The air was sharp in his nose, and the trees were nearly bare. Thanksgiving was almost here. After the break, everyone else would come back to school complaining about having to see their boring aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. They would talk about being stuck at the kids’ table when they were practically adults, but they would also complain about having to make small talk with ancient relatives, about being forced to choke down brussels sprouts or baked squash. At Nick’s house, like always, it would just be the three of them: Nick, Kyle, and their mom.
A lot of years, they just ate Thanksgiving at restaurants. His mom’s relatives lived back east. At Christmas and birthdays, her parents sent him and his brother each a twenty-dollar bill and a card bearing nothing more than a signature. Nick couldn’t even remember getting a present or a card from his mom’s sister. He knew they didn’t get along, for whatever reason. His dad had been an only child, and his parents were dead now, too. Nick realized he didn’t even know if he had aunts and uncles on that side.
If his dad had lived, Thanksgiving might have been different. Everything might have been different.
The team started forward, with occasional pauses when people found broken glass and bits of plastic and paper that had once held fast food. Jackie found a hypodermic needle. And this time, it was Dimitri who had to go through a blackberry bush, but he emerged from the vines without finding anything.
There was a rhythm to their slow crawl forward. It was almost hypnotic, staring down at the ground, at the pebbles and the mud and the plants that were each a different shade of green. They were only a few feet from the creek now. Under Nick’s knees the ground felt slightly spongy. Even though this morning the vegetation had been frosted, the temperatures hadn’t dropped low enough to freeze the ground.
Nick lifted his hand to move it forward another six inches. But something about it was wrong. He turned over his glove. The tan leather was stained a dark reddish brown.
Blood. Wicked up from the sodden ground.
Just like the stains on the bottom of Harriman’s shoes.
He smelled it now, even tasted it, a coppery tang furring his tongue. Nick’s stomach rose and crammed into the back of his throat. Saliva rushed into his mouth. His cheese sandwich threatened to follow. He swallowed hard, trying to force everything back down. Not again!
As the world began to spin, he closed his eyes so he couldn’t see the blood, but his mind supplied a different image. The knife jammed into the girl’s flesh, leaving the blood he was crawling through. He swayed, his shoulder bumping into Ruby’s.
“Tense your muscles,” she whispered as she pressed into him, pushing him back until he was more or less upright. “Tense the muscles in your arms and legs and trunk.”
His head was as heavy as a bowling ball. Under his hands and knees, the ground felt as if it were moving. But Nick followed Ruby’s orders. He forced his eyes open, ordered himself to move forward. If he called a halt now, said he was feeling faint, then Jon, Chris, and Mitchell might decide that between that and the vomiting, Nick wasn’t cut out for SAR.
“Wait,” Ruby said. “What’s that?”
Nick put his hand down before her words registered. Then he realized what he had done. There were marks in the mud that looked like footprints. Only he had just planted his palm on part of one.
He lifted his hand.
“Team halt!” Ruby yelled. “Team halt!” They all sat back on their heels.
Maybe the marks were old, Nick told himself as Mitchell and Harriman hurried over. Unimportant.
“We’ve got tracks.” Ruby pointed. “It looks like two footprints.”
“This mud next to the creek is like a natural track trap.” Mitchell sounded excited.
Nick wondered how many people had walked through this vacant lot. At a minimum there was the guy who found the victim, the cop who responded to the scene, and the EMTs. People who lived in the neighborhood might come here with their dogs, or kids might sneak here to smoke something. The marks could have been made by anyone.
Harriman pointed at a spot just past where Nick’s hand had landed. “That’s the victim’s boot print, with that perfectly round heel.” It was a circle about two inches across, and a fainter rectangle that must be the ball of the foot.
Overlaying it was a second footprint. But it was smeared now, because of Nick’s glove.
“Did you touch it, Ruby?” Mitchell demanded.
Nick felt heat climb his cheeks. “It was me. I caught part of it with my glove.”
