The next Maria Lopes lived in the shadow of the trails of Sweeney Ridge. He’d hiked there many times, where the peaks gave a 360-degree view of the Pacific and the bay. Her house wasn’t new or lavish, but it had one of the best locations in the Bay Area — except when the fog blanketed the hills, which it did most evenings. Up here, he imagined it was hard sometimes to see your hand in front of your face.
Frost got out of his Suburban. He climbed the front steps past a garden dotted with desert succulents. When he rang the doorbell, Maria Lopes answered almost immediately.
“Ms. Lopes? I’m Inspector Easton. I called you earlier.” He showed her his identification, and although she had an anxious look on her face, she swept the door wider for him.
“Please, come in,” she said.
She’d known he was coming, and she’d dressed for him in the kind of dark business suit she probably wore during the workweek. She was in her early thirties, attractive and freckled, with brown hair that fell to her shoulders. Her expression was serious, but he spotted evidence that she’d been a wild child in her past. Tattoos crept up her neck like snakes. She wore tiny gold loops in both nostrils. Her living room walls had posters from the San Francisco Opera, where she worked, but also from metal bands like Mastodon and Wintersun. He spotted a piano in one corner and an electric guitar propped near it against the wall.
She directed him to a wicker sofa on the back porch. Behind him, through the windows, were the dark clouds and coastal hills. She sat in a rocking chair that was probably a hundred years old.
“I have to tell you, Inspector, your call made me nervous,” Maria told him.
“I know. I’m sorry. Are you familiar with who Rudy Cutter is?”
“Of course. Are you saying this monster may be after me?”
“I don’t know for sure. We know he was researching your name, but there are quite a few women with the name Maria Lopes in San Francisco. We don’t know which one he was looking for. It may have nothing to do with you, but we’re being cautious.”
“I don’t even live in San Francisco anymore,” Maria pointed out.
“But you work there, don’t you?”
“Yes, I take BART back and forth every day. Why, do serial killers commute?” She gave a weak laugh, which covered her tension.
“As I say, we’re not taking any chances. We don’t know how he picks the women he stalks. According to the DMV records, you used to live in the city, is that right?”
“Yes, I was born at Saint Mary’s near the park. I lived my whole life within six blocks of there until two years ago. I never thought I’d become a commuter.”
“What happened?” Frost asked. “Why did you leave the city?”
Maria wiggled one of her fingers for him. He spotted a large diamond ring. “Love happened. When Matt and I got married, we both wanted kids right away, and frankly, there aren’t a lot of kids left in San Francisco. So we came down here. We’re both fitness freaks, and we like running in the hills.”
“You can’t get a better location than this,” Frost said.
“That’s true. I thought I’d miss the city, but I never looked back. And I still get my fill of city life, thanks to the opera.”
“Do you have kids now?”
“Yes, a son. Jeremy. He’s two. He’s with Ranya, our nanny.” Maria rolled her eyes. “It feels strange to say that. You can probably tell that I was sort of a flower child growing up. Money was the root of all evil. Now here I am with a corporate husband and a house in the suburbs and a nanny and a nonprofit job raising money from the San Francisco elite. Life comes at you fast.”
Frost smiled. He liked her. She didn’t take herself too seriously.
“Is your husband home?” he asked.
“No, he’s a road warrior for PlayStation. He’s overseas a couple times a month. He’s somewhere in Southeast Asia right now.”
Frost took his phone from his pocket and found the best picture he had of Rudy Cutter. He handed the phone to Maria. “Does Cutter look at all familiar to you? Is it possible you’ve seen him around you recently?”
“Now you’re scaring me.”
“I’m sorry, but his pattern is to watch the women he’s after.”
She studied the face on his phone and then shook her head. “No, I don’t think so,” she said.
“Are you sure? You’re hesitating.”
“Well, there is something vaguely familiar about him, but maybe it’s just that I’ve seen him on the news so many times. If I met him before, it wasn’t any time recently. I feel like it would have been a few years ago. And I could be wrong. He may just have one of those faces.”
That was true. It was easy to think you’d seen a face before. However, she was the first of the women he’d talked to who thought Cutter looked at all familiar. To the others named Maria Lopes, he was a total stranger.
“Would you mind looking at some more photos?” Frost asked. He took back his phone and found the folder where he kept the photos of Cutter’s victims. “If you swipe through this album, you’ll find several women here. I want to know if you remember any of them.”
“Who are they?”
“They’re the women Cutter killed,” Frost said.
Maria’s mouth pinched into a frown, but she went slowly through the pictures. “I remember seeing some of these photos on television back then. I followed the Golden Gate Murders pretty closely. Everybody in the city did. But I didn’t know any of these women personally.”
“What about their names?” He rattled off their names from his memory, where they were all indelibly filed. Including Katie. “Do you remember any of these names among people you knew or worked with or grew up with?”
“I’m sorry, no.” Then she noted Katie’s last name. “Easton? Is there a connection?”
“My sister.”
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” He pushed Katie’s shadow from his mind and went on. “I’m not trying to scare you unnecessarily, Ms. Lopes, but I want you to be vigilant. Do you have an alarm system in your home? Is it typically turned on?”
“Always.”
He handed her his card. “My contact information is on here if you need to reach me for any reason. If you see Rudy Cutter anywhere near you, don’t approach him. Don’t talk to him. Don’t indicate that you’ve seen him or recognized him. Just call nine one one.”
“Wow.” Maria looked shaken.
“I know. This is a lot to take in.”
“You really think he picks these women for a reason? It’s not random?”
“He was in the library yesterday, and he was looking up someone with your name. That’s not random.”
Maria stood up from the rocking chair, and she still had his card in her hand. He noticed that her fingers were trembling. “What makes a person do something like this? What kind of diseased soul could take a stranger’s life so purposefully? I don’t understand it.”
Frost stood up, too. “After Katie was killed, my mother said that some mirrors were too dark to look at.”
“I think that sounds right.”
Maria led him back to the front door. He heard the squeal of a boy playing somewhere in the house, and a smile instinctively sprang to her face. She was a happy woman with an ordinary life. It was unimaginable that she could be put in the path of someone like Rudy Cutter. But that was how it worked.
“Remember, if you see anything that concerns you, call me,” Frost told her. “If I find out any more details that you should know about, I’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you, Inspector.”
Frost went back outside, and Maria closed the door behind him. He heard the click of the deadbolt. She was taking no chances, and that was good. He went down the steps, but before he got into the Suburban, he took a short walk to the deserted end of the road, where dirt trails climbed toward Sweeney Ridge. The gray day had kept away most of the hikers. The seam of the valley made a V like the jaws of an open mouth. Dense green brush clung to the hillsides.