MONDAY. WASHINGTON State Fairgrounds, Seattle, Washington.

Kyle glanced over his shoulder, Felix following close behind.

The employee lot was empty. The privacy fence and trees offered a lot of coverage.

There’d been some sort of big, concert festival in the eighties right here when the first killings happened. The theory was their guy had met a girl, and they’d gone somewhere to be alone. She was the only victim that had any evidence of sexual intercourse, but there was no way to tell if it was from their guy or someone else. She’d been found outside the main stage early in the morning. The rain had washed most of the DNA evidence away, leaving them at square one where they remained until this day.

Kyle wasn’t even sure if they were at the right place. It was all a guess at this point.

“Hello?” He approached the guard shack, but didn’t see anyone.

“Finishing our circuit of the fair. Don’t see the van or anything moving inside,” Isaac said through the comm.

“Come back to the employee lot. Something’s not right.”

Kyle peered into the guard shack.

It was empty.

A place this big, well kept and central to the city wouldn’t be left without someone on the grounds.

“Hey, Kyle?” Felix crouched next to the gate, holding up a broken link.

“Someone cut a chain to get in here.” Kyle rattled the fence.

No security on site that they could see.

A chain that had clearly been cut recently.

“I’m going over the fence.” He both hoped and dreaded finding Bethany inside.

“We’re coming around the bend,” Isaac said in a sing-song voice just as the SUV turned into the lot.

“Here, I’ll boost you up. Go over and inside.” Felix went to a knee outside the glassed-in booth.

That was the best way up and over.

Kyle placed his foot on Felix’s thigh, grabbed the top of the booth and hauled himself up and over. He stood on the tin roof and peered around, looking for anything that might point them in the way.

A pair of blue clad legs and boots stuck out from behind a crate.

“I’ve got a body. Security guard, I think.” Kyle leapt to the ground and crossed to the downed man.

The man lay on his back, head twisted around so he stared away from Kyle. Deep slash and stab marks stained the blue fabric a deep red. A trail of dried blood faded into the black asphalt. Kyle knelt and pressed his hand to the man’s neck. The skin was cold to the touch. Whoever he was, he’d been dead for a while.

“This guy’s gone,” Kyle said.

“But Bethany might still be here,” Isaac said.

But where? And how long did they have to find her?

THE SQUEAKING WHEELS were so loud Bethany had to wonder how people driving by outside the fair fence couldn’t hear them. Why they weren’t wondering about the sound.

She sucked down a breath, but her nose was stopping up from crying and the gag made it hard to breathe through her mouth. Then there was the mask. Ventilation through the tiny nose holes and mesh eyes was a joke.

If he didn’t kill her first she might suffocate.

Bethany’s head ached. She couldn’t move, but the change in position at least had the feeling going back into her arms and shoulders. The painful stabbing sensation of blood returning to her fingers wasn’t pleasant, but it reminded her that—for now—she was alive. The man in the mask had cut her bonds, but only to secure her wrists to Megan and Faith’s ankles and their wrists to her ankles. There wasn’t anything they could do.

This was it.

They were going to die.

Bethany tipped her head back and closed her eyes as the sob shook her. Fear tightened her throat and she fought the urge to kick or strike out. She’d been able to cope with her situation when she believed the others were safe. Now, with Megan and Faith packed onto the rolling cart with her like sacks of potatoes, Bethany could not escape the gnawing teeth of fear.

They were going to die.

Even if Kyle was looking for them, he couldn’t find them in time.

And she’d be the first to go. He’d told her as much.

Where were they going? Where were they?

She’d only had brief glimpses of tin buildings and cinderblock before he put her into the dark room. Her first guess had been a baseball field or something, but that had to be wrong.

Bethany bent her head trying to see out through the mesh eye holes.

Were they...? Was this the fairgrounds?

The amphitheater.

Of course.

That made sense.

It was a concert venue.

She had to assume it had hosted some kind of stage production.

It wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to assume they’d played movies here, too.

That would make it tick off all the boxes.

