Roarke’s thoughts kept drifting back to Rachel, unbidden sexual flashbacks.
She knew what she was doing
, a cold voice said in his mind, but he knew it instantly for the lie it was.
She has no idea what this is. How can she, when I don’t know myself
?
He had to stop his thoughts, force his mind back to the car, to the present.
You’re going to have to self-flagellate later. You’ve got a killer to catch
.
The scrub brush gave way to tall pines and the view opened up onto the most encompassing view yet, ridge after ridge of jagged blue mountains framing the valley.
“Daaaamn,” Epps said admiringly.
Roarke had to agree. He knew people who lived in these mountains often commuted hours to work, even as far as L.A., and he’d always thought it insane. Now he wasn’t so sure.
At the sweep of town that called itself Rim of the World they passed the high school that the Cavanaugh children now would never attend, and road signs to ski resorts.
“Resort towns,” Roarke muttered in the front seat.
Epps glanced his way.
“Bishop, Reno, Blythe, Arrowhead… all the kill sites, they’re resort towns, tourist towns. Or near to them.”
Except Arcata
, he reminded himself.
But maybe there’s something I’m overlooking there
. “Mountains, desert. Skiing, spas…. what kind of business would service them?”
Epps’ hands were tight on the steering wheel as he thought on it. “I get you. Some kind of traveling… service person. A low-level delivery kind of job. Something that would take the Reaper all over the state.”
“Yeah. Like that.”
“Ski supplies?”
“Wouldn’t work for the desert.”
“Skiing and boating?”
Roarke considered.
Boating… maybe, but
… “Sports equipment salespeople tend to be jocks. Snyder’s profile of the Reaper is weirder than that, unkempt. The guy isn’t going to have people skills.”
Epps frowned. “Not sales, then. Just straight delivery.”
“Maybe.”
They sunk into silence, staring out at granite cliffs, thinking.
Past Rim of the World the ascent became more vertical; the agents all swallowed to equalize the pressure in their eardrums. Outside the car a cold mist set in. The drop-offs from the road were steeper and the pines thicker. Fog drifted across the highway. There were even a few patches of ice left over from an early snow, and one stretch of charred trees from a summer wildfire, a black and dead moonscape.
The town of Lake Arrowhead was a definite cut above the scattered cabins they’d been passing so far, instantly and obviously more affluent. The car motored past art galleries, and shops of upscale home furnishings. Every other storefront had a realtor shingle. The fire station was startlingly massive, but it made sense. Fire season was brutal in these parched mountains.
As they drove through, Roarke skimmed the demographics and details Singh had collected in a packet for him.
Epps spoke beside him. “Nice…”
Roarke looked up to see a stretch of blue between the trees. The lake was relatively small, about two miles by two miles, but strikingly scenic, azure and clear with a clean curve of shore, and private, for use by town property owners only. It was ringed by hotels, motels, bed-and-breakfasts, private cabins for rent, and lodges popular for business conferences. The town’s economy was almost entirely supported by tourism.
Serious money had gone into the development of the town center beside the lake; the Village was a series of interconnected gazebos, boutiques, plazas, bandstands, bars and restaurants, and several huge parking lots around a central pavilion, all with a quaint alpine/deco style to the architecture: steepled roofs, whitewashed buildings with brown trim. Roarke saw there was even a small amusement park for the kids. It all looked vaguely familiar, probably due to the number of films that had been shot in the town and surrounding area over the years.
There was no police department in the town iself. As an unincorporated community, it was serviced by the county sheriff’s department in Twin Peaks, about three miles out of town, a station of twenty sworn officers, three detectives, and five ranking officers, charged with patrolling an area of over 340 square miles of territory, including numerous mountain resort towns and the National Forest.
Epps parked the Jeep in the drive of the tiny, angular concrete building set next to a log-cabin style Masonic lodge. Lam and Stotlemyre remained in the car as Roarke and Epps got out. “Kid gloves,” Roarke muttered, as they walked up to the glass doors. He knew he was the one who needed the reminder.
Inside they were met by Lieutenant Tyson.
