That had been Alexandra Melton's warning, and all she would say. Since Abby had only a few days earlier thrown her abusive husband out of the house, she had been half convinced it had been her own fear and anxiety the older woman sensed, that the "prophecy" had arisen from that.
Still, she had continued to be wary, to take care. Given Gary 's propensity toward violence, it had been obvious to her that if Alexandra had indeed seen a future event, the madman in her vision would certainly be him.
Until, as Matt had baldly stated, a killer had begun butchering women. Now she had to be wary, not only of her ex-husband, but of virtually every other man as well.
They were certainly not reassuring thoughts that followed Abby to bed that night. And when Bryce looked at her with pleading eyes, she allowed the big dog to stretch out happily beside her.
She kept her hand on him all night.
FEBRUARY 25, 1999
Cassie woke in the morning with a sense of expectancy. She lay in bed for some minutes, thinking, aware from the brightness of the room that it had snowed considerably more during the night, but in no hurry to get up and look. Her sleep had been unusually restful, dreamless as far as she remembered, and she felt better than she had in a long, long time.
The evening with Ben had been surprising. As he had noted, she was able to relax her guard in his company, yet even as her "extra" senses lay peacefully dormant, the other five had awakened with a vengeance. She had been hyper-aware of him, of his voice, his movements and gestures, his smiles.
Especially his smiles.
And oddly aware of his awareness. She found that strange because it was something completely new for her. Always before, either she could read a man – such as the sheriff – or she could not. If she could not, it meant he was a closed book to her, revealing nothing of himself that was not visible.
Perhaps because of the violent male minds she had routinely dipped into her entire adult life, Cassie had seldom felt more than a fleeting interest in any man personally. And even when the natural urges and drives of a healthy young female body had presented themselves, she'd had little difficulty in pushing them from her consciousness.
When one's only experience of sex lay in horrible mental images of unspeakable violence and death accompanied by terror and agony, it was virtually reflexive to completely avoid even the possibility of becoming involved with any man.
So Cassie knew herself to be dangerously isolated and inexperienced when it came to saner human emotions, and ridiculously ignorant about the physical side of a normal male-female relationship.
Ben was attracted to her, she was sure of it. She knew she was attracted to him. Instincts she hardly understood told her that the attraction was strong and intensifying, and that it was only a matter of time before…
Before what? Before they ended up in bed together? Before they fell in love? Before he swept her off her feet and into some absurd emotional fairy tale she hadn't believed in since she was eight and possibly not even then?
Cassie threw back the covers as she sat up, her earlier sense of happy expectancy deflated. She was, she told herself, being an absolute idiot. For the first time in her adult life, she had been thrown into the company of a handsome, sexy man whose mind was closed to her and who had shown her what was undoubtedly only ordinarily polite attention, and her imagination was running away with her.
Ben needed her to help catch a madman threatening his town, and that was the only reason he needed her. His devotion to this town and its people was strong, his abhorrence of insane killers even stronger, and in her abilities lay possible tools for him to use to protect the former and destroy the latter.
That was all.
Having reached that conclusion, Cassie tried to stop thinking about it. About him. She got up and dressed, then put the coffee on, got her boots from the laundry room, and took Max out for his morning run.
It had snowed about four inches, not so much that it made walking difficult but just enough to cover the winter-flattened grass of the fields with a blanket of pristine white. The bare limbs of the hardwood trees were frosted with a thin layer, while the pines so common in the state bore the weight of snow on drooping boughs that appeared to slump in weariness.
Cassie watched Max dash around happily, then lifted her gaze to the mountains. Ryan's Bluff was nestled in a valley high up against a shoulder of the Appalachians; normally the view of the mountains was pleasant and often a bit hazy, but today the dull green and brown was dusted with snow and the cold, clear air made the hulking shapes seem to loom nearer than they actually were.
As she stared up at them, Cassie's smile of pleasure faded. For the first time, they felt threatening, brooding down on the valley and the town with an almost malevolent stare.
Watching her.
Just as she had in Ivy Jameson's kitchen, she felt a pressure in or on her chest, at first barely noticeable but intensifying slowly. The chill of the ground seemed to sweep upward from her boots in a wave that left behind it cold flesh and quivering muscles.
The crisp white landscape surrounding her took on a dingy gray hue, as though a fog had moved in, and a dull, roaring sound grew louder in her ears. She had the sense of something beating up against her like fluttering wings, trying to get in, and the touch of it was as icy as the grave.
The sensations were so unsettling and unfamiliar that Cassie didn't know what to do. She was afraid to lower her guard, to open herself up and let whatever it was touch her mind. But as wary and fearful as she was, experience had taught her that struggling against any attempt to contact her would only prolong the situation – and possibly make it impossible for her to control what happened.
If she could control it.
Cassie drew a breath and let it out slowly, watching it turn to mist before her face. Then she closed her eyes and opened herself to whatever it was that demanded her attention.
Ben tossed the plastic evidence bag onto Sheriff Dunbar's desk and said, "Cassie may not mind, but I really don't appreciate your sense of humor, Matt."
"Excuse me?" Matt was wonderfully polite.
"Don't play innocent, it's not your best face. That scrap of cloth is from your old Boy Scout uniform."
"So she got that, huh?" Matt said as Ben sat down in his visitor's chair.
"She got it. Said the cloth was only evidence of your sense of humor – which she had doubted until then."
Matt smiled, but then quickly frowned.
"She said it wouldn't convince you." Ben was watching him. "But that it might at least give you pause. For Christ's sake, Matt, what's it going to take?"
Matt ignored the question. "Following up on the coins hasn't given us squat. For one thing, all the collectors we've talked to so far have been middle-aged or older. All apparently happily married with kids. And not so much as a traffic ticket among them."
"And so nowhere near the profile."
"If I accept the profile, yes."
"Do you? And will you finally admit we have a serial killer?"
Matt hesitated. "I may be stubborn, but I'm no fool, Ben. The only real connection between the three victims is their sex and race – and the fact that we can't find, in any of their pasts, an enemy angry enough or with any other kind of motive to kill any of them. Which means it's looking more and more likely all three were killed by a stranger, or at least by someone they hardly knew."
"Which points to a serial killer."
"I don't see any other option, goddammit." Matt sighed explosively. "They used to call them stranger killings, did you know that? Before somebody coined the term 'serial killer.' The most difficult kind of murder to solve because the killer has no tangible connection with his victim."
Ben nodded. "I've been doing some reading on the subject, especially since Ivy and Jill were killed. Sounds like you have as well."