CHAPTER THREE

Riley’s nerves quickened as Agent Sturman parked the van in front of a little house in a well-kept neighborhood. This was where Robin Scoville had lived, and where she had died at the hands of a killer. Riley always felt this heightened alertness when she was about to visit a crime scene. Sometimes her unique ability to get into a twisted mind would kick in where the murder had taken place.

Would that happen here?

If so, she wasn’t looking forward to it.

It was an ugly, unsettling part of her job, but she had to use it whenever she could.

As they got out of the van, she noticed that the house was the smallest in the neighborhood—a modest one-story bungalow with a compact yard. But like all the other properties on the block, this one was immaculately painted and maintained. It was a picturesque setting, marred only by the yellow police tape that barred the public from entering.

When Riley, Jenn, Bill, and Agent Sturman entered through the front gate, a tall, uniformed man stepped out of the house. Agent Sturman introduced him to Riley and her colleagues as Clark Brennan, Wilburton’s police chief.

“Come on inside,” Brennan said in an agreeable accent similar to Sturman’s. “I’ll show you where it happened.”

They walked up a long wooden ramp that led to the porch.

Riley asked Brennan, “Was the victim able to move around independently?”

Brennan nodded and said, “Her neighbors say she didn’t much need the ramp anymore. After the car accident last year, her left leg was amputated above the knee, but she was getting around really well on a prosthetic limb.”

Brennan opened the front door, and they all entered the cozy, comfortable house. Riley noticed no further signs that anybody disabled had lived here—no special furniture or handholds, just a wheelchair tucked away in a corner. It seemed obvious that Robin Scoville had prided herself on living as normal a life as she possibly could.

A survivor, Riley thought with bitter irony.

The woman must have thought she’d endured the worst hardships life could throw at her. She’d surely had no idea of the grim fate that awaited her.

The small, tidy living room was furnished with inexpensive furniture that looked rather new. Riley doubted that Robin had lived in this house for very long. The place felt transitional somehow, and Riley thought she might know why.

Riley asked the police chief, “Was the victim divorced?”

Brennan looked a little surprised at the question.

“Why, yes,” he said. “She and her husband broke up earlier this year.”

It was just as Riley had suspected. This place seemed much like the little house where she and April had lived after her marriage to Ryan ended.

But Robin Scoville’s challenge had been much greater than Riley’s. She’d had to put both a divorce and a crippling accident behind her as she’d tried to start life anew.

A taped outline on the hardwood floor showed the position of the body. Brennan pointed to a small, dark stain on the floor.

“She’d bled from the ear just a little. Perfectly consistent with a cerebral hemorrhage. But because of the recent Cranston murder, the ME got suspicious right away. And sure enough, his autopsy showed that Robin was murdered in the same way as Cranston.”

Riley thought …

The same method, but such different circumstances.

And she knew that any differences were likely to prove as important as similarities.

She asked Brennan, “Were there any signs of a struggle?”

“None at all,” Brennan said.

Sturman added, “It looked like she was taken by surprise, attacked swiftly from behind.”

Bill asked, “Was she wearing her leg prosthesis at the time of her death?”

“No,” Brennan said. “She was using her elbow crutches to get around.”

Riley knelt down and examined the position marked by the body tape. She had fallen right in front of the window. Robin had most likely been struck while she was looking out the window.

She asked Brennan, “What was the estimated time of death?”

Brennan said, “Around four in the morning.”

Riley stood and looked through the window at the calm, pleasant street and wondered …

What was she looking at?

What had been going on in the neighborhood at such an hour that might have caught Robin’s attention? And did it matter one way or the other? Did it have anything to do with her actual killing?

Riley asked, “How was her body found?”

Brenan said, “She didn’t show up the next morning for her job as an editor at a local literary magazine. And she wouldn’t answer her boss’s phone calls. He found that to be strange and worrisome, not like her at all. He was worried that maybe she’d had some kind of an accident on account of her disability. So he sent an employee to her house to check on her. When she didn’t answer the door, the employee went around behind the house and found that the back door had been broken into. He came on inside the house and found the body and called nine-one-one.”

Riley stood there for a moment, still wondering what Robin might have been looking at outside.

Had something happened out there that awakened her and brought her to this spot?