“Appreciate your willingness to work with us,” Roarke told the lieutenant as they shook hands and followed him into his office, where all the men seated themselves stiffly. Tension was thick in the room. Tyson didn’t waste any time getting down to brass tacks.
“Your Agent Singh said you believe this is not a murder/suicide. That you’ve seen this guy before,” he stated.
Epps was as ever the perfect mediator, strong, serious, yet deferential. “We strongly suspect this is a multiple murder staged by a perp we’ve been pursuing.”
“We understand you have some doubt about the murder/suicide angle,” Roarke added.
Tyson looked at him, finally answered warily. “We have questions.”
Epps jumped in. “We’re here to provide all the support and resources you can use, including our crime lab. We’ve got our best crime scene techs with us.”
“Appreciate the offer,” Tyson said coolly. “But living in these mountains, it’s like being on an island. We know the locals, the players. You don’t. If there’s an outside perp, we can get this guy faster than you can.”
Pushback, as Singh had warned. Roarke fought to keep impatience out of his voice. “If it is our guy, he’s long gone. He doesn’t stick around after his kills. His latest was just over two weeks ago. Another whole family. In Nevada.”
Tyson’s eyes darkened at that last. Roarke knew exactly what he was thinking: it was a slow enough process to get files from other agencies in-state, never mind a different state altogether. He jumped to emphasize the point. “We can put you together with the key people in the Reno departments, expedite your investigation in whatever ways you need.”
And then he played his best card. He stood and lay photos of the Reno crime scene down on the desk, the very worst shots. Tyson stood and moved reluctantly to look down at the images. His face didn’t change, but Roarke felt the temperature of the room drop.
He sees it. It looks the same
, he thought, with a rush of dread… and hope.
He lowered his voice. “It’s your case, your collar, your trial. We’ll get DNA, any tests you need moved to the top of the list. But this guy likes killing on the full moon, and there’s one four days away, now. We just want to see what you’ve got.”
The agents and the lieutenant looked at each other across the photos. Roarke held his breath, feeling lives in the balance.
Finally Tyson nodded curtly. “We’ll take you over for a look.”
The agents followed the lieutenant’s vehicle to the scene.
The Cavanaughs had lived a few miles from the central village, down another twisting mountain road, in a neighborhood with views of the desert rather than the lake. It was a startling contrast to the green forest and blue water inside of the town, a stark and lonely landscape that Roarke found strangely preferable to the trees as he stared out through the car window over layers of hills slanting down to a vast desert valley.
It
is
an island
, he thought.
The Cavanaugh house was three stories of river rock and pine, set back from the road, almost invisible to any casual passerby. Lieutenant Tyson had said the neighboring houses were vacant; the town generally emptied out for the Thanksgiving weekend. So far that fact had allowed the department to keep the news of the murders under wraps.
Deputies were stationed around the perimeter of the house, guarding the scene.
“It’s an army,” Lam said from the back seat, resignation in his voice. Roarke knew what he meant. The more first responders, the more chance of crucial evidence being destroyed.
Stotlemyre leaned up in the seat to speak to Epps and Roarke as Epps parked the Jeep. “Here’s the plan. I’ll stay with the techs and work on them to let us assist.”
“And I’ll tour the house with you,” Lam said, as if the two techs had talked it over between them, which Roarke knew that they hadn’t.
Stotlemyre added, “The front threshold’s probably shot but hopefully the perp went in the side and we can get something off that porch. Don’t let anyone go near the side entry.”
As the agents got out of the Jeep, one of the deputies stepped up to have all the men sign a security log. So far everything by the book.
Lieutenant Tyson introduced the agents to Detective Aceves, the lead, and his partner Detective Lambert, then took his leave while the agents suited up in white coveralls, and pulled on latex gloves and paper booties in the driveway outside. Roarke slid his hands into the jumper’s pockets to further ensure he would touch nothing, and the other men followed suit.
As they approached the house Roarke saw Lam looking over the uniformed deputies patrolling the perimeter and heard him mutter to Stotlemyre, “We need to get their
shoes
.”
