Stealing Shadows

SIXTEEN

The news that the horribly mutilated body of fifteen-year-old Deanna Ramsay had been found spread through Ryan's Bluff like wildfire. By the time Cassie and Ben got back to the Sheriff's Department less than an hour after the body was found, a small crowd was already gathering; by the time the black van belonging to a local undertaker passed through town a few minutes later escorted by a couple of deputies, the crowd had doubled.

With the sheriff still at the crime scene, Ben went out to talk to them. Cassie remained inside and didn't hear what he said, but she watched from the window in Mart's office, and she wasn't surprised when the visibly agitated group calmed somewhat and eventually began to disperse.

"The man has a golden tongue."

Cassie turned from the window to find a female deputy standing in the doorway. Her name tag read sharon watkins.

"But how long will they listen to him?" Cassie asked.

Sharon smiled. "They're listening today. That's really all we can hope for." She hesitated. "We have some pretty good coffee out here, if you'd like a cup."

Cassie appreciated the offer, especially since she knew most of the deputies viewed her with uneasiness if not outright suspicion. "Thank you."

"I'll get the judge some too. I figure he'll stay here at least until the sheriff gets back."

"I think that's the plan." Ben had already made numerous phone calls in a concerted effort to keep the lid on the growing panic and anger of the town.

"He'll have to talk to the mayor again." Sharon sighed as she turned away. "He's already called twice in the last five minutes. The man needs a hobby."

Or a town where no killers lurked, Cassie thought. She hadn't met Mayor Ruppe, but from what she had heard she got the feeling the first-term mayor had a great deal of charm and very little common sense. Which was undoubtedly why he leaned heavily on the advice and help of other leaders of the town, particularly Ben and Matt.

Cassie returned her gaze to the window to watch Ben speak to the few lingering members of the crowd, then went back to her seat on the leather sofa. She would have preferred to be home, but Ben had asked her to stay with him, and she had agreed more because she hoped she might be of some help than because it was a comfortable or safe place to be.

She knew he was worried about her, that he didn't want her alone in her isolated house – even with a protective dog and a good security system. Her most recent contact with the killer had unsettled him as much as it had her, she thought. He was also very obviously feeling decidedly edgy about Bishop.

She couldn't help him there. The agent made her feel edgy herself, and always had.

Cassie leaned her head back against the sofa and closed her eyes – then just as quickly opened them again. The trouble with closing her eyes was that she kept seeing the remains of that poor girl scattered all over that barn. Even with her experience of horrible sights and her hard-won ability to detach herself somewhat, this one was so brutal and dehumanizing that it was branded on her mind's eye in a way she would never entirely escape. But when her eyes were open she could look consciously at something else.

Anything else. The map behind Matt's desk made a good focus. Salem County. One of the larger counties in the state, and shaped vaguely like a triangle…

Cassie shook her head irritably. There was some damned song in her head, a tune she couldn't identify that kept playing over and over again, fading into silence, only to return. It was one of those maddening tricks of the mind that tended to come when there was too much to think about.

Sharon returned with coffee and the offer of sending out for a late lunch if and when it was wanted. Cassie thanked her, and the deputy returned to her desk a couple of minutes before Ben came back into Matt's office.

Cassie indicated the cup Sharon had left for him, then said, "It looked pretty ugly out there for a while."

Ben sat down behind Matt's desk. "It'll be a lot worse if we ever get a suspect in custody. That's as close as I ever want to come to facing a lynch mob."

"They listened to you. They left."

"This time," Ben said, unknowingly echoing Deputy Watkins. "But if we don't catch this bastard, and soon…"

"He's still blocking me."

"Dammit, Cassie, stop trying to contact him without a lifeline."

"I told you it isn't dangerous." She shook her head,avoiding his gaze. "And I have to keep trying. What else am I here for, Ben? So far, all I've been able to do is tell Matt where to look for the bodies. I've been a lot of help."

"You've done everything you could."

"Have I?" Cassie stared down at her coffee. "I'm not so sure."

"You seem very tense. What's bothering you?" he asked.

"I don't know. Just a feeling."

He waited, watching her.

Slowly Cassie said, "He had to be in a frenzy this time, you know. To do what he did to that poor girl."

Ben hadn't viewed the murder scene, but he had seen Matt's sickened face and Bishop's stony one as well as Cassie's haunted eyes; he could only imagine the carnage that must have lain waiting for them in that barn.

"Don't think about it," he said.

"I don't have a choice. It isn't something I can put out of my mind. Eventually maybe, but not yet." She shrugged jerkily. "If I can just make sense of it…"

"How can any of this make sense?"

"Even madmen have their own mad logic." She looked at him, frowning. "Maybe that's what's bothering me."

"What?"

