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  Despite her expectations, her stomach did a little flip. She told herself that this was in preparation to what might happen again, but she knew in the back of her mind that this wasn’t completely true.

  It was also the fact that she was in the presence of two dead girls, two beautiful girls attending college, with their entire lives in front of them.

  The inside of Chase’s left elbow suddenly started to itch, to itch furiously, and if it weren’t for the fact that she had put the puffy red jacket that Martinez had given her back on after leaving Dr. Trenton’s lair, she might have succumbed to the urge then.

  To take her mind off the subject, she reached out and said, “Yolanda.”

  When her hand came down on Yolanda’s calf—her skin was cold, so incredibly cold, like ice covered in a thin layer of plastic—Chase was suddenly transported to another world.

  CHAPTER 17

  “I’ll do anything… anything at all. And—and I haven’t seen your face yet. Neither has Francy. Let us go, we don’t even know who you are!”

  The man didn’t answer. His back was to them, and he was fiddling with something. There was a small hiss, and Yolanda smelled something that reminded her of an old-campfire stove that her uncle had shown her when she was a child.

  They used to cook chicken wieners on the small barbecue.

  Something told her that she wasn’t going to be eating mechanically extruded chicken wrapped in artificial casings this day.

  Maybe not ever again.

  “Please,” she begged. Her eyes flicked over to Francine, but her friend had buried her head in her knees, her bound wrists wrapped around them.

  She was rocking slightly, and while it was cold in the back of the van—they were both wearing short skirts when they had been abducted outside the bar—Yolanda knew better than to think that it was only the cold that was affecting her.

  There was a click, followed by a small burst of red flame.

  What’s he doing? What the hell does he want from us?

  But in the back of her mind she knew—or at least she thought she knew.

  What does any man want from two young women?

  The back of the van suddenly started to warm as the heat from the fire spread.

  The man reached over and grabbed something form the small shelf, something that glinted in the orange firelight.

  “Please, mister. I mean, we’ll do anything that you want. Anything. Just promise to let us go.”

  The man said nothing as he moved the reflective object over the flame.

  “I’m… I have a sister and a brother. A mother who loves me,” Yolanda continued. She shot looks over at Francine, trying to convince her with her eyes to speak, to humanize themselves in the presence of this monster.

  That was their only hope to get out alive. Make him see them as people, as living breathing human beings, people who deserve to remain on this astral plane.

  “Mister, I’m only—” twenty-three years old, Yolanda meant to say, but the words got stuck in her throat.

  The man whipped around, and she finally realized what the object he had gotten from the shelf was.

  A saw.

  A metal, triangular wedge of horror that glowed red hot from hovering above the flame.

  Yolanda screamed when the man’s hand grabbed one of her ankles and pulled her leg straight.

  She shrieked loudly when his hands, hands so strong that she would have bet them capable of crushing concrete, squeezed just above her ankle bone.

  When she first heard, then a fraction of a second later felt, the sizzle of her skin bubble and boil beneath the hot saw tines, her scream became something inhuman, and all thoughts of humanizing herself in front of this monster scattered in the snow.

  ~

  Chase gasped and pulled her hand off Yolanda’s leg.

  It happened again; the same visceral feelings and images of yesterday.

  It was as if she had been Yolanda.

  “What the fuck is going on?” she whispered.

  Staring down at the body, she reached for the phone in her pocket. She scrolled to Agent Stitts’s number and pressed send.

  This was his doing; somehow, he had implanted an idea in her mind, something about the subconscious, about evolution and instinct and how these were tools that could be honed to pick up on subtle clues missed by the active mind.

  Chase clearly remembered the conversation that had taken place in her BMW.

  She also remembered how she had thought it bullshit.

  Now, however, it—

  “Hello?”

  “Jeremy? Thank god you’re—”

  “—you’ve reached Jeremy’s cell. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

  “Shit,” Chase cursed, just as the phone beeped. “Jeremy, it’s Chase. I’ve got to ask you something—it’s about this case, and about what you said in the car a few months back. Something strange is happening—”

  Please, we’ll do anything if you promise to let us go.

  “—give me a call back whenever you have a free second. And thanks; I didn’t get a chance to properly thank you for getting me in, and this first case is—”

  Chase realized that she was rambling, something that she hadn’t done in a long time, and stopped herself before things got out of hand.

  “Anyways, give me a call. Please.”

  Chase hung up, and she turned her eyes back to Yolanda’s corpse.

  With a swallow, and a strange, silent goodbye, she pushed the tray back in, hearing the fan click on. She latched the locker and then ran her fingers over the name-tag—Strand, Yolanda - 23 y/o—before hurrying from the room without looking back.

  Outside, she found Floyd leaning up against the front of his Town Car, staring off into the distance. A cigarette dangled between his lips.

  He was pre-occupied by something and didn’t hear or see Chase approach.

  “Have one of those for me?” she asked.

  Floyd was so startled that he dropped the cigarette. Instead of picking it up, he casually brushed snow on top of it with his boot like a teenager hiding a cigarette from his mother.

  “Y-Y-Y-You f-f-frightened me.”

