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  He couldn’t tell Sam, of course. If she knew, she would surely tell her father, who would set the boy free and maybe send him to jail, and then he would get out, probably within a couple months, and come back and kill Sam. He couldn’t ever tell her.

  But he couldn’t not tell her either. She was his bosom buddy. She was his best, best friend, whom he loved more than he loved his mother. Maybe.

  On the third night he meant to go in search of the warehouse, just to take a peek; just to see if it had really, really happened. But after an hour pacing outside his window, he climbed back into his house.

  “You’re different,” Sam told him the next night. “You’re not looking me in the eyes like you used to. You keep looking off at the trees. What’s wrong?”

  “I am not looking off. I’m just enjoying the night.”

  “Don’t try to fool me. You think I don’t have a woman’s intuition? I’m almost a teenager, you know. I can tell if a boy’s bothered.”

  “Well, I’m not bothered by anything except your insistence that I’m bothered,” he said.

  “So then you are bothered. See? But you were bothered before I said you were bothered, so I think you’re not telling me something.”

  He felt suddenly angry. “I am not!” he said.

  She looked at him for a few seconds and then gazed up into the trees herself. “You are bothered by something, but I can see that you’re not telling me because you think it might hurt me. That’s sweet, so I’m going to pretend you’re not bothered.” She took his arm.

  She was giving him a way out. What kind of friend would ever do that? Sam would do that because she was the sweetest girl in the whole world, no exceptions.

  It took Kevin four months of agony to finally work up the courage to go in search of the boy’s fate.

  Part of him wanted to find the boy’s bones in a rotting pile. But most of him didn’t want to find the boy at all, didn’t want to confirm that the whole thing had really happened.

  The first challenge was to find the right warehouse. Guarding a flashlight as closely as he could, he looked through the warehouses for an hour, sneaking from door to door. He began to wonder if he’d ever find it again. But then he opened an old wooden door and there, five feet away, was the dark stairway.

  Kevin jerked back and very nearly ran for his life.

  But it was only a stairway. What if the boy wasn’t there anymore? He could see the latch on the steel door in the shadows below. Seemed safe enough. You have to do this, Kevin. If you’re anything like a knight or a man or even a boy who’s already eleven, you have to at least find out if he’s in there.

  Kevin played his light down the stairwell and forced his feet down the stairs, one step at a time.

  No sound. Of course not—it had been four months. The steel door latch was still closed as if he’d thrown it closed yesterday. He stopped in front of the door and stared, unwilling to actually open it. Visions of pirates and dungeons full of skeletons clattered through his mind.

  Behind him the moonlight glowed pale gray. He could always run up the stairs if a skeleton took after him, which was incredibly stupid anyway. What would Sam think of him now?

  “Hello?” he called.

  Nothing.

  The sound of his voice helped. He walked forward and knocked. “Hello?” Still nothing.

  Slowly, heart thumping in his ears, palms wet with sweat, Kevin eased the latch open. He pushed the door. It creaked open.

  Black. Musty. Kevin held his breath and gave the door a shove.

  He saw the splotches of blood immediately. But no body.

  His bones shook from head to toe. It was real. That was blood all over the floor. Dried and darkened, but exactly where he remembered it should be. He pushed the door again, to make sure no one was behind it. He was alone.

  Kevin stepped into the room. A bandanna lay in the corner. The boy’s bandanna. He had definitely locked the boy in this cellar, and there was no way out that he could see. That meant one of two things had happened. Either the boy had died in here and someone had found him, or someone had found him before he’d died.

  His mind ran through the possibilities. If he’d been found alive, it would have been in the first couple weeks. Which meant he’d been free for over three months and said nothing to the police. If he’d been found dead, of course, he couldn’t say anything. Either way, he was probably gone for good. Maybe even alive and gone for good.

  Kevin hurried out, slammed the door closed, latched it, and ran into the night, determined never, ever to even think about the boy again. He’d saved Sam, hadn’t he? Yes, he had! And he hadn’t been arrested or sent to the gas chamber or even accused of doing anything wrong. Because he had done what was right!

