For a long moment no one said anything. Mason, apparently realizing I wasn’t going to answer her cousin’s question, said derisively, “They were bite marks, not claw marks, so there goes your serial-killer theory. It’s just a weird coincidence. I mean, yeah, both girls had dark hair. So do I. Does that make me a target for the next wolf attack?”
“Nobody’s going to be a target, because that’s not how wolves think,” Carla snapped, obviously irritated that Mason had shot down her serial-killer theory so quickly. “I mean, they must have attacked because they were hungry and the girls had food or something. It had nothing to do with what they looked like.”
“How do you know?” Mason shot back. “None of the reports said anything about food. They would have mentioned it if that was really what happened. And they’d be telling everyone not to carry food with them when they walk around campus. It’s just common sense.”
Carla didn’t appear to have an answer for that. Her mouth opened and then shut, as if she’d thought of a rebuttal, only to realize it wasn’t going to help her case any.
“It’s strange,” I agreed, since I figured I’d better contribute something. “I don’t think it means anything, though.” Well, that was what I told them. I thought it did mean something, although what, I couldn’t really begin to guess. “There are lots of dark-haired girls who attend Northern Pines. I’m not going to run a statistical analysis or anything, but I have a feeling it would be a lot stranger if they were both redheads or something like that.”
“True,” Carla agreed. “I know we all are looking for a pattern because that’s what people do. Doesn’t mean there is one.”
I forced myself to nod. Did two data points really constitute a pattern? Carla’s statistics professor would probably have a few choice words on the subject.
In the meantime, I’d just have to hope that those two data points — also known as Theresa and Alison — wouldn’t expand into something far, far worse.
15
Yee Naaldlooshii
The next day, the body of another young woman was found, and the day after that, yet another. Classes at Northern Pines were canceled, according to Mason, who called me to say she and Carla and some of their friends were taking an impromptu vacation to Tucson.
“The campus was crawling with fish and game people, police, sheriffs, maybe even the FBI,” she told me. “I would’ve stayed away even if they hadn’t canceled classes indefinitely, but at least this way everyone’s going to have a short semester, so I won’t have to play makeup with my classes. Besides, it’s eighty-five degrees down in Tucson. I’m so ready to bust out some sandals.”
“And you got permission?” I asked. After all, Tucson was de la Paz territory. Maya had been extremely friendly the last time we met, but I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about a mass invasion of Wilcoxes.
“Oh, sure. Lucas handled it. Not sure why, since Damon should’ve been the one to make the call, but he’s been under the weather lately.”
“Really?” I interjected, thinking that sounded odd. Somehow I couldn’t imagine any virus being brave enough to take up residence in Damon Wilcox’s body.
“Yeah,” she replied. “I guess he hadn’t been in to teach for a couple of days even before everything got shut down. Anyway, I gotta go. You stay safe!”
I murmured that I would, and ended the call, my mind churning. Connor had been forced to agree with me that something strange was going on after images of the murdered young women were plastered all over the the news and stared up from the front page of every newspaper in town. All of them between twenty and twenty-three, all with long, dark, wavy hair, all fair-skinned, all slender. The tallest five-foot-seven, the shortest five-foot-four. In dim lighting, or if viewed by someone with bad vision, they probably would have looked almost identical.
“As long as you stick close to home, you’ll be fine,” he’d told me after I’d shoved that day’s paper in the trash, not wanting to have another face a little too much like mine staring at me from beneath a lurid headline. “The attacks were all on campus, or near campus housing…a lot of which backs up to open land. But here, downtown? No way would a wild animal come anywhere near this place.”
That made sense, but I still tried not to go out by myself except in broad daylight. Too bad, because I’d started to explore Flagstaff on my own, driving around in Connor’s FJ and enjoying the sense of freedom it gave me, even as he stayed indoors and painted like a madman. Another gallery show was planned for late April, and because he’d sold so many paintings already, he had a lot of work to do to rebuild his inventory.