  “Sorry,” Chase said, with a hint of a smile.

  “D-d-did you say something?”

  Chase resisted the urge to look down at the spot of disturbed snow where Floyd had covered the burning cigarette.

  “Just that we should get going.”

  Floyd nodded, and adjusted his hat.

  “Where to?”

  “The Barking Frog,” she said. “You know it?”

  It was Floyd’s turn to smirk.

  “I’v-v-v-ve heard of it,” he said as he made his way to the rear door and held it open for her.

  CHAPTER 18

  “This is it, Ag-g-g-gent Adams,” Floyd said.

  Chase put down her phone, and tucked it into her coat pocket. She tried calling Brad three times, and had called Agent Stitts twice, but neither had answered.

  Her eyes drifted from the phone to the window. The snow had stopped falling, and the mid-morning was bright with sunshine. Chase was beginning to think that the weather in Anchorage had commitment issues: it was as if the city wanted to be cold, freezing, in fact, but couldn’t quite bring itself to fully commit to it.

  Twisted tubes of glass filled with whatever gas gave the words The Barking Frog their bright green glow, didn’t help the illusion either. It felt like a bar that should be located in Hawaii or the Virgin Gorda or some other tropical location that Chase had never been, and not in the heart of Anchorage. But, Chase supposed as she thanked Floyd for the ride, that this was likely the proprietor’s intentions.

  The intention, as it turned out, was to get college girls inside the bar.

  Get them inside and then get them drunk.

  That much Chase ascertained from just stepping through the large, chrome doors and into an interior that she suspected might have moonlighted as a warehouse had
moonlighting not been its primary form of business.

  Job number one: get girls inside.

  Job number two: get them drunk.

  Just inside the front doors was a giant tub filled with ice, and off to one side, lit in equally as phosphorescent bulbs as the outdoor signage, was a bar. It wasn’t even quite ten in the morning and yet the place seemed busy. She suspected that it wouldn’t open until later, but there was much to be done, it seemed. The bar was presently being stocked by a man in a white t-shirt—young, with a thick beard that was neatly combed—while another, much larger and older man was fussing with the lines leading to the beer taps. Chase inspected the two men for a moment, listening closely to the sound of bottles clinking together, the hiss of CO2 from a hidden tube.

  She imagined the place packed, Yolanda and Francine dancing, sweating maybe, their skin covered in a sheen of sweat and alcohol.

  “Not open until three,” the man behind the bar, the young, good-looking one, informed her.

  Chase looked up and smiled.

  The man smiled back.

  “Come back then and I’ll give you a couple free drinks. Bring your friends and I’ll give you all shots,” he said without losing his grin. He had the most stunning green eyes that seemed soft and caring.

  Chase didn’t want to smile anymore, but couldn’t seem to help herself. She had been in the presence of charming men before, and knew that charm was nothing but a skill that people used to influence the way others behaved around them—Agent Stitts had said as much—but this knowledge did nothing to limit her susceptibility to it. And this man, this bartender, oozed charm like a turtle oozed tranquility.

  “I’m not sure you’d want my friends coming here tonight,” Chase said.

  The man shrugged.

  “If they’re anything like you, as pretty as you are, then I’m sorry, but they’re exactly the clientele that we want.”

  The man turned the label on a Tito’s vodka bottle so that it pointed out toward the bar, and then hopped down. He wiped his hands on a white towel that hung from his hip and started toward her.

  “Too often this place is filled with college girls that…” he raised an eyebrow, “how can I say this politely? Let’s just say that at night the girls and the booze flow loosely.”

  Chase said nothing as he approached. He moved slowly, without haste, but with purpose in a non-aggressive manner.

  Oh, he’s good.

  From just this small sample size, Chase could tell that he was smart, too smart, maybe, to be a bartender. But she also got the impression that the loose—his word—women that he had just admonished were one of the main reasons he worked here.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said, lowering his voice and glancing around furtively, “I’m not supposed to do this, but if you want a drink now, I can probably hook you up.”

  Chase opened her mouth, but he held up a manicured finger and halted her speech before it began.

  “But you have to promise to come back later, okay?”

  The man started to backpedal toward the bar.

  “That’s awfully kind of you, but I’m afraid I can’t.”

  The bartender stopped.

  “Can’t what? Can’t come back or can’t get your friends to come back? Tonight’s going—”

  “Can’t have a drink. I’m on the job.”

  Another eyebrow raise, only this one was in genuine surprise and not part of his act.

  Chase pulled her badge out of her pocket and flipped it open. The man’s green eyes darted from the FBI emblem, to Chase’s face, and back to the badge.

  His mouth fell open.

  “I’m so sorry, I—” he cleared his throat and suddenly grew serious. “Your friends are in the back with Tony.”

  Chase smirked.

  “That’s alright, I’m sure they have it under control. What’s your name, by the way?”

  Suddenly guarded, the man seemed to shrink into himself.

  “Brent.”

  Chase extended a hand and the man took a step forward and shook it. His grip was weak, has hand moist. Clearly, he wasn’t used to not being the one in charge.

  “Chase Adams, FBI. Can you direct me to the bathroom, please?”

