"The man has a golden tongue."
Cassie turned from the window to find a female deputy standing in the doorway. Her name tag read sharon watkins.
"But how long will they listen to him?" Cassie asked.
Sharon smiled. "They're listening today. That's really all we can hope for." She hesitated. "We have some pretty good coffee out here, if you'd like a cup."
Cassie appreciated the offer, especially since she knew most of the deputies viewed her with uneasiness if not outright suspicion. "Thank you."
"I'll get the judge some too. I figure he'll stay here at least until the sheriff gets back."
"I think that's the plan." Ben had already made numerous phone calls in a concerted effort to keep the lid on the growing panic and anger of the town.
"He'll have to talk to the mayor again." Sharon sighed as she turned away. "He's already called twice in the last five minutes. The man needs a hobby."
Or a town where no killers lurked, Cassie thought. She hadn't met Mayor Ruppe, but from what she had heard she got the feeling the first-term mayor had a great deal of charm and very little common sense. Which was undoubtedly why he leaned heavily on the advice and help of other leaders of the town, particularly Ben and Matt.
Cassie returned her gaze to the window to watch Ben speak to the few lingering members of the crowd, then went back to her seat on the leather sofa. She would have preferred to be home, but Ben had asked her to stay with him, and she had agreed more because she hoped she might be of some help than because it was a comfortable or safe place to be.
She knew he was worried about her, that he didn't want her alone in her isolated house – even with a protective dog and a good security system. Her most recent contact with the killer had unsettled him as much as it had her, she thought. He was also very obviously feeling decidedly edgy about Bishop.
She couldn't help him there. The agent made her feel edgy herself, and always had.
Cassie leaned her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes – then just as quickly opened them again. The trouble with closing her eyes was that she kept seeing the remains of that poor girl scattered all over that barn. Even with her experience of horrible sights and her hard-won ability to detach herself somewhat, this one was so brutal and dehumanizing that it was branded on her mind's eye in a way she would never entirely escape. But when her eyes were open she could look consciously at something else.
Anything else. The map behind Matt's desk made a good focus. Salem County. One of the larger counties in the state, and shaped vaguely like a triangle…
Cassie shook her head irritably. There was some damned song in her head, a tune she couldn't identify that kept playing over and over again, fading into silence, only to return. It was one of those maddening tricks of the mind that tended to come when there was too much to think about.
Sharon returned with coffee and the offer of sending out for a late lunch if and when it was wanted. Cassie thanked her, and the deputy returned to her desk a couple of minutes before Ben came back into Matt's office.
Cassie indicated the cup Sharon had left for him, then said, "It looked pretty ugly out there for a while."
Ben sat down behind Matt's desk. "It'll be a lot worse if we ever get a suspect in custody. That's as close as I ever want to come to facing a lynch mob."
"They listened to you. They left."
"This time," Ben said, unknowingly echoing Deputy Watkins. "But if we don't catch this bastard, and soon…"
"He's still blocking me."
"Dammit, Cassie, stop trying to contact him without a lifeline."
"I told you it isn't dangerous." She shook her head,avoiding his gaze. "And I have to keep trying. What else am I here for, Ben? So far, all I've been able to do is tell Matt where to look for the bodies. I've been a lot of help."
"You've done everything you could."
"Have I?" Cassie stared down at her coffee. "I'm not so sure."
"You seem very tense. What's bothering you?" he asked.
"I don't know. Just a feeling."
He waited, watching her.
Slowly Cassie said, "He had to be in a frenzy this time, you know. To do what he did to that poor girl."
Ben hadn't viewed the murder scene, but he had seen Matt's sickened face and Bishop's stony one as well as Cassie's haunted eyes; he could only imagine the carnage that must have lain waiting for them in that barn.
"Don't think about it," he said.
"I don't have a choice. It isn't something I can put out of my mind. Eventually maybe, but not yet." She shrugged jerkily. "If I can just make sense of it…"
"How can any of this make sense?"
"Even madmen have their own mad logic." She looked at him, frowning. "Maybe that's what's bothering me."
"What?"
"Well… it's like he's blowing hot and cold. One victim is found far from where she was killed, the crime scene neat, her body virtually unmarked except for the wound that killed her, no murder weapon anywhere to be seen. The next is found in the room where she was killed, blood everywhere, the weapon a knife he found and left right there. Then he picks up another knife and takes it to use on his third victim, who is found where she was killed, but again the scene is neat and calm. And now this. He made the weapon that killed her and took it with him after he was done with her – but killing her wasn't enough. Raping her wasn't enough. He had to cut her into pieces…"
Ben drew a breath. "It takes more than a kitchen knife to hack a body into pieces."
"He used an ax," Cassie said. "And left it at the scene. He took the garrote with him, but left the ax in that barn."
Ben didn't ask her how she knew that. Instead, keeping his voice as composed as hers was, he said, "Seemingly calm and controlled when he kills one victim, then frenzied when he kills the next. As if he needs those violent outbursts?"
"I don't know. But it bothers me. I'd say he was trying to disguise some of his kills, but leaving the coins at the scene is as good as a signature, and he has to know that."
Matt had told them tonelessly that the killer had left his usual coin after killing Deanna Ramsay. It was a penny, placed on her forehead between gouged-out eyes.
Cassie rubbed her own forehead fretfully as she considered the mad logic of a madman, and Ben felt a little chill as he imagined a coin lying coldly against her skin.
He didn't want to let her out of his sight. It wasn't just because the killer knew who she was now; it was also because Cassie seemed hell-bent on contacting the bastard again and was far too willing to do so without a lifeline.
At least, without him as her lifeline. He was afraid that was it. Cassie had withdrawn so completely from him, she would not accept any kind of contact with him even to save her life. If it could save her life.
"There's something I'm missing," she said almost to herself. "Something… I just don't know what it is."
"As much as I hate the very possibility, have you considered that there might be two killers?"
Cassie nodded immediately. "Sure. But I'm positive the same man killed these women, all of them."
Ben knew that Matt had reached the same conclusion thanks to what little forensic evidence they'd managed to gather added to the presence of the coins and the identical way in which the first three bodies had been found posed. And they'd found a bloody footprint at this latest scene that Matt was certain would match one of those found in Ivy Jameson's bloody kitchen. To Matt the facts added up to one killer.
"I just wish I knew what was bothering me," Cassie murmured.
"You're still tired," Ben said.
"I slept more than twelve hours."
"Maybe it wasn't enough."
Cassie's smile was slight and fleeting. "It's never enough. I'm fine, Ben. I told you I wouldn't collapse, and I won't. I'm stronger than I seem."
"I just – "
"I know. You're worried about me. Don't be."