The Third Victim Part 12

"Wait a minute," Rainie said. Sanders shot her an annoyed glance. She could already tell he was a.s.suming control of the case. He was the state guy with a pretty suit and a bigger police s.h.i.+eld than hers. He obviously had no use for small-town cops or small-town theories. The big-city guys never did.

"There's still the issue that six children reported seeing a strange man," she said firmly.

"That must mean something."

"That hysteria is contagious," Sanders said.

"Or that they saw something out of place, someone out of place. Look at the shootings. You're saying it's a blitzkrieg attack. Most victims are sprayed with bullets and we got holes all over the school to match. But then there's Melissa Avalon. Single shot to the forehead. That's a very precise wound for a random attack."

"Maybe he had it in for her. Do we know about Danny's relations.h.i.+p with the teacher?" Officers flipped through their notebooks. No one had followed up on the victim's background yet.

"Look," Sanders said graciously, obviously deciding that Rainie wasn't a complete idiot, 'the Avalon angle does appear interesting. I'll make note of it. And tomorrow, when we start getting the case team a.s.sembled, I'll a.s.sign a couple of guys to check it out. h.e.l.l, there's still plenty of footwork to do. This is just the stuff off the top of my head."

"Then off the top of my head, I don't think we should be dismissing anything yet."

Abe rolled his eyes.

"Yes, ma'am." Then he muttered, "Of course, you were the one who arrested the kid."

Rainie stiffened. She'd had a long day; she didn't need this kind of bulls.h.i.+t. The anger that welled up in her chest was dangerous. It was also out of proportion, not just because Abe Sanders was obviously some kind of putz, but because she'd arrested a kid she knew and, dammit, she liked.

you stupid, selfish little boy, how could you be so cruel?

Abe Sanders was still looking at her, waiting to see if she'd take the bait. If she ranted and raved, she'd look unprofessional and he could feel better about things. Rainie had no intention of giving him that kind of satisfaction.

She said, "We need to have a conversation tomorrow."

"Yep."

"First thing in the morning."

"Absolutely."

"Seven-thirty?"

"Seven."

"Fine. See you then."

They returned to the CSU technicians still working the school. The building was now ablaze with lights, covered in a swath of yellow crime-scene tape and littered with plastic strips from Polaroid film.

In the hallway, sections had been cordoned off to form a grid. The most 'active' areas were handled by men in white s.p.a.ce suits with special vacuums to suck up every last particle of dust. In other places, technicians sc.r.a.ped blood off windows into tiny vials or sprayed down walls with Luminol in hopes of bringing more carnage to light. Officers stood by, carefully recording all findings into a crime-scene log that would probably fill three binders by morning.

Rainie walked into a cla.s.sroom and, with a magnifying gla.s.s, resumed combing the walls.

She didn't leave for another two hours, and then the feel of the pine-scented air against her cheeks was shocking, and the stars appeared almost too white in the clear night sky.

She needed to do at least two reams of paperwork. The DA wanted to file charges by noon tomorrow and would need the first wave of police reports. Rodriguez would be taking an aggressive stance. Five counts of aggravated murder for three deaths. A crime so heinous, Daniel O'Grady should be immediately waived to adult court to stand trial. The thirteen-year-old was a menace to society. He had killed little kids.

He had betrayed his community. He had reminded his neighbors that evil could be the person next door. Let's lock him up for the rest of his life.

Never to date, attend a prom, fall in love, get married, have children.

To be alive until he was eighty or ninety years old, but never to live.

Rainie didn't go to the office. She drove home, where she could sit on her back deck beneath the clear night sky and listen to the owls hoot.

She went home, where she could strip off a uniform that smelled of death and grab a cold beer.

She went home, where, finally free from prying eyes, she rested her forehead against the neck of the cold beer bottle, thought of those two poor little girls, of the schoolteacher, of Danny, of herself fourteen years ago.

Police Officer Lorraine Conner went home and, alone at last, she wept.

Not that far away, a man watched. He was dressed completely in black and held a pair of high-powered binoculars to his eyes. The binoculars were a recent purchase, made when the need to see her face, her

expression, her clear gray eyes, had become too much to bear. Now the view made him giddy. He could see everything on her back deck, every nuance of her slender body, backlit by the moon and topped off by the porch lights. She was crying. Crying.

In all the times he watched, he'd never seen such emotion from her.

It excited him.

It was hard to imagine, but all those years ago when Bakersville had first captured his attention, it had had nothing to do with Officer Lorraine Conner. He'd been reading an article on the Internet, "Small Dairy Community Destroyed by Floods, Promises to Rebuild." The journalist began with a melodramatic litany of rising river waters, torrential downpours, and thundering mud slides that descended upon a tiny coastal town during one week in February. How neighbor banded with neighbor to drive their cows to higher ground. How the water kept rising, deluging the lower farms, lifting entire houses off their foundations, and still rose, heading up the rolling hills.

Doe-eyed cows, trapped for days in frigid chest-high water, bawling in fear. Entire trailer trucks, bravely trying to reach more cattle, swept off inundated roads. Pinch-faced wives and children, finally retrieved by boats from their huddled last stands on metal barn roofs.

Stoic dairymen, shooting their own herds to put the fragile beasts out of their misery.

As the journalist a.s.sured all the readers, here was a town that had met the wrath of G.o.d.

And then rebuilt. Bake sales, bingo drives. Innovative programs such as Adopt-a-Cow, which encouraged city kids and large corporations to support individual cows with money for food and shelter. Half a dozen operations, built on higher ground and spared the flood, opening their barns, hay-lofts, and milking parlors to their neighbors for as long as they needed. The town was making a comeback. At the end of the article, the mayor was quoted as saying, "Of course we're helping each other. This is Bakersville.

We're strong here. We care about our town. And we know what's right."

The man had known then that Bakersville would be next. A perfect little place, with perfect little people extolling their perfect little values. Where everyone loved everyone, and everyone was a friend. He wanted them all dead.

He was a patient man. He understood better than most the importance of planning. Good reconnaissance, his father had always barked. A smart soldier does his homework.

His father was a s.h.i.+t-for-brains a.s.shole. But the man did his homework. He identified his target. He researched. He learned.

Politicians, school officials, reporters, major organizations.

Sheriff's department. He planned. He had all the time in the world, as far as he was concerned. What was more important was doing things right.

He would show this town the wrath of G.o.d. He would show them the wrath of him.

Then Officer Lorraine Conner. The first time he saw her in person, casually walking by during one of his many recon visits, he'd nearly stopped in his tracks. High cheekbones, an uncompromising chin. Bold gray eyes that possessed a hard, direct stare. Not pretty, but striking. Arresting, if you were into puns.

Here was a woman who knew how to get things done. Not a trace of stupidity, which he'd come to expect in small-town cops. Not even a wide girth or beer gut to show how she really spent her Friday nights.

She was fit, fighting trim, and supposedly h.e.l.l on wheels with a rifle.

Then he heard the rumors.

Her mother. Fourteen years ago. The brutal slaying that had never been solved. The woman drank, you know. Used her daughter as a human punching bag. Shameless, the old biddies hissed, their eyes bright as they imagined their own hands connecting with firm, young flesh.

Everyone knew Molly Conner would come to no good.

They say the shotgun blast ripped off her whole d.a.m.n head. Not a trace of flesh left above the neck. Just some headless torso in cheap,