Cut & Run (Cut & Run #1)(97)
Author: Abigail Roux

said to him softly from the doorway where he’d been watching.

Ty gave the ME a glance and shook his head, taking stock of the fact that he himself was trying to figure out how the perp had done it physically, rather than mentally or morally. He stood and walked slowly to the door, standing beside the man.

“Scarier still,” he murmured to the medical examiner as he looked through the house to the back porch where Zane stood. “I don’t think he’s crazy at all,” he said softly as he left the room carefully, making certain he stayed on the plastic on his way out.

Zane stood outside, a cigarette already lit. He didn’t move when Ty came out onto the porch. The dark circles under Zane’s eyes were pronounced, and he looked exhausted and ill. His eyes were still blank, as if he was thinking about something so hard that he was almost zoning out over it.

Ty reached over and took the cigarette from between his lips, putting it out against the thick denim of his jeans. He then put the butt in his shirt pocket and looked away toward the back alley. Zane had to be out of it to be smoking at a f**king crime scene. He didn’t know what evidence the smoke might destroy.

“Better get going before anyone else tries to come in,” Ty said to him in annoyance. “Henninger can’t hold them off for long.”

They ducked around the ambulance just as they heard Gary Ross’s deep voice, and Zane led the way back out of the alley and down the street, away from the scene. They stopped moving six blocks away, and Zane pulled out another cigarette, getting that deep-in-thought look in his eyes again.

Ty gently reached out and plucked the cigarette from his fingers.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he requested calmly.

Zane’s eyes followed the unlit cigarette in confusion, and he blinked owlishly when he looked up at Ty. “What?” he asked, reaching to take the cigarette back.

Ty pulled it further away, holding it out of reach as he looked at Zane pointedly.

Zane’s brows drew together, and he took a few seconds to review the last minute. “Oh … I was thinking about the floorboards,” he said, looking at Ty’s hand and then back up at his eyes.

“What about them?” Ty prodded.

“The Tell-Tale Heart, ” Zane answered with a nod. “You were right.

He’s re-enacting Poe stories. Where that gets us, I don’t know. It’s a relief to finally see the pattern though.” He wrinkled his nose, gave up on the cigarette, and pulled the crumpled pack out of his pocket to get another.

Ty sighed and handed the cigarette back. “Okay,” he said. “So we get that book out, make a list of the murders, and send it to Henninger,” he suggested. “But you’re right, it gets us nowhere closer to him. That scene was

… different,” he added in a tired voice, mind still working over the new form of his profile.

Zane took the cigarette and tapped it on the pack, but now he was focusing more on Ty’s reaction to giving it back. He didn’t want Zane to smoke. That must be it. He remembered Ty’s wry voice: “Those things will kill you.” He slid the cigarette back into the pack and stuffed it into his pocket.

“How so?” he asked belatedly.

Ty merely shrugged and looked down, frowning. “Come on,” he said softly as he stepped to the side and began moving again, “I need to write some shit down.”

Zane rubbed a hand over his face, and they headed back to where they’d parked. It took a while to get back to the seedy motel they’d picked out, and they were both quiet the whole way. Once in the room, Zane shucked the jacket, the weapons, and his boots, and immediately laid face down on the bed. Maybe if he dozed, something would come to him.

Ty didn’t follow Zane’s lead. Instead, he paced at the end of the other bed, pen in hand, drumming it against his thigh as he moved. He was thinking about the welcome party, about his inability to be horrified by the gore. His frown deepened the more he paced.

“Why are you pacing?” Zane muttered after several minutes. “Can’t you sit to think?”

“No,” Ty snapped in answer. “Leave me the f**k alone.”

Zane sat up, obviously peeved. Growling quietly, he stalked over to his jacket and pulled out the cigarettes and lighter before turning to the door.

Ty watched him go, glowering at the cigarettes in his hand. Zane yanked the door open, shoved the latch over to block it open, and stepped out onto the concrete walkway as he lifted an unlit smoke to his lips.

“Why would he set up the scene like that?” Ty called after him before the door could close.

Startling slightly, Zane almost dropped the lighter. He pushed the door back open partway. “The scene?” he asked, cigarette between his lips as he spoke.

“He set up the murder weapon like an offering,” Ty answered, voicing what had been bothering him. “Like a … gift.”

“On a silver platter, yeah. I wasn’t amused,” Zane said, blowing the smoke away from the door. “I bet he was.”

Ty blinked at him and his lips parted slightly as if he was surprised at what Zane had said. He looked down to the thin carpet and blinked again, mouth working silently for several moments. “We haven’t been amused,” he mumbled.

Zane watched Ty, confused. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

he asked mildly, the snap and frustration gone for the moment.

“I think I completely missed the profile,” Ty answered dazedly.

Zane blinked in surprise. He stuck the unlit cigarette behind his ear and reentered the room, shutting the door behind him and turning the bolt.

“Tell me,” he prompted.

“We’ve been assuming he was playing games, flaunting how good he was and waiting for someone worth playing the game against,” Ty answered quickly as he began pacing again. “Burns said there was an overall feeling that the killer was depressed after we left, despondent and silent. We assumed—because we’re FBI and ego is a requirement—that it was because he thought we were good enough to play the game. But why would he think that?” he posed as he stopped and looked at Zane. “We were here for a grand total of, what, seven days? We made no progress, no more than any of the others, and the only thing we succeeded in doing was almost getting killed.

He’s not trying to play. He’s trying to please.”

“Trying to please? You mean to keep us busy? To give him our attention? And then when he lost it, he was unhappy?” Zane asked.