He looked back at the house. “There’s something else, and it’s not good. As you said, this killing did not take place on the full moon. But it did take place on Thanksgiving, a significant holiday with a particular emphasis on family.”
Roarke felt a chill as he absorbed the words. Snyder continued.
“For all we know Thanksgiving, or the holiday season in general, is a trigger — associated with some family trauma in the Reaper’s early life, that compels him to attack families. Between that and the possibility of decompensation, we can’t rule out another killing on the full moon.”
“I’m going to find him before then,” Roarke said. His voice was hard.
Snyder didn’t object, exactly, but his next words were slow and measured. “Your biggest problem now is that his hunting radius is very wide. That plus the likely return and escalation of his psychotic symptoms makes his next move very difficult to predict.” He glanced at Roarke. “Agent Jones said that you had a lead, a recent parolee, diagnosed schizophrenic, who fits the time range and profile.”
Roarke paused. “I’ve eliminated him.”
“How did you eliminate him?”
Roarke was pulled up short by the question, and then decided not to lie. “Cara. Cara eliminated him.”
Snyder gave him a brief, ambiguous look. “You’ve been in contact with her,” he said neutrally.
Roarke felt his hackles rising. “I don’t have time not to use every option at my disposal. I needed to eliminate a suspect and I did.”
For whatever reason, Snyder didn’t pursue it. The wind picked up, and Roarke turned as if someone had touched him, looking out over the hills. “Do you think he could still be in the area? Does he stick around to watch?”
Snyder shook his head. “Of that, I have no idea. But of course you have to proceed as if he has.”
The men both turned at the sound of footsteps. A deputy hustled up the path toward them. “Agent Roarke, there’s a woman on the tip line you should talk to.”
Chapter Thirty-one
The woman who’d called, Lynn Fairchild, lived on the other side of the lake from the Cavanaughs. It was an equally affluent area, and her house was a similar, well-kept two-story, with a swing set and other plastic children’s toys in the yard. The sun was going down over the water as Roarke and Epps drove the Jeep up into the drive. Snyder had remained at the Cavanaugh scene. The wind was icy and biting as they walked up to the door.
A woman in her thirties answered the doorbell but kept the chain on the door and looked out at the agents without making a move to unlock it.
“Ms. Fairchild?” Epps asked.
“Yes…”
Roarke showed his credentials wallet. “Agents Roarke and Epps. You called us?”
She studied his ID a beat longer than he would have expected, then closed the door to remove the chain and opened it, stepping aside. “Sorry about that. Please come in.”
She was probably thirty-seven or thirty-eight, casually but expensively dressed and trim, with an athletic energy and youthful prettiness. As Roarke stepped past her, he could see she had a small girl in tow, who hid behind her, peering around her mother’s hip at the agents. Five or six and blond, like her mother.
Like Cara
.
The mother ushered the agents through the entryway into a big double-tiered living room with a tall rock fireplace, a wall of glass looking out on a rock slab patio, with forest beyond. A carpeted staircase led up to a second level of bedrooms. It was all eerily similar to the Cavanaugh house.
The presence of children was evident \
inside as well: stuffed animals and dolls were scattered throughout the living room, and through the kitchen door Roarke could see photos stuck to the refrigerator with magnets, kindergarten-style art work, including Thanksgiving turkeys made by cutting around the shape of hands. He could hear a television somewhere upstairs. Outside the sliding glass doors the sky was purple twilight.
Lynn Fairchild picked up one of the dolls and crouched to hand her over to her daughter. “Take Madeline and go play upstairs, sweetie. I’ll be up in a minute, okay?”
The little girl gazed up at Roarke, clear blue eyes. He thought of Cara.
The mother waited until her daughter was upstairs, out of sight, and then turned to the agents. “Please sit. Can I get you coffee?”
“Thanks, we’re fine,” Roarke said, and took a seat only in the hope that it would calm her. She was hiding it fairly well, but he could see she was incredibly jumpy. She sat, hovering on the edge of her armchair like a butterfly about to take flight, and laughed nervously.
“This is probably crazy. But I saw online that you were asking about missing pets…”
Roarke’s attennae went up on alert. “That’s right. Are you missing one?”
