He glanced back and Falco knew it was to check his reaction. Satisfied, the Iceman nodded. He poked a long stick through a carefully drilled hole in the side of the spider case. Falco watched as several of the spiders attacked the stick, rearing up on their hind legs. They were fast… so incredibly fast. Two raced up the stick until they ran into the Plexiglas wall.
“See how they defend themselves? Instead of running away, they attack. They’re very aggressive that way. They have to be because they don’t make or stay in webs. Their habit is to wander around in search of prey at night. Then they seek shelter in dark places during the day — log piles, boxes, shoes, and in bunches of bananas. That’s usually where they’ll leave their hatchlings, attached to the peel. It looks like nothing more than a puff of cotton.”
The Iceman pulled the stick out and the spiders continued advancing up it until the stick disappeared out the small hole and they were forced to drop down or cling to the inside wall of the box.
“Do you remember what I told you the last time?” he asked, but now he remained bent over his spiders, his eyes not leaving them, his back to Falco.
Thankfully, he couldn’t see Falco’s eyes dart from side to side, trying to think what it was the man wanted him to remember about the last time. Immediately his mind conjured up the image of how the ants had covered the man’s naked body so quickly, red-black streams of them racing and pouring over the skin like water. And just then a trickle of sweat broke free and slid down his back. It took effort to keep from shuddering at the thought of those ants crawling and biting.
“Find what matters to a man,” Falco said, as if, of course, that was the first thing that entered his head. It had to be what the Iceman wanted.
“What else?”
“Find out what matters most to him, then crush it. Discover his worst fears and make them come true.”
The Iceman nodded. “If you’re successful, he’ll beg you to kill him just to put him out of his misery.”
Falco knew that was the Iceman’s signature and why so many feared him. Other cartels sent hit men and death squads to cut the heads off their enemies and dismember their bodies, leaving them in the streets or hanging from bridges as a warning. The Iceman could find you no matter where you tried to hide, and he would destroy your life and your mind, as well as your body.
“Their venom includes a neurotoxin that acts on the nervous system and muscles. The initial bite causes intense pain that spreads through the body and shocks the muscles. It’s said that men who are bitten can experience painful, long-lasting erections. What an interesting fate for our Casanova, yes?”
Falco felt a shiver slide down his back. He knew the Iceman didn’t expect him to answer, and he remained quiet.
“Bring him in,” the Iceman told him, suddenly jerking his head in the direction of the doorway. He said it loud enough to be heard in the next room. “They’re ready for him.”
Falco’s boot heels clicked on the cheap linoleum, even with the mud that had started to dry. He liked the sound — a click then a clack — a stride that announced confidence. Before he crossed the threshold he could hear the man in the other room already whimpering. No matter how much Falco hated spiders, he knew that by the end of the day this guy was going to hate them even more. And that made Falco smile.
13
Maggie O’Dell sat at a corner table in the cafeteria. The window looked down at the beginning of the forest. From her perch she could see the unmarked trailhead. It was overgrown and easy to miss unless you were looking for it. O’Dell was one of the few who used this path into the pine forest and onto the running trails that forked and wound through the trees.
Right now she wished she had her running gear on and she could escape. Even the heat and humidity would be a welcome relief. She’d already retreated from her cramped office down in the Behavioral Science Unit, six floors below ground. Lately she found herself needing a window, to see the outside and the sky. Sometimes even the elevator trip down made her feel like she might suffocate from the walls of earth surrounding her.
She knew her claustrophobia was progressing but she didn’t dare tell anyone. Assistant Director Kunze would find a way to use it against her. She’d learned years ago to hide any vulnerabilities and discovered early on that it was best not to remind her male colleagues that she was different. She wore form-hiding suits: navy or black, sometimes brown or copper. No jewelry, other than a watch, nothing that could get pulled or caught or grabbed. No spiked heels, only leather flats had become a part of her uniform. And never, ever anything pink.
She had the cafeteria to herself, if you didn’t count the sounds coming from back in the kitchen. O’Dell hadn’t been seated for five minutes when Helen — who had been a reliable and constant force in the cafeteria for longer than any agent could remember — brought out two coveted chocolate-frosted cake doughnuts on a plate and set them on the table in front of O’Dell.
“You’re getting too skinny,” she told the agent, pursing her lips to confine her smile, obviously pleased with herself for remembering how much O’Dell loved doughnuts, and that chocolate-frosted ones were her favorite. As quickly as Helen put the plate down, she pivoted on her tiny feet and scurried back toward the kitchen.
“Thank you,” O’Dell shouted, but the woman didn’t take time to turn, instead she raised her bird-like hand to wave her acknowledgment.
A run would have been better at calming her, but she bit into the soft cake doughnut and decided this was a well-deserved treat for putting up with Kunze’s floater assignment.
She had brought her laptop, a notebook, pen, and a color printout of the photo she had snapped of the victim’s tattoo. It hadn’t taken her long to find similar images, despite the red pustules that marred this victim’s skin. Her first impression had been wrong, but not by much. The tattoo wasn’t a version of the Grim Reaper but rather a female skeleton referred to as Santa Muerte, the saint of death.
Turns out people prayed to Santa Muerte for “otherworldly help” for a variety of things, such as landing better jobs or stopping a lover from cheating. O’Dell had been raised Catholic, but the idea of praying to some mediator other than God had always seemed like a waste of time and effort. Her mother, however, prayed to Saint Anthony when she couldn’t find something and invoked Saint Christopher before she stepped from the Jetway onto an airplane. Of course, the prayers to her favorite saints were usually fortified with her earthly companions, Jim Beam and Johnnie Walker.
Having tracked serial killers, mass murderers, and terrorists, O’Dell had grown weary of and impatient with those who used religious icons and ideology simply to promote and validate their predilections. So she wasn’t surprised when she discovered that some prayed to Santa Muerte for fending off wrongdoing and carrying out vengeance. Nor was she surprised to learn that Mexican and Colombian drug runners often sought out Santa Muerte’s protection to ward off law enforcement. Safe houses set up shrines with miniature altars. Smugglers placed small statues of the saint on the dashboards of their vehicles, even as they drove across the border.
The more O’Dell read, the more she believed the victim from the river probably didn’t tattoo his left shoulder blade with the saint so he could find a better job. Chances are it was to protect him from the job he already had. And O’Dell had made up her mind about the man before her cell phone started vibrating on the tabletop.
She glanced at the caller ID as she grabbed the phone. It was an extension she recognized from the ME’s office.
“This is Agent O’Dell.”