She knew that she had jumped too eagerly on Bill’s discovery thata commercial-sized freezer had been delivered to that house a year ago. Itought to have occurred to her that the area was hunting country, and a huntermight use such an enormous freezer to store deer meat.
Or at least a hunter who’s been shooting over his limit.
Sure, she should have followed up on Bill’s tip. But rushing outthere with Ann Marie at night and breaking into the place was a bad call on herpart. If one or both of them had gotten killed, it would have been on Riley’shead.
I’m definitely off my game.
But what was wrong, exactly?
Was it having to work with a green, awkward rookie instead ofwith Bill? Or did it have something to do with how her relationship with Billwas changing? Maybe she was letting their budding romance distract her from herwork. If so, did she have any business scolding Ann Marie for making rookiemistakes?
Another lingering worry floated into her mind.
Was there any chance at all that this new thing with Bill wasgoing to turn out well—for either of them?
Were they going to ruin the best relationship either one of themhad had in their whole lives?
She wondered if maybe she should call him right now and talk allthis through.
Or maybe she should call the kids at home.
She smiled as she remembered how satisfied she’d felt just to gether quarreling kids off to school this morning, and what she’d said when Aprilhad complained that her solution to their argument “didn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense. I make the rules here.”
Now that she thought about it, that was one of the beautifulthings about being a mother. Things didn’t always have to make sense. She couldexercise a little arbitrary authority from time to time.
Being a BAU agent was different. Making sense of things was thewhole point of her work. There had to be an answer to everything. But sometimesthat seemed to be impossible. How could anyone make sense of a twisted,homicidal mind? How was she going to make sense of a killer who wrote messagesabout a “Goatman”?
How could she make sense of sheer madness?
Maybe it would be nice to get out of law enforcement and settledown to the daily challenges of raising a family.
Maybe that was something that she and Bill could do together.
Still lying on the bed, she looked at her watch and saw that itwas much too late to call home. She got up and took a shower and got ready forbed.
*
Riley found herself outside in the dark, walking along acurving street in an upscale neighborhood. She knew she’d been here before. Andonce again, she thought the houses all around her looked like toys.
But what am I doing here? she wondered.
She turned to ask her partner and realized that no one waswith her—neither Ann Marie nor Bill. Whatever task was at hand, she was goingto have to figure it out for herself.
Something to do with Halloween, she thought.
There was plenty of evidence of that along this street. Thewhole neighborhood was decorated for Halloween, with ghosts floating in thetrees and life-sized plastic skeletons hovering in the yards.
Then the street began to fill with trick-or-treaters—kids andteenagers dressed up as vampires and zombies and mummies and such.
Riley was discouraged to see the young people out and about.
All these make-believe monsters, she thought.
They’re perfect camouflage for a real one.
For all she knew, that dancing skeleton with a bag of candymight really be a killer.
To add to the confusion, the mechanical apparitions werecoming down from the trees and yards and porches and mingling among thetrick-or-treaters on the street. She was finding it harder and harder to tellthe costumed kids from the costumed toys.
And now a whole chorus of recorded spooky noises—howling andgrowling and screaming—was so loud that she could barely hear herself think.
Or were they recordings? That screaming sounded very real.
Was somebody being brutally murdered nearby?
Don’t let your imagination run away with you, she toldherself.
Then she saw a new costumed character on the street ahead.Draped in a sheet like a Halloween ghost, the figure was walking directlytoward her. As it grew closer, she could see that it was also wearing anoversized mask with enormous eyes and an anguished, open, downturned mouth.
She recognized that image.
The theatrical mask of tragedy.
Then she heard a voice speaking through the mask.
No, not speaking, she realized.
Chanting. Singing.
She struggled to remember something she was supposed to know.It was something Bill had said to her over the phone…
“The Greek word ‘tragedy’ literally means ‘goat song.’”
Riley stifled a gasp of alarm.
Is this him?
Is this the killer I’m looking for?
Then the apparition halted in its tracks. Riley took a coupleof hesitating steps in its direction. Suddenly the figure was changing,morphing, taking on a completely different form, until it became …
A goat.
Or rather, a hybrid creature—half man and half goat.
The creature stood on two legs glaring at her with aninsolent, grinning expression.
And blood was dripping from its horns and teeth.
Singing louder than before, the goat turned and begin to walkaway.
I’ve got to stop him, Riley thought.
I’ve got to stop him before he spills more blood.
But she realized to her horror that she couldn’t move fromwhere she was standing.
*
Riley was awakened by the sound of her phone buzzing. Strugglingto shake off the nightmare, she picked up the phone.
She was alarmed to see that the call was from Sheriff Wightman.
She took the call and asked, “Has something happened?”
“Something, yeah,” the sheriff said. “I’m not sure what it isyet. It might—just might—be another body. I’m going to check it out, and I wantyou and your partner to join me.”
Wightman gave Riley a street location. She jumped out of bed andgot dressed as fast as she could.
Had she been too slow? Had the Goatman killer struck again evenwhile she was trying to figure things out?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Riley had
