“It’s not like they’re five years old and we’re going to tell them that there’s no Santa Claus.”
“You know what? It is like that,” she says evenly, as her phone buzzes with yet another text. “It’s exactly like that.”
Sully and Stockton stare intently at the whiteboard where they’ve been scrawling details of the related crimes.
“All within a day’s drive of here,” she observes.
“So he travels as part of his job.” Stockton circles the word they’ve already underlined several times. “Which rules out the barber theory.”
“Unless he’s a traveling barber. Or maybe he’s being careful not to hunt too close to home.”
“Home being . . .”
“Who the hell knows.”
Sully studies the diagram showing New York in the center, with arrows fanning out in three different directions to depict locations west, south, and east of Manhattan. Pennsylvania, Virginia, Rhode Island.
“I’ve never been to any of these places,” she tells Barnes. “Have you?”
“You’ve never been to Pennsylvania?”
“Philly. Not Erie.”
“Yeah, that’s different.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Philly, Hershey, Pittsburgh . . . Pennsylvania’s a big state. It’s not, you know, Rhode Island.”
“Ever been there?”
“Nah. Was supposed to go to Newport last July for the regatta, but—-”
“Wait, you sail?”
“Hell no. But I was seeing this woman who does.”
“You never told me that.”
“I never tell you a lot of things. Anyway, there was that freak hurricane, and—-”
“What was her name?”
“It didn’t have a name, so maybe it wasn’t exactly a hurricane, but it almost—-”
“Not the storm! I meant the woman you were seeing. But I guess it doesn’t matter.”
“Believe me, it doesn’t. Anyway, this storm knocked out the power and they closed the bridges and . . . wait, why am I telling you this again?”
“I have no idea.”
“Okay. I’ll stop.”
They both fall silent, staring at the whiteboard again as Sully pictures Stockton on a sailboat with a leggy, outdoorsy New Englander.
“So is he still nearby,” Stockton wonders aloud after a moment, “or has he already moved on?”
She jerks her focus back to the case, asking, “And why these places? What do they have in common, besides proximity to New York?”
“That might be easier to tell if we could just figure out the trigger.” Stockton rubs a few days’ worth of razor stubble on his chin. “What’s setting him off?”
“Hell if I know, but we’d better figure it out pretty fast.”
If she’s learned anything over two decades as a police detective, it’s that sooner or later, whatever incident triggers a perp’s homicidal rage is going to happen again. When it does, some other innocent person will pay with her life.
Sully stares at the diagrams on the whiteboard until the words are swimming before her eyes. Stifling a yawn, she reaches for the mug on her desk, tilts it, and finds it empty. Again. “I feel like I’ve been shot with a tranquilizer dart. I need more tea.”
“You need something stronger than tea.”
“You’re right. I need dark chocolate. And tea. And the ladies’ room. I have to piss like a racehorse.”
“Nice. Oh, and do remember to extend that pinky finger when you’re drinking your tea, Lady Leary,” he adds in his fake British accent.
She often responds in a brogue that rivals her grandmother’s, but today she can’t muster the energy. She stands, picks up her mug, and tells him she’ll be right back.
“You always are, aren’t you.”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”
“You know I love you.”
“And I love you. Solve this thing while I’m gone, will you?”
“No probs.”