Stealing Shadows

Matt sighed. 'My gut says to have somebody watch Cassie Neill, and watch her close. Maybe there's a good reason she's so sure there's going to be a murder.'

Ben stared at him in disbelief. 'You can't be serious. If she weighs a hundred pounds, I'd be surprised.'

'What, killers have to have muscles? You know better, Ben.'

'I just meant she's too… fragile to have that in her.'

The sheriff cocked an eyebrow. 'Fragile?'

'Don't even start with me.' Ben could feel heat rise in his face, as aware of his uncharacteristic credulity as his friend was but unwilling to examine it at the moment.

Matt hid a grin. 'Okay, okay. It's just I've never heard you use that word before.'

'Never mind my words. What are we going to do about this, Matt?'

'Wait. Nothing else we can do. If your fragile psychic comes up with something useful, great. If not – I guess we twiddle our thumbs and wait for a body to turn up.'

TWO

FEBRUARY 18, 1999

'He's done it.'

Ben pushed himself up onto an elbow and turned on the lamp beside his bed. The clock told him it was five- thirty. In the morning.

Christ, it was still dark.

He wedged the phone between ear and shoulder. 'Who's done what? And do you know what time it is?'

'He's killed her,' Cassie Neill said softly. Starkly.

Ben woke up.

He shoved the covers aside and sat up on the edge of the bed. 'Are you sure?'

'Yes.' She drew a breath. 'It happened hours ago. There was nothing anyone could do, so – so I waited to call you. As long as I could.'

Ben wondered what it was like to be awake and alone through the long, dark hours of the night – and aware of horrors. The professional part of him pushed that aside to say, 'You should have called me right away. Evidence – '

'Won't be changed by the passing of a few hours. Not what little he left behind.' Cassie sounded impossibly weary. 'But you're right, I should have called immediately. I'm sorry.'

Ben drew a breath. 'Do you know where?'

'Yes, I think so. There's an old abandoned barn on the north end of town, about five miles out.'

'I know it. Used to be a stockyard there.'

'She's… he left her in the woods behind that barn. He didn't kill her there, but it's where he left her. I think… I think she'll be easy to find. He didn't bury the body or try to hide it in any way. In fact… he posed her somehow.'

'Posed her?'

'Sat her up with her back against a tree. He was very careful to get the look just right. It must mean something.' Cassie's voice faded on the last words, and she sighed. 'I don't know what. I'm sorry. I'm tired.'

Ben hesitated, then said, 'I'll go take a look.'

'Before you call the sheriff?' There was wry understanding in her tone.

Ben was unwilling to admit that he didn't want to look like an even more gullible fool if this turned out to be a false alarm. So he merely said, 'I'll probably want to talk to you later.'

'I'll be here.' Cassie hung up quietly.

Dawn was just lightening the sky when Ben parked his Jeep at the old Pittman stockyard. He turned on the flashlight he'd brought along in order to pick his way around the barn and through a ragged gap in what was left of the fence to the woods in back of the place.

It was quiet. Too quiet.

He didn't go very far into the woods before halting and directing the flashlight in a slow arc ahead. These were hardwood trees, bare of leaves in February, the undergrowth scant, so he could see quite well.

He hadn't really believed she would be there.

When the light fell on her, Ben heard his own sharply indrawn breath.

Just as Cassie had described, the victim sat with her back against a tree, facing the barn, easily visible. Her eyes were open, her head tilted a bit to one side and her lips slightly parted as though she had paused in saying something to listen politely to a companion. Her hands lay folded in her lap, palms up. She was fully dressed.

Ben knew her. Becky Smith, a girl barely twenty who worked – had worked – at the drugstore in town while she attended the local community college. She had wanted to be a teacher.

Her throat was cut from ear to ear.

'Goddammit, Ben, you know belter!' The sheriff was furious, and it showed.

'Like you wouldn't have done the exact same thing?' Ben shook his head. 'As convincing as she sounded, Matt, I didn't really believe I was going to find anything. So, yes, I walked within twelve feet of the body. I didn't realize it was a crime scene until it was too late. But I didn't touch her or disturb anything.'

'Why the hell didn't you call me before coming out here?'

Ben glanced past the sheriff, toward the rear of the barn, where most of the dozen or so deputies Matt had brought were carefully combing the ground. The sun was well up now, and Becky's body had been taken away.

Her body being zipped into the black bag was a sight he would not soon forget.

'Ben?'

'We've been through this, Matt. I didn't want to look like a jackass if I dragged you out here and there was nothing to find.'

'So you came out on your own. Unarmed. What if the bastard hadn't finished his work, Ben? Jesus, she was hardly cold.'

'I wish I had found him here. I'm not a twenty-year-old girl.'

'And he might have had a gun. Did you think of that? Did you think at all?'

Normally Ben wouldn't have allowed his friend to censure him – loudly – in a fairly public arena, but he knew Matt well enough to recognize that the sheriff was badly shaken.

Before today, the last murder in Salem County had occurred ten years back, when Thomas Byrd had come home early from work to find another man keeping his bed warm. To say nothing of Mrs. Byrd. It had been an entirely understandable crime of passion.

This crime was everything but understandable.

'Matt, can we please get past my reckless actions and move on?'

Mart's mouth tightened, but he nodded.

'Okay. Now, since you were elected by the good citizens of Salem County to catch criminals, and I was elected to prosecute them, I'd say we have work to do.'

'Yeah.' Matt turned his head to look toward the activity behind the barn and scowled. 'And the first thing I want to do is talk to Cassie Neill.'

Ben hesitated, then said, 'You and your people have to finish up here. Why don't I go get Miss Neill and bring her to the station? I'm very interested in what she has to say.'

Matt turned his scowl to his friend. 'It isn't your place to investigate crimes, Ben. Your job starts when I catch the bastard.'

'My job is made a lot easier if I'm involved early on, and you know it.'

'Maybe. And maybe in this case your involvement would be a bad idea. You aren't exactly impartial, are you?'

'What the hell do you mean by that?'

'What I mean is that you obviously have a soft spot for your fragile so-called psychic. I won't let you get in my