The ground slanted, pushing Bethany against Faith. The big stage was where all the famous acts played. Bethany had attended concerts here a few times growing up with her family. She’d complained about sharing cotton candy with her sister.

Oh, God. She didn’t want this to be where she died.

She wanted to tell her parents she loved them. She wanted Anthony to know they were over for good. His hold on her was gone. She’d discovered herself along the way and become someone she liked. She wasn’t perfect. And now she’d never know what she could be.

More than anything she wanted Kyle to know this wasn’t his fault. And to tell him thank you. He’d come to her rescue when she had no one, and he’d done everything in his power to keep them safe. But he couldn’t protect her from her own poor decisions.

The squeaking reverberated off the tin roof covering the stage. Bethany twisted her head to stare out, and could only see the side of the stage.

The cart stopped.

Her ears rang.

She tilted her head but unless she turned all she was getting was the wall. Not being able to see much was the worst.

Another sound broke up the silence. A man gasping for breath.

He wasn’t a big man. What had Kyle said about him? He relied on surprise and control?

If even one of them could get a hand or foot free, if they could fight back, maybe they had a good chance. He’d neatly solved that problem by keeping them bound tight.

If one of them didn’t get free, they were all dead.

How had Kyle said the others died?

She couldn’t remember, but it was important.

“Here we are,” he said. “Center stage, in a onetime matinee showing that will never happen again.”

Metal clanged together. Something heavy hit the stage, the vibrations of it shaking the cart.

“It’s your curtain call, Mom.”

THE SECOND SECURITY guard was hidden behind a trash can a couple yards from the first.

Kyle felt for a pulse, but he knew from looking at the guy’s eyes he was long gone. From the way the bodies were positioned Kyle guessed their suspect must have hit this one and hid him to better waylay the other guy.

They were dealing with an ambush guy. He knew what he was doing, creeping around people. He was likely used to fading into the background, never being noticed. He’d use that to his advantage getting one over on his victims.

“It’s going to take us hours to clear the whole fairgrounds.” Isaac turned left then right peering down the lanes. He was the only one who’d thought to bring a rifle in addition to his handgun.

“We don’t have to.” Kyle stared at the signs marking the way toward the stage. He stuffed the cold rage down deep. Getting angry wasn’t going to help save Bethany. He had to have a clear head. “He dumps the bodies on or near stages. He’s a small guy. He has to...do it close.”

“Let’s go,” Shane said taking the lead.

How did the other guys do it? Run headlong into a situation wrapped around the one they loved?

What if Bethany was dead? It would be on his hands.

They picked up the pace, jogging along in a loose formation. Though Kyle was fairly certain they were headed for the stage, they kept their eyes open, peering into all the lanes, shadows and corners as they passed. They couldn’t fall into the ambush trap, too.

Isaac and Shane took the lead without direction.

Kyle appreciated this. He knew he had to go to that theater, but what if they were too late?

Part of him wanted to run away. If she was gone, he didn’t want to see her like that. But if she was alive, if they could save her, he had to go. He’d promised Bethany he’d keep her safe, and he didn’t have a choice about following through. This was his job and he wouldn’t let her die alone.

Shane flattened himself to the front of a cinderblock food vendor with brightly painted signs advertising all things fried.

Kyle and Felix slowed, quick stepping up against the wall of the building.

“Open door,” Shane whispered through the comm.

This could be it.

“I see a maintenance van,” Isaac whispered from his vantage point across the main thoroughfare behind a garbage can.

“Cover me.” Kyle darted around to the corner into the wide area between lanes.

The skin between his shoulder blades prickled.

He grasped the handle to the vendor stall and pulled it back, flattening himself to the side of the building.

Nothing stirred inside.

He pulled a slim flashlight out of his pocket and clicked it on. He caught Isaac’s eye and nodded. The others were ready if things went sideways.

Kyle ducked through the open door, gun and light up.

He braced himself for the smell of blood or the gleam of liquid.

Grease and oil made the air smell heavy. Thick.

He turned, his light roving across the counter.

The front of the stall was empty.

He stepped through the open doorway into the kitchen area and shone the light around.

No blood.

