Chapter 48

 

FOUR FACES STARED back at John Puller.

 

Four women.

 

They were young. They were professional.

 

And they were all dead.

 

He had looked at these photos before, without much success.

 

He leaned back in his chair in his motel room and did another search on the name

Atalanta. According to mythology, Atalanta had been left on a mountaintop by her

father to die. Only Atalanta was cared for by a she-bear and survived. She

became an exemplary fighter and huntress and a committed virgin, spurning

advances from all men and even challenging them to footraces, with death to the

loser. But a clever fellow enlisted the aid of Aphrodite and beat Atalanta in a

race. They married and had a son. Then Atalanta and her husband were turned into

lions by a goddess who felt they had disrespected her.

 

Puller rubbed his eyes and wondered where any of this crap was getting him. He

had never once in his life used mythology to track down a criminal, and he

really didn’t want to start now.