“There’s a package for him,” she said, reaching around behind her and grabbing a small box.
“Thanks,” Sariah said, taking the box from her. She walked out to where the rest of the group was waiting for her outside. “Joshua.”
He turned to face her. “What’s up?”
“This came for you,” she answered, handing the package over to him.
He opened it up and pulled out a dog biscuit. “Guess someone likes my dog,” he grunted. “Who did this come from?”
“Don’t know. It was waiting at the desk for us.”
Joshua raised an eyebrow and lifted the treat to his nose. His nostrils wrinkled in apparent displeasure. “Bitter almonds.” He touched the tip of the biscuit to his tongue and then immediately spat. “Cyanide.”
“Who the hell would try to poison your dog?” Sariah asked. But even as Joshua answered, she knew.
“It’s another message.”
He was back, and he was gunning for them. It didn’t seem possible, but the evidence was right there in front of her. Evidence that screamed the answer, even as Sariah wanted nothing more than to shut it out.
Humpty Dumpty.
ALL FALL DOWN: a deadly game of Ring around the Rosie
PROLOGUE
Lizzie hated recess.
She pushed her glasses back up on her nose and squinted out over the blacktop. The bridge of her nose was slippery with sweat. The asphalt radiated heat in waves, blurring her vision and forcing her to cover her eyes with her hand.
Texas in early September was brutal enough. Add in psychological torture, and you had a recipe for a total meltdown.
It had all started when Ruth had moved in. Even Josie, Lizzie’s best friend in the whole world, had moved over to Ruth’s camp. And Ruth had declared that Lizzie was so not cool.
So it had been decreed, so it had come to pass.
Lizzie had always been different, but that had been okay in elementary school. When all the other girls were playing with their American Girl dolls and talking about whether or not their parents would let them wear makeup, Lizzie had been buried in the Lord of the Rings and Dune and pretty much anything by Asimov. Old school fantasy and science fiction.
And up until this year, that had been fine. The other girls would ask if she wanted to play, and sometimes she’d say yes. But then when she wanted to chill in the library, they’d been okay with it.
And Josie had stayed by her side more often than not, grabbing a book out of the Amelia Bedelia series or, later on, Anne of Green Gables, and curling up in a chair next to her. Those had been some of Lizzie’s favorite times during elementary.
But now that they were in middle school, things had changed. Lizzie didn’t know the librarian here, and every time she tried to go hang out there during recess, the stern woman would just sit and glare over her lunch of egg salad sandwich, celery sticks with peanut butter and Lorna Doone cookies. Apparently Ms. White-Stern didn’t like having her meals interrupted by students who wanted to… gasp… read books.
So now, instead of being surrounded by bound friends in print form, she was stuck outside watching the boys play wall-ball while the girls giggled and pretended not to notice them showing off. Ick.
That had been bad enough. But now with the arrival of Ruth, things had degenerated in rapid fashion.
Ruth was pretty, ruthless and smart, the kind of girl that inspired worship in those with a weaker will. That appeared to include 97 percent of the class, from what Lizzie could see. Blonde, blue-eyed and well-dressed, the slender little sociopath spurred on her classmates to ever greater acts of cruelty, mostly aimed at Lizzie.
Yesterday it had been the whisper campaign against all things Harry Potter. Lizzie, of course, had a book bag inspired by Dumbledore’s Army, a Weasley wand and several pictures of Hermione Granger in her locker. There was also a more recent one of Matthew Lewis, the actor who played Neville Longbottom. He had always been Lizzie’s favorite, and now that Lewis had turned into a verifiable hottie, she couldn’t help but feel vindicated. Suck on that, popular kids.
Ruth had decided that anyone showing open affection for the series should be crushed, and even though Lizzie knew that there were like seven or eight of Ruth’s posse who loved Harry Potter, all the negative attention had been turned on her. Bunch of cowardly hypocrites.
