Sleep Tight

• Title Page
  
• Prologue
  
• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
  
• Chapter 26
  
• Chapter 27
  
• Chapter 28
  
• Chapter 29
  
• Chapter 30
  
• Chapter 31
  
• Chapter 32
  
• Chapter 33
  
• Chapter 34
  
• Chapter 35
  
• Chapter 36
  

Sleep Tight

Anne Frasier

Copyright Anne Frasier/Theresa Weir 2003

Originally published by Penguin Putnam

Reissued by Belfry Press

Prologue

He hovered over the unmoving girl, deftly drawing a thick black line on her eyelid, curving it upward at the corner. That was followed by a smidgen of rouge to her colorless cheeks. Next came the lipstick, blood red in a gold metal tube.

He could hear his own rasping breath as he carefully applied the color to lips that had been soft and full but were now chapped and cracked. As carefully as a mortician he worked, and as he did he could feel his heart beating in his head.

He had the desire to kiss her and leaned closer.

Wake up, my princess. My little princess . . .

Her cracked lips opened under his. He felt her deep inhalation sucking the air from his lungs—a cat, trying to steal his breath. He pulled back to see her staring silently at him, her pupils dilated and glassy from drugs and the dark, windowless basement where she'd spent the last two weeks. Had she learned her lesson? Would she finally act like a lady? Would she ask him how his day had been? Would she ask him what he wanted for supper? Later, would she sit on the living room floor near his feet while he listened to music? Would she bring him something to drink, with perhaps a slice of cake, and rub his temples until his headache stopped, saying in the most soothing of voices, "There, there"?

"You're mine now," he told her. "You may as well get used to it."

She continued to stare, and he briefly wondered if there was something wrong with her, if she wasn't quite right in the head.

Unlike the first girl, he felt that this one could be changed. At seventeen, her knowledge of the world was skewed by mall society and MTV. But she was coming around.

Control was the key.

He'd tried taking away her Britney Spears, which he'd put on REPEAT and played to keep her occupied while he was at work, but she'd been glad when it was finally gone. Evidently even she had a saturation point.

TV would have helped in the training department, but unfortunately he didn't have cable. He could have cut off her music videos if she refused to do what she was told. Depriving someone of what she loved was an effective way to bring about desired behavior. Reward and deprivation. A very good method, to his mind.

Instead, he'd had to resort to drugging her and locking her away. Not a bad method. Seclusion. Isolation. It was how brainwashing worked. He'd read all about Patty Hearst, about how they kept her locked in a closet and in no time she was a new person named Tania.

It was called personality transformation.

Pretty soon she's waiting to hear your footsteps, your voice. Pretty soon she's looking forward to your return, your visit. Pretty soon you're the most important person in her life. Because you are her entire world. You are the one who feeds her and gives her what everyone needs and craves: human companionship. People were funny that way.

"Nobody is looking for you," he told her. Leaving her wrists bound, he coaxed her from the stale, damp room with its dusty rodent skeletons and spider webs that caught in her hair.

"Nobody misses you," he told her. "I'm all you have."

He shoved her down until she was sitting on the wooden steps, collapsing like a doll in a strapless red satin dress. Her skin was transparent. He could see the meandering blue veins running beneath it. Her knees were bony and sharp. Had she lost weight? It looked like she had. Quite a bit of weight now that he thought about it. She would have to start eating more. He didn't like skinny girls.

He fussed with her blond hair. Gone was its original vitality. It hung lank and lifeless on either side of her face. It didn't appear to be nearly so light as it had been when he'd picked her up. In fact, the roots were suspiciously dark.

"Do you bleach your hair?" he asked with sudden, deep dread.

"N-no."

"You're not lying, are you?"

"N-no. Of course not. L-lemon juice."

He had to lean close to hear.

"S-sometimes, in the summer, I put l-lemon juice on it."

"Why are the roots so dark?"

"They always get th-that way when my hair needs to be washed."

Satisfied with her answers, he adjusted the f-stop and lifted the camera that hung around his neck until he found her in the viewfinder. He focused, then pushed the button. The shutter clicked, the flash, briefly illuminating the gloom of the stairs. Not enough for her eyes to respond. Her pupils, once the film was developed, would be huge and flat. Like a doll's.

Black and white.

He never shot anything but black and white.

He paused, but continued to watch her through the camera. "Tell me that you love me."

She blinked and abruptly seemed to come to life.

Now, he thought with trembling anticipation. Now she would say what he needed to hear.

"I hate you." Her words rang out against the catacomb walls.

He gasped and dropped the camera; it banged against his stomach, caught and suspended by the strap around his neck.