No bodies.

No signs of a struggle.

Still empty, but what was that in the corner?

Kyle crossed to the other side of the room and bent, picking up a tuft of what looked like blonde hair at a glance. It was course and strange against his fingers. That sure as hell wasn’t human hair.

The wigs.

The fake hair.

“They were here.” He glanced around.

Still no blood.

Which meant they’d left here alive. The victims were killed in a brutal fashion that wouldn’t be easily cleaned up.

This guy was cornered. He had to know they’d be looking for the girls and hot on his tail. He’d be looking to kill them fast and get out.

“We have to go. Now.” Kyle whirled and bolted out of the building.

Bethany and the others could still be alive.

The other three waited for him outside.

“He moved them, so he has to be about to do it,” Kyle said.

It was a guess, but it was all he had.

He broke into a run. He glanced left and right, but his focus was on reaching the theater as fast as humanly possible. The other three remained in tight formation around him, matching his pace. Not a one questioned his judgment.

They raced down the lanes, boots thumping the pavement. He didn’t even slow down when they hooked a right, racing down the cue where waiting concert goers would have passed the time before whatever show was playing that night. He vaulted metal railings, his gaze locked on the back of the stands ahead.

Was this what this fucker wanted? To be the center of attention?

Though Kyle wanted to run headlong into the stands and toward the stage he forced himself to slow down. Their footsteps echoed in the entry way as they jogged through the arch into the stands.

The stage lay directly in front of them. The sight of the woman kneeling at center stage stopped Kyle’s whole world. He’d know Bethany apart from the others even with that hideous mask.

JAY STOOD THERE STARING at Mother and curled his hands into fists.

He’d never been good enough. He was too short, too ugly, too slow, a slob, and he’d inherited none of his mother’s ability to act. When he was younger, she’d often targeted her frustration at loosing another part of a new beau on him. Her nails had sliced his skin. She’d grab handfuls of his hair and drag him around.

She’d been his personal devil, always ready to torture him.

When he’d been in his later teens he’d had dreams of playing music. Of traveling with friends he hadn’t met yet. She’d squashed those, too. It was because of her that he’d become an accountant. Her career had tanked. She’d begun losing her faculties and knew she would need that little boy she hated to care for her.

He’d lived his whole life trapped in her riptide, being sucked under and suffocated.

In his twenties he’d thought there might be an end to this. If he could attain a certain level of success professionally, he could put her in a home, but she wouldn’t go.

They were stuck together.

And this was the only way to deal with her constant demands, the episodes when she forgot he wasn’t that little child anymore and hauled off and hit him. Living this fantasy made the reality of dealing with her bearable. He could stomach her treatment so long as he got this.

He couldn’t hate her. She was his mother. She’d always taken care of him, even if they didn’t quite love each other. It was his turn to care for her, and this was a step in the process. This was how he stayed sane. For her.

“I don’t normally wait this long,” he said after several moments listening to her sweet whimpers.

His hands shook from need. It’d been too long. He was barely holding it together. If he’d acted sooner Mom wouldn’t be in the predicament she was now. He hoped it would be worth it. That this performance would make everything better.

“You know how short I get if I haven’t had my fix lately. You’ve become increasingly difficult.” He scrubbed a hand across his face.

Difficult was an understatement.

She’d thrown things. She’d ruined a whole set of bedclothes. And it wasn’t going to stop. He had to get this frustration out so he could deal with her unending stream of crap.

“Did you know the cops called me? They said you were out, walking around. You ran away from home.” He sucked down a breath and yelled, “How could you?”

He pulled his arm back and stared down in Mom’s lifeless eyes.

SWEAT HAD BETHANY’S hair sticking to her face and neck.

What the hell was going on?

Was he talking to her, as if she were his mother?

“How could you?” he yelled almost next to her head.

Bethany flinched away from him.

If she could only get her hands free.

Something hard hit the side of her head and she pitched sideways, the world seeming to tumble around her. Her stomach clenched and she tasted bile. The pain came next. The sharpest was in her shoulder where she hit the ground first. Then her head felt as though it might explode. Her cheek bounced off the stage floor, but it didn’t ache as much as where she’d been hit.

