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“Like you. Clairvoyant.” Jill’s voice was low, but calm and almost casual.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t—quite—glare at her. “Why do I get the feeling that Sam being up that tree and me being here in the attic with you was totally unnecessary?”

  “Hey, I could have missed something. There’s nothing wrong in double-checking your . . . assumptions.”

  “Dammit,” he muttered.

  Jill’s smile widened, but her voice turned brisk when she said, “I’m not sure what your senses are telling you, but mine say that after Joe left the house, she had a visit from someone and they came up here. Not a lover’s tryst. Maybe she did believe there was something valuable among all this stuff, and wanted a second opinion.”

  Slowly, Cullen said, “I was getting the sense of a man, but I couldn’t tell if it was the sheriff I was picking up on.”

  “I don’t think Mal stayed up here any longer than he had to,” she said frankly. “Stationed a deputy at the bottom of the stairs outside the closed door, then called me. The only others up here since the body was discovered have been the four of you and me. Sam’s been outside the whole time on both visits.”

  “So you think Perla invited her killer up here?”

  “Yeah, I think it’s possible. Or he already had her under control somehow. I think he followed her or lured her to the other end of the attic, where there’s a narrow alley between stacks of boxes. And I think he put her out, however he did that.” She paused, then added, “No scuff marks or fiber evidence, but that space is just deep enough and wide enough to conceal a body if anyone came to the top of the stairs and glanced around.”

  “You think he left and came back later?”

  “That’s the way it feels to me. I think when Joe came back home and searched the house, Perla was up here unconscious. And I think as soon as he left, the killer came up here to finish the job.”

  Slowly, Cullen said, “The block and tackle, the rope or cable . . . he had to have some of that ready and ready to hand.”

  Jill nodded. “I believe he did. And even though he had time to clean up after himself, I think he expected to have more time, that he expected Joe to find her . . . eventually. Maybe this morning instead of last night. I noticed on the way out here this time that there’s a bend in the road with a pull-off vantage point where you can look out over the valley. If you happen to be looking toward this house rather than out at the view, you could have seen Perla, impaled on those limbs. It wouldn’t have been a perfect view, but you could have seen that bright red blouse.”

  “Another bit of stage management from the killer?”

  “I think so,” Jill said. “Don’t you?”

  “Hey!” Sam yelled from the tree outside the window. “Can somebody get out here and help me down from this fucking tree?”

  —

  AS PREDICTED, MAL wasn’t at all happy to have the lives of the people in his town minutely examined by analysts at Quantico. Also as predicted, he was too good a cop not to see the sense in it.

  “Dammit,” he muttered.

  “Sorry, Mal,” Hollis said. “One of the not-fun things we have to do sometimes. But we narrowed the parameters as much as we could, and our analysts are very discreet. Any histories they flag will be sent to us, and we’ll all go over them. You’ll undoubtedly help us eliminate even more, before we have to start talking to people.”

  Sitting in his usual chair at the conference table, Mal rubbed his face with both hands in what seemed a characteristic gesture of weariness. “Nobody’s reported getting that text. At least, nobody credible.” He nodded at DeMarco. “A few teenagers thought it would be fun to scare each other, you were right about that.”

  “Grounded?”

  “Oh, yeah. One of the boys’ dads was so horrified I’m not sure that kid’s going to be going anywhere except school and church—three times a week—for the next six months.”

  Hollis had been sitting near the sheriff, carefully avoiding making eye contact with her partner as she absently doodled on the legal pad in front of her, something she’d been doing whenever her hands weren’t busy with something else. But as Mal’s dry statement sank in, she focused on what she’d been doodling.

  A church.

  “Hollis?”

  She still refused to look at DeMarco. “Something I saw,” she murmured. “Or something somebody said. Why can’t I remember what it was?”

  Mal leaned forward a bit to better see her face. “Hollis?”

  Abruptly, she flipped the legal pad around and slid it across the table toward him. “Is that a church here in Clarity?”

  Clearly surprised, he stared down at the drawing. “This is . . . really good.”

  “I was an artist in another life,” she said a bit impatiently. “Mal, is that a church here in town?”

  “Yeah. It’s the Second Baptist Church.”

  Hollis looked at her partner, finally. “We need to be there.”

  “Okay,” he said immediately, pushing back his chair and rising. “Then let’s go.”

  Mal looked bewildered. “Do you think—”

  “I don’t know how I know,” Hollis told the sheriff honestly. “But we need to get there, Mal. As soon as we can. And I think you should bring at least a couple of your best deputies.”

  Kirby got up and glanced at the big clock on the wall. “It’s not much after five. Do we need our vests?”

  Hollis hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  Mal was climbing to his feet. “Better safe than sorry.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right. Ours are in the SUV.”

  “Should I call Cullen?” Kirby asked.

  “There’s no time. We need to leave right now.” Hollis was already moving toward the door, snagging her light Windbreaker along the way.

