Chapter 1
Abilene Remington, Abi to everyone who knew her, cursed her family tree as she squeezed the piercing pinch in her side and tried to catch her breath.
Genetics had given her five feet two inches of height, which meant she had short legs.
She was fast, like soccer players gunning down the pitch about to score fast, but short.
Also, she hated running. She’d never liked it.
Never wanted to be a runner despite Mesa Point High School coach David McGeary’s burning desire to put her on the team.
But running was as much part of a US marshal’s job as sharpshooting.
Felons who were about to be sentenced to life in prison or worse didn’t have a whole lot to lose.
So they ran, or they fired a weapon, or both, sometimes at the same time.
Reynosa the Reprehensible, the felon she’d chased to the abandoned strip mall, was a runner.
Typical.
Maybe she should change his name to Reynosa the Runner instead.
Abi could think of dozens of better things to do at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning in late October than go for a run, but it would be worth it if the tip was correct, this was actually Reprehensible, and she could take a serial killer off the streets.
Lungs clawing for air, Abi almost skidded to a dead stop in front of an opened industrial AC unit vent. Are you kidding me?
Since Abi could keep up with the best of them, she almost always got to places before her colleagues, who were other marshals, deputies or cops.
Depending on the case, they might be from one of those other alphabet agencies while on joint task forces.
Being short, tiny and small-boned, she also got to be the one to follow perps into tight spaces.
Lucky her.
Abi didn’t have time to wait for Agent Grayson Chisolm to catch up.
Not if she was going to keep Reynosa the Reprehensible within reach.
Catching the bastard was the only way to stop the senseless murders.
This twisted offender had cut short the lives of five college kids already and counting.
According to the FBI profiler from Quantico assigned to the case, this young male wouldn’t stop until he was caught or dead.
Climbing into the abandoned warehouse’s AC vent, she took a deep breath to steel her resolve and make herself slim enough to fit into the tiny shaft. The opening wasn’t large enough for her to crawl into: she had to go belly down as she stretched her arms out in front of her.
Teeth clenched, Abi did what she’d been hired to do. She climbed inside and went after the felon, hoping to catch him before he got away.
Despite Halloween coming up in a couple of days and the fact the sun hadn’t yet reached its peak, the metal vent was stuffy and unusually hot.
Dust caused her to sneeze almost immediately.
There hadn’t been any air circulating in this sucker for a long time.
Would she even be able to breathe as she wriggled her way toward Reprehensible?
He was too far ahead to grab. There was at least a slight chance another law enforcement officer or agent would make it around the building to greet him on the other side.
The thought kept her pushing him toward the exit.
“Surrender,” she commanded in her most authoritative voice.
Perps like these rarely listened to her but it was worth a shot.
Plus, it was protocol to identify herself.
Her voice bounced off the tin walls. She tried to shout above the shuffling noises that made her ears hurt.
“My name is Marshal Remington, of the US Marshals Service. I’m ordering you to stop. Now!”
What? Nothing? Her sarcasm wouldn’t exactly win her any originality awards but amused her in stressful times.
Staying calm and keeping her focus was critical in clutch situations.
Developing a sense of humor about her job kept her from burnout, which had taken a lot of great marshals down before and during her time, her grandfather included.
But his heart had always been in the paint horse ranch he’d built from nothing.
Sadness at the thought of her grandparent threatened to crack her focus.
At twenty-eight years old, she wasn’t ready to throw in the towel in her current profession. In some ways, she was just getting started.
The feeling of a dozen fire ants crawling underneath her skin jacked her pulse through the roof.
Being this close to pure evil always affected her in more ways than one.
Her skin crawled and bile churned in her stomach.
Adrenaline thumped through her veins, pushing her forward and turning her into what her supervisor called Ramped-up Abi.
It was her on steroids. Her stubborn streak caused her to dig in her heels.
Her version of fast became hyper speed. And when she locked onto a target, she was better than military-grade precision weapons.
