The police have identified the victim found dead in the Swampscott woods on Saturday as Carly Jane Henderson. Ms. Henderson ran a local beauty salon and was a longtime resident of Essex County, though she was born and raised in Danvers. She was last seen leaving the O Club in Salem at eleven o’clock on Friday night, after enjoying dinner and cocktails with friends. Her car was parked at the local garage, where it remained until found by police. Police are seeking help to solve her murder. Anyone with any information regarding her whereabouts after she left the O Club is asked to please call the county sheriff’s department.
While police are closely guarding information regarding the murder itself due to the ongoing investigation, some local residents remember the murder of Melissa Wilson thirteen years ago. Melissa had left a friend’s house at around five o’clock, after a study date. She was later found the same evening in Peabody Woods. However, while Miss Wilson was seventeen, Carly Henderson was thirty-two.
The clock on the mantel struck twelve. Devin jumped, then stared at the softly chiming clock.
The two men had talked about...both murders. Or two murders. Or...
They’d known each other, she thought. The cop and the man she’d flagged down. Agent Rockwell...and Detective Grail. The two knew each other and...
She turned back to the computer screen.
Melissa Wilson.
She remembered the murder herself. She’d been about thirteen. Her parents had gone crazy with worry, of course. She’d barely been allowed out for weeks. But then events in the rest of the world had overshadowed one murder in little Peabody, and Melissa’s death had faded from the collective memory.
She’d jumped when the clock chimed; when her phone rang, she nearly flew off her chair.
Who could be calling at midnight?
She stared at the caller ID. She didn’t know the number. She didn’t even know the area code.
For some reason, though, she answered it.
“Hello?”
Images from books and movies swept through her mind. It was the killer. He was going to tell her that he was watching her....
“Miss Lyle?”
For a moment she didn’t reply. She couldn’t.
“This is Agent Rockwell.”
Sometimes the handsome cop was the killer, she reminded herself.
“I asked Detective Grail to make sure that an officer was posted outside your house tonight.”
She found her voice. It was a squeak. “You think—you think he’s still out there?”
“Frankly, no. Whoever this is, he carefully stalks and kills his victims. It’s very possible he gets to know them, one reason why Carly Henderson might have left willingly with him, and why the victim you discovered may have stood unsuspectingly with her back to him.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything, just waited for him to go on.
“I think you’re fine—I promise. But I thought you might be nervous, and that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a patrol car in front of your house.”
“Thank you.”
She walked to the window, pulled the drapes and looked out. There was a patrol car, bearing Salem’s famous witch logo on the door.
“Thank you,” she repeated.
“Have the best night you can,” he told her, and hung up.
There was something she liked about his words, she realized. He hadn’t said anything inane like Have a good night.
No. He’d said, Have the best night you can.
She’d barely noticed anything about him earlier, but now memory kicked in.
The man was tall and well built, though it was hard to really tell what lay beneath the suit. He’d looked strong. A good man to have around when a murderer might still be lurking in the woods nearby.
Unless he was the murderer.
Oh, God, her imagination was making her crazy.
She hovered by the computer a while longer and then rose at last. She was too nervous to undress for bed. She turned out her bedroom light but left the other lights in the cottage on.
Sensible, she thought. She could see out, no one could see into her room.
She was finally beginning to drift off to sleep when her half-closed eyes turned toward the bedroom door.
Maybe she was asleep already. Dreaming. She could swear she saw Aunt Mina there with her delightfully rosy cheeks and her long white hair rolled into a bun.
“Sleep, my little darling, I’m here,” her aunt said.
And Devin managed to fall into a real sleep at last.
*
“Are you two ever calling it quits and going to sleep?”
Rocky looked up. He and Jack had spent the past several hours poring over everything they knew about Melissa’s murder, and the murders of Carly Henderson and the as-yet-unidentified woman whose body had been found that night.
The question had come from Haley—Haley Grail, Jack’s wife.