“That’s right. You would have. Now, c’mon.”
As we left the room, I had a thought. “By the way, how did you get past those two agents on the porch?”
“I can be pretty convincing when I put my mind to it.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Did you hear that lady?” Tessa was staring at the bloodstained carpet as we walked back to the living room. “She said I was right. About the treadmill. Did you hear that?”
“Oh. Well, she’s a profiler,” I started to say. “She can’t help it-” Stop, rewind.
Reach out with your hand open…
“Um… it was a good observation, Tessa. You might have nailed it.”
She grunted. “Wow, I’m writing this one down. On Sunday, October 26, 2008, Patrick Bowers actually offers his stepdaughter a compliment.”
“Tessa,” I said, a slight edge climbing into my voice, “do you know what the word acerbic means?”
“No.”
“Well, you have an acerbic wit.”
She stopped, folded her arms, and cocked her head. “That is so not right.”
“What?”
“Telling me I’m sour, bitter, and vitriolic.”
I stared at her. “I thought you didn’t know what acerbic meant?”
“I lied.”
This cannot be what all teenagers are like. It just can’t be.
“Comes from the Latin,” she said. “ Acerbus. Means bitter, gloomy, and dark.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s just great.”
“I took two years of Latin instead of Spanish in middle school. Latin is a dead language. I thought it’d be cool to study a language that was dead.”
Man. Did I really want to take on parenting this girl?
Wait. Stupid question.
Yes.
More than anything else in the world.
Before we made it to the front door, I heard Ralph cussing in the other room. And this was one of those times I didn’t think it was a good sign.
“Bodies,” he said loud enough for my stepdaughter to hear. “They found fifteen bodies.”
66
The color drained from Tessa’s face. “What did he say?”
“Tessa, this is why I didn’t want you to come along.”
“Don’t do that,” she said. “I hate when people say I told you so!”
“OK. Listen, I’m sorry. Please. I want to make things right between us. It’s just that, can you wait outside? Please. For a couple minutes.”
“Don’t call me names then.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
She plopped onto the front porch swing, and I went back inside to tell Ralph what I thought of him cussing within earshot of my stepdaughter.
From his vantage point, the Illusionist watched the girl swing back and forth, back and forth on the porch. He recognized her right away from his research. Tessa Bernice Ellis, Dr. Bowers’s stepdaughter. So, he’d flown her in, brought her to North Carolina to protect her.
How nice.
The Illusionist closed his eyes and let his mind wander, his senses dream, his desires explore the possibilities. Yes, this could mean an even more fitting conclusion to the game.
He scanned the front of the house with the binoculars, studied Bowers’s rental car for a moment, made a note to himself that the good doctor had his backpack with him. Probably his climbing gear. Hmm.
He allowed himself one more lingering glance at the girl and then headed back to his house to get his supplies.
Before I could lay into Ralph, I saw the look on his face. “Thirteen of ’em were children,” he said.
My mouth went dry. “Thirteen kids?”
He nodded. “No smoke in their lungs.”
“They were dead before the fire began.”
“Yeah.”
“They killed their kids?” said Lien-hua.
“Just like at Jonestown,” I said.
“The building next to the house had two adult bodies,” said Ralph. “One male, one female. And Kincaid’s private plane is gone from the regional airport. Filed a flight plan to Seattle.”
“Seattle?” I said. “What’s in Seattle?”
“They’re checking.”
Suddenly the door flew open, and Wallace came ambling into the room, waving his new phone.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The prints,” he exclaimed.
“Who?” asked Ralph. “Who is it?”
Wallace shook his head. “If the killer touched the brush he didn’t leave any prints. But I think we might have found his next victim. Every bank employee in the country is fingerprinted, so if there’s a robbery it’s easy to see if it was an inside job-there’s a national database of their fingerprints, and we-”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” barked Ralph. The stress of the case was getting to him, to all of us, wearing our patience razor-thin. “Who is she? What’s her name?”
“Alice McMichaelson. She works at Second National Bank. Lives in West Asheville.”
“She’s next,” I said.
“Do we have an address on her?” said Ralph.
Sheriff Wallace told it to us.
“Get some cops there now,” I said to him. “But make them plainclothes in case he’s watching the house. This just might be our chance to finally move out in front of him.”
67
Alice McMichaelson was sitting in her living room balancing her checkbook when the doorbell rang. Before she could even get up it rang again. Probably some kind of salesman. Don’t they ever give it a rest? I mean, give me a break, this is a Sunday.
Maybe if she ignored him he’d go away.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Oh, all right already.
She crossed the carpet and peered out the window. A man wearing khaki pants, a golf shirt, and a maroon windbreaker stood on her porch. When she pulled the curtain to the side, he nodded at her.
Alice opened the door, kept the chain clasped in place. “Yes? May I help you?”
He held up his wallet to show her his badge. “Ma’am. I’m Officer Lewis with the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Department. May I come in?”
“Is there some kind of problem?”