  Elated and overcome with relief, he ran straight to Sam’s house, even though it was past her bedtime. It took him fifteen minutes to wake her and convince her to climb out.

  “What is it? My father will kill us if he finds us, you know.”

  He grabbed her hand and ran for the fence.

  “Kevin Parson, I am in my pajamas! What is this all about?”

  Yes, what’s this about, Kevin? You’re acting like a maniac!

  But he couldn’t help himself. He’d never felt so wonderful in all his life. He loved Sam so much!

  He stepped past the fence and she followed him. “Kevin, this is . . .”

  He threw his arms around her and hugged her tight, squeezing off her words. “I love you, Sam! I love you so much!”

  She stood still in his arms, unmoving. It didn’t matter; he was so overwhelmed with joy. “You are the best friend a boy could ever, ever have,” he said.

  She finally put her arms around him and patted his shoulder. It felt a bit polite, but Kevin didn’t care. He pulled back and brushed blonde strands of hair from her face. “I won’t ever let anyone hurt you. Ever. Not if I have to die first. You know that, don’t you?”

  She laughed, caught up in his show of affection. “What’s gotten into you? Of course I do.”

  He looked away, wishing for a response as enthusiastic as he felt. It didn’t matter; he was a man now.

  Her hand touched his chin and turned his face toward her. “Listen to me,” Sam said. “I love you more than anything I can imagine. You really are my knight in shining armor.” She smiled. “And I think that it’s incredibly sweet of you to drag me out here in my pajamas to make sure I know how much you love me.”

  Kevin smiled wide, stupidly, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t have to pretend with Sam.

  They hugged tight then, tighter than they had ever hugged before.

  “Promise to never leave me,” Kevin said.

  “I promise,” Sam said. “And if you ever need me, all you have to do is knock on my window and I’ll come flying out in my pajamas.”

  Kevin laughed. Then Sam laughed, and Kevin laughed at Sam’s laughing. It might have been the best night of Kevin’s life.

  “—Samantha?”

  Kevin faced Jennifer. “Pardon?”

  She looked at him. “Why was the boy after Samantha?”

  “Because he was a demented wacko who found pleasure in cutting up animals and terrorizing the neighborhood. I didn’t exactly have the time or the presence of mind to sit him down and run a psychological profile on him. I was scared to death.”

  Jennifer chuckled. “Touché. Too bad, though. Now we’re sitting twenty years beyond that night, and I have the formidable task of trying to do it myself. Whether you like it or not, you may be my best hope of understanding him. Assuming the boy and Slater are one and the same, you’re the only person we know who’s had any meaningful contact with him, then or now.”

  As much as the thought of going back to the past made Kevin nauseated, he knew that she was right. He sighed. “I’ll do whatever I can.” He looked out the side window. “I should have made sure he was dead then.”

  “You would have done society a favor. In self-defense, of course.”

  “
And what if Slater does show up on my doorstep one of these days? Do I have the right to kill him?”

  “We have law enforcement for a reason.” She paused. “On the other hand, I might.”

  “You might what?”

  “Take him out. If I knew for sure it was Slater.”

  “What evil is man capable of?” Kevin said absently.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” But it was something. It struck Kevin for the first time that he had not only had the capacity to kill Slater, but also the desire to do so, self-defense or not. What would Dr. John Francis say to that?

  “So. The boy was taller than you, about thirteen, blond and ugly,” Jennifer said. “Nothing else?”

  The sensation that there was something else nagged at Kevin, but he couldn’t remember. “I can’t think of anything.”

  They passed a store that Kevin recognized. “Where are we going?”

  Suddenly he knew. His foot began to tap. They drove around a deserted park filled with elm trees.

  “I thought I’d take you to your aunt’s home. See if we can jog loose a few memories. Visual association can do wonders . . .”

