Remember everything, every detail it will be important. Eighteen percent of female serial killers are nurses. I'm tying off a vein.' Then she holds up a hypodermic in his sight line. He cannot move his eyes anymore, so she narrates for his benefit. He realizes then that there is someone else in the van, that she wasn't the one behind him, but he doesn't have time to process this because she is straddling his torso, a knee pressing on either side of his waist. A man in front of him, red-faced and heavy, takes his legs, and he is carried into the garage and laid in the back of the green Voyager-the vehicle Archie and his task force have spent months looking for-and she crawls in on top of him. She stands then, and he is lifted from behind, elbows under his armpits. 'It's time to go, darling,' she whispers. She kneels down next to him, the way one might a child, and puts her lips so close to his that they are almost kissing. He is almost paralyzed now, slumped in the leather chair in her home office. Then she reaches into his coat and takes the cell phone, turning it off and slipping it into her purse. She takes it and smiles, kissing him gently on the forehead. He fumbles for his gun, but he is ham-fisted and can only lift it awkwardly from his belt clip and hold it out as if it were a gift to her. He realizes that he has been drugged, but it is too late.

There is a dull bloom of warmth in his spine, his vision blurs, and then he knows that Gretchen Lowell is the killer. Archie doesn't know for sure that it's her until that moment.

Heartsick by chelsea cain