“I miss you too,” Riley said.
They ended the call, and Bill sat staring at the phone in hishand.
He wondered how many other BAU partners had fallen in love likethis—and how they’d dealt with it when they had.
His thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice.
“Working late, Agent Jeffreys?”
Bill turned to see the babyish freckled face of Carl Walder. TheSpecial Agent in Charge was standing in Bill’s office doorway.
Bill’s heart jumped.
I should have shut the door, he thought.
But at this hour, he hadn’t expected anybody to drop in likethis—least of all Walder, who was well known to avoid personally staying lateeven though his teams sometimes worked on into the night.
In answer to Walder’s question, he replied nervously, “Just doingsome research.”
Walder’s lips shaped themselves into a smirk.
“Research, eh?” he said.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame.
He said, “I hear Agent Paige is working on a case over inMaryland. I’m surprised you’re not there with her.”
“Yeah, well … things came up,” Bill said.
“Things sometimes do,” Walder said.
With a knowing smile, Walder nodded and headed on down the hall.
Bill breathed a sigh of relief that he was gone. Even under thebest of circumstances, Walder was hardly the sort of guy Bill wanted to have achat with. And these weren’t the best of circumstances. And now Bill couldn’thelp feeling paranoid.
How long was he standing there?
How much did he hear?
Did he know I was talking to Riley?
Of course Bill and Riley both knew that they couldn’t keepwhatever was happening between them a secret forever at the BAU. But Bill hatedthe possibility that Carl Walder might be the first to find out.
He could make real trouble for us, Bill thought. And he’salways happy to do that.
CHAPTER TEN
The materials on the table before him appeared to be everythingthe man needed for what he was about to do—a blank sheet of paper, a bottle ofglue, a pair of scissors, and a small pile of magazines to cut words andletters from. But he just sat there in his basement, staring at them by theglow of a single bare light bulb.
He knew that the most important thing was still lacking …
Inspiration.
But he waited patiently. He had no doubt that inspiration wascoming. In fact, he felt hints of it tingling in his bloodstream already.
“Come to me, Pan,” he murmured aloud. “I’m waiting. I’m ready.”
He spoke a little louder, “Sing me the message.”
He knew that Pan would sing to him soon.
As he waited, he thought back to how he’d been chosen for this.When he was just a kid, others had tried to frighten him with tales of amonstrous Goatman. Then they had him left him all alone there in the darkwoods.
He laughed aloud now, remembering how he had embraced the verything they expected him to fear. He had felt the touch of real power before heemerged from those woods. Over the years he had recognized just how mighty thething that visited him was. The shabby local Goatman legend was just a shadowof the demon deity known as Pan.
And over the years that power had visited him again and again,telling him what to do and giving him the strength and stealth to carry it out.Pan had guided his every step, just a few days ago singing the message that hehad sent to the police—a message that had led to the discovery of the youngwoman’s body.
Exactly as Pan had intended.
The foolish police would never figure it out.
They’ve got no imagination, he thought.
People were such herd-like animals, after all. Which was why Pan,the eternal keeper of flocks, found such ready ways to trick them. Pan was now wreakinghis revenge for all the hoofed animals that people had so wantonly sacrificedin their futile rites and rituals—the sheer tragedy of it all. It washumans’ turn to be sacrificed to the god. And someday Pan would unleash thefull force of his terrible power and set all of humankind into a vast stampedeof universal panic.
For as the man also knew, the very word “panic” came from the god’sname.
“When will it come—your sacred panic?” he asked the god in awhisper.
No reply came. Of course the man knew that Pan wouldn’t answersuch a question, not even when he arrived tonight, even when he sang his song.The man was a mere mortal, after all, and he wasn’t meant to know such divinesecrets.
But what an honor it was to be Pan’s instrument!
How privileged he felt to feel his power flowing through him!
And not just his power, but his genius.
For the man knew from experience that the god Pan was possessedof uncanny intelligence, especially when it came to human nature. He rememberedlast year on All Hallows’ Eve when he was full of the god, how he’d crouchedbehind a bush in that park in Aurora Groves, watching the lighted street forthe arrival of Pan’s prey. Children in costumes were coming and going. But Pandidn’t seem interested in any of them.
After a while Pan had spoken in a clear, flute-like voice that noone but the man could hear.
“There she is!”
And there she’d been indeed—a young woman dressed as a skeleton.
How appropriate, the man had thought.
But how, he’d wondered, did the god want him to seize his preythis time?
As if in reply, he’d heard his own voice cry out.
“Mew.”
That was all—just a high-pitched “mew.”
The man hadn’t even understood why Pan wanted him to make thatsound.
But then the young woman stopped walking and looked toward thepark.
“Mew,” the man had said again.
And the young woman had called back in a gentle voice, “Kitty?”
Then the man had understood Pan’s clever trick.
The woman thought a lost kitten was in that park nearby.
She turned off the street and came walking toward him on the parkpath, murmuring words of comfort and reassurance as she searched for the sourceof that sound. He’d kept uttering “mew” with increasing pathos and desperation.
Until finally …
She’d crouched down beside the bush looking for the poor, lostanimal that was calling for help. He hadn’t had to move from