  The man looked confused, but then pointed down a long, dark hallway beside the bar.

  “It’s down there. But there’s a staff bathroom that might be—”

  Chase waved a hand.

  “I’m sure this one’s fine,” Chase said. “Thanks, Brent.”

  With that, she turned and headed down the hallway.

  As she walked, Chase tried to imagine the music blaring, Yolanda and Francine, holding hands maybe, making their way through a crowd of sweaty wall-huggers as they made their way to the restroom. No vision came, at least nothing like what had happened back with the bodies, but she thought she did a fairly good job of recreating the scene from her own college days.

  There was a sign on the wall up ahead, the typical silhouette of a woman in a dress indicating that the female bathroom was this way, and she followed it down the hallway.

  Outside the door, however, Chase paused.

  There was a collage of photographs on the wall, tucked within a glass case that looked thick enough to stop a bullet. She stopped in front of it, her eyes scanning the images.

  All three or four dozen photos were of women, most with red eyes, tongues out, colored drinks gripped in manicured fingers. Some of them were kissing, women playing up the scene as they were no doubt encouraged to do by Brent the Bartender.

  Chase pressed a hand on the bathroom door and was about to push it open, when a picture in the bottom right hand corner of the case caught her eye.

  “What the hell?”

  She leaned in close, and then recoiled.

  The woman in the picture was smiling, her perfect white teeth standing out on her dark skin.

  Chase’s jaw fell open.

  It was Yolanda Strand.

  CHAPTER 19

  Chase hurried back to the bar, and called out to Brent, who had since returned to organizing bottles of liquor.

  “Hey,” she said, her throat suddenly dry. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder when he turned to face her. “Those pictures—”

  “The ones by the bathroom? Yeah, they’re pretty dumb, I know. I’ve asked to take them down, but the owner nixed that idea. The customers—the girls—they like them. It’s like Instagram in the real world, you know?”

  Chase shook her head, trying to focus.

  “But who puts them in there? Do you take the pictures here, or do—”

  Brent jumped off the bar again.

  “I put them in there, why?” he asked, concern etched on his face.

  Chase swallowed hard again, feeling dizzy. She regretted turning down the drink offer, on the job or not.

  “The girl—the one in the corner—the one with the—” she made a gesture toward her hair, trying to make a braid, but realized that this was probably not making any sense to the man. “Come with me,” she settled on, heading back toward the bathroom.

  Chase stopped outside the case of photos, and jabbed a finger at Yolanda.

  “This girl… did you take this picture?”

  Brent shrugged.

  “I told you, I took all the pictures. Maybe one or two of them the other—”

  “Do you know her?”

  Brent reached for her hand, but she pulled away sharply before his fingers touched her skin.

  “Sorry,” he said softly, “just couldn’t see—your finger was on it. Yeah, I know her. That’s Yolanda.”

  Chase turned to face him. His handsome features were pinched slightly, the inner corners of his eyebrows moving a fraction of an inch up his forehead.

  “You know her?”

  Brent nodded hesitantly.

  “Yeah, Yolanda. She comes in here every Thursday. Usually with her friend… uh, uh, Francy, or something like that. Why? What’s this about? Does it have to do with why the FBI are—”
/>   Chase reached for his arm and grabbed his bicep. His muscles were thick and strong, and while she intended to pull him roughly, the man barely noticed.

  “I think we need to talk,” Chase said as she started toward the bar.

  “Yeah, sure,” Brent replied, shrugging her off. “What’s this about? Is Yolanda okay?”

  Chase said nothing until she was again highlighted by the fluorescent lights behind the bar.

  “Where are the other Agents?” she asked, ignoring the question.

  “In the back with Tony.”

  “Where?” Chase snapped.

  “In the back,” Brent repeated. He raised a hand and pointed around the other side of the bar. At the end of the hallway was what looked like a reinforced door. “They’re in the security room.”

  “Take me there,” Chase demanded.

  Brent did as he was instructed.

  When they reached the door, she knocked twice.

  “Agent Adams,” she said loudly.

  The door opened and Martinez peered out. He looked at her, then at Brent.

  “Who’s this?”

  “The bartender—he knew Yolanda.”

  Martinez’s eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to say something, when Brent suddenly reacted violently, pulling away from the door.

  “Knew? What do you mean knew?” His eyes were wide, and any remnants of the charisma he had shown when Chase had first walked into The Barking Frog were gone.

  Martinez, noticing this visceral reaction, stepped out of the room.

  “I think we need to chat,” he said.

  Brent was breathing heavily now.

  “What happened to Yolanda?”

  Chase watched Brent closely as Martinez approached him.

  “We just want to talk,” Martinez said, his hands out at his sides.

  Brent looked scared—scared and alarmed.

  Chase was reminded of the preliminary profile that Agent Martinez had provided Chief Downs and his crew.

  A charming man, someone that the girls would have trusted.

  Was this their guy?

  He had charm, that was certain. And who didn’t trust a bartender? People routinely opened up to them, telling complete strangers the impetus behind them sidling up at the bar on a Wednesday before noon.