Riley had no idea.

Anyway, what the victim had experienced just before her death was of markedly less interest to Riley than what had been going on in the mind of the killer. She hoped maybe she could get a hint of that while she was here.

“Show us where the killer broke in,” Riley said.

Brennan and Sturman led Riley and her colleagues through the little house to a door that opened onto stairs to the basement. Near the top of the stairs was a landing from which another door opened onto the backyard.

Riley saw right away that the pane of glass nearest the dead bolt and the doorknob had been broken. The killer had obviously broken the glass and reached through the frame and unlocked and opened the door.

But Riley noticed something else that struck her as important.

Pieces of contact paper were stuck to the shards that remained in the frame.

Riley carefully touched a shard with some paper on it.

The killer had carefully placed the contact paper on the pane, hoping not to make too much noise, but also …

Maybe he didn’t want to make too much of a mess.

Riley shivered at a sudden near-certainty.

He’s fastidious.

He’s a perfectionist.

It was the sort of sharp flash of intuitive insight she’d been hoping for.

How much more could she learn about the killer right here and now?

I’ve got to try, she thought.

CHAPTER FOUR

As Riley mentally prepared to reach into a killer’s mind, her eyes met with Bill’s for a moment. He was standing with their other colleagues, watching her. She saw Bill nod, obviously understanding that she wanted to be alone to do her work. Jenn smiled a little as she, too, seemed to pick up on Riley’s intention.

Bill and Jenn turned and led Sturman and Brennan back into the house, shutting the basement door behind them.

Alone on the little landing, Riley looked again at the broken window. Then she walked outside, pushed the door shut, and stood in the well-kept little backyard. There was an alley just beyond the picket fence at the edge of the yard.

Riley wondered—had he approached from the alley?

Or had he slipped around from the front, between Robin’s house and one of her neighbors’ homes?

The alley, probably.

He might have parked a vehicle on a nearby side street, walked down the alley, and slipped quietly through the back gate. Then he’d crept through the narrow yard straight to the back door and …

And then?

Riley took a few long, slow breaths to ready herself. She carefully visualized how the backyard must have looked at that hour of morning. She could imagine the sound of crickets and could almost feel the pleasant, cool air of a September night. There would have been some glow from the streetlights but probably little light from the houses themselves.

How had the killer felt as he’d readied himself for his task?

Well prepared, Riley thought.

After all, he’d obviously picked out his victim in advance, and he would have known a few crucial things about her, including the fact that she was an amputee.

Riley looked again at the broken pane of glass. Now she could see that the contact paper had been cut almost exactly to the shape of the windowpane. That surely meant he’d stood right here and cut the paper to fit even in the dim light, probably with a pair of scissors.

Again that word flashed through Riley’s mind …

Fastidious.

But more than that, he’d been calm and patient. Riley sensed that the killer had been utterly dispassionate—not the least bit angry or vengeful. Whether he’d known the victim personally or not, he’d harbored no feelings of animosity toward her. The killing had been cold-blooded in the fullest possible sense.

Almost clinical.

She made a fist and imitated the gentle but firm blow he must have used to break the glass. Before she reached through the broken pane, she suddenly sensed a spasm of discomfort.

Did he make more noise than he’d expected?

She remembered seeing a shard of glass lying on the floor inside the door. A piece had fallen despite the care he’d taken, causing a tinkling sound.

Had he hesitated?

Had he considered giving up on his plan and quietly slipping away the way he’d come?

If so, he’d quickly regained his resolve.

Riley gingerly reached through the pane and reopened the door and stepped onto the landing, slipping her shoes off as he surely had in order to move about quietly.

And then …

He’d heard a noise upstairs.

Sure enough, the woman had awakened at the sound, and he could hear clattering and thumping as she put on her elbow crutches and started moving through the house.

Riley thought maybe his hopes had sunk for a few moments.

Maybe he’d hoped to creep up on Robin as she lay in bed fast asleep, then drive the ice pick into her ear without her ever knowing he’d been there.

It wouldn’t be like the earlier killing, when he’d murdered young Vincent Cranston while he’d been jogging outdoors. But Riley sensed that the killer had no interest in a consistent MO. All he wanted was to get the killings done as cleanly and efficiency as possible.

