Zoe could see exactly one-quarterof his body through the window of the driver’s side door. Below the shoulders,above the waist. She tore her eyes away, trying not to measure the differentaspects of his body. It was much of a muchness to her what she saw—the numberswere everywhere, on everything, after all—but she understood from previousinteractions that it could be considered rude.
Flynn yanked the car door open andthrew himself into the seat, starting the ignition as he spoke. “I just got offthe phone with administration at the planetarium,” he said. “They’ve emailed mea full list of the employees there. We can cross-reference them against thehiker’s known associates. Might throw up someone who knew them both.”
Zoe squinted at him, looking backin her memory. She didn’t recall that coming up in conversation before. “Theyjust sent you that, off their own backs?”
“No,” Flynn said, indicating as hepulled out to resume driving along the road. “I asked for it last night.”
“You did not tell me,” Zoesnapped, her tone just as accusatory as she intended.
Flynn glanced in her direction fora brief moment, then focused back on the road. “I didn’t think I needed to. I’vegot the GPS set for the river site. Should take us twenty minutes to get there.”
Zoe, who had already seen that thedisplay predicted twenty-seven minutes and was not heartened by his roundingdown, was not about to let it go. “You need to tell me everything you do inpursuit of the case,” she told him flatly. He should have known as muchalready. He was fresh out of training. It was protocol. “You should have run itby me, as the senior agent.”
The bulge of Flynn’s lower jawtensed, popping out as he gritted his teeth. “Well, I’ll do the work of runningthe checks myself. You don’t have to worry about doing it. Especially if you’regoing to keep on chasing this weird delusion about pi.”
“We follow the leads,” Zoe firedback, her own teeth gritted now. “Whether you personally agree with them ornot.”
“Sure.” Flynn shrugged easily. “Youfollow the wacky pi thing, and I’ll work on cross-referencing people whoactually knew both of our victims.”
Zoe clamped her mouth shut, almostliterally biting her own tongue. What did she care? So long as he was busydoing something tedious, away from her, she wouldn’t have to deal with him. Itwas better that he was out of her way, so she could get to the bottom of thingsin the least possible time.
All they had to do was take a lookat this crime scene, and they could go their separate ways. Zoe just hoped,with a strength that almost surprised even her, that there wasn’t going to beanother murder—because if there was, she was going to have to spend even moretime with this insufferable rookie.
She was just going to have tosolve this pi riddle as quickly as possible.
CHAPTER NINE
He stood at the edge of the pond,his eyes drifting across the water and the body floating beneath it. Somethingso calm and peaceful about the still, glassy surface. Universal. Like lookingup into the dome of the sky—something alive and moving, yet so still and flatat the same time when viewed from another angle.
Life, the universe, the cycle ofeverything. Funny how it could be so beautiful—when it was really, at itsheart, only an objective formula, a pattern developed perfectly for thecreation of life. The disk of the sun. The spiral of the DNA double helix,creating everything and everyone. The concentric rings that rippled across thestill and glassy surface of this pond as soon as something disturbed it.
He was not one to wait forsomething to happen. He liked to make it happen himself, to have it be all athis own hand. The water was special, almost sacred, if such a thing couldexist. He leaned forward carefully, making sure not to overbalance or toshuffle his feet forward over the edge and into the pond, extending just oneindex finger a little way from the bank. Under the water, her face floatedgently, disappearing for a moment under the passing body of a fish.
He plunged his finger into thewater and then out and watched, enchanted and mystified, as the circles billowedout from the point of entry. They spread far across the water, some of themreaching the bank and even bouncing back, others moving into the distance untilthey dissipated. Perfect circles, perfect miniature waves, all created by justthe touch of his own finger.
He did not look away or move back,even when the circles were all gone, leaving her face visible again. He simplywaited the appropriate amount of time and then extended his hand to do itagain. There was something so beautiful and calm about the circles. So long ashe was watching them, he felt that everything might just be fine.
But he could not just keepwatching them forever. It wouldn’t be enough. It was never enough. Not sincethe first one, right here in the pond, the one that began it all. He was on aquest for something deeper than the beauty of the circles, even though theymight have been enough for a lesser man, enough to sustain him for a hundredlifetimes.
Not this man. No, he wasdifferent. Born different, maybe, or selected for this task—who could say? Thiswas what he was attempting to discover. If he could get to the bottom of itall, then he would be able to stop. He lifted the club at his side and heftedit, making a practice stroke through the air, imagining the crack as it hit theback of the next one’s skull.
He was making a plea to theuniverse, a call as loud as he could make it, sending ripples of energy outthere into the ether, into the very fabric of life itself all around him.Removing things from the natural cycle of life. Disturbing the calm, glassysurface of the universe and making those ripples billow out, watching themuntil they hit a bank
