Say Goodbye An FBI Profiler Novel

by Gardner, Lisa

• ISBN13: 9780553588095
• ISBN10: 0553588095
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-05-19
• Publisher: Bantam

Summary

Lisa Gardner,theNew York Timesbestselling author ofHideandGone,draws us into the venomous mind games of her most terrifying killer yet. Come into my parlor . . . For Kimberly Quincy, FBI Special Agent, it all starts with a pregnant hooker. The story Delilah Rose tells Kimberly about her johns is too horrifying to be truebut prostitutes are disappearing, one by one, with no explanation, and no one but Kimberly seems to care. Said the spider to the fly . . . As a member of the Evidence Response Team, dead hookers aren't exactly Kimberly's specialty. The young agent is five months pregnantshe has other things to worry about than an alleged lunatic who uses spiders to do his dirty work. But Kimberly's own mother and sister were victims of a serial killer. And now, without any bodies and with precious few clues, it's all too clear that a serial killer has found the key to the perfect murder . . . or Kimberly is chasing a crime that never happened. Kimberly's caught in a web more lethal than any spider's, and the more she fights for answers, the more tightly she's trapped. What she doesn't know is that she's closetoo closeto a psychopath who makes women's nightmares come alive, and if he has his twisted way, it won't be long before it's time for Kimberly to . . . From the Hardcover edition.

Author Biography

Lisa Gardner is the New York Times bestselling author of Gone, Alone, The Killing Hour, The Survivors Club, The Next Accident, The Other Daughter, The Third Victim, and The Perfect Husband. She lives with her family in New England, where she is at work on her next novel of suspense.


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpts

Chapter One


THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT NO ONE TELLS YOU, THAT YOU must experience in order to learn:

It only hurts the first few times. You scream. You scream and you scream and you scream until your throat is raw and your eyes swollen and you taste a curious substance in the back of your throat that is like bile and vomit and tears all rolled into one. You cry for your mother. You beg for God. You don't understand what is happening. You can't believe it is happening.

And yet, it is happening.

And so, bit by bit, you fall silent.

Terror doesn't last forever. It can't. It takes too much energy to sustain. And in truth, terror occurs when you are confronted with the unknown. But once it has happened enough, you have been systematically violated, beaten, cowed, it's not unknown, is it? The same act that once shocked you, hurt you, shamed you with its perversity, becomes the norm. This is your day now. This is the life you lead. This is who you have become.

A specimen in the collection.

Chapter Two


"Spiders are always on the lookout for prey, but predators are also on the lookout for spiders. Clever disguises and quick getaways help keep spiders out of trouble."

FROMSpiders and Their Kin,
BY HERBERT W. AND LORNA R. LEVI, A GOLDEN GUIDE FROM ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, 2002


"WE GOT A PROBLEM."

"No kidding. Widespread production of methamphetamines, a middle class that keeps falling further and further behind, not to mention all the ruckus over global warming . . ."

"No, no, no. Arealproblem."

Kimberly sighed. They'd been working this crime scene for three days now. Long enough that she no longer noticed the smell of burning jet fuel and charcoaled bodies. She was cold, dehydrated, and had a stitch in her side. It would take a lot, in her opinion, to qualify as a real problem at this point.

She finished up the last swig of bottled water, then turned away from the tent city that currently comprised command central, and faced her teammate. "All right, Harold. What's the problem?"

"Uh-uh. Gotta see it to believe it."

Harold didn't wait for her answer, but set off at a half-jog, leaving Kimberly no choice but to follow. He trotted along the outside of the crime scene perimeter that surrounded what had once been a bucolic green field, bordered by thick woodlands. Now, half the treetops had been sheared off, while the pasture contained a deep, jagged scar of earth that ended in a blackened fuselage, crumpled John Deere tractor, and twisted right wing.

As crime scenes went, plane crashes were particularly messy. Sprawling in size, contaminated with biohazards, booby-trapped with jagged bits of metal and shattered glass. The kind of scene that threatened to overwhelm even the most seasoned evidence collector. Mid afternoon of day three, Kimberly's team had finally passed the holy-crap-where-to-begin stage and was now cruising into the job-well-done-be-home-tomorrow-night-for-dinner phase of the documenting process. Everyone was popping less Advil, enjoying longer lunch breaks.

None of which explained why Harold was currently leading Kimberly away from command central, the hum of the generator, the bustle of dozens of investigators simultaneously working a scene . . .

Harold continued to lope along a straight line. Fifty yards, a hundred yards. Half a mile down . . .

"Harold, what the hell?"

"Five more minutes. You can do it."

Harold increased his pace. Kimberly, never one to cry uncle, gritted her teeth and followed. They hit the end of the crime scene perimeter, and Harold turned right into the small grove of trees that had started the whole mess, the taller ones forming jagged white spikes pricking the overcast winter sky.

"Better be good, Harold.&qu

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Excerpted from Say Goodbye by Lisa Gardner
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.