He'd seemed omnipotent at times in his ability to find out everything about us. In the end, it turns out that he was just smart. We were smarter, something I remain grimly smug about. I recognize the danger of this. The dark train is my own arrogance, one that could carry me off a cliff if I don't watch it. For now, I let it ride. Dragons are prideful, after all. The Hillsteads have the profilers in some kind of foaming-at-themouth tizzy. Something new and unheard of in a serial killer, blah, blah, blah.
I don't think he was all that different from any of the other killers I've hunted and caught. He made a mistake, just like they all do. However "perfect" he may have been, it was Renee Parker--his first--who reached out from the grave in the end, pulling him down into the earth with her. This brings me a feeling of tremendous satisfaction. The real ghosts of this world are just that, I have thought many times since: the consequences of our actions. The footprints of change we leave in our passage through time.
Consequences. They can haunt or harm us. They can also exalt us, and be a source of comfort in the night. Not all ghosts wail or weep. Some just smile.
Bonnie still isn't speaking. She doesn't scream in her sleep every night, but neither is every night peaceful. She is a beautiful child, smart, thoughtful, generous with her love. She is an artist as well, a painter. She churns them out, things beautiful and dark, and I recognize that for now they are her substitute for the spoken word. We've settled into a routine. Not quite mother-daughter, not just yet. But we are making progress, and I am no longer terrified. I am happy with the First Rule of Mom, ready to let it take me wherever it wants to go.
The ghosts of Matt and Alexa visit me in my dreams, and they are a comfort. I no longer have the nightmares.
"You ready to go?"
Bonnie takes my hand as an answer.
She is mute, and I am scarred, but the day is beautiful, and the future no longer terrible. I have her and she has me, and from there grows love.
And from love--life.
We leave the cemetery hand in hand, watched by our ghosts. I can feel them smiling.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cody Mcfadyen lives with his family in California. Shadow Man is his first novel.