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“We’re really just trying to follow up on Sheila Dempsey’s whereabouts her last week.”

September added, “We’re trying to determine whether Sheila’s death was personal, or if the killer chose her at random.”

“At random . . .” she repeated, throwing a look of apprehension around the bar.

“What can you tell us about Sheila, or Phil Merit, or any of them?” Gretchen pressed.

“Well, Phil used to come in here, but he really hasn’t been around since Sheila . . . died. He was generally with his girlfriend, Carolyn. Sheila cut their hair. I heard Sheila say once that her customers were also her friends.”

“And there was another friend? Drea?” September added.

“Yeah. They all came in together. And there was this good-looking guy, a few times, that Sheila was interested in. I don’t know his name.”

Gretchen slid a glance toward September. “How’d you know Sheila was interested in him?”

“Oh, she just couldn’t stop touching him. A hand on his arm, or around his waist, or holding his hand . . . stuff like that.”

“What’d he look like?” Gretchen asked, and September’s heart started to pound, slow and hard.

“Tall, dark, and handsome,” she stated promptly. “Athletic. That’s how come I noticed him with Sheila. He was memorable. He didn’t seem all that interested in her, though. At least not that I could tell.”

“Think maybe he was more into her than he was letting on in front of people?” Gretchen suggested.

“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced. “But Sheila’s ex came in hot one time and
he
thought they had something going. They got into it.”

“Physically?” September asked.

“Just words, I think. Sheila was not happy with her ex. But the other guy . . . his name starts with a J. . . .”

“Jake?” Gretchen asked.

“That’s it. You know him?”

“His name came up during an interview.”

“Well, he’s not the guy that killed her, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s too perfect.”

“What the hell do you know, Diane?” the male bartender asked her, shaking his head. “Anything in pants, huh?”

She flushed and glared back at him. “Wishful thinking, Egan.”

September broke in, “You see Sheila with any other man? Or, is there anything else you can remember?”

Diane shook her head. “That deputy came in and asked all kinds of questions right after it happened, but he wasn’t . . . much of a listener. We were all kind of stunned. I didn’t know Sheila well. She was just somebody who came in sometimes, but it’s been weird.”

“You talked to Deputy Dalton about Sheila?” Gretchen questioned her.

“Not me. I wasn’t here. I just heard he was kind of a . . .” She shrugged.

“Prick,” Egan said. “I was the one who talked to him.”

Gretchen swung back to him. “Anything more you might remember?”

“I didn’t know this Phil guy or his girlfriend. But I remember Sheila, and the”—he shot a look toward Diane—“‘perfect’ guy.”

Diane rolled her eyes and went back to helping customers.

“Sheila was hot for him all right,” Egan went on. “And I was there when her ex showed up and got in the guy’s face. They headed out the back like they were going to get into it, but Mr. Perfect didn’t go there. If I were him, I woulda pounded Dempsey, but he just was trying to keep everything copacetic, I guess. I didn’t see him after that. Sheila came in by herself a few times afterward and then we heard the news that she’d been killed. It was sick, man. Sick.”

“Do you have any idea how long it was after Sheila was seen with Jake, that you heard she’d been a victim of homicide?” Gretchen asked.

This was all wrong, this focus on Jake, September thought uncomfortably. It couldn’t be him.

“Oh . . . not long . . . maybe a week . . . or two . . . ? When that deputy came in and started asking all those questions, I couldn’t remember anything. It was later, that I started thinking about some stuff.”

“Happens that way a lot of times,” September encouraged him. “When the shock wears off.”

“Yeah . . .” Egan frowned. “There was one thing . . .”

“What?” Gretchen asked quickly.

“One of our customers came in later, like after she was killed, and said he thought he’d seen her with some other guy who was pushing a little too hard. He kinda stepped in and asked if the guy was bothering her, but she intervened and said she’d gone to school with him. Something like that, but Ray got the feeling she didn’t want the guy around her. Like maybe she thought he was a problem.”

“Ray . . .” Gretchen prompted.

“One of our customers,” he reiterated.

“What’s Ray’s last name?” Gretchen asked.