She shook her head. “Not missing. Killed.”
The feeling became a full-on chill. Beside him, Epps shot him a surreptitious glance.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “She’s an indoor cat of course, you can only have indoor cats up here, there are hawks, coyotes, bear, you name it. She got out somehow and something got to her…”
“Wait,” Roarke said. He was confused, and also feeling a growing sense of dread. “You found your
own
cat? Where?”
Now Lynn Fairchild was the one who looked confused. “On our patio.” She glanced toward the wall of glass doors, the darkness outside. “My husband says that she must have been attacked and dragged herself up, trying to get to the house.” Roarke saw a glimmer of tears in her eyes. “Breaks my heart. But I think he’s wrong. I have this weird feeling about it. It’s probably nothing…”
“What feels weird to you?” he asked intently.
“For one thing, she was right in the middle of the patio. Right exactly in the middle.” She looked toward the doors again. “You can’t see now. My husband washed down the blood. But… right in the middle?”
“When was this?”
“Saturday.”
Five days ago
. Roarke felt so close to something… something just out of reach. “But there’s something else, isn’t there?” he asked.
She colored. “It’s just that… I’ve just been so creeped out since then. I’ve been watching the kids like…” she trailed off, as if unwilling to complete the thought.
“How old are your children, Mrs. Fairchild?” Epps asked. Roarke could hear the tension he was hiding in his voice.
She waved a hand distractedly. “Please, I’m Lynn. Well, you met Sherry, she’s six. Michael is ten, and Tanner just turned thirteen.”
Roarke and Epps looked at each other. The exhange was subtle, nothing like a doubletake, but Lynn Fairchild stiffened. “What? What is it?”
“You’ve been here, though?” Roarke asked. “And nothing else has happened?”
She stared at him. “Nothing else like what?”
Like your whole family being murdered
, he thought.
Just that
.
“Were you here at the house all day yesterday?” he asked. “Your family?”
“No, we weren’t. My husband has been out of town on business, and he got delayed in that big snowstorm in the Midwest. All the Chicago flights were cancelled and he didn’t make it back yesterday and…”
“And what?”
“And I didn’t want to be here without him. I took the kids and we went down the mountain and stayed with my sister in Riverside. I know it sounds stupid but I just… didn’t want to be here.”
Not only
not
stupid — you probably saved your family’s lives
, Roarke thought, and looked at Epps.
They went out of town and the Reaper took the Cavanaughs instead
.
But he didn’t want to freak her out too much. Yet. “When did you get back?” he asked calmly.
“This afternoon. Paul was supposed to get in around seven, but the flight’s already been delayed again—”
“Do you know the Cavanaugh family?” Epps asked, before she had quite finished.
Lynn Fairchild stared at him. “Do I… not really. To say hello to. Robbie Cavanaugh is at Tanner’s school. Why?”
“Are Tanner and Robbie friends?” Roarke asked, careful to keep the question in the present tense.
“Not to speak of,” Lynn Fairchild said, looking from one agent to the other.
“They don’t play together, hang together?”
She frowned. “It’s harder to keep track now that he’s in middle school, but he’s not a close friend, definitely.”
“He’s never been to the house?”
“No,” she answered, and opened her mouth to say something. Before she could, Roarke jumped in again.
“You said you’ve been creeped out. Have you seen anyone watching the house? Following you on the road?”
She had gone very still, and was looking fron one agent to the other. “Agent Roarke, you’re really scaring me.”
“You’re all right,” Epps said instantly. “You all are going to be fine. We’re going to make sure of that.”
Roarke sat for a moment, thinking. “Is Tanner home? Do you mind if we ask him a few questions?”
“Tanner?” she repeated, immediately on the defensive.
“About Robbie Cavanaugh.”
She flinched. “Has something happened to Robbie?”
Again, that perception. “Lynn, if you could get Tanner, we’d appreciate it.”
She stood and left the room reluctantly, glancing back at them from the stairs. As soon as she disappeared into the upstairs hall, Epps was talking in a low whisper.
“Jesus. He was watching them, too?”