  He didn’t hear the rest. A buzz lit through his mind and he felt claustrophobic in her car.

  Jennifer looked at him but said nothing. He was sweating; she could surely see that. She turned onto Baker Street and drove under the elms toward his childhood house. Could she hear his thumping heart too?

  “So this is where it all happened,” she said absently.

  “I . . . I don’t want to go to the house,” he said.

  She looked at him again. “We’re not going to the house. Just down the street. Is that okay?”

  He couldn’t say no—might as well wave a red flag in front of her. “Sure. I’m sorry. I’m not on the best terms with my aunt. My mother died when I was young and my aunt raised me. We’ve had our differences. Mostly over college.”

  “Okay. That’s not uncommon.”

  But she saw more in him, didn’t she? And so what if she did? Why did he feel so compelled to hide his upbringing? It was weird but not demented. Samantha said otherwise, but she was biased. It wasn’t like he was a victim of physical abuse or anything so horrifying.

  He took a slow breath and tried to relax.

  “You think the boy chased you into one of those old warehouses across the tracks, that’s what you said?”

  He looked to his right. The memory of that night came back fresh and raw. “Yes, but I was scared out of my mind, and it was dark. I can’t remember which one.”

  “Have you ever checked any of them? To see if there even is one with a basement?”

  Kevin fought a wave of panic. He couldn’t let her into the past. He shook his head. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  She nodded. “There are only a few possibilities. Hopefully nothing’s changed. You know we’ll have to search.”

  He nodded. “And what if you find him?”

  “Then we know he’s obviously not Slater.”

  “And what about me?”

  “We’ll know that you killed him. In self-defense.”

  They drove past the white house. “This is where your aunt lives?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s the old Sheer residence?”

  “Yes.”

  “None of this jogs your memory of any details?”

  “No.”

  She remained silent to the end of the street, where she turned around and headed back.

  Kevin’s world felt like it was crumbling around him. Coming here alone was hard enough, but doing it with Jennifer somehow seemed profane. He wanted to tell her what Balinda had really done. He wanted her to comfort him, the little boy who had grown old in this world of madness. Waves of sorrow swept through his mind. His eyes went misty.

  “I’m sorry, Kevin,” Jennifer said softly. “I don’t know what happened here, but I can see it left its mark on you. Believe me, if we weren’t up against a clock, I wouldn’t have brought you back here in your present state.”

  She cared for him, didn’t she? She really did. A tear slipped from his eye and ran down his cheek. The emotion was suddenly beyond him. He began to cry, and then immediately tried to swallow it, which only made the condition worse. He hid his face in his left hand and started to sob, horribly aware of the foolishness of it all.

  She drove out of the neighborhood and then stopped. He looked up through blurred eyes and saw that they were by the park. Jennifer sat still, looking at him with soft eyes.

  “I’m . . . sorry,” he managed past a tight throat. “It’s just . . . my life’s falling apart . . .”

  “Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay.” Her hand touched his shoulder. “It’s okay, really. You’ve been through hell these last two days. I had no right.”

  Kevin put his hands over his face and took a deep breath. “Man. This is crazy. Nothing like making a fool of yourself.”

  Her hand rubbed his arm again. “Don’t be silly. You don’t think I’ve seen a grown man cry before? I could tell you some stories. There’s nothing quite like watching a three-hundred-pound, heavily tattooed gorilla sob uncontrollably for an hour. I don’t know any decent man who could go through what you’ve gone through without a good cry.”

  He smiled, embarrassed. “Is that so?”

  “That’s so.”

  Jennifer’s smile softened and she looked away. “The Riddle Killer’s last victim was my brother. His name was Roy. That was three months ago. He was chosen because I was closing in on the killer.”

  Kevin wasn’t sure what to say. “Your brother?”

  “You remind me of him, you know.” She faced him. “I won’t let this maniac kill you, Kevin. I’m not sure I could survive that.”

  “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

  “Now you do. Want to go for a walk? I think we could both use some fresh air.”

