Jennifer swings her gaze to Amy on the couch.
“And who is that?”
“A friend. I’ll explain after. What about the messages you never answered?”
Jennifer huffs and points at her battery level, a notch above zero.
“My battery died while I was waiting in the freaking dark. I had to jump the fence and plug the phone into the press box so I could order the Uber. I didn’t get your messages until I was halfway home.”
After Darcy sends Jennifer to her room, she sits beside Amy. The altercation with Jennifer tore a hole through the drug-induced haze, and now she sees with clarity how ugly this looks.
“Sorry you had to see that. I’m working with Jennifer, but she flies off the handle when she gets upset.”
“I should leave,” Amy says, standing up.
“Absolutely not. You’re a guest in my house, and you’re not staying alone until the police capture this guy. None of us are.”
Darcy calls Hunter to deliver the news. Hunter, complaining he is hungry, wants to stop for food on the way home.
“One quick stop, and then you need to get home ASAP.”
Hunter agrees.
The next call is to Bronson, who answers on the first ring. The big truck motor growls in the background.
“Jennifer made it home.”
“That’s a relief. I couldn’t find her at the school. What on earth happened?”
Strange. Bronson drove past the field to look for Jennifer. Is her daughter lying? Maybe he passed by while she recharged her phone in the press box.
“I’ll explain it all later. Listen, someone messaged Jennifer and made it look like I sent it.”
“What did the message say?”
“That I’d pick her up after practice, and she was to wait at the field. I clicked on the sender and wrote down the phone number.”
“Good. Read it off to me, and I’ll have one of the guys at the department give it a once over. It’s either a helluva joke, or—”
“Bronson, did you call the GCPD? Because when Officer Faust came here, she acted like this was news to her.”
“Of course, I called. Are you questioning me?”
His words make her flinch.
“No, I’m sorry.”
He waits before he responds.
“I’m the one who should be sorry. No reason for me to get upset. This is your kid. I understand how scared you must have been. Send me that number.”
Darcy reads him the number after Bronson stops along the shoulder. She pictures the truck on a lonely country road, darkness rushing toward him. Damn the pills. They’re playing with her mind.
“Got it. It’s probably another burner number or a really dumb kid.”
“I don’t think a dumb kid could pull off a fake this convincing.”
“True. Glad Jennifer made it home. I need to swing by my house, then I’ll stop by after.”
“Thank you again, Bronson.”
Darcy starts a pot of coffee, anticipating a sleepless night. From the way Amy sits ramrod straight on the couch, eyes shifting every few seconds, it’s clear the girl is uncomfortable and feels she has overstayed her welcome.
“We’ll get through this, Amy. Here.” Darcy hands her the remote. “There must be a show you like to watch. Order a movie if nothing better is on.”
Amy takes the remote in one limp hand and droops against the cushions.
A laugh track follows Darcy into the kitchen. Anything is better than dead quiet while she works. She cleans a few dirty plates in the sink while she waits for the coffee. As before, she can’t see into the yard with the kitchen light on, but now it’s more than paranoia rippling chills down her back. A serial killer haunts the shadows of Genoa Cove, a murderer who targets women tied to Michael Rivers, and her daughter isn’t taking the danger seriously.
Over the last three years, she strove to bury the profiler lurking inside her mind and put the past to rest. A mistake. To this point, she’s given the police their best leads. Their only leads as far as she can tell.
Placing a dish on the drying rack, she wipes her hands on the towel and assesses the bullet points. A rapist attacked multiple young women in Smith Town, and budding serial killers often cut their teeth as rapists. All the girls, including Amy, fall into the age group Rivers targeted, as does the young woman the killer dropped on the beach.
Michael Rivers had an accomplice she’d failed to detect three years ago, or someone just found a taste for killing.
The ages of the victims tell her little. Rapists and murderers attack women outside their own age brackets. But most hunt within racial lines, which means the killer is a white male. Amy Yang is Asian, but Darcy’s experiences taught her murderers see the world in black and white, no nuances or shades of gray. And Amy is a link in the chain attaching Darcy to the Full Moon Killer.
No evidence exists the killer grew up in coastal North Carolina. More likely he followed Darcy and Amy here. But the raped girls described their attacker as a white male wearing a ski mask, average size and build.
He probably followed the girls at first. The killer would want to watch them, fantasize before he acted. Did he make contact with the girls, or did he float on the periphery, a shark hunting shallow waters? Darcy places the man between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, old enough to have followed Michael Rivers in the news, young enough to fit in with girls in their mid-twenties or younger. Maybe he passed them in a bar or club. A fake ID will get most teenagers past the bouncer.
The text Jennifer received troubles her. It could have been a school prank, but the faked message convinced Darcy until she compared the number to her own.
She jots down another mental note. The killer possesses information technology skills.
After she pours the coffee, she rechecks the locks and alarm. Her laptop is open on the counter. Infrared cameras pick out views surrounding the ranch in sharp contrasts, the shadows exaggerated and monstrous.
“What’s on tonight?” Darcy asks, sitting beside Amy. She hasn’t watched television in years and keeps her cable subscription for the kids.
“I don’t watch TV.”
The laughs continue, but Amy never joins in, only stares trance-like at the digital pictures flashing on the screen. Darcy reaches over and mutes the volume. A stunned expression freezes Amy’s face, and the girl turns her head at Darcy as though awaiting instructions.
“Amy, could you tell me why you quit school?” The girl shrugs and looks down at the hands folded in her lap. “Last we spoke, you’d won a scholarship to a private college. Am I recalling correctly?”
Amy blinks.
“How far did you get?”
“Finished my freshman year.”
Darcy’s approach is slow, careful. The smallest misstep will unravel the teenager.
“Sometimes we start college before we’re ready. I know I did.” When Amy doesn’t reply, Darcy pauses and regroups. “After what happened to me three years ago, I didn’t sleep for a long time. And when I did I always had—“
“Dreams.”
The word hangs in the air, a black wind stirring the medication’s haze.
“Yes, bad dreams.” Darcy waits for a reply or reaction. When none comes she continues. “I tried to tough it out, pretended this was something I could conquer on my own. Like running to build up endurance or studying for a final exam. But I didn’t have the tools to do it on my own. None of us do. I talked to someone and it helped.”
“I don’t want to see a psychiatrist.”
“Is it the cost? I’ll help you.”
Sudden intensity lights Amy’s eyes.
“Do you know what it’s like to dream he’s killing you over and over? Then you wake up, and all those girls are dead. Except I’m not. Why me? Why did God choose to save me and let the other girls die?”