Dante said, “They really weren’t prepared for all this, were they?” He looked around at the yellow POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape, behind which were gathered a goodly number of Serenity’s citizens—excepting children, presumably left home with at least one frightened adult behind a locked door.
It was after midnight, but the downtown area was brightly lit, by streetlamps turned up to full wattage and storefront lights on as well. The downtown Diner had even reopened, offering coffee and sandwiches to the working cops.
“Nobody’s prepared for this,” Robbie said. “They read about evil in a book or see it on TV or a movie screen. And if they’re very unlucky, something bad done by evil will happen to someone they know—which is more than close enough. Nobody wants to see evil up close and personal. Except us.”
“I don’t really want to see evil,” Dante confessed.
“You know what I mean. We hunt evil. Professionally. We go out looking for the monsters other people wish didn’t exist.”
Dante eyed her. “You’re a glass-half-empty sort of person, aren’t you?”
“Only at murder scenes.” She shifted restlessly, frowning. “Dammit, I feel so helpless doing nothing.”
“I don’t think any of these cops want us helping,” Dante reminded her.
“No, but—” She saw Jonah coming back from wherever he’d been and stepped out to meet him. “Hey. I don’t think our being here is doing anyone any good,” she told him, keeping her voice low. “If you’ll post officers at each end of this alley and keep it taped off for later, Dante and I will go back to the command center and start working through whatever information we’ve gotten so far. I know there was a delay in getting Bishop’s info from Quantico, including enhanced video from the security cameras, but we should have that by now, as well as more files from your people.”
Jonah nodded, and before she could bring it up, he said, “I’ll go myself to Annie’s desk and gather up everything she’d been working on, and bring it over as well. If you’re right that she had some kind of realization, surely one of us will see it.”
“I hope so,” Robbie replied, adding, “Jonah . . . he’s probably watching all this.”
The chief’s expression didn’t change. “That crossed my mind. But I’m reasonably sure he’d notice if I sent out my photographer to get shots of the crowd.”
“I’m sure too. But just standing here, we’ve had a good chance to look around. Most of these businesses have some kind of camera or cameras covering their entrances and even the parking spaces in front; please tell me they aren’t dummy cameras.”
He swore under his breath. “I should have thought of that. No, there used to be a lot of dummy cameras along Main, but not since people began disappearing. Everything is wide-angle to cover as much territory as possible. Sarah and I have reviewed footage after every disappearance, just to be sure. I’ll have her pull the tapes and put in new ones to keep running. She’ll bring what we have so far to the command center.”
“We’ll be there.”
TEN
Sarah Waters delivered the promised security tapes less than half an hour later and elected to stay at the command center and help the agents. She had, of course, put herself back on duty as soon as Annie Duncan’s murder was discovered, which meant she’d gotten next to no sleep.
Still, Dante reflected, she seemed to wear the same bright-eyed, brisk, unrumpled look that Robbie always managed—and just as effortlessly.
Dante wanted a shave and a shower. And he wouldn’t have minded a nap. He also suspected he looked decidedly rumpled but refused to ask and have that confirmed.
“I can review the security tapes, since I know most everybody in Serenity,” Sarah said, “but until we can narrow things down so I have some idea of who to look for, it seems fairly useless.”
“Yeah,” Dante said. “There was no camera covering that alley, front or back, we checked. If he’s on the recent security tapes, blending in with the crowd of townsfolk watching, we’d never know it. Not yet, at least.”
Robbie looked at the piles of folders on their round table and sighed. “Who was it that said we’d be a paperless society shortly after computers came along?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah said, “but he was obviously an idiot. Even when we do store information on a computer, we always have hard-copy backups. Always. Boxes and boxes of files in the basement.”
Robbie nodded. “For the zombie apocalypse. I’m the same way about my books. Buy the e-versions for my tablet, but always buy a hardcover or paperback copy as well, for the shelves.”
“You’re weird,” Dante told her without looking up from his computer station.
“Yeah, yeah. Come the zombie apocalypse, you’ll be at my house looking for something to read by candlelight. Bring wine.”
“Come the zombie apocalypse, I’ll probably be looking for guns and food,” Dante said. And then he looked up to frown at her. “How did you pull me into that?”
“It’s a gift. Sarah, did you have a chance to eat before coming back on duty?”
“Yeah. I even managed a nap, though I don’t think Jonah believes that.”
Robbie sat down at the table, pulling the top dozen files off a fairly tall stack. “He’s looking pretty haggard. Normal for him?”
“It’s become a familiar look these last weeks,” Sarah said frankly as she sat and reached for files. “But before then . . . no. He’s a good chief, a good cop, and he works hard to do right by the people in this town. But he also knows how to delegate, and knows he needs rest to function at his best. Least he did. Until the teenagers vanished, and all this started.”
“He wanted to believe it was a stranger, didn’t he?”
Sarah paused in studying her topmost file and frowned. “You know, I’m not sure. I think maybe he knew all along that it was somebody here in Serenity. He’s the kind of cop who knows why people do the things they do, if you know what I mean.”
“A natural profiler,” Robbie said.
“I’d say so. It’s been minor things until this started. Something got stolen, he knew whose door to knock on. Kids causing trouble at the high school, he seemed able to sit them down and talk to them—and whatever he said, it stuck.”
“What other kinds of crime have you guys had to deal with?” Robbie asked.
“Usual. Vandalism, petty theft, a few domestic disturbances over the years. Nothing like this. Nothing even close to this.”
In the same casual voice, Robbie said, “When the teenagers disappeared, that was weird about the car doors and footprints.” Jonah had of course filled them in hours before on the other “oddities” of the various disappearances.
“Very weird,” Sarah said with some feeling. “You don’t know how much I’m hoping you guys can explain it—with or without psychic trimmings.”
“How do you feel about psychics?” Robbie asked.
“Total believer,” Sarah replied calmly and without hesitation. “Born and raised. My grandmother had the sight, and the whole family paid attention whenever she had something to say. And it was none of that vague you’ll-meet-a-dark-man bullshit either. Very specific. I came home from college once—went to UC Berkeley in California, so I didn’t get home often—and she told me flat-out to stop dating the guy I’d had only a couple of dates with. She’d never seen him, and I hadn’t mentioned him, even though I liked him. But she was adamant. ‘Stop. Do not see him again.’”
She had Dante’s attention now as well, both feds listening intently.
“I asked why, of course.”
“What did she say?” Robbie asked.
Sarah looked at Robbie. “She said, ‘He’s a killer. He will kill at least a dozen young women before the police find the evidence they need to put him away.’”
—
HE HATED THE blood. The way it smelled, the way it felt on his clothing, his skin.