And now today, someone had managed to get an announcement read over the loudspeaker during homeroom. An announcement that, to an adult, would seem like something wonderful, something worthy to be shared with the school. But something that, to any student, was more than enough reason to ostracize and ridicule the poor recipient. Lizzie.
It had been announced that Elizabeth Horner, had participated in, and won, a national math competition.
Anyone that knew Lizzie would know that this was an utter falsehood. Her grasp of math was not much better than the average student’s. But for those that had decided Lizzie was the epitome of all things nerdy, the announcement had sounded as a death knoll for the weird Harry Potter chick who wore glasses.
Whatever. Didn’t matter. It was all so stupid.
Except that she did care. She spent most of her time in novels, working her way through imaginary worlds created by someone else’s mind. But it turned out, when she popped her head up into the physical world for a dose of reality, she cared what people thought about her.
She trotted off in the direction of the swing set, not because she wanted to swing, but just so that she wasn’t standing alone out on the playground in one location for too long. A stationary target was a vulnerable target.
Problem was, the heat waves blurred her vision, so she didn’t see Ruth and her cohorts until they were almost right on top of her. Lizzie berated herself. She should have been more careful, been watching for Ruth. A good prey animal always knows where the predator is and keeps careful track of her movements.
And now she was screwed. If she veered away, she was showing fear. Any sign of weakness and she was doomed. Acting like nothing was wrong had a slight possibility of working.
Slight.
“Look, it’s the mathlete,” Ruth crowed. “I thought you’d be off studying somewhere, dork.”
She nodded to her girlfriends on either side of her. They fanned out, like the good little foot soldiers they were. Lizzie saw that Josie was among them, and her heart sank. At least Josie had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Nah,” Lizzie answered with a bravado she didn’t feel. “I felt like slumming it.”
Ruth’s expression tightened down into a puckered frown. It was an expression Lizzie had seen before, and no good ever came from it.
“It’s true,” the little tyrant murmured, and her eyes sparked with what Lizzie could only describe as rage. The girl lifted her voice up to include the group. “She really does think she’s better than us.”
There was a muttering from the gaggle of girls, and Lizzie wanted to call out, to retract her statement, to tell them that she just wanted to be their friend. But that would show weakness, and Lizzie had seen what Ruth would do to anyone she considered weak.
It wasn’t pretty.
“Here’s what I think,” Ruth continued. “You’re such a brainiac. I’d like to do what I can to help.”
“Hey, Ruth…” Josie began, but then trailed off when Ruth whipped her head around and pierced her with a glare and cocked an eyebrow. Once Josie was subdued, the girl turned her attention back to Lizzie.
“Time to give you some brain food.” Ruth nodded to two of the biggest girls, who grabbed Lizzie’s arms and started dragging her off toward the edge of the soccer field right by the jungle gym and the play structure. “Take her over to that muddy patch by the broken sprinkler.”
“Ruth, you don’t have to do this,” Lizzie urged, and was proud to note that her voice only trembled a bit.
“Oh, I know. But I want to help. See, I’m a helper.” Ruth walked over to the patch of wet soil and started kicking it with her shoe. It was unlike
her to get dirty, so she must be really angry.
That was the one thing Lizzie didn’t get. What had she done to make Ruth hate her so much?
Lizzie’s mom was a therapist, and she always said that anger came from pain or fear. But that didn’t make any sense. There was no way Ruth was afraid of her.
And there wasn’t anything Lizzie had done to hurt her, either. It’s not like she’d gone out of her way to interact with the girl when she’d first arrived at school.
Actually, now that Lizzie thought about it, Ruth might have asked her to play with her a few times. Lizzie had always had something to do, so she hadn’t accepted. Was it possible that Ruth’s feelings were bruised?
That couldn’t be it, could it?
Whatever the answer, Lizzie didn’t have the time to figure it out right now, as Ruth had found something in the grass and was picking it up. An earthworm.