He bent closer and placed a hand on her bare knee, feeling a tremor running through her body. He looked deep into her eyes—and saw fear. "Repeat that," he dared.

She made a sound deep in her throat. Splat—something wet hit his cheek.

Spit.

She'd spit in his face.

The thankless bitch! The thankless little bitch!

Rage roared through his veins until he thought his skin would crack, until he thought his eyeballs might pop from his head. He grabbed her by both arms and jerked her to her feet. "I've been working my ass off every day, out punching the clock, and this is the thanks I get?"

He'd wanted her to be his ingénue. They could have been so right together. They could have been so happy.

He wrapped his hands around her neck. "I slave over you, trying to teach you how to be a woman! You bitch!" He shook her. "You spoiled, spoiled bitch!"

He squeezed and he squeezed, and when she went limp he kept on squeezing until he was certain she would never insult him again.

She was still watching him with accusation in her eyes even after he placed her carefully in the trunk.

Chapter 1

There had been a time when the FBI thought it needed to update its image. During that lapse of sanity, younger people like Agent Mary Cantrell were recruited. She began her career at the Academy in the Behavioral Science Unit, but was later transferred to the National Center for Analysis of Violent Crime.

FBI director Nelson Roberts had worried that her age would be a handicap. What he hadn't known was that Mary Cantrell was an old soul, wise beyond her years. While most violent crime agents eventually reached their psychological limit, Cantrell was able to take whatever was thrown at her without flinching. The most horrendous murderers left her unscathed.

Even Cantrell's partner, Anthony Spence, sometimes exhibited signs of a meltdown. There had been rumors of heavy drinking, and then, six months ago, his wife left him. Not an uncommon story among agents, especially if both parties weren't in the Bureau. It was hard to mix two worlds. A guy couldn't be expected to deal with the deaths of innocents by day and take his wife to the latest romantic comedy at night. You couldn't just shut it off. The human mind didn't work that way.

Unless you were Mary Cantrell.

Roberts had taken time to familiarize himself with her confidential bio, a bio that was a part of the agent application process and psychiatric evaluation. He knew she'd survived a childhood tragedy that had left her scarred in ways she probably wasn't even aware of. Ironic, but that very tragedy was probably what made her the agent she was today.

She stood in front of him, waiting to receive new orders. She was dressed in a caramel-colored suit, her straight mahogany hair cut short. Pale skin, dark circles under her eyes, shadows beneath her cheekbones belied the tough, no-nonsense image she normally projected. It had been a month since she'd sustained a gunshot wound to the shoulder, and he could still detect lines in her face. Pain did that. Left its mark.

After receiving an injury like Cantrell's, most people would have jumped at the offer of a desk job. They would have at least taken a couple of months off. The day after the shooting, Cantrell had been on the phone, asking that someone bring her case files to the hospital, acting as if her injury were nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

That wasn't normal. He and Agent Spence were worried about her.

"I have an assignment for you," Roberts announced.

It was in Cantrell's hometown, and since she refused to take the temporary leave the Bureau recommended after suffering a gunshot wound in the field, he and Spence thought a trip home would be the next best thing.

"In Minneapolis," he said, watching for her reaction, not getting one. "Two young women have been murdered in a period of eight weeks. One was the daughter of a good friend of the governor of Minnesota. So far an unequivocal connection between the murders hasn't been established, and they don't know if they're looking for one killer or two."

"I'm not sure I could do any better than the local FBI. Minneapolis has an excellent field office."

"I agree, but their profiler retired four months ago, and they haven't replaced him. Budget cuts. Cheaper for them to call us."

"What about the child poisonings in Denver and the murders in Texas?"

"Agent Spence can handle those."

"With all due respect, sir, working in my hometown might be a bit distracting to me. Wouldn't it be better to send someone else?"

Her reluctance was obvious, and Roberts wondered if returning her to the site of her childhood tragedy was a good idea. "I've never known you to allow yourself to be distracted. And it's common sense to send an agent to a city he or she is familiar with. Everything's already arranged. You're to meet with Agent Elliot Senatra in Minneapolis day after tomorrow. Pack with the intention of staying awhile. They're requesting that you remain until the case is close to being solved or until there are no more leads."

As he leaned back in his chair, she continued to stand straight before him. "Don't you have family there?" he finally asked, although he knew the answer.

"My mother and sister."

"Minneapolis . . . ," he said reflectively. "My brother was in the Olympic speed-skating trials there years ago. Coldest damn place I'd ever been. I seem to recall something about a famous sculpture. . . ."

"The Spoonbridge and Cherry?"

"That's it. Isn't there a strange story about it?"

"Not that I know of, sir."

He sensed she was hedging. "Hmmm. I could have sworn . . . Oh, well."