Mitchell made a disgusted grunt.
Harriman swung his big head back and forth. “We need to look for more tracks. If we can find more, we can get a direction of travel for the suspect. That could change the search pattern. And if it turns out the suspect left at a different spot than where he came in, then that points away from him coming here by car.”
Nick scanned the remainder of the vacant lot. No other bare spots of ground that he could see. They had gotten lucky once—until he had ruined it. They probably wouldn’t get lucky again.
And it was all his fault.
CHAPTER 22
RUBY
MONDAY
CRAWL THROUGH BLOOD
Ruby watched Detective Harriman knead a prefilled plastic bag he had just added water to. It was one thing to read about the technique for casting tracks, but another to watch it. She and the rest of the group were waiting as the certifieds who were also experienced trackers hunted more footprints.
“I ruined everything,” Nick said. He, Ruby, and Alexis were huddled away from the rest.
Ruby tore her gaze away from Harriman. Visual input was distracting. Once she began to watch something, she would often stop speaking, which seemed to bug people. “They still have a good portion of the sole.” In her mind, Ruby retraced the shape. “Enough to guess what direction the killer was going. And maybe enough to match it to him later.”
“I should have been paying more attention. If I keep losing it at scenes, they might ask me to leave SAR.”
“Can they really do that?” Alexis asked, her voice catching.
“I don’t know,” Nick said miserably. “Maybe.”
Ruby couldn’t imagine giving up SAR. With all the evidence searches they did, it was as close as someone still in high school could get to working a crime scene.
“Who’s going to crawl through blood and not react?” Alexis said.
“Not like that, though,” Nick said. “All of a sudden, I thought I was going to pass out. And you heard about what happened last night.”
“It’s called hemophobia,” Ruby said. All those hours editing Wikipedia for fun hadn’t been a total loss. When the other two looked at her blankly, she said, “Fear of blood. It can cause a drop in blood pressure and heart rate. And that makes you dizzy and nauseated.”
“But I wasn’t afraid,” Nick said. “I was more just surprised. That’s all. Same thing with last night. But I obviously can’t keep doing that.”
“Some scientists think it’s an evolutionary mechanism.” Ruby’s eyes were drawn back to Harriman. Now he was squeezing out white casting material—a thick liquid—from a bottom corner of the bag, the way Ruby’s mom would use a plastic bag to squeeze out icing on a cake. Laying it down in a tight zigzag that spread to fill in the gaps, he covered both footprints.
“If I’m hurt or someone else is, then how is nearly passing out going to help me?”
Ruby got a little defensive, even though she herself thought the theory had its weaknesses. “Way back in time, like in a battle or something, fainting might have been the smart thing to do. If you look dead, you get left alone. Also, if you’re wounded and the sight of your own blood makes your blood pressure drop, you might be able to avoid bleeding to death. And if those things worked, then you might survive to pass on the gene that makes you react that way.”
“My brother gets sick like that sometimes, too,” Nick admitted. “So maybe you’re right. But it’s one thing if you’re a packa
ge handler at UPS. It’s another thing if you want to join up.”
“Tensing your muscles like I told you about can help raise your blood pressure. And I think it’s like all phobias. The more you’re exposed to it, the less it will happen. SAR’s a perfect place for that.”
Alexis shivered. “I hope you’re wrong about that. It’s going to be hard enough to help someone who’s bleeding. I don’t think I could crawl through dead people’s blood on a regular basis.”
“Well, she wasn’t dead when she left the blood,” Ruby pointed out.
“I wonder if the guy—or lady—who did it knew that she wasn’t dead when they left her,” Nick said.
Harriman was using the edge of a wooden tongue depressor to smooth the tops of the casted footprints. When he finished, Ruby rewound the last bit of conversation.
“I don’t know if they knew she wasn’t dead,” Ruby said, “but I do know it was probably a man.”