"Well… it's like he's blowing hot and cold. One victim is found far from where she was killed, the crime scene neat, her body virtually unmarked except for the wound that killed her, no murder weapon anywhere to be seen. The next is found in the room where she was killed, blood everywhere, the weapon a knife he found and left right there. Then he picks up another knife and takes it to use on his third victim, who is found where she was killed, but again the scene is neat and calm. And now this. He made the weapon that killed her and took it with him after he was done with her – but killing her wasn't enough. Raping her wasn't enough. He had to cut her into pieces…"

Ben drew a breath. "It takes more than a kitchen knife to hack a body into pieces."

"He used an ax," Cassie said. "And left it at the scene. He took the garrote with him, but left the ax in that barn."

Ben didn't ask her how she knew that. Instead, keeping his voice as composed as hers was, he said, "Seemingly calm and controlled when he kills one victim, then frenzied when he kills the next. As if he needs those violent outbursts?"

"I don't know. But it bothers me. I'd say he was trying to disguise some of his kills, but leaving the coins at the scene is as good as a signature, and he has to know that."

Matt had told them tonelessly that the killer had left his usual coin after killing Deanna Ramsay. It was a penny, placed on her forehead between gouged-out eyes.

Cassie rubbed her own forehead fretfully as she considered the mad logic of a madman, and Ben felt a little chill as he imagined a coin lying coldly against her skin.

He didn't want to let her out of his sight. It wasn't just because the killer knew who she was now; it was also because Cassie seemed hell-bent on contacting the bastard again and was far too willing to do so without a lifeline.

At least, without him as her lifeline. He was afraid that was it. Cassie had withdrawn so completely from him, she would not accept any kind of contact with him even to save her life. If it could save her life.

"There's something I'm missing," she said almost to herself. "Something… I just don't know what it is."

"As much as I hate the very possibility, have you considered that there might be two killers?"

Cassie nodded immediately. "Sure. But I'm positive the same man killed these women, all of them."

Ben knew that Matt had reached the same conclusion thanks to what little forensic evidence they'd managed to gather added to the presence of the coins and the identical way in which the first three bodies had been found posed. And they'd found a bloody footprint at this latest scene that Matt was certain would match one of those found in Ivy Jameson's bloody kitchen. To Matt the facts added up to one killer.

"I just wish I knew what was bothering me," Cassie murmured.

"You're still tired," Ben said.

"I slept more than twelve hours."

"Maybe it wasn't enough."

Cassie's smile was slight and fleeting. "It's never enough. I'm fine, Ben. I told you I wouldn't collapse, and I won't. I'm stronger than I seem."

"I just – "

"I know. You're worried about me. Don't be."

Lightly he said, "For somebody with walls, I don't hide some things too well."

Cassie said nothing, just stared at her coffee.

Was he being too watchful, too protective? Ben didn't know. It was the first time in his life he had found himself coping with an almost overpowering urge to shield a woman; he suspected he was neither hiding it nor handling it too well.

Especially given Cassie's prickly and independent nature.

He had told himself that morning to back off and give her the time and room she obviously needed, but gazing at her now, he was very conscious of minutes ticking away. Something told him that even if backing off and giving her time was the smart thing to do, it was not the right thing to do, because time was something they simply did not have.

"We've never had a chance, have we?" he heard himself say.

She looked at him, those eyes touching him as though with a warm hand, and the wariness he saw there hurt him. She didn't ask, but her brows rose in an almost indifferent question.

"We've never had a chance to… be ordinary. Just two people drawn to each other. We can't even seem to talk about ordinary things. All we talk about are killers."

Cassie smiled just a little, sadly, and he wanted badly to go put his arms around her. "I tried to warn you," she said.

"Cassie – "

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

"Catching a killer matters to you, Ben." Her voice was suddenly remote. "Making your town safe again matters to you. And maybe… maybe I matter to you."

"There's no maybe about it," he said roughly.

She accepted that without any visible reaction. "All right. But it's a question of priorities, isn't it? Nothing can be… can be settled until this killer is caught. All your energy, and all of mine, has to focus on that."

"And afterward? When the killer is caught? What then, Cassie?"

"I don't know." There was something painfully honest in the apprehension in her gaze. "I don't know how you'll feel. How I'll feel. I don't even know if either of us will have the energy left to give a damn."

"This is not going to just go away, if that's what you think. Is that what you think? That I want you because we're both involved in this investigation, that it's propinquity?"

"Stranger things have happened," she murmured.

Ben shook his head. "You're wrong. For one thing, I'm not in the habit of coming on to the nearest available woman. Cassie, why are you looking for excuses?"

"Excuses?"

"That's what it sounds like to me. One reason after another to hold me at arm's length until – what? Until I lose patience and give up?"

Cassie was spared having to answer when the phone rang.

"Dammit," Ben muttered, as Cassie answered the phone.