“I don’t know. Been trying to think of it.”

“Did you mention this to Dalton? The deputy?”

“Didn’t think of it right off, and Dalton wasn’t . . . I don’t know. I didn’t like talking to him.”

“Think anyone else might remember Ray’s last name?” September glanced at the other patrons in the bar.

“I can ask around,” he said dubiously.

“It would really help,” September encouraged him. She snatched up her bag and pulled out her wallet, extricating a business card. “Call this number, if you find out anything.” She handed him one of her cards with the station number and her extension. It also had her cell number.

“Detective September Rafferty,” he read, then lifted his brows and smiled at her.

“Yes.” She smiled back as he returned to his customers. The bar was starting to fill up.

“I think he likes you,” Gretchen said as she finished her drink. “Add him to your fan club.”

September let that one go by. Since Glenda Tripp had been killed almost directly after September’s interview with Pauline Kirby, Sandler had been giving her grief about her “fan club,” which represented anyone who’d watched her on the news, apparently, the killer included. She’d cooled off after September received her own warning, but now it looked like she might have gotten over that.

As if recognizing she’d stepped over the line, Gretchen muttered grimly, “I want us to catch this bastard. You and me. But if you want to step back . . . get out of his crosshairs. . . I get it.”

“You know that’s not what I want,” September retorted. “I want to see this thing to the end.” They were walking back outside into a night where the air had begun to feel thick and still and hot. Odd weather for sure. By this time of night it was usually cooling off. “And I want to get him. More than ever.”

“Okay. Just thought I’d check.” They reached their respective vehicles; Sandler’s was only three over from September’s. Inclining her head back toward The Barn Door, Gretchen asked, “So, what’re your thoughts on the case?”

“Deputy Dalton could improve his interviewing techniques.”

Gretchen grinned. “What else?”

“I hope Egan, or someone else, remembers Ray’s last name or sees him come into the bar and calls me.”

“You don’t think Jake Westerly’s our man.”

She said it casually, but September sensed her sharpened interest. “He sounds like the guy who pissed off Greg Dempsey, but I don’t see him as the killer.”

“Mr. Perfect. You might be right, but it very well could be Westerly. Gotta keep your personal feelings out of it.”

“What do you mean?” September asked, slightly alarmed that she was evidently so transparent.

“You don’t want it to be him, that’s all. You’re all twitchy whenever his name comes up. Something you’re not telling me?”

She hesitated. “Well, I know Jake some. Like I said, his family’s vineyard is right next to ours.”

“That all?”

Not by a long shot, but September wasn’t quite ready to reveal the full extent of her relationship with Jake. “Pretty much,” she said. “I’m going home and take a bath and think about things. See you Monday, if not before.” Sometimes they were called in on weekends, especially in the heat of an investigation.

Gretchen grunted and headed toward her car. “We’ll check with the staff at Twin Oaks and see who remembers Sheila,” she said.

“Okay.”

The beast was in control again as he prowled around his home, stalking from the upstairs room with the cot downstairs to the main room and back again.

The need had been there when he was young, but he hadn’t understood it until he’d killed the raccoon. The rodent had entered the garage and he’d struck it with a two-by-four and then stabbed it with the hunting knife while the old lady shrieked and screamed. He’d seriously thought he was going to have to bash her over the head, too, just to get her to shut up. She wasn’t anything to him. Not a friend. Nothing. But he’d been too young to go after her then.

Afterward, he’d relived the killing of the raccoon, over and over again, especially the stabbing. It was the first time he felt powerful . . . the first time he felt
right.
He started sneaking out at night and hunting small animals, always with the knife. He learned he needed to immobilize them and so he grew handy with a noose, letting it hang loosely in his left hand, the knife in his right. He lured the beasts to him with food while slowly moving the noose closer. He grew excellent at flipping the rope around their necks and hanging them until the spitting, growling, and clawing slowed down. Then he brought out the knife.