  Mal and the rest of her team were right behind her, with DeMarco pausing only a moment to look down at an astonishingly complete sketch of a church. Since he’d been watching her, he could say with authority that she had “doodled” the sketch in less than five minutes.

  Considerably less.

  He turned the legal pad facedown, then continued. He was already wearing the light jacket that almost concealed the big silver gun in its shoulder harness; it was the reason they all wore light jackets, really, because August nights weren’t all that cool.

  And yet, when they emerged from the sheriff’s department and headed for their vehicles, he somehow wasn’t surprised that the coming night promised to be decidedly chilly.

  “Damned storm,” Hollis muttered. She had the SUV keys but tossed them to DeMarco and headed for the passenger side. Kirby hurried to get their vests from the back, then climbed up into the seat behind Hollis, handing two of the vests forward.

  “Follow me,” Mal called as he reached his Jeep with two of his deputies, both of them hastily adjusting vests with the uncertain touch of cops seldom if ever required to wear them.

  DeMarco lifted a hand in acknowledgment, opened the driver’s-side door, and found his vest tossed at him by Hollis.

  “Vest first,” she said as she began putting her own on. “Yours takes longer to be adjusted properly because of that damned cannon.”

  It really didn’t, but even with Velcro fasteners, he had to shrug out of his jacket first. Luckily all the SCU agents were a lot more familiar with the vests than the deputies, so he got his on, adjusted his gun, and reclaimed his jacket by the time Mal was just pulling out of his parking place.

  DeMarco slid behind the wheel and started the SUV, one glance showing him that Hollis was frowning and rubbing her temples.

  “Is it really the storm bothering you?” he asked.

  She’d tried to hide the odd pain and anxiety all day, but enough was enough. “Yeah, that’s part of it. But there’s something else too. I am beginning to get a splitting headache, a
nd I don’t know why.”

  Kirby pulled herself forward and looked at their team leader. “Do you get headaches?”

  Hollis sort of laughed. Sort of.

  “Oh, hell, yeah. Headaches, the occasional nosebleed, and at least a few times I’ve gone out like a light without warning.”

  “Not without warning,” DeMarco said. “You just weren’t paying attention to that part of it.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “I should hope so,” he murmured, remembering at least two occasions when he had caught her before she could hit the ground.

  Hollis said something under her breath, but before anyone could question her, said in a louder tone, “I think that’s the church up ahead.”

  “It’s all lit up,” Kirby said. “Should the church be all lit up on a Saturday?”

  “No,” Hollis said. “It shouldn’t.”

  —

  THEY WERE CAUTIOUS in entering the unlocked church, even though it was all lit up. Or maybe because it was.

  They came in from three different doors, but it looked almost like they’d timed it to the second, because they all got just far enough inside to see what was waiting for them.

  What he’d left for them.

  Hollis slowly holstered her gun and looked at her partner. “Maybe you and the deputies can search the rest of the building? I doubt we’ll find anything, but . . .”

  “Yeah.” DeMarco kept his own big silver gun in hand as he went to join the two shocked and horrified deputies and got them busy searching the rest of the church.

  She was vaguely aware that Kirby had slid into a pew, probably because her legs had gone weak, either because of the body or the emotions of all who had found it. Or the fact that she was trying desperately to shore up her shield, and that took every bit of concentration she had.

  Mal came to stand beside Hollis, his gun held slackly at his side. “Dear God.”

  “I don’t think God was here today,” she said.

  Automatically, Mal said, “The Flower Ladies come on Saturday to get the church ready for Sunday services. They’ve been here. But they didn’t leave the flowers like that.”

  “No,” Hollis said. “They didn’t.”

  This was a more unusual Baptist church since there was a raised little balcony on the left side where the pastor would stand, above his flock, while he preached. At the front of the church was the section for the choir, and at the right was a lower balcony, a sort of alcove with a rather impressive organ.

  In front of the choir section were four very plain wooden chairs, and in front of them, on the slightly raised front platform that elevated the choir and, in most Baptist churches, the preacher, was a long, fairly narrow table, covered in a white cloth. Normally, it probably held a cross, with perhaps a couple of candlesticks on either side.

  Normally.

  And normally the white cloth would have been spotless.

  In a flat voice, Mal said, “He is—was—Reverend Marcus Pilate, pastor of this church for some years now.”

  Hollis took several steps closer but didn’t have to reach Reverend Pilate or touch him to know he was dead.

  Being disemboweled tended to end life quite efficiently.

  The body was stretched out on the table, on the once-white cloth now drenched in blood. He was fully dressed, his arms at his sides draped by his own glistening intestines, still dripping. It was easy to see that his body had been opened from his breastbone to his crotch.

  Hollis took a few more steps, drawing her gloves from one pocket of her jacket. “You should call Jill,” she said over her shoulder to Mal. “Or do you want us to?”

  He just stood there, staring at the pastor’s body.

  Kirby cleared her throat, but her voice was still a little thick when she said, “I’ll call Cullen.”

  “Okay,” Hollis said. “Go outside if you need to.” She moved forward steadily, breathing through her mouth because she had to. Moving her gaze over the horribly mutilated body because she had to.

