reticence, he seemed a bit more at ease now. At home. He was still fighting it, but it was a fight Anna didn’t think he’d win.
She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she took that first bite. She quickly devoured one sandwich and asked for another and Worthington gladly obliged.
They allowed themselves only small talk as they ate, Worthington telling stories of their childhood in Ludlow. Pope’s broken collarbone, caused by a skateboarding accident. The dime-store shoplifting incident that landed them both in jail until Worthington’s father, the Ludlow county sheriff, bailed them out. The secret field trip to Vegas when they were seventeen, complete with homemade IDs.
Somewhere in the middle of this, Ronnie, who had gone back to the neighbor’s to fetch Evan, returned with the boy in tow.
Pope rose at the sight of him, his voice slightly hoarse. “Hey, kiddo, I’ve got something for you in my backpack. Almost forgot about it.”
He disappeared for a moment, then came back carrying the little black box with the miniature disco ball. He flipped the switch on top and the ball began to spin as he held the box out to Evan.
“I promised to give it to you, remember?”
Evan stared, but didn’t reach for it. His eyes didn’t light up. No hint of a smile. And Anna knew that a part of him had shut down and wouldn’t start back up again for a long time. A very long time.
Apparently reaching the same conclusion, Pope hit the switch, bringing the ball to a stop, then set the box on the kitchen counter and tousled Evan’s hair.
“It’s here when you’re ready for it, okay?”
“Okay,” Evan said.
A few minutes later, Anna, Pope, and Worthington were gathered in the back office, Anna and Pope watching as Worthington returned his Glock to the safe, then flicked a switch on his computer monitor.
“When you told me about the tattoo,” he said to Anna, “I was pretty sure I’d seen it somewhere before.” He dropped into his desk chair as the screen came to life, then opened up an Internet browser, typed in a URL. “So I did a quick Google on my cruiser laptop and found this.”
A moment later, a Web page blossomed on-screen and at its center was a familiar-looking graphic:
Anna’s heart skipped.
“This is it,” she said. “Except his tattoo was missing a couple of spokes.”
“So what is it?” Pope asked.
“The Roma chakra,” Worthington said.
“The what?”
“The symbol of the Romani people. They adopted it in the early seventies, but it’s been around for decades. Based on an earlier Hindu version.”
“Pardon my ignorance, but who are the Romani people?”
“Gypsies,” Anna told him. “Only I’m pretty sure they consider that a derogatory term.”
“That they do,” Worthington said. “I found that out the hard way a few years ago when I busted a drifter for shoplifting. I made the mistake of calling her a gypsy and she almost bit off my nose. She was part of a Roma caravan camped just outside of town.” He nodded to the screen. “And she had one of those tattooed on her forearm.”
Anna’s heart skipped another beat.
“So then our guy’s a gypsy?” Pope said.
“Based on Anna’s description, it sure as hell sounds like it. We don’t have any caravans on the radar right now, but I’ve got a call out to the Barstow and Vegas PDs to see if they’ve encountered any.”
“So what exactly does this thing signify?” Pope asked.
“It’s a wagon wheel. Gypsies are nomads. Used to travel from town to town in wagons.” He paused. “But it also represents the Roma soul.”
Anna’s heart seemed to stop altogether now. “The soul?”
He nodded to the screen. “That’s what it says.”
“How oddly appropriate,” Pope muttered.
Worthington looked at him. “Meaning what?”
“Just a theory I’ve been working on. Agent McBride here can tell you all about it.”
But Anna was barely listening to them. Her mind had locked onto that one word, that single syllable that was like an icy wind rattling inside her chest.
Soul.
The girl who stole my soul.
Was that why there were spokes missing from Red Cap’s tattoo? Did it represent a missing or broken soul?
Worthington seemed to be waiting for Anna to say something, but she wasn’t quite ready to revisit Pope’s claims of past lives and concussions and reawakened memories. What little sense any of this made to her at the moment did not fill her with warmth.
“I’m not sure it matters what this stands for,” she said. “And right now I’m not feeling too optimistic about finding this guy.”
“Maybe you should be,” Pope said.
Anna turned. “Why?”
“Because we both know he’s killed before. And that simple fact could help us quite a bit.”
“Killed before?” Worthington frowned at him. “Do you two know something about this clown that I don’t?”
Pope ignored the question, his gaze on Anna. “We can stop him. Before he comes after you again. And I think he will.”
“You don’t know that,” she said.
“I’d put money on it. All we have to do is take a look at the previous killing. Dive in, get some details, then go from there.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?” she asked.
“I think you know,” Pope said, then raised a hand, giving her a Svengali-like finger wave.
And there was no doubt in Anna’s mind what he meant by this.
He wanted to hypnotize her.
2 4
“ Would one of you mind telling me what the hell you’re talking about?”
Pope turned to Jake, offering him a weak smile. “Maybe you don’t want to know.”
“Spill it, Danny. What kind of nonsense are you spewing now?”
The choice of words didn’t surprise Pope. While he himself had always tried to keep an open mind, Jake was a rationalist and skeptic who believed only in what could be seen or experienced or explained. And if he had no explanation, he’d look for one based on evidence, not what he called voodoo speculation.
When they were kids, Jake had been the first to question the existence of the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, just as he had later proclaimed-during a pot-fueled soliloquy-that the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection was a longstanding and commonly told myth. A myth that had traveled from religion to religion, culture to culture, for centuries before Jesus was supposed to have been born.
“The only evidence that he ever existed is the Bible,” Jake had said. “And that’s neither historical nor accurate, and was never really meant to be.”
“What about faith?” Pope had made the mistake of asking.
“Faith is nothing more than wishful thinking, based on conditioning, fear, and the desire for a reward. Ask any kid if he believes in the Easter Bunny, he’ll tell you with the greatest conviction that he does. It’s the same for those
