Pursuit: A Novel

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I’m grateful to my editor, Kate Medina, for her encouragement and helpful suggestions on this and earlier books.

PURSUIT

1

Daniel Millikan looked down at the thirteenth corpse. This one was at the back of the restaurant kitchen, dressed in a white uniform with a ridiculous paper hat on his head that was supposed to keep his hair out of the food, and a long apron that had been filthy even before the blood had gushed down to soak it red. Millikan corrected himself. This was the first corpse, and the one a few feet from it was second. The others, logically, came later.

He bent to let the light catch the tile floor just right so he could tell if there had been any wet footprints in the kitchen, but there had not. There were none in the dining room either: the killer had been here, done his work, and locked the door behind him before the rain had begun. Time in the restaurant had been stopped at—he would guess—around nine-thirty. The light, misty spring rain had not reached Louisville and begun to gleam on the street pavements until late at night, after Daniel Millikan had finished his speech at the conference and retired to his hotel downtown. He had still been awake and noticed it when the rivulets began to run down the window of his room. He had been frustrated because he needed to catch the plane back to California at seven tomorrow morning, but he had been too agitated and restless to sleep.

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