But now …

With the woman on the move upstairs, did he dare continue?

Or should he run away before she came back here and found him?

Riley sensed that he froze here on the landing for a moment, struggling with his indecision.

But then …

The woman didn’t come to the back door. She moved on elsewhere in the little house. Maybe she hadn’t heard the glass breaking after all. The killer might have breathed a little easier at the realization, but he still wavered. Did he dare attack the woman while she was up and around?

Why not? he may have wondered.

Disabled as she was, he’d surely be able to overpower her much more easily than he had his earlier victim.

Still, he didn’t want to be sloppy or careless. A struggle might spoil everything.

But he reminded himself that this was urgent business. He was driven by some deep imperative that only he could understand.

He couldn’t back out—not now. When would he get another chance like this?

He summoned up his will and decided to get on with it.

Following in what she imagined to be the killer’s footsteps in her stocking feet, Riley climbed the steps up to the door that led to the kitchen. She turned the doorknob and tugged the door open …

Perfect!

The doorknob didn’t squeak, and neither did the door hinges.

Feeling more and more connected to the killer by the moment, Riley crept on into the kitchen. Ignoring the fact that Bill, Jenn, Sturman, and Brennan were all standing nearby watching her, she looked all around. She knew that the scene had been untouched since the murder. So the same as right now, the kitchen table had been piled with stacks of paper that the woman had been reading.

But where was the woman?

Riley imagined looking through the killer’s eyes, peering through the kitchen archway into the living room. Sure enough, she was standing right there, looking out the window, her attention entirely directed toward whatever she saw outside.

Riley imagined taking the ice pick in hand. Then she walked on across the hardwood floor, her shoeless feet stirring not so much as a whispering shuffle, until she stood right behind where Robin Scoville had been standing.

And then …

One swift, sharp, flawlessly aimed move was all it took.

The long point of the ice pick plunged effortlessly through the boneless passage through her ear into her brain, and the killer pulled the pick just as effortlessly out again, then watched his victim collapse to the floor.

And finally …

Riley felt sure that he was satisfied with his deed.

He was proud of himself for overcoming his uncertainties and going through with it.

But did he pause for a moment to admire his own handiwork?

Or had he slipped away immediately?

Riley’s sense of the killer’s mind dimmed now as she stood looking again at the taped outline on the floor.

There was a lot—too much—that she still didn’t know.

But she felt sure of one thing.

She said aloud to her colleagues, who were now gathered around her …

“He’s one cold son of a bitch.”

Bill said, “Tell us more.”

Riley thought for a moment, then said, “I can’t be sure of anything yet. But I think it’s personal for him—and yet it’s not personal at the same time. I don’t think he hated this woman. He may not have even known her name. But he had reasons for wanting her dead—important reasons, almost like killing her was some kind of …”

Riley paused, trying to think of the right word.

Then Jenn suggested, “Duty?”

Riley looked at her younger colleague and nodded.

“Yeah, that’s exactly the feeling I get. A sense of obligation, almost.”

Riley noticed now that Chief Brennan was staring at her with his mouth hanging open. She’d long since gotten used to people’s surprise when they watched her going through this strange process of hers. And she knew she’d just looked pretty strange, walking trancelike through the house in her socks, pantomiming the moves of the killer.

Agent Sturman, by contrast, didn’t look surprised at all. Of course, as a seasoned FBI agent, Sturman had surely at least heard of Riley’s unique propensities, which were well-known throughout the Bureau.

Sure enough, Sturman nudged Brennan with his elbow and said, “I’ll explain it later.”

Bill had gone to the landing in back of the house. He now came back with Riley’s shoes and handed them to her. As Riley sat down on a footstool and put them back on, doubts started to creep into her mind.

Did I get everything wrong?

She often felt swept with such uncertainties after these exercises.

After all, she wasn’t a mind reader, and there wasn’t anything magic or paranormal about the process she used. It was pure intuition, nothing more or less. She’d been wrong sometimes in the past, and she might be wrong now.

She got up from the footstool and wondered …

Did I miss something?

She looked toward the window and imagined the young woman standing there staring outside, oblivious to the danger that was creeping up behind her.

What was she looking at?

Riley had no idea.

But she knew she’d better find out.