A Killer's Mind (Zoe Bentley Mystery #1)(53)

CHAPTER 40

Zoe’s eyes were wide open, staring at the motel ceiling. The paint peeled at several points, and a diagonal crack zigzagged across almost the entire ceiling. The light had a dusty glass cover in which two distinct dead flies could be spotted. But her brain hardly registered all that. It was too busy processing the image of a dead woman, her neck bloody, her eyes vacant. And the detachment was gone, as she had known it would be.

Once she had a moment of quiet, a second to process, it always hit her. Her brain, wired to try to imagine everything, began working in high gear. What would the parents of this victim feel when they heard about it? How would her partner feel or children, if she had any? And, of course, how had she felt when it had happened? Scared? In pain? Violated?

During Zoe’s fifteen minutes of fame, after helping catch one of the most infamous serial killers of the twenty-first century, she’d heard people talking about how clever she was. Her credentials would often be touted—PhD and JD from Harvard, top of her class, and so on and so forth. But they didn’t get it. What made her so damn good was her vivid imagination. When she tried to, she could get into the killer’s mind, imagine what he felt, what he saw. It was a double-edged sword because she’d also see things from the victim’s point of view. And she’d see them clearly.

Tied by her wrists somewhere, trying desperately to tell the cops where she was, her mouth gagged. She’d been taken almost twenty-four hours earlier. Had she been tied that entire time? Probably. That meant her throat was parched; she was weak from thirst, hunger, and fear. Her jaw would ache from whatever had been shoved into her mouth to gag her, her shoulders throbbing in pain. And mix all that with the knowledge that death could be moments away, and then the killer came for her—

A knock on the door startled her. She was breathing hard, her palms sweaty. She took a moment to steady her breath and got off the bed. She padded over to the door.

“Yeah?” she said. She didn’t ask who it was. Who else would knock on her motel door at two in the morning?

“Did I wake you up?” Tatum’s voice sounded muffled from the other side.

“No, I was still awake.”

“Can you open the door? I come bearing gifts.”

Zoe considered this. She wore a wide, long shirt that covered her up to midthigh and a pair of underwear. She could go and put on a pair of jeans, maybe a bra, but it sounded like the worst sort of idea, and the glimpse of a dead young woman put the notions of modesty in a certain perspective.

She opened the door. Tatum stood outside, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, holding a 7-Eleven bag in his hand. His eyes widened slowly.

“Uh, sorry,” he said. “I just thought neither of us had anything to eat for dinner, and I figured—”

“Come in,” Zoe said, opening the door a bit wider. He slid in, and she caught a whiff of soapy lavender from him. He had showered before coming. She was relieved. She didn’t want the smell of the crime scene in her room.

He sat on the small couch in the room’s corner, putting the bag on the glass table. “I brought two meals. You can pick whichever you like. There’s a . . .” He pulled out the first box from the bag and read the label. “Buffalo chicken roller . . . and there’s, uh . . . something else . . . with cheese, I guess. And two hotdogs, with some toppings I selected randomly.”

“You know how to spoil a girl,” Zoe said dryly, sitting on the other side of the couch, readjusting the shirt to cover as much as possible. “I’ll take the something-else-with-cheese.”

“And also”—Tatum pulled two bottles of Honker’s Ale out of the bag—“something to drink. Because I think otherwise there’s no way we can force this food down our throats.” He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and used one of them to remove the cap from a bottle. He then handed it to Zoe.

Zoe took a bite from her something-else-with-cheese. It was stale and soggy and tasted like morning breath. She put it down and took the beer bottle. “Beer has caloric value,” she said. “I think it can be considered a meal.”

Tatum chewed the buffalo chicken roller, his face far from a warm endorsement. “This is terrible.”

“Here. Allow me,” Zoe said, holding out her hand. He gave her the roller, and she thrust it in the bag. Then she took the entire thing and dumped it in the trash. She bent by her suitcase on the floor and rummaged inside, locating the Snickers bars. It occurred to her that in this pose, dressed as she was, she was giving Tatum quite a view. She quickly straightened and turned toward him. He stared at the wall with fascination, his cheeks slightly red.

“Here,” she said, handing one over. “I always pack a bunch of Snickers bars when I travel.”

“Wise woman,” he said, tearing the wrapper.

She unwrapped her own bar and took a bite. The peanuty crunchiness and the sweetness of the chocolate began tangoing in her mouth, and she shut her eyes, breathing deeply through her nose. She had tried yoga, meditation, running, and swimming. So far, nothing cleansed the soul better than a Snickers bar. It was the ultimate therapy. It was cheap, and it could be carried in her bag. She drank a swig of beer. The tastes meshed well together. She was enjoying this dinner of Snickers à la Honker’s.

“Yum,” Tatum said in a muffled voice, chewing happily.

Zoe smiled, her body relaxing. She was only half looking at Tatum, enjoying the first moment of serenity that evening.