“You can’t be here off hours,” the guard snapped. The teenager winced, clearly chewing on something. Gum, most likely. The guard pretended he hadn’t seen. “You three,” he said, “you better scram too.”
The teenagers all glanced at each other, then back at him, wincing. They seemed caught halfway between a decision to run away as fast as they could, or to complete whatever mission they’d set out to that night. There was nothing nearly so resolute and determined as a teenager with a dumb idea.
The guard wasn’t angry, and sometimes events like this spiced up a normally boring night. But right now he had an audiobook on MP3 he wanted to listen to, and this was distracting.
He said, “You’re lucky I’m the one who found you. We have two other guards, and they call the cops. Immediately. No questions asked.”
The boy with the spiky hair on the stairs cleared his throat. “Will you call the police?”
The guard shook his head. “Not if you get out of here now. Don’t come back.”
One of the teenagers was gesturing at his friend, and one of the girls was quickly backing away, trying to tug at the tallest boy’s arm.
At last, the boy on the steps reluctantly turned and skimmed back down the steps to join his friends. Once again they laughed and giggled as they ran away, feeling the relief of outpacing any potential pursuer—then they disappeared into the night, heading toward the exit.
The security guard rolled his eyes. He took a few quick steps after them, allowing the light to bob up and down so they knew he was following.
Then he clicked off the flashlight, more for their sake than his. If they didn’t know where he was, maybe they would think he was following them, and see themselves out without him actually having to get the police involved.
Still, he supposed it was best he check. He began to move toward the exit to make sure the kids were actually leaving, but just then, he heard another noise.
For a vague moment, his hand patted at his side pocket. Had he accidentally left his MP3 player on?
The noise sounded like a scraping, a crunching of footsteps. It was coming from inside the Parthenon.
He frowned. Had one of the kids already gotten up there?
Feeling silly, he moved toward the steps, taking them one at a time.
His flashlight clicked back on; a low beam this time. The light swept in front of his feet, over the stairs, up and down. He reached the entrance through the marble pillars and stepped forward.
For a moment he didn’t see anything, and then he spotted something dangling from the ceiling. His eyes flicked up, and he stared. A rope tied around a pillar drooped toward the ground like a single dew drop. A rope in the shape of a noose.
“Hello?” he said, cautiously.
This was worse than gum. He wasn’t even sure how he was going to get that noose down. For a moment, though, the thoughts faded and he paused, staring. There was something ominous about the hangman’s noose dangling from the old structure, against the backdrop of starlight and darkness.
He stood for a moment, motionless, and then he heard two wild steps behind him.
He began to turn, but too late.
Pain—a sudden thud. Something crashed into his skull, and he was sent tumbling to the ground with a grunt. He tried to rise, but found a foot in his back, holding him in the dust.
He blinked, dark spots dancing across his vision. He tried to push himself up, but his arms weren’t responding. Halfway between consciousness and receding thought, he tried to cry out.
But his words were jumbled as if drunk. The blow to the back of his head had been worse than he first thought.
Pain pulsed from his skull.
And then strong arms began dragging him across the ground.
“No,” he said, quietly, trying to protest, trying to make himself heard. “Hang on. Wait.”
But whoever had him, dragging him by his collar, didn’t listen. There was the sound of scraping rope against stone. And then, somehow, the guard watched the noose being lowered above him. He could just barely blink against the darkening vision and the painful spots across his eyes. Then the rope wrapped around his neck.
The security guard tried to scream. But the noose went tight. Still conscious, gasping, fingers scrambling desperately at the ropes. Then he found himself being pulled. A pulley? What a simple, silly thought.
Regardless, the noose went taut, and he was yanked bodily from the ground, his back scraping against one of the marble pillars, his feet kicking desperately, his fingers scrambling.
He tried to protest, but his voice was choked. Now he could barely breathe; the strain on his neck was immense. He desperately scrambled with his fingers against the rope, trying to keep himself aloft. But even his fingers were failing now. The black spots were near complete. Just below him, as he was pulled higher and higher, sliding up the column, noose around his neck, angling toward the night sky, he glimpsed a shadowy form pulling on the rope against the pillar. He glimpsed the old architecture and ancient ruins of the Acropolis. He glimpsed even now, in the distance, above the pillars, the distant city of Athens, the lights glowing orange from the buildings.
And as he continued to be dragged up, his back scraping against the pillar, consciousness faded completely.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A night of poring over case notes left Adele with little to show for it. Her exhaustion weighed heavy and her eyes felt sore from staring at a blue screen for half the night.
The hotel she’d been booked in, now that John wasn’t with her, was immensely better than anything she’d been forced to stay in with Agent Renee. Who, as he often insisted was the case, was booked in rundown, nasty hotels as payback from Executive Foucault for all the headaches Renee caused for the DGSI boss. Adele, in the past, had suffered collateral damage, but no longer!
Yawning, she sat at the table in her small hotel room kitchenette, studying the photos of the posed victims from the last two crime scenes. The hooks in their arms, holding them in poses, were done with precision as well. Did he hang them, lower them again, set the hooks, then hang them again? Was it all done while they were unconscious?
The killer had clearly planned this out, but it was almost… too planned? The plans of a detail-oriented mind.
She stared at the pictures, clicking from one to the other, watching the grotesque images cycle across her screen. Her eyes prickled with a lack of moisture. She blinked a few times, then shook her head, glancing out the window. She winced a bit at the slit of sunlight pouring through the gap just below the curtain.
Out of the side of her eye, she saw the images on the screen, but her mind focused on the window. On the dark room. Her lack of sleep weighed on her, manifesting as a prickle down her spine.
She rubbed at the bridge of her nose, feeling a sudden surge of anxiety prickling through her chest. She resisted the urge to glance back at her computer screen. So many bodies… So much blood.
Bleeding… bleeding… always bleeding…
Adele rubbed at the bridge of her nose, sighing softly. She blinked a few times and felt her shoulders begin to shake. She sat there, shaking, and started to gasp, her chest heaving as she did. For a moment, it felt like bright lights were flashing across her mind. She closed her eyes against a sudden headache.
She continued gasping and closed the lid to her laptop.
She waited, trying her breathing exercises, but they didn’t help, she still found it difficult to draw breath. With trembling fingers she drew out her phone, staring at it.