Page 1 of The Girl He Crowned

CHAPTER ONE

Debbie was running,the wind whipping by her so that it made a halo of her dark hair, her heartpounding. The buildings of the town of Eddis, Illinois, flashed by her as sheran, small high-end stores mingling with historic buildings as Debbie dodged aroundthe pedestrians in front of her on the sidewalk. She didn’t dare to slow downeven for a moment, or…

A loud beepingsound came from her wrist, her heart rate monitor and route timer telling herthat she’d managed to hit the targets she’d set herself for this section of herrun. Debbie ran over to a small bench in front of an antiques store to stretchout and tie back any strands of dark hair that had come loose while she wasrunning.

A couple of youngguys who were ambling along the sidewalk together looked her way while she wasstretching, but why wouldn’t they? Debbie was twenty-three, good looking, andworked hard to stay in shape. Everyone looked her way. That was kind of thepoint.

She took a momentto smile back at them, and one of them looked as though he might head over, butDebbie was already off running again. She didn’t have enough time to stand andtalk with a couple of guys when it wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe if she’d beenon a night out, but not here, not when she had another three miles left to run,and a personal best to beat so that she could post the time on her social mediachannels.

Debbie had alwaysbeen a driven person. When she set her mind to something, she accomplished it.She was always relentless in what she did. It was the only way to actuallyachieve anything. Right now, that determination was focused on her personalbest, and on getting in the best shape of her life. Her social media accountswere definitely blowing up, the more shots of herself in running gear Debbieposted.

Her social mediaaccounts were the most important thing. They were her job, her passion, herlife. She loved the reactions she got, and the opportunities that came out ofit. She’d built a whole lifestyle around it all.

Not that she wasgoing to take any photographs now when she was sweat soaked. No, she’d pose forthem later. Now it was time to run again, out along the loop that would eventuallytake her back to the large house that she’d paid off last year with a mixtureof the money that she was making from her online presence and, admittedly, someof the money from her trust fund coming through.

Debbie didn’t liketalking about that. It made it sound as if she didn’t work hard for everythingshe had. She put in sweat and occasionally tears, making herself everything shecould be. She spent all her time working to think up new ideas for content or keepingin shape so that she would look perfect in the photographs she took. If theydidn’t see that, well… it was better to just ignore the haters, wasn’t it?

Debbie keptrunning in the early evening light. It was the best time to run, for thecoolness and the breeze, but also because it reminded Debbie of how much she’dmanaged to free herself from the kinds of constraints that held back mostpeople in their lives. While they were trudging back from their office jobs andtheir meetings, regretting another day at work, and thinking about what they’ddo if only they could, she was able to be out running, making herself intosomething more than she was yesterday. That was important; it was vital not tostand still in life, vital to take all the chances life offered. Time waitedfor no one.

Debbie ran towardsthe historic bridge that sat close to the heart of the town, letting trafficacross. Its brickwork was currently in the process of being repaired by contractors,the scaffolding making the whole structure look as though it had a kind ofmetal exoskeleton that had been there so long now it was almost hard toremember what the bridge looked like without it. There was an underpassbeneath, and Debbie kept up her speed as she ran through it, determined to makethe best time possible on her route home today.

It was a littledark in here, not fully blackout dark exactly, but there weren’t any lights andthe arching structure of the bridge above shut out the majority of the lightfrom the town beyond. The interior of the underpass was filled with shadowsthat filled Debbie’s imagination with thoughts of danger. It was enough to pushher forward faster as she ran.

Something aheadcaught Debbie’s eye, though, something that shone with reflected light in theshadows of the underpass. Debbie found her curiosity caught as she approachedit, and she slowed to try to get a good look at what was there. A part of her wantto keep an eye out for anything unusual that she might be able to put up on hersocial media. Not everything could be a picture of her, after all.

Debbie stopped asshe approached, staring up at the object hanging there, well out of reach. Theelongated shape of a brass pendulum hung, swinging back and forth in a smooth,relentless motion, the light catching it as it moved.

