me.'
'He just can't believe we have a monster here.'
'It isn't an easy thing to believe.'
Ben realized his shock was wearing off just enough to let horror creep in. 'My God. Three women murdered in less than a week. We have no idea who killed them or why. And we have no idea how many more he'll kill before we catch him. You were right. A serial killer.'
'I'm afraid so.'
'Becky… Ivy… Jill. Aside from being female and white, they had virtually nothing in common.'
'Did they go to the same church?'
Ben thought about it. 'No. Becky and Jill did, the same Baptist church I belong to, but Ivy was a Methodist. Why?'
'I don't know. Something about the way he had those coins laid out, as though they were on an altar or something, made me think of church.' Cassie shook her head. 'At this point I'm just guessing.'
'Keep going, you might hit on something.'
'Something helpful, you mean? Probably not without more information. The mind of a serial killer is so… unique, so subjective, it's almost impossible to generalize beyond a few basic suppositions. And we already know those. White male, since he's killing white females. Young, possibly abused background. But apart from those facts, this man's motivations are bound to be completely unique to him and his experiences. Guessing about them is not going to be productive, not until we know a lot more than we do now.'
'There must be a pattern.'
'There is – to him. But whether we'll even recognize his reasoning is doubtful. There's no logic in madness.'
'So to catch a madman, we have to think like a madman?'
'I wouldn't advise it,' Cassie said very quietly. 'That abyss is darker and colder than you can even imagine.'
SIX
They reached Cassie's house a few minutes later without further discussing the situation. With no reason to hurry back to town, and all too aware of how sleepless the night ahead was likely to be for him, Ben had no intention of just dropping her off and leaving. But he was acutely aware of Cassie's weariness – of spirit as well as body – and doubted she would welcome even casual company.
He was wrong.
'I could use some coffee. How about you?' she asked, unlocking the door.
'I'd love some, thanks.'
Cassie disarmed the security system with the tentative touch of someone to whom the steps were still unfamiliar, then led the way to her bright and cheerful kitchen.
Ben was too restless to sit while she made the coffee but wasn't aware he was prowling the room until she spoke again.
'It wasn't your fault.'
He checked the back door, making sure it was locked and the new dead bolt thrown. 'What wasn't?'
'Jill's death.'
He turned to find her leaning back against the sink, arms crossed, watching him gravely. He started to deny that it was bothering him but couldn't. 'I should have warned her.'
'It wouldn't have mattered. Like the sheriff said, it would never have occurred to her that she should be especially careful going to her store on a Sunday afternoon. Nobody can be on guard all the time.'
'You can, apparently.' Why did her reserve, her aloofness, bother him so much?
'That's different.'
'Is it?'
Her shoulders lifted in a little shrug and her gaze fell away from his. 'Yes. But we aren't talking about me. There was nothing you could have done to save Jill. Accept that.'
'And move on?'
'We don't have a choice. Death takes people away from us all our lives. We have to move on. Or die ourselves.'
'I know, I know.' It was Ben's turn to shrug. 'But it doesn't help, knowing that. She was thirty-two years old, Cassie. Just thirty-two years old. She lived here all her life, and she thought she was safe. She should have been safe.'
'It isn't your fault that she wasn't.'
'Then whose fault was it?'
'His. That monster out there. And if he isn't stopped, he'll be responsible for even more deaths.'
'He'll also be responsible for destroying this town. It's already started. Matt's had to put on more people just to answer the phone since word of Ivy's murder got out.
When the morning paper announces Jill's death… Things are going to get very tense very fast around here. Three murders in four days. Three women brutally killed, one in her own kitchen.'
Cassie turned away to pour the coffee, and said very quietly, 'The townspeople are going to be looking for someone to blame for those deaths.'
'I know.'
'Are there any likely targets?' She set his cup on the counter near him, then retreated a few steps with her own.
'You mean the easy targets? The homeless, the disturbed or mentally disabled, those with criminal records?'
'Yes.'
'Not many.' Ben picked up his cup and sipped the hot coffee, leaning a hip against the counter as she did. 'We don't have homeless in any real sense. The churches in the area are pretty good at helping people in need. As for the disturbed or disabled, there are a few of those middle-aged men you see in most small towns, not 'slow' enough to be unemployable, but not bright enough to be trained for anything but pushing a broom. And there's one woman who's been a well-known character in this town for at least ten years. She escapes her son's watchful eye from time to time and wanders around downtown picking up invisible things from the sidewalk.' Ben paused and shook his head. 'Nobody knows what she thinks she's picking up, but if you try to stop her, she cries as if her heart's breaking.'
Cassie looked down at her coffee. 'The wreck of a life.'
'Her son says she just went away one day.'
'I wonder why,' Cassie murmured. 'Something like that, there ought to at least be a trigger.'
'If something definitive happened, I don't know what it was. The family keeps pretty much to themselves, and they don't welcome questions. It's a common enough trait around here.'
Cassie nodded distractedly. Then she seemed to rouse herself from pity and focus on the practical. 'I would say she seems an unlikely target, but those men… The sheriff might want to keep an eye on them.'
'He will. We've both seen a crowd turn ugly and start looking around for a target. That isn't something you forget, believe me.'
'What about people with criminal records?'
'We have our share. The habituals commit mostly petty stuff though – housebreaking, fighting with their neighbors or their girlfriends' ex-lovers, drunk and disorderly. The sort of troublemakers who have their own bunks in Matt's jail and make regular visits on Saturday nights. As for anything else, crimes of real violence are rare around here. I've prosecuted a couple of manslaughter cases, but liquor and spite were involved both times. Convenience-store holdups, a few half-assed bank robberies over the years. But no crime to even hint there's someone living here in this town – or this county – who's capable of butchering three women.' Ben sighed. 'That high-tech forensics van Matt managed to wring out of his budget last year was mostly gathering dust. Until
