What would I do without Marci?
Ingrid nodded slowly, still sobbing into her hands. She wiped her eyes and sniffed, trying to regain her composure. “You met them yesterday, right? The Butler girls?”
No, I thought, please no. “We did,” I said, nodding slowly. “Are they okay?”
“Jessica,” said Ingrid, and she broke down sobbing again. We could barely understand the next three words: “Just like Derek.”
Marci put her hand on Ingrid’s back, looked at me silently, then wrapped her arms around Ingrid, who hugged her back, and Boy Dog walked toward them, sitting down on Marci’s feet in a gesture of fat, furry devotion. I watched them, thinking.
Why Jessica? Both victims were people we had talked to, the night after we’d talked to them. Was it a message to us? Or was someone actively hunting us, and kept missing? I didn’t know what kind of tracking system might result in that kind of repeated mistake, but Withered powers were virtually impossible to understand without knowing exactly how they worked. The people they killed and their reasons and methods always had perfect internal consistency—even when you disagreed with what they did, you could understand how they got there. They made sense. All you had to do was find the thing that made them all make sense—that secret, supernatural decoder ring that made all the clues click into place. Without knowing how their powers worked, though …
We’d talked to several people while we were in Dillon. Why had the Withered killed these two, specifically? What set them apart? They were both teenagers. They were both people we’d talked to on the street. They were both … And then I felt a sudden rush of relief, realizing a key difference between the two victims: I’d wanted to kill Derek and felt a sense of guilty responsibility ever since I’d learned that he’d died, as if I’d somehow helped to cause it. But I’d never wanted to kill Jessica. Even better, I was actively planning to kill Corey, and he was fine. If my plans for violence had been the root of these attacks, Jessica would have been untouched. I was off the hook—
—well, at least in part. It was still my responsibility to stop this Withered before he killed again.
“I need to call Sara,” said Ingrid, clutching Marci tightly for a few more seconds before pulling away and reaching for her phone again. “She’ll be a wreck.”
“Did she know Jessica well?” asked Marci.
“Oh dear,” said Ingrid, taking Marci’s hand. “I was so broken up I didn’t even tell you about Luke.”
“Her brother?” I asked.
“He tried to save her,” said Ingrid. “He was a hero.”
“Wait,” I said, sitting at the table across from her. “What was Officer Glassman doing with fourteen-year-old Jessica at 1:30 in the morning?”
“He was a hero,” Ingrid insisted, her voice turning hard and angry. “He got cut up too, trying to save her.” She picked up the phone, and I caught Marci’s eye and nodded toward the living room. I left the kitchen, and she followed me.
“What do you think?” I whispered.
“No way Jessica was out there with him willingly,” said Marci.
I nodded. “Do you think…? I don’t know. Can you remember any Withered who were pedophiles?”
She frowned. “You think it’s Glassman, now?”
“I still think it’s Corey,” I said, shaking my head. “He’s weird and creepy and that ‘it begins’ looks awfully suspicious. But. None of that is hard evidence, and both victims were teenagers, and Officer Glassman was leering at Jessica like crazy just a few hours before she died. So it’s at least worth a mention.”
“But Glassman wasn’t even here the night Derek died,” said Marci. “Sara told us he’d left the day before.”
“Maybe he faked leaving early to build himself an alibi.”
“A person that careful wouldn’t turn around and kill a girl five hours after all of Main Street saw him talking to her. And then be found at the scene with injuries.”
I sighed and nodded. “You’re right. But what if … I don’t know. It’s too obvious to ignore, even if some of the pieces don’t fit yet.”
“Yet?”
“They might fit better when we learn more.”
Marci nodded. “For now, let’s focus on what we know. Both victims died the night after we talked to them.”
“Even better,” I said, “both of those conversations happened in Corey’s presence.”
“He’s still the best candidate,” Marci agreed. “I just wish we had more evidence.”
“Maybe he recognized us that first night,” I said. “Or he recognized Nobody’s presence or influence or something, and so when we left he killed Derek to try to lure us back. He didn’t kill anyone the first night because he didn’t have a plan yet. He was still thinking. And then the second night he put his plan into motion: It begins.”