  “Okay.”

  They walked side by side over an emerald green lawn, past a pond with ducks and two large geese. She was laughing and telling him about a goose that had once chased her for the sandwich she held. Next to the horror that had swept over him not five minutes earlier, Kevin felt unusually peaceful, as if he were walking with his guardian angel. He wondered about Jennifer’s true intentions. She was a professional, doing her job. All FBI agents talked and laughed like this— it was their way of making someone in his shoes feel comfortable enough to work with them.

  The thought made him feel suddenly awkward. Clumsy. Like a three-hundred-pound gorilla. On the other hand, she’d lost her brother.

  He stopped.

  She touched his arm. “Kevin? What is it?”

  “Like a three-hundred-pound, heavily tattooed gorilla.”

  “That’s what he—”

  “The boy had a tattoo,” Kevin blurted.

  “The boy you locked in the cellar? Where?”

  “On his forehead! A tattoo of a knife.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes! He had it covered with a bandanna that last night, but I saw it the first night.”

  They exchanged stares. “How many men have a tattoo on their foreheads? Not many.” A smile nudged her lips. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good.”

  12

  Saturday

  Afternoon

  SAMANTHA WAS THE LAST PASSENGER to board the flight to Sacramento. An hour and a half later she entered a little-known conference room at the attorney general’s headquarters, the office of the California Bureau of Investigation’s “Alpha Division,” as it was known by some. A bulldog of a man named Chris Barston, who was up on suspicion of aiding terrorists by promulgating bomb-construction methods on the Internet, sat across the table. They’d hauled him in last night. His Internet dealings were not her concern, but the information he had to share evidently was, or Roland, her boss, wouldn’t have insisted she come. Roland sat at the head of the table, leaning back in his chai
r. She’d liked the chief from the moment they were introduced, and when she came to him two days after her orientation and asked to be assigned to the Riddle Killer case, he’d agreed. The FBI and the CBI were both active in the case, but Samantha suggested that the killer had inside connections, and the possibility had intrigued Roland.

  The call from Kevin had blindsided her. She hadn’t expected the Riddle Killer to surface in Southern California at all. She wasn’t necessarily convinced that the Riddle Killer and Slater were the same. If Slater was the Riddle Killer and he was also the boy, it would explain his ties to her, Kevin, and Jennifer. But certain details about Slater’s calls to Kevin nagged at her.

  “Thanks for coming, Sam. Enjoy your holiday?”

  “I wasn’t aware I was on a holiday.”

  “You’re not. Your witness.” Roland looked at Chris, who stared past him.

  Sam pulled up her chair and opened a blue file Rodriguez had brought to her at the airport. She’d read the contents on the way in.

  “Hello, Mr. Barston. My name’s Samantha Sheer.”

  He ignored her and kept his eyes in Roland’s direction.

  “You may look this way, Chris. I’m going to be asking the questions. Have you ever been questioned by a woman before?”

  The man stared at her. Roland grinned. “Answer the woman, Chris.”

  “I agreed to tell you what I know about Salman. That’ll take thirty seconds.”

  “Great,” Sam said. “Then we can limit our exposure to each other so we don’t . . . you know, rub off on each other. I think we can stomach thirty seconds, don’t you?”

  The man’s face darkened.

  “Tell us about Salman.”

  He cleared his throat. “I met him in Houston about a month ago. Pakistani. You know, India and all. Speaks with an accent.”

  “Pakistanis live in Pakistan, not India. That’s why they call it Pakistan. Go on.”

  “You going to mock me for the full thirty seconds here?”

  “I’ll try to control myself.”

  He shifted. “Anyway, Salman and I had a mutual interest in . . . you know, bombs. He’s clean; I can swear that. He had this tattoo of a bomb on his shoulder. I got one here of a knife.” He showed them a small blue knife on his right forearm. “Then he showed me one on his back, a huge dagger. Said he wanted to have it removed because the chicks didn’t dig it back in wherever.”