A Profiler's Case for Seduction(80)

Joseph frowned. “This isn’t a night of business as usual for anyone.”

The two men parted to continue the search. Despite the ever-growing throng of people and the increasing noise level, Mark could hear the stutter of his heartbeat inside his head.

We have to find her.

We have to find her.

It was a mantra that ticked to the beat of his heart.

Mark stepped beneath a tree to catch his breath, his gaze sweeping the people, seeking a sleek-haired, tall and beautiful woman. Melinda had to be here someplace. She would thrive on the chaos, the primal elements that whirled in the air.

He leaned back against the tree trunk and closed his eyes. The sound of the crowd faded as he went deep inside his head, as he attempted to access the minds of the killers.

He dismissed Ben, for he knew the grad student was nothing more than Melinda’s inferior partner. Melinda would be the mastermind of everything. She was the Sociopath in Society.

She’d probably seduced the three dead men at some point in time and it had been easy for her to call them to the place where they met their death. She would revel in the power of the kill. She would find pleasure in knowing that she was smarter than everyone else, that she not only had managed to provide herself an alibi, but also had enjoyed labeling the men as a species substandard to herself.

Liar. Cheater. Thief. And failure.

The first three murders had been shocking. He frowned, trying to crawl deeper inside her mind. There was no way she’d go off someplace quietly to kill Dora. She would want shocking drama, horrifying theater, and tonight she had a huge audience to play to.

His eyes snapped open and he stared up and straight ahead to the effigy. Melinda would need more than what she’d gotten when she’d killed those men. Her thrill level would need to be raised. She would want... She would need to make a big statement with Dora’s death.

Was it possible? From this distance the effigy looked like what it was supposed to be, a straw-stuffed football player from the opposing team. But he was too far away to be sure.

With his heart renewing a beat of frantic fear, he started forward, needing to get closer to the fire pit, closer to the figure hanging on the cross like a witch ready to be burned at the stake.

Surely it wasn’t possible. His brain attempted to deny the thought that tried to take hold. It would be the height of madness. It would be a horrific crime that would haunt the campus for decades to come. And Melinda would like that, a little voice whispered.

Moving quicker now, he shoved people aside, unmindful of anything but getting closer. The crowd was thicker the closer he got to the pit, and frustration gnawed him as he struggled to make forward progress.

He had to be wrong, he told himself as he advanced closer and closer. He finally reached the edge of the pit and peered up. It was virtually impossible to see what might be under the helmet from his vantage point.

He scanned the body, seeking some clue that the effigy might be something other than what it was supposed to be. Straw hung out of the end of the long-sleeved blue jersey that covered the torso and in the midst of the straw Mark spied the pale white skin of a hand...a human hand.

Dora! Her name screamed inside his head as he threw himself into the pit. At that moment Melinda and Ben appeared on the side, a lit torch held in Melinda’s hand.

Everything happened simultaneously. Mark ran for the pole that held Dora, the crowd quieted and Ben lifted a megaphone to his mouth. “Let the fun begin,” he shouted at the same time that Melinda touched the torch to the dry tinder at the base of the pit, and flames instantly licked upward, eager to devour whatever might be in their path.

The cheers turned to screams as people became aware of Mark in the center of the flames that were quickly building. Heat surrounded him along with the sting of smoke in his eyes.

The smoke rose like a killing column up the sides of the pole that held Dora. Mark gasped. He finally reached her feet and frantically tugged at the ropes that bound her. Too tight. The ropes were thick and tied in knot after knot. It would take him hours to unravel them to get her free and he didn’t have hours. He had only minutes before the fire consumed them both.

“Mark! Hey, Mark?”

Mark tore his gaze from the rope to peer beyond the flames that inched steadily closer and higher. He saw Joseph standing at the very edge. Joseph held up an ax and as Mark watched he threw it into the pit near Mark’s feet. Mark didn’t stop to wonder who in the crowd might have provided the ax; he grabbed it and began to chop at the ropes that held Dora captive.