Roarke was already on his feet. “He was watching them
first
. The cat was killed five days before Thanksgiving. Then they went away and thwarted him.”
“You’re thinking he snapped, killed the Cavanaughs on impulse.” Epps finished. The two men looked at each other in consternation. Roarke circled the room.
“Either that, or he was planning to kill on Thanksgiving, so he did the Cavanaughs when the Fairchilds went away…” He stopped in front of the fireplace, looking over framed photos of the family: active shots, skiing, boating, horseback riding. He focused in on one studio portrait: Lynn Fairchild, her husband, the little girl they’d seen before, a towheaded younger boy and a cocky, fair-haired thirteen-year old. He took the portrait from the mantle and handed it to Epps, who looked down on the family.
“But if he did kill the Cavanaughs impulsively, we’ve got a big problem—”
Epps finished for him. “The full moon is this weekend.”
They were interrupted by fast steps on the balcony, and then Lynn Fairchild’s terrified face appeared over the balcony wall.
“I can’t find him. I can’t find Tanner.”
The agents were already heading for the stairs. “When did you last see him?” Epps demanded.
She stopped at the top of the stairs, holding on to the railing. “Before you came… maybe a half hour… he’s been here all day. He didn’t say he was going anywhere. Oh my God, what’s happening?”
“Stay here,” Roarke ordered her.
The agents ran for the sliding glass door. Epps jerked it open and they burst out onto the patio. The chill of the night hit them, white mist blanketing the dark.
Past the concrete circle the woods were all around them. Epps was already on the phone, shouting the address. “Possible child abduction. Request immediate backup.”
Roarke circled the periphery of the patio, staring out into the trees, looking for a path, any opening, some hint of where to begin looking.
He spotted a footpath and ran for it, into the pines. The light from the porch receded and the night was suddenly so dark he had to stop on the path to let his eyes adjust.
Lynn Fairchild had completely ignored his order. He could hear her behind him, between the trees, calling frantically for her son.
He looked up through a gap in the crowns of firs, to where the moon was shining through the mist, so near full now, and his heart was pounding.
No,
you bastard. You are
not
taking this boy
.
He turned on his heel and ran back on the path, over crunching pine needles and crackling leaves, in the direction of Lynn Fairchild’s voice. She twisted around as he burst through the underbrush, and the beam from her flashlight nearly blinded him. He strode forward and took the light from her, grasped her arm. “Is there a place in the woods he would have gone?” She stared up at him, as pale as snow in the night.
And then there was a crashing sound from the trees, somehow familiar. Roarke and Lynn spun toward the sound.
A shadow shot out from between the trees, so fast Roarke jumped back. It was a rider on a bike, who halted, frozen, as the light of the flashlight hit him. The boy from the photo.
“Mom?” he said, and looked at Roarke, confused.
Lynn Fairchild burst into tears and ran for her son. She shook him and hugged him at once, an awkward tangle of limbs and bicycle. “What were you
doing
? What were you thinking?”
Then before Roarke knew what was happening, Lynn Fairchild was standing, bearing down on him, sobbing. “You tell me
now
. You tell me what’s happening.”
Floodlights now blazed in the yard as sheriffs and deuputies and forensics techs prowled the perimeter of the house. Tanner Fairchild was upstairs in his room. Ironically, he’d gone out on the trails behind the house looking for the cat; Lynn Fairchild had not had the heart to tell the children their pet was dead.
Inside the living room, she sat on the couch as if carved out of ice as the agents told her about the Cavanaughs.
“The whole family,” she said, staring at her hands in her lap. “If we’d stayed…” She shuddered convulsively.
“You can’t think like that,” Epps said firmly.
She looked up. “Are there others? Besides the Cavanaughs?”
Both agents paused, and she seized on the silence. “Oh God. How many?”
Roarke took a breath before answering. “We’re not sure yet. But we think this might be connected to an old case—”
She stood up. “The Reaper,” she said. She crossed her arms around her waist as she stared at Roarke. Her face had gone pale.
“Yes,” he said, and found his mouth was dry. “You know the case.” He told himself it wasn’t unusual, not unusual at all. Anyone his age who’d grown up in California would know the case…