And what was that theory, exactly?The paper was titled “In Search of the Philosophical Pi,” which was intriguing.Reading on through the hypothesis, Zoe understood that this was the use of pias a basis for the nature of the universe. A way to understand order and chaos.To understand everything through one mathematical function.
Zoe began reading, settling morecomfortably in her chair. The more she understood, the stranger the paperseemed. It wasn’t written properly like an academic paper. There were very fewexamples of things to support the hypothesis, no proposal of an experiment thatcould be carried out to test it. In fact, there was very little in the way ofproof at all, yet the paper was written as if describing a thing that wasobservably and unquestionably true. Pi, everywhere: the iris of an eye, thespiral sequence of the DNA helix. The rings of the sun. The concentric circlesspreading out from a disturbance in the water of a pond.
It wasn’t an academic paper, notreally. That was probably why no one had wanted to touch it. It was more of alove letter to pi, an explanation of how fantastic and wonderful it was. Thiswasn’t the writing of someone who was at the top of their field, someone whohad grasped a new layer to something unseen by all until now. It was thewriting of an obsessive. A person who thought they had the answers, even thoughthere was nothing at all to back up this assumption.
Blind faith.
The name of the professor wassigned at the bottom of the paper as well as the top of every page: PierceFord. Zoe ran a search for his name. He was still listed as a member of facultyin the school of philosophy. He was still working at the college.
He still had access to records,that meant.
Something was blooming,flourishing in Zoe’s mind, like the petals of a flower unfurling in response tolight and water. She was beginning to see things. The way he had describednatural instances of pi in the paper struck her, and she thought back to themurder scenes. A pond, where concentric ripples would have illustrated pi forthe killer. The curve of a river, demonstrating the right shape as well asanother source of water. The planetarium, where the ripples of the janitor’sbucket would have been set off by the circular spinning demonstration of thesolar system itself. The state park, where the rings inside a tree stump werenot only representations of pi but also of numbers in their own right: the ageof the tree at the time of its death.
A natural illustration of pi thatcould only be seen as a result of a death. Zoe couldn’t ignore the symbolism.She now knew two things: one, that the killer had chosen his locations and hisvictims with far more care than they had ever guessed so far, and two, that thekiller was Professor Pierce Ford.
Zoe surged up out of her seat, herhands shaking. She didn’t bother to log off; the professor’s home address wasprinted along with the paper. She knew where to find him.
She knew where she had to go, tobring him to justice and stop the killings once and for all.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Zoe pushed a few buttons on the screenin the central console of the rental car as she drove, eyes darting back andforth to the road as she sped along to the address. She managed to find Flynn’snumber and called it, listening impatiently as the speakers blared out a dialtone.
It rang and rang until it rangout, hitting voicemail. Zoe lashed out impatiently and hit the screen, endingthe call. There was no point in leaving him a voicemail. He was asleep, hisphone probably on silent.
All the better, because if he wasn’tthere when she confronted the killer, he couldn’t get caught in the crossfire.Couldn’t catch a club across the side of his head or have his life strangledout of him. He wouldn’t go the way Shelley did. She wasn’t going to loseanother partner.
Besides, she was the senior agenton the case, and she was armed. Zoe could handle herself. No, this was muchbetter. Zoe could go after him on her own.
She sped through Syracuse, thealmost-empty streets perfect for driving at a speed that almost matched whatFlynn was able to manage. Though this time, with far less risk of hittingsomeone innocent.
“Your destination is in fivehundred yards, on the right.”
Zoe squinted ahead. A long hedge,nine feet tall, blocked her view until she was almost upon it—a drivewaylooming up out of nowhere on the road, as she slowed down to a stop and turnedher head to look toward the gap.
Zoe instinctively reached out andturned off the headlights, plunging the way ahead into darkness. Her eyes werefixed on what she had seen, what had made her react so quickly: anothervehicle.
It was a truck, backing out of thedriveway and onto the road. Zoe strained her eyes forward while simultaneouslytrying to make herself as small as possible. There was a man behind the wheel;it made her breath catch as she took him in. From what little she could see ofhim, he looked the right weight, around one hundred fifty pounds. The kind offigure she had expected, with arms thick enough to hold another human down inwater until they stopped struggling.
He was dressed all in black,looking around himself with caution. He glanced over at the car, but his gazedidn’t linger for longer than a millisecond; to him, Zoe’s car must have lookedlike it was simply parked, no one inside. Zoe breathed a gasp of relief for thedarkness. He had looked right in her direction and not seen a thing.
Her engine was still running, andZoe left the headlights off, ignoring the repeated warnings flashing up on herdashboard. He was dressed for the kill—the kind of uniform that would make itdifficult to spot and identify him if there were any witnesses around. Withoutany real proof, Zoe still felt sure that he was going