All of the men paused on the doorstep before they stepped through the door, a beat of silence. They all knew the moment for what it was: they were entering a tomb.
Through the front door there was an entry hall with a flagstone floor. Inside, the living room featured a towering stone chimney and tall slanting windows showcasing the views. A gorgeous house, Roarke had to admit, superbly designed to capture all of the wild and haunting beauty of the wilderness setting. He could feel Epps, the taste master, nodding unconscious approval as the agents followed the detectives through the entry and took in the living room.
There was no blood in this elegant living space or open cook’s kitchen; all the killing had been done in the bedrooms. And yet there was a darkness in the house. The rooms were refrigerator-cold but the smell of death was there in the chill, a coppery butcher shop stench under the holiday scent of spicy apple-cinnamon potpourri.
Roarke turned to Detective Aceves. “He killed the mother first, then the girls, saved the boy for last?”
The detective gave him a sharp look. “Looks like it.”
Singh had compiled a whole file, including floor plans, so Roarke knew the house had three levels: a basement game room that opened out on the back patio and yard, the main level of two-story living room, plus a master suite and guest room/library, and three bedrooms upstairs. A mountain chalet that spoke of long ski weekends in winter and boating trips in summer.
Skiing and boating
, he thought again.
Delivery. A regular route. Something
…
As they moved through the house he noted that there was a sameness to the look of all the three houses he had visited on the Reaper’s path of destruction. It was something in the slanted ceilings, the wood beams. He frowned, wondering.
The detectives led the agents down a short hall toward the master suite. The men hugged the wall, moving past the bathroom toward the open bedroom door.
Roarke braced himself as he stepped into the doorway.
It was bad. The peach-painted walls behind the bed were darkly curtained in Eileen Cavanaugh’s blood. She lay in bed half-in and half-out of the covers, her throat gaping open to severed cartilage, the bedclothes stiff with more congealed blood. She’d died alone with the monster… but mercifully quickly; she may even have been sliced open in her sleep. No more than a few moments of disorientation and terror, Roarke silently hoped.
The body was stiff and ghostly white, seeming frozen and inhuman in the chill of the house.
He did not move into the room. He wanted to get a look at the whole picture and let the detectives warm to him, then hopefully they’d let Lam and Stotlemyre do their work.
“The knife was from the kitchen?” he asked aloud.
“From a set in a butcher block on the kitchen island,” Aceves said. “But…” He stopped.
Roarke looked at him. “But?”
Aceves seemed to be debating with himself, then he finished, “Why use a knife on the family if he had a gun?”
Roarke nodded slowly. “Exactly.” He held Aceves’ gaze, and felt the beginnings of a bond.
Aceves turned from the door and indicated the upstairs with a jerk of his head. The team eased out of the hallway and toward the stairs. Aceves led, and Roarke started up behind him, staying against the chest-high wall of the staircase as they trod a careful trail upwards.
All the men were tense as they gathered on the upper landing, steeling themselves to go into the children’s rooms. Of course there was no way ever to prepare for what they were about to see.
The first room was the teenage girl’s: Shannon. Heartbreakingly typical, on the cusp of girl and woman; rock stars and actors Roarke didn’t recognize on the walls, the posters now spattered with Shannon’s blood. Her body was rigid as a mannequin’s, the pink comforter and the flannel pajama bottoms and tank top she wore were stiff with dark red from multiple stab wounds.
“Christ,” Epps said, in a voice that could have cut steel.
Roarke could see the girl still had earbuds in her ears. She’d fallen asleep with them or was still half-awake listening to music when she died. Like her mother, she probably — hopefully — never knew what hit her.
They all turned from the door and their queasiness was palpable.
The second bedroom door was the ten-year-old, Megan. It was clear at first look that Megan had not died as quietly as her mother and sister. She had heard something,
known
something. Her body was halfway under her desk. She had tried to crawl under it, or had been hiding under it. The killer had dragged her out to cut her; there were wide smears of blood underneath her body in the beige carpet. Roarke felt knots of anger and sorrow in his stomach, in his throat.