started to tug it free. “Try to look less like a cop,” he reminded her.

  “Right.”

  “But we have dark rides as well.”

  That reminded her he had a financial interest in the park. In both parks.

  “Dark rides?”

  “Interior thrill rides. Murderer’s Row, the Tunnel of Terror, Well of Woe, and Final Battle. All age twelve and up without an adult.”

  “A lot of screaming in those?”

  “That’s what they’re designed for, after all.”

  “We’ll start there.”

  “Let’s see then. I believe it’s this way to Murderer’s Row.”

  She scanned crowds as they went, focusing on the younger set. Plenty of screams out here, too, she thought, and wondered why in the name of humanity people paid to scream.

  No cams on the entrance of the ride where one-seater cars trundled into the mouth of a structure made to resemble a prison. Over the mouth, a man wearing the old-timey black-and-white-striped con suit bared his teeth in a maniacal grin and swung an axe.

  “It’s a prison break, you see,” Roarke told her. “Escaped prisoners looking for blood and/or hostages.”

  “Single-rider cars. Not this. He needs to be with her, right with her. Not this one.”

  But she checked with the attendant anyway.

  She tapped her earbud when Carmichael spoke. “Attendant at the Shoot ’Em Up Arcade thinks he saw him. Teenage attendant, says he noticed because of the trench, and it’s too hot for one. Plus, he walked by a few times, alone, so the kid thought he was probably a pickpocket and kept an eye out.”

  “When did he spot him last?”

  “He’s not sure, but less than a half hour.”

  “Keep looking. That’s good, it’s good,” she said to Roarke. “He’s here, and less than thirty ago, he was alone. What’s next?”

  This time Roarke had a park map on his ’link. “Well of Woe.”

  The Well looked like a big, walled hole in the ground, and cars—room for three—descended at, to her eye, an insanely steep angle.

  “What’s the deal?”

  “A bit like a series of escape rooms with various obstacles, dangers including giant insects, a fire-breathing dragon, booby traps, evil sorcerer. And not this,” he realized. “If you get through one room successfully, you go into the next. If whoever’s in there hasn’t gotten through, you’d team up.”

  “Not this,” she agreed, but checked before she stepped back from the echoes of screams and wild laughter.

  “All right then, we’re on to the Tunnel of Terror.”

  “Which is?” she asked as he led the way.

  “Haunted, overrun with vampires, zombies, name your monster. If I remember right, and it’s been some time, the tracks circle and snake, climb up, then drop down abruptly into the dark. Various horror vid sound effects, perhaps the brush of skeletal fingers over your face, the red-eyes of a giant spider hurtling toward you in a sudden flash of light.”

  “Who thinks of stuff like that?”

  “Well now, I had a bit to do with the design here, so I remember some of it. If you’re paying for terror, the tunnel ought to provide it. Just over there.”

  * * *

  Shortly after the Shoot ’Em Up attendant spotted Francis, Francis spotted the girl.

  He had a plan.

  Put away the ’link, bitch. Put it away.

  She stopped a moment, a hand on one hip, and laughed. Then as he wished, she slid the ’link into her tiny purse.

  When she started to walk again, he came up beside her, slid the needle in—delicately this time. Then swatted the air.

  “Sorry! You had a bee land on you.”

  “I think it stung me. Shit!” Frowning, she rubbed at her arm.

  “Are you allergic?” he asked, all concern, then looked at her face. “Oh, hey! Hi. It’s Francis, from school?”

  “Oh yeah, hi.” Still frowning, she gave her arm another rub.

  “Are you here by yourself?”

  “No. I’m meeting some friends. They’re getting on line at the Cyclone, so—”

  “I was heading for that myself. It’s such an iconic ride, isn’t it? Have you had a good summer so far?”