Darcy closes her eyes and concentrates.
“An hour ago. Maybe longer.”
“Shit. You don’t know.”
“Stop harassing me, Eric! I’m not the one on trial.”
Hensel puffs air through his lips and rubs the back of his neck.
“I can’t defend the decisions you made tonight, but I get it. Jennifer is your daughter, and if I had a kid of my own, I wouldn’t think rationally if something happened. But put your FBI shoes on again and see things from the law’s perspective. You’re our only hope for identifying this guy, and I doubt we can use your testimony in court.”
“I don’t care about a trial. I want this bastard dead and my daughter back.”
Hensel places a finger over his lips when Fisher and Reinhold start down the stairway.
“Not a word of Lou Vescio or how many pills you took,” Hensel says, whispering next to her ear. “Fisher and Reinhold don’t know.”
“Upstairs is clear,” Fisher says, cocking an eyebrow at the glass shards sparkling on the floor.
The open window invites the gelid night inside, a cold the wood stove can’t overcome. Darcy recounts the attack for Fisher and Reinhold. She’s firm with her estimation that the killer broke inside an hour ago. Hensel shifts his jaw, unconvinced.
“And he left on foot?” Fisher asks, brushing a piece of glass aside so he can lean his head through the window.
Darcy nods.
“But you didn’t see which way he ran,” Reinhold says, studying Darcy.
“No.”
“If he’s on foot, that significantly narrows the area we need to search,” says Hensel, rising to his feet. He touches the fireplace poker with the toe of his shoe. “Did he swing this at you?”
“No, I used it in defense.”
“That’s all you needed to fight him off?”
Darcy glances around for the steak knife before she remembers it was still buried in the killer’s shoulder when he fled.
“No. The hidden knives, remember?”
“You hid one in the bookcase.”
“Good memory.”
Fisher kneels down and shines his flashlight on the floor.
“Blood,” Fisher says, looking over his shoulder at Hensel. “And Darcy isn’t bleeding.”
“Get me a CSI team. This prick left DNA.” Another pair of headlights flare against the kitchen window. “That will be the sheriff.”
Darcy grabs Hensel’s arm as he rises.
“I don’t want Laurie and Hunter to find out about this. They’re under enough stress.”
“It’s your cousin’s house. She needs to know.” Seeing Darcy’s protest forming, he clears his throat. “But we can’t allow Laurie inside until the techs finish collecting evidence. So I’ll forget to contact her for another hour and let her sleep.”
Hensel’s gaze slides from Fisher to Reinhold. They nod in agreement.
When Tipton enters the house, he looks like he fell asleep an hour before the call came in. His long face droops and sags, the lines under his eyes heavy with sleep deprivation. He takes one look at the shattered window and overturned furniture and mutters a curse.
“Anybody get a look at this guy?”
Hensel fills Tipton in. The sheriff glances in Darcy’s direction when Hensel tells him she saw his face.
“Okay, here’s what I want,” Tipton says, scanning the downstairs. “Before the CSI team arrives, I want every deputy yanked out of bed to search the grounds. If this scumbag pulled that knife out of his shoulder, I want it found. That will give us a first guess at the direction he headed, and we’ll have more DNA to nail him on. You two,” Tipton says, glaring at Hensel and Fisher. “Pull up a map and figure out where this guy could have run off to. He’s on foot, so there’s a good chance he lives around here.”
“Or has a place he takes the girls,” Reinhold suggests. “An abandoned cabin.”
“Fewer theories, more results. I want Sandy Young and Jennifer Gellar found. After the paramedics check Ms. Gellar, get me a police sketch artist. Bring him to the hospital if you need to.”
“I don’t need a doctor,” Darcy says.
“You’ll do what the paramedics tell you. This isn’t up for debate.”
The ambulance arrives fifteen minutes later. A skinny boy in glasses who doesn’t appear old enough to drive checks Darcy over. Except for the bruises on her neck and a scrape down her arm, she’s uninjured and doesn’t require a hospital stay. The paramedic gives her the usual catch-all advice—follow up with her own doctor in the next few days and get extra rest.
“I’m running low on a prescription,” Darcy says, scratching her arm.
“Sorry, Ms. Gellar. I’m not authorized to write prescriptions. But if you take my advice and visit the hospital…”
“No hospitals.”
Three CSI team members wearing baggies over their shoes pour over the evidence. The fireplace poker departs the scene in a plastic bag, and a young woman with sharp, green eyes dusts the living room for prints. She pulls a partial print off the windowsill and what appears to be a thumbprint from the hardwood where Darcy and the killer fought.
The police sketch artist arrives an hour later. She’s a middle-aged woman with strawberry blonde curls. The artist wears designer reading glasses on the end of her nose, and when she glances at Darcy, it’s always over the tops of the glasses as though she’s peeking over a wall at a strange animal she doesn’t recognize. Remembering the attack makes Darcy’s skin crawl, but sitting steps from where the intruder broke inside sharpens her memory, clears away the medication’s cobwebs. During her run with the FBI, Darcy worked with police sketch artists. She understands the process, knows the prompts before the artist gives them. But Darcy allows the woman to sketch the attacker at her own pace.
She’s surprised the work is already complete when the woman puts the pencil down and rotates the pad so it faces Darcy.
“Is this the man who attacked you?”
The sketch depicts a white male in his late-thirties to early forties, as average as apple pie at Thanksgiving. An upturned celestial nose appears accurate, as is the short, round chin and the unshaved stubble on his face. The spacing of the light brown eyes looks perfect, as is the thin scar on his forehead, but what strikes Darcy is the vacant stare in the picture. The sketch artist captured the killer perfectly. This is their guy. Now it’s a matter of spreading the picture around until someone recognizes him.
While Darcy huddles in the kitchen under a blanket, Hensel, Fisher, and Tipton spread a map across the table. When she tells them about the trail she found leading out of Cass Park, Hensel narrows his eyes.
“You investigated the park without backup after dark,” Hensel says, shaking his head. “Any more surprises I should know about?” He turns to Tipton. “Take her back to the hotel.”
“No, you can’t lock me out of the investigation.”
“I can and I did. You’re not law enforcement, Darcy, and the way you conducted yourself tonight, I can’t trust you to contribute.”
“A maniac kidnaps my daughter, and you blame me for generating leads. That’s just great, Eric.”
“Our sole focus is finding Sandy and Jennifer. Go back to the hotel, Darcy. We’ll discuss this after you’ve slept.”
“Fine. You don’t need to take me. I have my car.”
“You’re in no condition to drive. Take her keys.”
Wearing the grimace of a disappointed father, Tipton sweeps Darcy’s keys into his hands and tosses them to Agent Reinhold. To Darcy, the move feels childish as if the agent and sheriff play an immature game of keep-away.
Anger and hurt stab into her chest. Hensel never turned on her before. Slapping her palm on the table, she pushes past the agents. Awaiting Darcy at the door, Reinhold pockets the keys and leads her into the predawn dark. Darcy doesn’t realize she still has the blanket draped over her shoulders until she climbs into the SUV and yanks the door shut. Reinhold hasn’t looked at her, and Darcy is thankful the roar of the engine replaces the uncomfortable silence. They’re on a desolate strip of farm-to-market road between Scarlet River and Millport when Reinhold finally speaks.