The nights were the only time he felt right, though. Like a real being. The days were hell. Going to school was torture. Their faces . . . and their laughter . . . he
hated
all of them. September most of all—now—though he’d felt love for her once. She’d been nice to him in the beginning, but then she’d turned away. She’d been sickened by him. He’d felt it then, he felt it now.

All he wanted to do was fuck her and keep her as long as he could.

And then the killing. It would be done exquisitely.

Like she’d done to him.

His head pounded and he looked through the eyes of the beast where everything was tinged with red. Once in high school the beast had escaped and triumphed and that had been a bloody fiasco. No one knew what he’d done, but there had been a change in him that was apparent and shortly thereafter he’d been sent to the doctors. They never knew the extent of his rampage, but they knew about the small animals. Someone had told . . . one of them who knew the truth . . .

If the doctors had known, he’d still be locked up; he knew that. They’d sent him away for a time—too long—because he’d been deviant and anti-social. “A sociopath,” one pinched-faced woman psychiatrist had proclaimed to his primary doctor. Luckily, she’d been mostly ignored.

He’d been good after he got out. He’d been afraid. But that fear had dissipated and then suddenly the newspaper article brought everything flooding through him in a sudden rush. The edge of his vision receded and he could barely see the words on the page. There had been no picture, but it was
her.
Detective September Rafferty! Newly joined up with the Laurelton Police Department.

September.

He’d thought of her dark hair shot through with red.

He’d thought of being inside her. Choking her into compliance, or maybe she would like it and scream for more.

He’d thought of his bone-handled hunting knife in its buckskin sheath, nearly forgotten in the closet he’d fashioned for himself, the one he’d used so long ago.

The beast had awakened, slavered, and
wanted
.

“Nine,” he whispered now to the empty room, his gaze dragged to the hot center of the sea anemone on the wall. Not yet, he warned himself . . . not yet . . .

There were others who could slake his need. More than just those who’d tried to betray him: Sheila, Emmy, Glenda.

The expendable ones were still out there.

Grabbing his knife, the cord, and the keys to his van, he headed out.

Chapter 7

Nine spent the rest of Friday night lost in thought about the case and it created a sleepless night. Early Saturday morning she went out for a bagel and cream cheese and brought the to-go sack and a paper cup full of coffee back to her apartment, dropping them both on the kitchen counter. She then pulled out the white Ikea drop-leaf table she had shoved up against a wall, flipping out one side of it and pulling up a chair. Normally she ate every meal at home on the couch in front of the television. Today, she needed a desk.

She cut the bagel in two and spread the cream cheese over both sides, then bit into one half and carried it in her teeth to the table, balancing the coffee cup, a pad of paper, and a pen in her hands.

She hadn’t brought home the murder book full of the case files. It wasn’t to be taken out of the station and besides, she practically had the Do Unto Others file memorized. She munched on her bagel and stared into space for about a minute. Being off for the weekend didn’t really work for her because she couldn’t think about anything but the killer.

He’d sent her the artwork. He knew her. He had to. It had been a warning from the killer, not a prank from another party.

Maybe Gretchen was right about one thing, though . . . maybe he was someone she’d gone to school with. How else could he have gotten the artwork? No one had broken into her father’s house; she would have heard about that.

Unless the killer was a Rafferty family member . . . or someone who had access to the family home.

She made herself think about that for a few tense moments, then she slowly shook her head and moved on.

Was she in the killer’s sights? He’d sent her the artwork for a reason. He wanted her to recognize that it was hers and undoubtedly shake her up, and in that, he’d succeeded. But was she the next target? Or, was she part of his game, part of the hunt? Someone to crow to and taunt. Maybe it was a little of both. . . .

How long had he been planning to send her the message? Years, decades, maybe . . . ? Or, was it something new?

Earlier this summer she’d had the sensation she was being watched. Nothing big. Nothing concrete. She hadn’t even mentioned it to anyone because she’d just gotten the job at the Laurelton PD and she didn’t want to seem too skittish and paranoid to be effective. She didn’t want to be
that
woman.

But it had been there, all right. The sensation that she was being followed, and it had been strong enough that she’d taken circuitous routes home from the station. She still had a tendency to look all around her whenever she got into her Pilot.