She blinked in the dimness of her mask-prison. She lay there, stunned while the aches, pains and fear washed over her.

Footsteps thumped against the stage, growing farther away.

Could she get away?

He wasn’t leaving. She knew he wouldn’t do that. Not now that he had them all.

Her mind felt as though it were spinning in double time, catching up.

There’d been a bag. She remembered seeing it across the room when there’d been light and wondering what was inside. That had to be what he was going for. Hadn’t the FBI said something about an arsenal of tools he used? What did he want to use against her?

Bethany squeezed her eyes shut. The whimper of pain and fear came out unbidden.

She had to get away. She had to try. She couldn’t just lie here and let him kill her.

Bethany’s wrists and ankles were bound, so she couldn’t walk or crawl. She rolled to her other side and wiggled like a worm, sucking down air that had a slight metallic scent to it.

She was bleeding.

Her blood mingling with dozens of other victims.

Trace evidence, they’d called it.

This was how it got transferred to her.

“Let’s have some more fun with this,” he said.

No. No, please.

She couldn’t say the words but she thought them, willing him to take pity on her.

How many times had someone begged him for their lives? Was that why he went straight to the gag now? Because he didn’t want to hear his victims pleading for mercy? Was this what he did to his own mother?

A hand grabbed her arm. She started and screamed into the gag.

Something sharp sliced the skin along her outer wrist. She flinched away from the object and felt the deeper burn of a blade.

“No, no you don’t.” He pressed his knee into her waist, holding her on her side with his weight crushing her organs while he slid the sharp object between her hands.

The matter of fact voice of the agent came back to her through the fog of fear.

The victims had defensive wounds to their arms and hands...

Which meant what?

He cut their restraints? Was that what was happening?

She lay there, still as she could manage, while he sawed through whatever bound her wrists together.

He had a system, and this was part of it.

“There we go,” he muttered and pushed up off her. “Don’t try anything too smart.”

He sounded gleeful as though he wanted her to fight back. Maybe he even knew that she would.

If she just lay here, would he get bored? But if he got bored, he’d simply go for the others. It was a matter of time until he moved on to them.

What was the right thing to do?

Protect herself by acting against his wishes? Or keeping him focused on her?

There was still a slight chance Kyle and the others might find them. She didn’t think they’d all get lucky enough to be rescued, but one of them might.

“You have been a major disappointment,” he said.

His leg pressed against her back.

Was he still holding the knife?

Was he waiting for her to do something with her now freed hands?

What should she do?

A loud blast ripped through the momentary silence. The sound of it reverberated against the metal, sounding like a supernatural strike against the earth.

The man standing over her cried out. He kicked her side as  he stumbled away from her.

Was that a gun?

Bethany had never heard a gun fired, but it sort of sounded like one on TV, only a lot louder.

She reached up and yanked the mask off. She twisted to get a better view of what the hell was going on.

The man crouched behind Megan and Faith, one arm around one and the knife pressed to the other’s throat. He’d taken the mask off at some point. His skin was splotchy, his eyes wide and crazed.

“No! No, you can’t be here,” he screamed.

Bethany sat up and clawed the gag out of her mouth sucking down a deep breath. She swung her head in the other direction, following his gaze.

Kyle.

He stood at the top of the last section of the seating areas with a rifle in hand.

The others—Felix, Isaac and Shane—were spread out around him. Almost as though they’d choreographed it, they began moving toward the stage down different aisles.

“Put the knife down,” Kyle called out.

“You will not take this from me,” the man screamed, his voice going ragged.

“Let’s talk about this,” Kyle yelled.

“Stop right there! Stop or I’ll cut her throat.”

That brought everyone to a stop. Even Bethany clenched her hands and held her breath for a moment.

They were not dealing with a man possessed of all is faculties. Whoever he was, he was disturbed, and this ritual was important to him.

Last year Bethany had to hold the hand of a young woman who’d suffered bullet wounds as a result of being caught between her abusive boyfriend and the police. She’d never been able to recover from her injuries, and her last wish was to die at home in peace.