“They’re super high in protein, did you know that?” she asked, holding the worm delicately between her index finger and thumb. “And protein’s brain food. So…”
Another nod, and Ruth’s lackeys moved in to trap Lizzie once more. They were going to force her to eat worms.
Really?
It felt like the entire playground had gone silent, and at the same time, Lizzie’s senses grew more acute. She could hear the stirring of the grass under the feet of the approaching girls. But there was another sound.
A beeping sound.
It was coming from the play structure, and for a moment, Lizzie forgot that she was being bullied. She focused on the high-pitched, repeating noise.
“Shut up, y’all,” she said. “Listen.”
Ruth started to open her mouth, probably to say something mean. But then she cocked her head to the side.
“I hear it.”
Moving together, the two antagonists scurried over to the plastic and metal structure, peering under the slide from where the sound was coming. For a moment it struck Lizzie as funny. Two seconds ago this girl had wanted to force-feed her annelids. Now they were trying to figure out the mystery together.
But then she caught sight of what was underneath the slide, and all other thoughts were driven out of her mind.
Lizzie might have been a bibliophile, but that didn’t mean she never watched television. And she’d seen enough things like this on TV that she was pretty sure of what she was seeing.
It was a bomb.
And the timer was ticking down from twenty seconds.
CHAPTER 1
Joshua’s body flew through the air, the flames of the explosion blooming around him like a strange and deadly flower. The heat from the fire crisped his eyebrows, and Joshua reflected on how much detail could be observed in the time dilation effect brought on by mortal danger.
This was a hell of a way to start the off the workweek.
Former Special Agent Joshua Wright shouldn’t, by rights, even be here. He had walked away from the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI years earlier when his life fell apart.
No, that wasn’t right.
Falling apart was far too gentle a descriptor. It was more accurate to say that he had sunk into a cesspool of depression and alcohol when his life had been ripped away from him. When all meaning in his life had been put through a wood chipper. The machine that the serial killer Humpty Dumpty had used to shred the bodies of Joshua’s family after that monster had killed every last one of them.
Joshua’s head struck the concrete, and for a few blissful moments he sank into darkness. Cool, soothing blankness that swept away all anguish, leaving him at peace.
A vision of a beautiful little girl with blonde tresses appeared before him, smiling and holding out her arms toward him. As she smiled, a dimple appeared. Joshua felt his heart melt with the radiance of that grin.
She was calling out something. A word.
D… d… daddy. Her hand moved in a delicate display. Her fingers spread apart, the thumb tapping twice against her forehead. The sign for daddy.
It was Livvie. His youngest daughter.
She had always had a stutter. Anytime she started to get upset or angry or even excited, the words would get tangled up in her mouth. The stammer manifested almost like there was too much trying to escape all at once.
When she had made friends with Cindy, the deaf girl down the street, Joshua and his wife had thought it was sweet. Sweeter still when Livvie began to learn sign language to be able to communicate with her newfound companion.
Before long, Livvie’s hands began dancing with this new language. Every time she struggled with her stutter, her hands would take over, speaking for her. She hadn’t even been aware of it, at first. But the signing seemed to soothe her to the point that she could then continue without difficulty.
The figure in front of him shifted. Another sign. The index, thumb and pinky extended out straight, the middle and ring fingers tucked into her palm. I love you. Her eyes sparkled, her dimple flashing
And then, right before Joshua’s eyes, Livvie began to change. Her form elongated, her figure filled out, her face stretched and changed. She morphed into a teenager in the space of five seconds. The teenager she would have been if her life hadn’t been snuffed out by the object of her father’s obsession.
As she aged, the smile on her face twisted and warped. The light in her eyes died, and they grew flat and hard. Angry. Her arms were no longer stretched out, but folded across her chest.
She shook her head at him.
F… f… father. The sign came again, but the motion was sharp, angular. Harsh. The way the word sounded in her mouth, the way it was expressed with her hand, it may as well have been bastard. The vision wavered and dissipated.
