Stavros took a step closer to Grimshaw, then looked at the map. “Your thoughts?”
“Connected killings.” Grimshaw pointed to the dots on the map. “Crow’s feet tied to one victim like a signature—or a warning. At least two bodies in each place, one of those bodies being a crow or Crowgard. I’m guessing that someone who is involved with all those killings has ended up around Lake Silence and is trapped.”
“And these?” Stavros picked up a file.
“I wanted to see if the places Julian felt had become unhealthy matched up with any of the killings, whether those killings were before or after he was there.”
“Then let us begin.”
As Grimshaw added colored dots to the map, Stavros read Julian’s notes out loud—and a grim pattern began to take shape.
CHAPTER 55
Vicki
Watersday, Novembros 3
In the dream, I was in bed, surrounded by something warm that wasn’t soft but still felt comfy. Felt comforting. Then I was in the kitchen, wearing bunny slippers made out of real bunnies harnessed to my feet, and we hopped around the kitchen while I tried to start the coffee and put some bread in the toaster. In the center of the table was a round tray filled with pieces of wood that looked like swollen clothespins.
Then something big smacked one of the windows and made the clothespins rattle, rattle . . .
Rattle, rattle, rattle.
Awake now and frightened, I tried to sit up but a weight held me down. I tried to scream but a hand clamped over my mouth.
“Shh,” Julian whispered in my ear. “Shh.”
Julian. Yes.
I nodded to let him know I was aware.
“Stay here,” he whispered. “I’m going to check it out.”
Bad idea. Bad! People who did this in the movies ended up being buried in the cellar or tossed in the wood chipper.
Apparently Julian was going to ignore all the lessons one could learn from the movies. He slipped out of bed and pulled on the jeans he’d folded within easy reach. I’d thought it odd he’d left his shirt and sweater on a low chest I used as a window seat, and he’d put his shoes and socks next to it, but he’d wanted the jeans right beside the bed. Because the mobile phone was in a pocket?
Not a phone. I hadn’t closed the heavier winter drapes, and enough moonlight came through the sheer curtains that I saw the gun in Julian’s hand as he silently crossed the bedroom and eased open the door to my sitting room.
Wishing I’d taken to keeping a baseball bat or a frying pan under the bed in case I had reason to whack someone, I eased out of bed and crept toward the bedroom door.
“Stay here” meant stay in the room, not in the bed. That would be my reasoning if Julian or Ilya or, gods help me, Grimshaw demanded to know what I was thinking.
As soon as I reached the doorway, I felt cold air around my legs. Who had opened a window?
Julian studied the window and said softly, “Turn on a light. Low.”
I felt my way to a two-shelf bookcase. It held a decorative lamp that provided soft light when I watched TV or just wanted the friendliness of a lighted room when I returned to my own apartment. I turned on the light, expecting the girls to be instantly awake. They weren’t. Kira blinked a couple of times, rubbed her eyes, stared at me, and said, “Wha . . . ?” Aggie, perched on one arm of the love seat, barely stirred at all, and that was wrong enough to be frightening.
Julian pushed the open window up all the way, removed a small, high-powered flashlight from his pocket, and shone the light on the ground below. He stared at something. Stared and stared. Then he closed the window and locked it.
That’s when I looked around the room and said to the two bleary-eyed adolescents, “Where’s Jozi?”
Julian Farrow braced one hand on the window frame and closed his eyes—and I didn’t ask again.
CHAPTER 56
Watersday, Novembros 3
His brain . . . blinked . . . and he wasn’t sure what he had seen, wasn’t sure what had been done. Except . . .
There was death. He had given the warning; the Reader was safe. But there was death.
He wasn’t sure what he had seen—the pattern shifted and re-formed, shifted and re-formed. But he knew the taste of it, the feel of it enough to give it a name.
Betrayal.
CHAPTER 57
Grimshaw
Earthday, Novembros 4
When he got up the next morning, Grimshaw saw no sign that Stavros Sanguinati had been in the apartment—except for a message pad that had been left on the worktable. A phone number had been written on the top sheet with the words If you need to call.
Grimshaw tore off the sheet, folded it, and tucked it in his wallet. He looked around. He and Stavros had cleaned up last night, putting the files away and making sure everything was as tidy as it could be. He wasn’t sure what Julian wanted him to do about the towels and toothbrush he’d used, but he’d ask about that later. He didn’t want his friend to check on the apartment and run afoul of Stavros.
He went downstairs and checked the delivery bag before he locked the door. Helen from Come and Get It would expect the bag and food containers to be returned the next time he or Osgood stopped by the diner. If something was missing, she would want to know why, and he didn’t want Helen asking about much of anything since the gossip was going to be flying about the additional road closure.
Satisfied that he had everything he needed to return to Helen, as well as the other half of the meat-loaf sandwich, the regional map, and the e-mails from the ITF agents, Grimshaw walked up the driveway that accessed the bookstore’s small parking lot and aimed for the police station.
His mobile phone buzzed as he crossed the street. He didn’t need to look at the display since he could see the agitated man who held a phone and stared at the sign on the station’s locked door.
“Mayor Roundtree. I’m surprised to see you here on Earthday. Problem?”
Roundtree spun, still listening to the ringing of an unanswered phone. Then he ended the call and shouted, “Yes, there’s a problem! Someone called my home phone this morning—my home phone—and told me to come here and . . . Look!” He pointed toward the government building next door.
Figuring that Roundtree would have a coronary if he took a minute to open the station and set the delivery bag on his desk, Grimshaw followed the mayor to the government building and sighed as he took in the grisly message written on the steps:
BEE HEPFLUL.