Alexis raised one eyebrow, which Ruby knew meant she was skeptical. “How can you possibly know that?”
“Because women like to kill at a distance. They use guns, or sometimes poison. But stabbing is up close and personal. Men tend to be more hands-on.”
“Knowing it’s a guy doesn’t really narrow it down too much,” Nick pointed out. “That only rules out half the population.”
“The next thing the cops will do is look at the victim.” Ruby gave in to the urge to lecture. “If they can figure out why she was killed, then that can lead to the motive and ultimately the killer. So they’ll have to look at her relationships, jobs, personality, what she liked to do in her free time, whether she used alcohol and drugs, whom she dated…”
“Why does it all have to focus on her?” Alexis crossed her arms. “It’s like you’re saying it’s her fault.”
Ruby shrugged. “In a strange sort of way, it is. The killer could have chosen anybody. But he killed her. Was it a relationship gone wrong? Did he stalk her? Or was it a crime of opportunity—wrong place, wrong time?”
“Harriman said she was only stabbed once,” Nick said. “Maybe it could even have been an accident. Like he was just trying to rob her or something.”
“Maybe,” Ruby said, attempting to be diplomatic. “They have to look at all the evidence and decide whether the killer was organized or disorganized. If it seems like it was planned out in advance, they’re probably organized. Organized killers are smart, don’t leave evidence behind, and usually kill strangers who fit a certain type. Almost all of Ted Bundy’s victims looked just like his ex-fiancée. And like Ted Bundy, the killer might have tried to persuade the victim to go with him willingly.”
“Why would you want to go off with someone you didn’t know?” Alexis asked.
“If he was dressed like a cop or a security guard, you might. In Bundy’s case, he would hang out on college campuses with a fake cast on his arm and ask pretty girls to help him carry things.”
Alexis made a shivery sound.
“So organized killers are sociopaths?” Nick asked.
Ruby winced. In sixth grade, a student teacher had told her, “Your face is always blank. You never look me in the eye. It’s like you have no feelings, like a sociopath.”
Worried that he was right, she had tried to reassure herself that she wouldn’t grow up to be a killer. For one thing, she didn’t exhibit what was known as the McDonald triad: She didn’t wet the bed. She didn’t start fires. She didn’t torture animals.
And, of course, there was the fact that she had no desire to kill anyone.
Eventually, she had realized that just because someone could look you in the eye, it didn’t mean they were good. In fact, some people could be really mean to you while looking you straight in the eye.
Like that student teacher.
“Not everyone who’s a sociopath is a serial killer,” Ruby said now. “But, yes, probably most organized killers are sociopaths. They know what they’re doing is wrong, but they don’t care.”
“What about the other type?” Nick asked. “Disorganized?”
“They’re usually loners. They feel under some kind of stress, and in response they kill someone without much planning or even thinking. Usually within walking distance of their home or work. They choose a weapon because it’s convenient, and they don’t make much effort to conceal the body.”
“That just sounds—random,” Alexis said.
“It kind of is. Sometimes they’re disorganized because they’re younger, or inexperienced, or on drugs, or retarded.” Ruby corrected herself. “I mean, developmentally delayed. Since they usually kill someone close to their home or work, the victim may even know the killer. The fact that we haven’t found the weapon points to organized.” Ruby’s words slowed. “But then again, if this had been planned, why didn’t the killer hide the victim’s body? Leaving her behind some bushes in a vacant lot—that’s just stupid.”
“But if they’re smart, they probably know as much about this stuff as you do,” Nick said. “Maybe they’re smart enough to make it look like a completely different kind of person did this.”
CHAPTER 23
K
MONDAY
BARELY ALIVE
When he opened the front door, Maryanne ran to him. He scooped her up in his arms. She didn’t care what he had done. She thought he was perfect, just as he was.
“Is somebody hungry?” he asked, grinning.
