The blood drips as I wipe the crystalline blade.  Both the crimson liquid and the clear blade sparkle in the early morning light.  I have to go.

            I can’t go out the front door.  The sun’s coming up, and the neighbors will be heading off to work.  Luckily, I planned for this.  I can’t risk them seeing me.  It would get me caught.  Until this is done exactly right, I cannot be found out, and once it is done right, I will be done.  But they will not catch me.  I am smarter than them.  The police would never look for a teenager.  I’m in school all day, come home and do hours of homework, then conk out.  Just like so many other kids my age.  When would I have time for any of this?

            I don’t have friends to distract me or turn me in.  Three years ago Dad got a new job, so he moved out here, in a whole new state, and Mom packed up the twins and I and followed him.  I had friends at my old school.  I wasn’t popular, nor did I want to be.  Here I am the “new kid,” still.  It’s one of those places.

            School. Shit.  I have to be there in half an hour.  I’ll have to run to make it on time.  At least I’m out from my parents’ eyes.  Mom clings to the illusion that I have friends, and I carefully foster that illusion.  It has served me well these past few months.

            I slip out the back door and grab my backpack from where I stashed it in the bushes.  I take the time to carefully tuck my knife into the bag.  This blade is important to me.  It’s just short enough to hide neatly inside an unused pencil case, which no one gives a second thought.  As if I cared what the weapons policy is.  The knife is more important than the rules.

            The house I just left is backed up to an abandoned lot, and I use that to my advantage, crossing it quickly, leaving the house behind, with the family inside.  They were supposed to have left for a week-long vacation this morning, and with their car in the garage no one will realize that they are not going anywhere ever again, until they fail to return.  That’s one of the most exciting parts, the waiting for the bodies to be found.  I hide them well, and scour the news until they are found.  This is my fourth time doing this, and I know how to cover my tail pretty well.  I am a criminal mastermind.

***

            Jonathon Hunter entered his office, and was greeted by Mind Game’s front man, or front woman, really, Naomi Donavitch.  He groaned unhappily.  The team was down a member, with Sare Mitchell, their youngest agent and Hunter’s protégée, out of commission recovering from a broken leg after a chase gone wrong, and her temporary replacement was still learning how the team operated.  He could tell from Naomi’s face that they had a new case, and while Agent Walker was a good agent, one of the FBI’s best, Hunter’s team operated differently.

            “What is it, Naomi?” Hunter asked, hoping for something in the area, or, better yet, that just needed a consult.  He wouldn’t even have to leave the building.

            “Serial in Massachusetts.  Cape Cod.”  Naomi glanced at Hunter as he fell into his desk chair.  “Sorry, Hunter.  I know you don’t want to go anywhere, especially with Sare down for the count.”  Her accent was lilting and her voice uncharacteristically soft, so Hunter glanced up.  She grinned softly at him.

            “Hunter?” Blonde Isabella Fox, the team’s technical analyst, stuck her head into Hunter’s office.  “Naomi already talked to me.  I have stuff for you guys.  The rest of the team’s in the conference room.”

            Hunter took a deep breath.  “Thanks, Isa.”

            “Any time,” Isa said, and walked off.

            Hunter followed her to the conference room, where the rest of the team was gathered—Hunter’s blue-haired partner, Juliette Monnatt, known better as Monny; soft-eyed Matthew Madison; his partner Erika Labinn, one of the two non-natural-born American citizens on the team (she was British by birth, and Naomi was Polish); Lacey Walker, the FBI agent filling in for Sare; and Richard Carter, who was stuck with Walker while Sare recovered.  Isa had already given them all the case files, and they were reading closely, learning all the known facts of the case.

            “What have we got?” Hunter asked.  Naomi handed over the last file, and he sat down with it.  The case was messy, with seemingly no connection between the victims—a pair of businessmen, a schoolteacher near retirement, and a homeless woman—although, Hunter noted, the ritual was interesting.  The MO changed to fit what Hunter imagined was the circumstances in which they had been attacked, but the ritual was the same. 

            “The slash down the throat occurred right near the time of death, though I doubt it was the cause,” Monny noted.  “It bled some, though not much, and the other wounds on the victims bled a lot more, which would make them more fatal.  It’s probably part of our guy’s ritual, though not his MO.  That’s not constant at all.  Look at the differences in the bodies.  Stabbing, what looks like strangulation, and…not sure on that last one.”

            “The ME’s report says she drowned,” Erika replied. 

            “So they’re all personal ways to kill someone,” Hunter said.  “You have to be close to stab, just as close to strangle, and he would have had to have held the victim under the water.  He’s not afraid.  We need to get out there.”