This was just like that in a way.

If Kyle and the others fired, they’d hit the girls.

If the guys didn’t do something that man would kill them all.

No matter what happened Megan and Faith were trapped in the middle.

She glanced to her left where the cart and bag now sat out of the way.

The bag was unzipped, all his sickening toys sitting there in the daylight.

Lying on the stage floor was a pair of brass knuckles, a wrench and more zip ties. This was what he did to get off. He took the lives of innocent women in this sick ritual.

“Talk to me,” Kyle called out after several moments of silence.

“Go away,” the man yelled.

“I can’t do that. Those are my friends.”

“You’re a friend of Mother?”

Oh sweet delusions.

He wasn’t all there.

Bethany rolled to her stomach and army crawled toward the bag. If he had a knife in there, what other things did he have?

These women were the family Bethany chose. They were the people who’d accepted her and taken her in following her own family’s blindness. She wasn’t going to let them die in front of her, not if there was something she could do about it.

Kyle continued calling out questions, and the man replied with words and statements that made no sense. There was no clear association between question and answer.

Bethany reached the bag and dragged herself into a sitting position. Her fingers fumbled with the zipper, not entirely in working order again. She managed to get the bag open the rest of the way and stared down. No part of her wanted to think too much about why there were large, heavy tools inside or what he used them for.

She pushed aside some of the large, bulky items, looking for a knife. Something with a blade.

She couldn’t do anything rolling and crawling around the stage like this.

The light gleamed off a threatening edge.

Oh sweet Jesus...

Under the tools was a machete.

She grabbed the handle and pulled it out. No one paid her any mind. Kyle and the man were too focused on each other. She positioned the blade between her feet, the business side against the thick plastic binding her ankles together. She did her best to ignore whatever it was that stained the metal and began cutting.

One slice and she could see the plastic give way.

Megan cried out, or as best she could with the gag in her mouth.

Bethany had to hurry. She lifted her feet and pressed against the blade, watching the plastic separate.

“You don’t have to do this,” Kyle called out.

Hurry...

The plastic snapped and she fell back, gripping the handle to the blade.

She was free.

The gut instinct to run nearly overpowered her will to protect the others.

Bethany turned.

The guys were no closer to the stage, but the man now sat with Megan and Faith up against him. A splotch of red on Megan’s throat grew bigger.

He’d kill them and feel no remorse. Kyle would capture him, but would he take the girls out with him?

Bethany pushed to her feet. Her limbs ached and tingled. She could barely hold on to the machete handle.

Her vision narrowed to the man. He’d violated their lives. Their privacy. He’d destroyed the peace they’d struggled so hard to achieve, and for what?

A murder fantasy?

Bethany believed in healing people, in taking care of them until it was their time to pass. But not like this. She wasn’t going to stand by while her friends were killed.

“Mother wants you to put the knife down.” Kyle’s voice was ragged. He had to know these were dire circumstances.

Everyone’s attention was off her.

They didn’t care what she did.

Bethany limped toward the back of the stage.

Still the man paid her no mind.

This little, small man had to hurt and kill women to cope with life. He’d made the choice to end dozens of lives, and for what? A fix? An urge? A scratch?

Not her friends. Not on her watch.

Bethany stopped a few feet behind the man. He had an arm around either woman, his head pressed to theirs. Bethany’s vision narrowed and she took a step forward, then another. There was no guilt or remorse, only rage. She swung the machete. The flat of the blade cracked against the back of his head. Her fumbling hands couldn’t keep a hold on the weapon. It slipped from her fingers.

He pitched forward, crying out.

Bethany’s balance wobbled, and she went to a knee.

The man whirled, his furious gaze now focused on her.

For one moment that seemed to stretch on for eternity he stared at her with rage in his eyes.

Shit.

She pushed to her feet. He lunged faster than she could move, his hands closing around her neck. She threw herself backward, but he kept coming. She tripped over his feet and fell with him on top of her. His went pressed down on her throat, cutting cut off her airflow and her world faded to black.