She twisted in his grip, making a querulous sound in the back of her throat.
He set the cat on the floor, ran his hand down her back, then went into the kitchen. Maryanne trotted ahead, tail pointing straight up with that little kink at the tip. He got a can of Fancy Feast from the cupboard, peeled back the lid, and set it down on the mat.
The house was quiet except for the sound of Maryanne eating. Part of him was still waiting for his mom to call his name.
Only a few weeks ago, as soon as he had closed the front door, “Kenny?” would have echoed down the hall. Even though he came home at the same time every day, she was always worried he was a burglar. It was why she kept a gun in her bedside table.
And in response to her nervously calling his name, he would have sighed and then walked down the hall. Perched on the edge of her bed and told her about his day after she muted the TV and pushed aside her quilting. Now the house was quiet unless he was talking to Maryanne.
His dad had left before Kenny started kindergarten. And since then, it had always been Bev and Kenny. Kenny and Bev. She had persisted in calling him her golden child, even though his hair had been brown for three decades now.
She always said he was smart. But he heard what the others said. That he was “slow.” That he was “off.” When he got held back and had to repeat fifth grade, she had said it was a mistake, gone wheezing in to the principal to complain. He remembered standing red-faced on the playground, hearing the others giggle at her size.
She had her first heart attack when he was a junior in high school, but she eventually returned to her job as a receptionist. Less than a year later, another heart attack left her too weak to even leave the house.
It was an old coworker of his mother’s who had gotten him the job at Strickler’s. Sticklers, everyone called it, because Mr. Strickler was so picky. The customers loved the quality, the exotic offerings, and the fact that Mr. Strickler would special order whatever you wanted. The employees saw another side of him. He would rage if you didn’t clean up behind the customers, didn’t swoop down on their crumpled Kleenexes and discarded Starbucks cups. Every shelf had to be perfectly faced, so that when you looked down the aisle, the boxes stood shoulder-to-shoulder, so straight you could lay a yardstick across them. And sometimes Mr. Strickler did.
Kenny blinked and shook himself. What had he been doing? He was still holding the lid of the cat food can. He rinsed it and set it aside for recycling. Later he would tuck it into the cleaned can and crimp the edges so it couldn’t slide out and cut someone.
Cut someone.
Oh God.
He had bought his own produce knife, and he kept it sharp for work, but he had never imagined he would put it to the use it had been put to last night. He kept telling himself that. It had all been a terrible accident.
Today along the crime scene tape there had been talk about installing dead bolts, buying guns, and resurrecting the neighborhood watch. His neighbors were convinced there was a crazed killer on the loose. They attributed all kinds of powers to him. According to them, the killer must be strong and smart. Fiendishly clever.
They wouldn’t have believed him if he had stepped in front of them and confessed every detail.
Kenny, that quiet guy who had lived with his mom forever? The guy who had never left even as everyone he had grown up with moved away? Even as they went on to college and girlfriends and wives and families, to new cities and new countries. Or at least new zip codes. That sad-sack mumbler? The one who worked as a produce guy at Strickler’s in the West Hills?
He had watched and listened from the sidelines. It sounded like the girl had still been barely alive when someone found her this morning.
All night, when he hadn’t been able to sleep, she had been deep in her own kind of sleep, only a hundred yards away. When he had left, he had been sure she was dead.
Looks could be deceiving. Next time he would have to be sure.
Only what was he thinking? There wasn’t going to be a next time.
Definitely not.
CHAPTER 24
ALEXIS
MONDAY
ROLLER COASTER
On the way back to the sheriff’s office, the van was absolutely quiet. Some people leaned against the windows; others just closed their eyes and let their heads hang down.
Alexis stared out at the flat darkness pressing against the glass. It was punctuated by occasional streaks of light from a passing car. Only Bran could make her forget this day. Tonight they had planned to get together to study. After hearing about the search, he had texted, asking if they should cancel, but she needed to see him.