Her laser-like focus amped up too. Wonder Woman had nothing on Abi when she was this close to catching a creep.
Senses on high alert, she also heard claws against the metal scurrying ahead of her. Mice? Rats?
Oh, please don’t let it be rats this time. They might be intelligent critters and some folks might enjoy keeping them as pets, but they gave Abi the heebie-jeebies. Every time. Her body rocked an involuntary shudder at the thought of sharing space with them.
“Marshal Remington, you in there?” FBI Agent Grayson Chisolm’s deep timbre came through the radio in a low whisper, echoing inside the hollow container.
Well, almost hollow. There were two humans army-crawling as fast as they could go, blocking sound’s ability to travel to the opposite end.
There were critters too, but she forced those out of her mind, or all forward progress would be lost, and she’d end up stuck. Trust her, it happened.
At least Agent Chisolm had finally arrived on the scene.
He wasn’t as fast a runner as Abi, but the man had arms built like a bodybuilder’s and he had a reputation for being the best. This was the first joint task force she’d worked on with him, and she refused to be intimidated by his legendary status.
At the risk of giving her location away again, she whispered a response, “Yes.” Then again, climbing through the shaft wasn’t exactly quiet.
Taking in air through her nose and blowing it out her mouth long and slow was a vain attempt to calm her rapid heartbeat.
Swallowing dust and God knew what else in pursuit of Reprehensible wasn’t exactly her ideal way of starting her day.
Losing him would be much worse, so she doubled down on the army crawls.
There was truly little wiggle room in that air vent. Arms tucked to her sides with barely enough room to crawl, she pressed on. The perp’s loud movement up ahead combined with his heavy breathing should hopefully mask most of the noise she was making.
In this tight space it would be next to impossible for him to look back. The longer it took for him to realize she was gaining on him, the better. No matter how fast she went, though, he would reach the opposite end before her. Guaranteed.
At least the space was tight enough to ensure he wouldn’t be able to get off a shot while they were both inside, if he had a weapon. Otherwise, she’d be a goner already, because she was directly behind him with nowhere to go. Once he made it out the other end, though...
Too soon, Abi saw a hint of light in front of her, which meant the perp was getting close to the exit. On her belly like a worm, she inched her way toward him, determined not to let him get away. In front of her was nothing but darkness except for the occasional peek of light.
The perp, based on her earlier glimpse of him from a hundred yards away where it was hard to judge, couldn’t be a large man.
Although, the dark, baggy clothes made it difficult to define his shape.
There was no way someone the size of a linebacker would fit in the vent.
Agent Chisolm would definitely not be able to squeeze into this tight space.
This man could fit into the vent with Abi, which made him even smaller than the size the FBI profiler who’d been assigned to do a case study had originally believed him to be. These profiles, she’d learned, were always being refined when new information came in.
The perp couldn’t be much wider than her. Taller, yes. But not broader. She was almost shoulder to shoulder with the walls.
Abi made mental notes to report back to the team in case this thing went south, and he got away.
This bastard has to be caught. Period.
She clawed her way closer to him, but he was still too far out of reach. If only she could close the distance faster.
The first hint he wasn’t physically as strong as someone like Chisolm was the fact Reprehensible drugged his victims before torturing and eventually killing them.
The murderer didn’t rely on brute strength, which had been noted by the profiler.
The bodies of all the five college kids he’d already killed had been found in shallow graves in the border town of Reynosa, Mexico, since the semester began late August. All five had brown hair and were reported as last being seen at a party.
All victims had been given bowl cuts despite their sex.
There’d been two female and three male victims to date.
In two months, this bastard had taken five lives, with no sign of slowing down or stopping.
The sixth attempt—on nineteen-year-old Max Hague—was the reason the task force believed they had a location on the perp and Abi was presently crawling through this damn vent.
The last thing Max remembered before being drugged was being at a party and drinking. He had managed to escape a structure—he’d said the size of roughly a two-car garage—and run while half-dazed and almost naked to flag down a motorist.