“Sure, if I deserve it.”
“I was wrong. You’re not at all like your sister.”
LeVar snorted.
“Yeah, Raven isn’t the best at taking criticism. When we were kids—”
She set a hand on his arm to quiet him. His eyes followed hers across the road.
“What’s that glint behind the trees?”
LeVar leaned forward and squinted. Inside the thicket where they’d hidden during the afternoon, moonlight reflected off a metallic bulk. They hadn’t noticed the reflection until the moon migrated over the hills and shone upon the thicket. He lifted the binoculars and focused on the trees. Yes, something was back there. A vehicle. His flesh tingled with anticipation.
“Is that the stolen Forester?” she asked.
LeVar studied the concealed vehicle, then swept the binoculars across the meadow, over the yard, and to the dark house.
“It’s the Forester. Should we call Lambert and Aguilar?”
Chelsey pressed a finger to her lips. Before he could react, a shadow stepped out of the trees and moved toward the house.
Mark Benson had come home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
October 31st
7:40 p.m.
“Any update on Leland Trivett?”
Thomas waited for Presley to respond over the radio. Two spaces ahead of his vehicle, a Kane Grove PD cruiser idled curbside. The officer, a female recruit fresh out of the academy, confirmed Theo Pierpoint hadn’t left the brick-face ranch across the street.
Thomas peered at the teacher’s house. Steam curled from a chimney atop the ranch, and two lights shone from the center of the house. During the ten minutes he’d sat outside Pierpoint’s home, Thomas hadn’t spotted movement inside. No shadows crossing the drawn curtains, no doors opening after trick-or-treaters rang the bell.
Thomas bit his thumbnail. Finally, Presley’s voice boomed through the radio.
“Trivett is still in surgery.”
“What did you find at the house?”
“The attacker escaped through the window, but I only found one set of tracks in the grass, leading away from the house.”
Thomas rubbed behind his neck.
“One set of tracks. How did he break inside?”
“No signs of forced entry. Sheriff, we think the killer hid inside the bedroom closet and waited for Leland. His mother had brought him home a half-hour before.”
“The killer was already inside the house.”
“That’s the way it appears. The crime scene techs discovered a muddy shoe print inside the closet. They’re dusting for fingerprints now.”
“Keep me up to date.”
Thomas opened the door and stepped onto the blacktop. He swung his head up and down the block. The trick-or-treaters had thinned over the last ten minutes. A boy in a Spiderman costume crossed the street and hurried down the sidewalk.
Officer Kimmons met him beside her cruiser.
“How long have you been here, Officer?”
“Since seven-fifteen,” Kimmons said. “Around seven o’clock, I responded to a complaint three blocks east of here. Kids smashing pumpkins, general Halloween mischief. Dispatch told me to monitor the ranch.”
“And nobody has come or gone since you arrived?”
“Nobody. And he isn’t answering his door.”
Thomas chewed his lip and studied the ranch. The killer attacked Leland Trivett around six-thirty. Pierpoint had time to drive across town before Officer Kimmons arrived.
“Let’s hope he answers the door for us.”
Thomas led Kimmons across the road and up the driveway. A concrete walkway angled from the driveway to the front stoop. Hanging from a string, artificial autumn leaves girded the entryway. Childlike cardboard ghosts and witches poked out from the bushes. Someone had smashed the teacher’s pumpkin on the walkway.
Thomas pressed the doorbell. Chimes rang through the home. The wind made it impossible to hear someone approaching the door. After nobody responded, Thomas opened the storm door and pounded on the wooden door.
“Theo Pierpoint? This is the Nightshade County Sheriff’s Department. If I may have a moment of your time.”
Several seconds passed.
As Thomas reached for the doorbell again, the door creaked open. The man in the entryway was a dichotomy—the high cheekbones and fair complexion of youth, the drawn, haggard eyes of a senior on his deathbed. He swayed in the doorway, hair ruffled from recent sleep.
“Theo Pierpoint?”
“Yes.”
“You teach literature at Barton Falls High School?”
“I do.”
The teacher’s reply was little more than a croak.
“I’m Sheriff Shepherd, and this is Officer Kimmons with the Kane Grove Police Department. We understand you phoned Valerie Leonard this evening.”
Pierpoint rubbed one eye with his thumb.
“I…I don’t recall.”
“Have you been drinking, sir?”
“No, I never drink. It’s just that…”
His gaze moved past their heads and focused on the sky.
“Are you all right, Mr. Pierpoint? Perhaps I should call someone to sit with you.”
“That’s unnecessary.” Pierpoint staggered onto the stoop and closed the door behind him. Not only had the teacher not invited them inside, he’d blocked the entryway and closed the door. Was he hiding something inside? If the cold bothered Pierpoint, he didn’t react. “It’s been a hellish twenty-four hours, if you must know.”
While Thomas handled the questioning, Kimmons fixed her troubled eyes on Pierpoint, as though the teacher might grow fangs and sink his teeth into their necks.
“You don’t recall phoning your student, Valerie Leonard?”
Pierpoint blinked and looked down at his socked feet.
“I believe I called her, yes.”
“Is it commonplace for teachers to call students on their private cells?”
“Nothing about today is commonplace. I wish I’d never awoken.”
“Why did you call Valerie Leonard?”
Pierpoint’s face twisted with pain. He pressed a fist to his lips and whimpered.
“Because Derek was Valerie’s best friend. Though Ms. Leonard never impressed me as a student, she was the only person who would tell me the truth.”
“The truth?”
“I didn’t hear of Derek’s passing until Principal Dane made his announcement this afternoon. There was no time to react, to ask questions, to process the tragedy. We were left to wander home and come to grips with his death.”
“I take it Derek Jordan was one of your favorite students.”
“Not one of my favorite students, Sheriff. My very favorite. Entitled students who excel in the classroom come a dime a dozen. I respect the young adults who overcome adversity, and few faced more hardships than Derek Jordan.”
Pierpoint rubbed tears off his face. He wobbled on his feet, eyes glassy and unfocused. Thomas worried the next