Debbie stared upat it in surprise and disbelief. What wasthatdoing there? A flash offamiliarity flooded through her at the sight of it. On instinct, she took outher phone, wanting to document the moment, partly to prove that it was real andpartly because this was definitely the kind of odd thing that might make for aninteresting vignette on her social media accounts. Was it meant to be some kindof joke at her expense? She leaned back trying to get it in the frame, thentried to decide whether she was going to make it into a selfie instead.

Debbie was stilltrying to make up her mind when she heard an inhuman shriek of somethingpitched between agony and fury. The shock of that sound made Debbie jump,startling her so completely that she dropped her phone. She went to grab it,and then spun around as the noise came again. Debbie turned towards it, and nowthe hammering of her heart against her chest had nothing to do with the factthat she’d been running.

Fear floodedthrough her as she saw a figure there in a black hooded top that blended intothe shadows of the underpass. The figure seemed to flow forward from thoseshadows, and now Debbie saw the face mask that he was wearing, so that it wasimpossible to make out anything of the features hidden somewhere beneath. Evenso, Debbie could see his eyes, and those eyes seemed to be filled with a levelof fury and hatred that made her back away in fear, ready to flee in terror.

Debbie turned and ran,because right then, running seemed like the only way to stay safe. She knew,with absolute certainty, that if she didn’t run she was going to die and diehorribly. But shecouldrun, faster than anyone could follow her. Shewould leave this creep far behind her, call the cops, and stay safely in herhome while she made a video about the whole thing and they caught him.Probably, the whole thing would even benefit her career.

That was when herfoot caught on some unseen crack in the floor, tangling with it so that Debbiewent sprawling, hitting the ground hard enough to knock the breath from her.She rolled over, and in that moment, she just had enough time to see the figurein black charging forward before he was on her.

CHAPTER TWO

As Paige drove up thewinding road that lead to the St. Just Institute, she could feel the tensionrising inside at the thought of being back here, at the memories of everythingthat had happened the last time she’d been here, and at one simple fact:

She was about tosit down to talk with a killer again.

Not just anykiller, either. Paige was about to go back to talk with Adam Riker, the serialkiller she had studied in the course of her Ph.D., but also the man who hadescaped from the institute months ago to kill anyone he thought had wrongedPaige, trying to drive her to become a killer in her own right. The man who hadtried to get her to kill her own mother, and then to kill him, trying to provethat the two of them were ultimately the same as one another.

The thought ofseeing Adam again like this sent a shiver of fear down Paige’s spine.

It would be soeasy to turn her small electric car around and drive back to her Washington, D.C.,apartment, but Paige knew that she couldn’t do that, not now. Adam had sent aletter to her telling her that he had information on the Exsanguination Killer,the serial killer who had murdered her father when she was fourteen, and thathe was only prepared to give her that information if she came to talk to him inperson.

It might just beone more of his manipulations, but Paige couldn’t take that chance. If Paigewalked away now, she might never find the information she needed to catch thatkiller. Paige couldn’t let that happen. The research on serial killers that hadled to her Ph.D., her move to join the FBI and become an agent with theBehavioral Analysis Unit, hunting serial killers, all of that had beenultimately because of the Exsanguination Killer and her need to see him putbehind bars. Paige had to do this.

Because of all thosereasons, she forced herself to get out of the car, heading over to the big,imposing double doors of the institute. Today, Paige had to head through to itsreception area and wait, rather than just walking through the way she wouldhave when she’d worked there. The orderly at the reception desk wasn’t one sherecognized; Paige guessed that he must be new. There had probably been a lot ofchanges since Adam had escaped, all those months ago.

“Can I help you?” theorderly asked, looking her up and down as if trying to work out what herbusiness there might be.

Paige wonderedwhat she would look like to him. She’d been determined to look as professionalas possible today, her small frame encased in her regulation dark suit, her redhair tied back neatly. She’d left off makeup today, aside from a little lineraround the deep green of her eyes. Paige didn’t want to feel that she wasdressing up for Adam, although she guessed that in a way, even this counted.She was playing a part for him, playing the professional, determined agent,trying to show him that he couldn’t control her.

Paige took out herID, passing it across to the orderly. “I’m Agent Paige King, with the FBI. Icalled earlier, to arrange a visit with Adam Riker.”

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