“So why come back?” Cade answered his own question. “Because there’s business of some kind here for him. Something he needs to finish, to take care of, something that’s eating at him about this place.”
“Maybe,” she agreed. “Or it may be a huge act of stupidity. Hanging those bodies in the woods could be read as risk taking, because somebody could have stumbled on them, or him when he was there, or it could have been stupidity driven by his compulsion.”
“God,” he said, “give me an ordinary murder any day.” Rising, he went to dice the chicken. The knife fell on the cutting board with more force than necessary. “Can I be frank?”
“Please do.”
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and saw she had come to refill her coffee.
“Want some?” she asked.
Apparently they’d gotten past the point of worrying about whether it was sexist to pour coffee. He let a moment of amusement pass through him, but it didn’t do much to lift his mood.
“Frank?” she reminded him.
“This is the kind of case I never wanted to work. I’ve seen awful, terrible crimes in my day, but one like this? No clues, having to try to get into some sick head and become proactive...not my thing.”
“I’m there with you,” she replied. “What’s Gage’s number?”
“Hit the redial button. We haven’t called anyone else.”
But then she didn’t call. “Bad time. What’s he gonna do about it, anyway? He’s sure as hell not going to call the grieving father in the middle of a blizzard to ask him questions on the phone. I wouldn’t.”
“Neither would I.” He scraped the diced chicken into the salad bowl and used a couple of big spoons to toss it. “It won’t make any difference to wait.”
“No.”
He figured they both knew the missing kid was already dead. None of the earlier victims had been tortured for long periods. Whatever this guy needed, he didn’t need it to go on for lengthy periods. So the boy was already gone, and a day wouldn’t make any difference to him. And the killer was as pinned by this storm as anyone, so even if he wanted to accelerate his crimes, he couldn’t right now.
For now everyone, living or dead, was safe beneath a deepening blanket of snow.
Chapter 7
As the evening deepened, the storm continued unabated, weakening not even a little bit. From time to time, one of them would go to a window to peer out but could see almost nothing. DeeJay settled on one end of the sofa, wrapping herself in a blanket against the drafts, breaths of the storm reaching inside, sinuously twisting around despite the laboring heat.
“Times I wish I had a TV,” Cade remarked. “I’d like some info on the storm. How cold it is, how long it’s going to last.”
“We could ask Gage.”
“Sure, ask the sheriff to be the local weatherman for me.”
She laughed quietly. “Bet he wouldn’t mind.”