“It’s a ghost,” the boy teased, but Kate knew a great horned owl when she heard one. They were the largest nocturnal birds in New Hampshire, rust-colored with snow-white throats and tufted feathery horns. They had piercing yellow eyes, and their hoots came in series of fives. Hoo-hoo, hooooo, hoo-hoo.
The boy put his hand down Kate’s pants and frantically unhooked her bra, and she vaguely recalled seeing splashes of light around the cabin in the distance, but she figured it was just her sister exploring, shining the flashlight around, because that’s what Savannah did. She was the Curious George of little girls.
Kate wasn’t completely irresponsible; at one point she tried to get up to go check on her sister, but the boy pulled her back down and kissed her all over, which made her swoon, until she was lying flat on the prickly ground, mesmerized by the things he was doing to her body.
“Wait,” she hissed cautiously.
“What?”
“Do you hear that?”
Hoo-hoo, hooooo, hoo-hoo.
“Kiss me,” he commanded.
She kissed him. She did whatever he wanted. She lost her virginity that night. She lost everything that night.
Now she sighed in defeat as she put the files back in the box. There was nothing she could tell Palmer he didn’t already know. Her actions had been written up in the police report. She’d confessed everything to Detective Dunmeyer, down to the last lurid detail—the blood in her underpants, the stickiness between her legs, the boy’s half-hearted attempts at consoling her afterwards—and worst of all, how she’d taken her sweet time getting dressed and going back to the cabin and finding it empty.
The phone rang. Kate picked up. “Hello?”
“Did I wake you?” It was Palmer Dyson.
“Can’t sleep,” she admitted groggily. “I was looking at those files you sent over.”
“Yeah? What do you think?”
“I have my impressions, but nothing earth-shattering.” A shiver made her draw her knees to her chest. “Do you want to hear them?”
“Nah. Let’s talk tomorrow. I just took a couple of Ambiens.”
“Actually, I could swing by your place first thing. What time’s good for you?”
“I’m wide open.”
“Really?” she teased. “You’ve got nothing penciled in?”
“I’ve got like zero social life.”
“How’s nine o’clock sound?”
“Sounds good. There’s something I’d rather tell you in person anyway.”
She frowned. “What?”
“Tomorrow,” Palmer said, and hung up.
33
HANNAH LLOYD’S CRIME SCENE photos pushed their way into her dreams, and Kate woke up on Thursday morning in an absolute panic, clawing at the air. She sat up in bed with her temples pounding as the nightmare slowly receded. Something about skeletal fingers digging up fistfuls of spiders.
It was 5:00 AM, and James’s side of the bed was empty. She missed him with a big sorry ache. She got up and opened the window and inhaled a chill blast of arctic air, and it shocked her lungs like a scoop of ice cream. She tried to shake off any lingering grief that should’ve ended with Blackwood’s death and called Nelly at home, despite the early hour, but gave up after the tenth ring. The Wards must be avoiding the barrage of media calls, and who could blame them? Kate refused to answer her phone for the same reason—old friends calling to commiserate, reporters requesting interviews, bloggers trolling for click-bait. Savannah Wolfe was trending on Twitter. All she could do was wait it out, until the media winds blew over. How long that could take was anybody’s guess.
She showered and got dressed, then grabbed her keys and headed for New Hampshire. Once she’d left the greater Boston area behind, the drive was relatively hassle-free, with very little traffic on the road. She passed dozens of New England villages nestled in snow-covered valleys, their lacy Christmas-card quality soothing her nerves.
Detective Dyson lived on the east side of Blunt River, at the end of a meandering country road. She parked in front of his tattered Queen Anne, took the shoveled walkway up to his rickety front porch, and knocked on the door.
They shook hands, and he seemed fully awake and brimming with energy. “Come on in. Watch your step. Gotta fix that.”
The house was sunny and spacious, with old-fashioned drafty windows and gorgeous woodwork. The furniture was a blend of modern-discount and family heirlooms. Dozens of storage boxes were stacked around the living room, giving it a garage-sale feel. Every surface was covered with old police reports, dirty dishes, and textbooks on criminology. A standalone whiteboard in the corner was covered with names, dates, and timelines. There was a map of Blunt River County tacked to the wall, with colored pushpins indicating various abduction points.
“See what happens when your obsessions take over?” he joked. “They grow like kudzu. Grab a seat. Coffee?”
“Sure.”
“Long trip?”
“Not bad.”
“Be right back.” He ducked into the kitchen.
Kate glanced around the living room, at the hardwood floor and river-stone fireplace. A mahogany desk with an outdated PC and fax machine was bracketed by two glass-fronted bookcases crammed with leather-bound volumes. She took a seat in a plaid armchair facing a brown corduroy sleep-sofa.
“So,” he said, returning with two steaming mugs on a tray. He handed her the milk and sugar and sat down on the sofa. “Let’s talk.”
She smiled uncertainly. “You said you had something to tell me?”
“First.” He held up a finger. “What’s your profile? What do you see in those files?”
She understood what he was looking for: a psychological cold reading. “My first impression? Well, we don’t know anything about the fate of the four missing girls, so it’s difficult to prognosticate.”
“What about the others?”
“If you accept the theory that the suicides and accident were staged murders,” Kate said, “and that the killer is obsessed with the victims’ hair… then the next thing we need to do is look for commonalities between the victims. On face value their ages and physical characteristics are all over the map. But the two things they all have in common are their sex and general age range.”
“Female children?”
“Yes. But I didn’t see anything in the files to indicate they were raped, which tells me this isn’t a sexual deviant. This is something different. A predator who’s triggered by the hair of young females.”
“Why? What’s the psychological significance?”
“It’s likely the result of childhood trauma.”
“So he’s acting out some sort of psychological ordeal from the past?”
“Possibly. Shaved heads and shorn hair are pregnant with meaning for him. The act of removing the hair is heavily symbolic.”
“Symbolic of what?” Palmer asked.
“I don’t know. Perhaps a form of punishment.” It didn’t escape Kate’s notice that they were speaking as if she accepted the premise. “After World War II, the Allies shamed female Nazi collaborators by shaving their heads and parading them in front of a jeering crowd. It’s a method of defeminizing. Or else he could be infantilizing his victims. By shaving their heads, they become like helpless infants. No longer a threat to his manhood.”
“So he’s scared of a bunch of girls? Is that what you’re saying?”
Kate smiled. “There are other possibilities. For example, Buddhist monks and nuns will shave their heads as a purifying act before entering the order.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “A renunciation of worldly pleasures.”
“But I think it’s much more personal than that. He may have witnessed something as a child—some traumatic event that disturbed him. His mother or some other powerful female figure could’ve come down with a debilitating disease that caused her to lose her hair, for instance. Or maybe she was mentally imbalanced and shaved it off in a fit of psychosis. Mental illness is a strong contender, since it’s passed from one generation to the next. Whatever the reason, he’s branding them. These girls are his. He puts his mark on them, and they become untouchables.”
“Untouchables?”
“His alone. Forever.”