"What?" she said softly. It looked like the dog had gotten into something. She set the groceries on the floor and touched the red spot with her fingertips. Wet. She rubbed the stain between her fingers.
"Karl!" she screamed. "Aaron!" She stared at her hand. The red liquid wasn't dye. It wasn't tomato sauce. She knew in an instant that it had to be blood. "Guys! Where are you?"
Miranda started for the kitchen. Her heart threatened to burst through her chest. She knew she was hyperventilating, but in her horror and worry she did not know how to stop herself. Slow down. Get a grip. The phrases meant to give her strength and composure only got in the way of her real thoughts. Her sense of smell picked up the odor of something that had burned. It was a wisp of a scent.
"What happened here?" she asked aloud. "Where are you?"
She turned in to the kitchen and gasped.
Then, as if a curtain had hurriedly been closed by the cruelest of unseen hands, everything went completely dark.
Chapter Eight
Tuesday, 2:48 n.M., an abandoned mine office near Cherrystone
The blood had dried on his hands by the time daylight came through the Krueger-like slashes in the old roof over the smelly nylon plaid couch in the abandoned mining office where he'd spent a restless night. Or had it been longer than a single night? Maybe two? In a second of frazzled introspection, he struggled to knit together all that had really happened. He gripped his hands tightly, and opened them to reveal his lifelines, clear, clean. He almost smiled at the irony. The blood had turned to powder. He faced his palms downward and the fine dark particles snowed to his chest. Blood had stiffened his T-shirt, the taut fabric now more brown than green. He shuddered as he shifted his weight. If he had always felt somewhat alone, somewhat alien, he felt it no more so than then. His mouth was dry. His body ached. And all he could think of was her. She alone would understand.
But how could he get to her? To find her, to talk to her, would be to risk everything. He sat up. God, he hurt. His dark hooded eyes followed a rat as it skittered across the debris that blanketed the floor. It stood on its haunches and started to climb a power cord to a broken vending machine. As he watched the rodent, its scaly tail coiling around the cord like a snake, made its way to its source of food as hunger propelled him. He could feel tears push to the edge of his eyelids, but he flatly refused to allow any to fall. He knew he could be stronger. He had nothing left to lose.
No time for crying, he thought.
Chapter Nine
Tuesday, 3:10 n.M., Cherrystone, Washington
"Isn't this unbelievable, Detective?"
Dr. Sal Randazzo, the Cherrystone High School principal, was a small man with dark, flinty eyes and rounded shoulders that sloped to such an unfortunate degree that he looked more like an oversized bowling pin than a man. His bald head didn't exactly assuage the visual connection. Neither did his pasty white complexion, which belied his Italian heritage. Emily had never liked him much; he seemed high strung and pompous.
She greeted him warmly and took a seat in one of two metal-framed visitors' chairs across from his desk-a desk that seemed to be nothing more than a platform for an array of time-wasting toys. There was a collection of wind-up plastic cars and a miniature Slinky. A pendulum with six steel ball bearings was still swinging to and fro and softly clacking from his last play session. He also had a Chia Pet in the form of a man with a pate in the same hairless condition as his own. A few half-dead alfalfa sprouts bent toward the sunlight that streamed from a pair of floor-to-ceiling office windows.
Randazzo smiled sheepishly when he caught her looking at the Chia Pet. "That's me, I guess"
"I think it's sweet and a little funny," Emily said, though she really didn't. She changed the subject. "I guess you realize I'm here about Nick Martin."
"Yes, I thought so. Coffee?"
"No thanks. I had the world's worst mocha on the way over here"
Randazzo tugged at the knees of his pants as he bent down to sit. He wore a gray flannel suit, probably from JCPenney.
"We're hearing all sorts of things," he said. His eyes fixed on her. "Do you think he killed his family?"
"We really don't know what happened"
"But you can tell me what you think, can't you?"
Emily kept her eyes riveted to the principal. "You know I can't"
"Interesting how the police never want to share information with us and anytime our kids breathe on the wrong side of the road, you're here in riot gear and tasers ."
"Sorry. I know it seems unfair. I'll take that coffee after all."
Randazzo frowned and buzzed his secretary and she instantly appeared, smiled thinly, and deposited a badly stained plastic mug of tar-colored coffee.
"What can I tell you?" Randazzo gripped a file folder and drummed his fingertips lightly on it. "I probably can't tell you what you want to know. Brianna's Law, you know."
Of course, Emily knew about Brianna's law. As a mother she was fine with it, but as a cop, the whole idea that kids had some rights to privacy in the middle of a murder investigation seemed completely ludicrous.
The rules had changed after what happened to Brianna Lewis, a twelve-year-old schoolgirl from Yakima, Washington. She was picked up at school by a supposed caregiver and subsequently was raped, beaten, and left for dead. The alleged caregiver, a pedophile who'd seen her at the local mall and trailed her to the school, got her name from the bus driver. The girl's name got him into the office and more information from a helpful clerk. Before anyone caught on, Brianna had been abducted by the creep who stalked her.
Law enforcement officials theorized that the girl went with her captor because he knew so much about her, her parents, her life. He got all of that from a school district file. The laws in Washington State were hastily rewritten to squelch any possibility of any more Briannas. School information was locked up and not shared with anyone-not even parents-without a court order. Cops without kids hated it. But the law was the law.
Randazzo continued to drum his fingertips on the manila folder. Emily wasn't sure if it was a nervous habit, or if he was taunting her. She decided it was the former. Randazzo was kind of a nervous little guy.
"You probably want to know everything in this file," he said.
Emily nodded. "That would be nice."
"I can only tell you what's allowed under Brianna's Law, you know."
"Fine. But I'll be back with a subpoena in twenty-four hours. Do you really want me to go through all of that trouble, and let this kid do more damage? That would be on you, you know."
"Don't get cranky, Detective."
"You haven't seen cranky, Dr. Randazzo."
"Don't be formal. Our families have been friends for years"
Don't remind me, she thought, but said, "Yes, I know, Sal. We all are a part of the Cherrystone family."
Randazzo opened the file and held it to his chest, like a poker player. His eyes started to scan the documents.
"Nick's a good kid. Basically. He's been written up for smoking a couple of times, but nothing else."
"Teacher complaints? Concerns?"
Randazzo sat quietly, absorbed in the contents of file.
"One," he said, finally. "And I'm only telling you this now to speed up the investigation. I want the subpoena here in the morning. CYA and all that stuff."
"Certainly."
"Last Thursday he was excused to go home early because of a family emergency and he didn't come to school Friday. Let's see, the family didn't call to say he was home sick. So when we called Mrs. Martin, she said he was home with the flu."