  His legs were slightly parted, and between them, where his genitals would have been, his heart had been placed.

  She didn’t want to speculate about what had been done with his genitals, since they were nowhere to be seen.

  Many of his organs had been removed and placed with apparent care around the body. A lung on each side of his head. His stomach between his feet. A closed Bible with his liver on top was placed as a macabre pillow underneath his head.

  And there were flowers.

  Big arrangements, undoubtedly done by the Flower Ladies not so many hours ago, had been removed from pedestals at either side of the choir section and placed on the floor at each end of the table where the pastor lay.

  It was clear another arrangement had been brought to the table from somewhere else in the church, its flowers . . . distributed all around the table. There was no attempt at artistry.

  Just mockery.

  Hollis was dimly surprised at the calmness of her own voice. “Mal, I know we don’t have photos yet, but there’s something in his mouth, and I need to see it.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” His voice wasn’t so much calm as it was numb.

  Hollis moved carefully near the table, doing her best not to step on anything but the carpet, and leaned over just far enough to reach his slightly open mouth.

  She didn’t look at his eyes. They were open too.

  Slowly, she pulled a cell phone out of his mouth. It was an older flip phone. She flipped it open.

  From the corner of her eye, she noted that her partner had returned from searching the rest of the church and was holstering his gun.

  “Nobody’s here,” he said. “Jill needs to go through the place, and Cullen, but I don’t think he was anywhere except this room.”

  “And not long ago,” Hollis said.

  DeMarco looked at the still-dripping body, fully aware that if he touched the body, he would find it still warm. He also knew that wasn’t what Hollis was using to gauge time.

  “What is it?” he asked her.

  She moved carefully back around the table, gesturing slightly for him to join her where the sheriff was still standing.

  “Mal,” she said quietly.

  He blinked, looked at her. “Yeah?”

  “He left us a message this time.” She held the phone out so all three of them could see it, flipped open. There was a text timed at no more than fifteen minutes before they’d arrived. And it was simple.

  Next time, move faster.

  —

  EVEN AFTER JILL, her assistant, and Cullen had arrived, Hollis insisted on walking through the entire church itself, slowly, studying everything she saw, reaching out with every sense she could command. She did the same in the small parsonage, which was very, very tidy and clean, doors and windows locked, nothing disturbed.

  “You’re broadcasting,” DeMarco told her quietly.

  Since it was only them in the parsonage, Hollis merely shrugged. “Am I? What am I broadcasting?”

  “Frustration, mostly. Disappointment in yourself.”

  “I should have been faster.”

  “He didn’t even wait for dark,” DeMarco said, catching her hand so she turned to face him. He didn’t release her hand. “How could you have expected that? How could any of us have expected that?”

  “I should have. Something was wrong. Something is still wrong. I’ve missed something. I should be able to focus on this energy just out of my reach. I should be able to understand it.”

  “Why should you? It’s something you never sensed before. New things in our world don’t come with guidebooks. Hell, they seldom come with definitions.”

  “Still.”

  “Still what? Hollis, as you so recently pointed out to Kirby, this is a team. I am your partner, and Kirby and Cullen are the
rest of your team. This is not all on you. It’s not all on any one of us. We’re hunting a monster, and if we had any doubts before, finding an eviscerated pastor laid out in his own church pretty much confirms this monster is of the totally evil variety.”

  “That does not make me feel better,” she muttered.

  “It wasn’t supposed to. It was supposed to simply point out that we came here to investigate four suspicious accidents, and in about twenty-four hours, we’ve had two horribly murdered victims on top of the accidents we’re now reasonably sure were also murders. We’ve barely started investigating. And more often than not, it takes us more than a day or two to unmask the killer. Yes, even us.”

  She had to smile, albeit faintly. “Hubris?”

  “I didn’t use that word.”

  “No, but it’s what you meant.”

  “Look, I know that for a brief time when you were channeling all that energy at Alexander House, you felt like a superhero. But things got normal pretty quick, right?”

  “Well, except for my eyes. Still a weird shade of blue.”

  “An unusual shade of blue. Big difference. The point is, we are none of us superheroes. We do the best we can. You know that. We will do the best we can here. And we will catch and cage, or destroy, this monster. Because that’s what we do.”

  She hesitated, then said, “Part of me wants everyone . . . wrapped in body armor head to toe. After what happened with Robbie and Dante . . . I don’t think I’ve ever seen Samantha that shaken. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’d ever seen her shaken until then. At all.”

  “And you don’t want to lose a team member. That’s perfectly natural. And largely beyond your control.”

  “But it shouldn’t be. I’m the team leader. I should at least be able to keep my team safe.”

  “You’re doing it again. Piling all the weight on your own shoulders alone. Hollis, you know as well as I that a team leader’s job is to keep everybody focused and moving toward the goal of catching our monster. Which is what you’ve been doing.”

  She drew a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “You can be very annoying, you know that?”

  “So you’ve told me.”