eventually got out. What about him?”
“The guy who helped me lift the prints and run them through the system called me back last night with an interesting little addendum.”
“Yeah?”
Hardwick was squinting across the room at the farthest corner of the molding. “Seems that back before he was arrested, Steck used to have a porno website, and Starbuck wasn’t his only alias. His website, which featured underage girls, was called Sandy’s Den.”
Gurney waited for Hardwick’s gaze to return to him before replying. “You’re struck by the possibility that the name Sandy could be a nickname for Alessandro?”
Hardwick smiled. “Something like that.”
“World is full of meaningless coincidences, Jack.”
Hardwick nodded. He stood up from the table and looked out the window. “Cruiser’s here. Like I said, full coverage for two twenty-fours, minimum. After that, we’ll see. You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“She going to be okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I got to get home and get some sleep. I’ll call you later.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Jack.”
Hardwick hesitated. “You still have your weapon from the job?”
“No. Never liked carrying it. Didn’t even like having it around.”
“Well… considering the situation… you might want to pick up a shotgun.”
For a long while after Hardwick’s taillights receded down the pasture lane, Gurney sat alone at the table- absorbing the shock of the doll, contemplating the shifting landscape of the case.
It was conceivable, of course, that the names Sandy and Alessandro had each popped up with coincidental insignificance, but that was the definition of wishful thinking. A realistic man would have to accept that Sandy, the former photographer of the pornographic website, might very well be Alessandro, the current photographer of the near-pornographic Karnala ads-and that both names were aliases of the sex criminal Saul Steck.
But who was Hector Flores?
And why was Jillian Perry beheaded?
And Kiki Muller?
Had the women discovered something about Karnala? About Steck? About Flores himself?
And why had Steck drugged him? In order to photograph him with his “daughters”? To threaten him with public embarrassment, or worse? To have the leverage to control his input into the investigation? To blackmail him into providing inside information into its progress?
Or was the purpose of the drugging, like that of the decapitated doll, to demonstrate Gurney’s accessibility and vulnerability? To frighten him into backing away?
Or were both events prompted by something even sicker? Were they both part of a control freak’s game, an exciting way of demonstrating power and dominance? Something he did to prove he could do it? Something he did for a thrill?
Gurney’s hands were cold. He rubbed them hard against his thighs in an effort to warm them. It didn’t seem to be working very well. He started to shiver. He stood, tried rubbing his hands on his chest and upper arms, tried walking back and forth. He walked to the far end of the room, where sometimes the iron woodstove held some residual warmth from an earlier fire. But the dusty black metal was colder than his hand, and touching it made him shiver again.
He heard the click of the lamp switch in the bedroom, followed shortly by the squeak of the bathroom door. He’d talk to Madeleine, calm her nerves-after he managed to calm himself. He looked out the window, was reassured by the sight of the police cruiser by the side door.
He took the deepest breath he could, exhaled slowly. Slow, controlled breathing. Deliberation, determination. Positive thoughts. Thoughts of achievement and competence.
He reminded himself that the fingerprint trail that led to Steck existed because of his personal initiative in retrieving the glass under difficult circumstances.
That discovery had also connected the “Jykynstyl” drugging mystery with the Mapleshade murder-and- disappearance mysteries. And since he had a foot planted in each area, he was in a unique position to use one situation to illuminate the other.
His original insights and prodding had pulled the investigation out of the ditch it had been mired in-the search for an insane Mexican laborer-and put it on a new path.
His urging that all former Mapleshade graduates be contacted led not only to the discovery that the whereabouts of an extraordinary number of them were unknown but also to knowledge of the fate of Melanie Strum.
His judgment regarding the likely significance of Karnala had shaken loose a crazed revelation from Jordan Ballston that could well lead to a final solution.
Even the killer’s devotion of time, energy, and resources to the apparent goal of halting his efforts proved that he was on the right track.
He heard the bathroom door hinge squeak again and twenty seconds later the click of the lamp being switched off. Perhaps now that he had his feet on the ground, now that the chill was leaving his fingers, he could talk to Madeleine. But first he took the precaution of locking the side door not only with the knob lock but also with the dead bolt they never used. Then he latched all the ground-floor windows.
He went into the bedroom in what he considered to be a good frame of mind. He approached the bed in the dark. “Maddie?”
“You bastard!”
He’d expected her to be in bed, in front of him, but her voice, shocking in its anger, came from the far corner of the room.
“What?”
“What have you done?” Her voice, hardly above a whisper, was furious.
“Done? What…?”
“This is my home. This is my sanctuary.”
“Yes?”
“
Gurney was rendered speechless by the question and by its intensity. He felt his way along the edge of the bed and turned on the lamp.
The antique rocker that was usually near the foot of the bed had been pushed into the corner farthest from the windows. Madeleine was sitting in it, still fully dressed, her knees pulled up in front of her body. Gurney was startled first by the raw emotion in her eyes, then by the sharp pair of scissors in each of her clenched fists.
He’d had much training and practice in the technique of talking an overwrought person down into a calmer state of mind, but none of it seemed appropriate at that moment. He sat on the corner of the bed closest to her.
“Someone invaded my home. Why, David? Why did they do that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you do! You know exactly what’s happening.”
He watched her, watched the scissors. Her knuckles were white.
“You’re supposed to protect us,” she went on in a trembling whisper. “Protect our home, make it safe. But you’ve done the opposite. The opposite. You’ve let horrible people come into our lives, come into our home. MY HOME!” she shouted at him, her voice breaking. “YOU LET MONSTERS INTO MY HOME!”
Gurney had never seen this kind of rage in her before. He said nothing. He had no words in his mind, not even thoughts. He hardly moved, hardly took a breath. The emotional explosion seemed to clear the room, the world, of all other realities. He waited. No other option occurred to him.
After a while, he wasn’t sure how long, she said, “I can’t believe what you’ve done.”
“This wasn’t my intention.” His voice sounded strange to him. Small.
She made a sound that might have been mistaken for laughter but sounded to him more like a brief convulsion