The problem with peace was, it always ended. And always way too soon.
This is what he deserved for going in first.
Another, darker thought assaulted him. This is what he deserved for abandoning his family.
Blinking, Joshua tried to focus on the figures standing above him. Familiar visages swam into clarity. Coop was the closest, and her countenance was twisted up with worry… and self-doubt.
Damned if that wasn’t always the case these days. Special Agent Sariah Cooper had always been in his face, watching him like a hawk. But since she’d gotten her confidence shattered by a nasty Humpty copycat, she hovered.
Like right now.
“What the hell is a dirty stock trader doing with a bomb?” Joshua croaked.
Smiles lit up the faces of the others gathered around. Well, most of them. Coop was still frowning. Officers Kyle Hadderly and Regina Black, on the other hand, acted like he was some kind of stand-up comic. Or lie-down comic, as the case was right now.
Had and Reggie were both pull-ins. When Coop had started working the Humpty case again, no one had wanted to touch it with a six-foot pole. So, she’d commandeered an alcoholic former agent and two local cops. Had was from Michigan, where Coop had worked a case that had led her to reopening the Humpty file. Reggie was from Iowa.
Home of the Humpty copycat. No, scratch that. Protégé.
Preston Longmore hadn’t just imitated the infamous serial killer. He’d learned at the bastard’s feet. And gotten himself ground up in a hay baler before Joshua could question him about it.
Little prick.
“Good question, Joshua,” Had said, grabbing Joshua’s hand and pulling him to his feet. “Doesn’t seem like something a fraud guy would have lying around.”
Joshua groaned as he stood up, his head throbbing. Reaching back, he felt around the edges of the large egg that was forming where he’d struck the pavement. That was going to smart.
Had busied himself by brushing debris off of Joshua’s clothes. His hands managed to somehow hit every bruise caused by the projectile flight minus the one on Joshua’s head, and Joshua winced, slapping Had’s hands away. What he wouldn’t give for a really good painkiller right now.
Like a nice shot of ice-cold vodka, neat.
A flush of desire ran through Jo
shua’s body, and he started to salivate. He could feel the cold burn the alcohol would create in his throat as it traveled down to his belly.
Damn, but he wanted a drink.
And then he was being attacked by seventy-five pounds of Boxador. It was Bella, his Boxer-Labrador mix, who was supposed to be tied up to a lamppost on the opposite side of the street. Joshua glanced at her neck and saw the remains of her leash dangling from the pink studded collar Had’d purchased for her last week. She’d outgrown her fourth one at that point.
Bella’s front paws were on Joshua’s chest, and she was doing what she could to lick the rest of the grime from the explosion off of his face. Joshua scratched her behind the ears.
“It’s okay, girl. I’m all right.” Somehow that dog always seemed to know when he was in trouble. Either physical, like the bomb, or emotional, like his sudden craving for vodka. Bella had a sixth sense for anything that threatened her friend. It must have been a bad one for him to crave that vodka shit. Johnnie Walker Red Label. That was usually his drug of choice when the jonesing hit him.
Not that she needed to worry. Joshua didn’t really have a choice at the moment. He reached down and scratched at his ankle monitor. Voluntarily snapping that anklet on hadn’t been one of his more brilliant moments.
“Okay, can we get that beast out of here for a minute?” Coop sniped. “Joshua’s question was a good one. What the hell is a con artist doing with a bomb?”
It was pretty clear that Coop was stressed out. Much as the BAU agent hadn’t loved the idea of Bella when the puppy had come on board back in Virginia, she’d grown to tolerate their team’s new mascot. Joshua was convinced Coop secretly loved Bella. How could she not?
But in moments where she let her newfound insecurities get the better of her, everyone around suffered. Including Bella.
“Or, you could maybe chill out, Coop,” Joshua growled, then immediately cursed himself. That was not going to help. And if there was anyone who should understand what it felt like to be broken, it was he.
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