"I think the mayor wants to talk to you," Cassie said, and both of them heard the relief in her voice.

Hannah Payne hummed softly to herself as she pinned the pattern to material spread out on the living room floor. She should have been in her sewing room, of course, the extra bedroom that Joe had fixed up for her. But he was napping in their bedroom right next door, since he had to go in to work that night, and she didn't want to disturb him.

From time to time she felt a little chill of worry over that missing girl, but Joe had been right when he'd told her she would just upset herself if she listened to the radio all day waiting to hear about the poor thing.

There was nothing she could do to help, after all.

Snug in her own safe little world, Hannah worked contentedly, disturbed only when the phone rang just after two o'clock. She lunged to grab the receiver before it could ring again and wake Joe.

"Hello?"

Silence.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

Soft music began to play.

Hannah began to be afraid, even though she couldn't have said why. It was a music box, she realized; nothing else had quite the same tinkling sound. Just a music box, and someone was obviously playing a joke on her.

"Hello? Who's there?" She didn't recognize the tune -

"Bitch."

With a gasp Hannah hung up the phone. She sat there on the floor, feeling very, very cold. Just a joke, of course. Somebody was being bad, being mean, that was all it was. That was all.

Joe wasn't going to like it when she asked him to stay home from work another night.

It was three o'clock that afternoon when Abby pulled her car to the curb in front of the Sheriff's Department, left Bryce inside, and came up the walkway to the steps.

Cassie was sitting on the fourth one.

"Hi," Abby said.

Cassie echoed the greeting, then added, "Matt isn't back yet."

"He's still out there with – with the Ramsay girl?"

"Where she was killed, yeah. They sent her body back to town about an hour ago, but the crime scene unit is still out there collecting evidence. Or what they hope will be evidence."

"That FBI agent still around?"

Cassie wasn't surprised that the other woman knew. "Out there with Matt and the rest."

"Word has it he's from one of those serial killer task forces the FBI sends around the country."

"He isn't. Though I believe he spent some time in Behavioral Sciences at Quantico."

Abby eyed her. "Then why is he here? Nobody believes Matt called the Bureau, least of all me."

"He didn't." Cassie smiled and briefly explained her history with the agent, finishing with, "He'll stick around, watching and listening and offering unsolicited advice. Probably drive Matt nuts – even though he really is pretty good at figuring out murders. But I guess you could say he's here for me if for anything."

"I see. And what does Ben say about that?"

"Not much so far." Cassie jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "The mayor and three members of the town council are in there talking to him right now. I was just in the way, and the focus of intense curiosity, so I came out here for some fresh air."

Abby sat on the step beside her. "Has Ben kept you hanging around here all day?"

"Well, I've suggested taking a cab home, and one of the deputies offered to drive me, but Ben needed to stay here until Matt gets back and he asked me to stick around." She shrugged. "Maybe I can help."

"And maybe he just wants you with him."

Cassie turned her gaze out toward Main Street, absently focusing on a woman a couple of blocks down who seemed to be picking up litter from the sidewalk. "I don't know why he would. We either spend our time discussing the finer points of lunatic killers and their methods or else end up in a – a senseless debate neither of us can seem to win. One of us pushes, and one of us backs away. It's like some frustrating dance."

"One of those, huh? I've been there."

"He's a very stubborn man. Not as stubborn as your Matt, maybe, but – "

"Nobody is as stubborn as Matt." There was a touch of amusement in Abby's voice. "As for Ben, the word I'd use to describe him would probably be 'determined.' "

Cassie sent her a glance. "Yeah?"

"Definitely. As far as I can tell, nothing much has ever stood in his way when he wanted something."

"I suppose that goes for women too?" Abby pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I imagine so, though to be fair, he hasn't exactly cut a heartless swath through the county. He's usually had a girlfriend but seems to prefer them one at a time – and they seem to stay friendly with him once it's over."

"Figures." Cassie sounded disgruntled.

Abby hid a grin. "Well, he's a nice guy."

"I know. I know he is." Cassie sighed and watched her breath turn to drifting mist. It had warmed up during the afternoon and the skies had cleared somewhat, so sitting on the front steps of the Sheriff's Department was actually rather pleasant, but it was still a winter day and there was still a chill in the air.

"And not at all bad looking," Abby went on, warming to her theme. "Of course, some women don't care for dark men, and I suppose it could be argued that since he's still single at – let's see, he's Mart's age, so he must be about thirty-six or -seven – then he probably has a few intimacy issues lying about. But maybe I've seen too many talk shows."

Cassie smiled, continuing to watch the woman moving slowly toward them along the sidewalk, bending from time to time to pick up something from the pavement. "Intimacy issues, huh? Yeah, well, he isn't the only one."

"You can tell me it's none of my business if you like, but which one of you is backing away?"

"Me, at the moment."

"Ah. You don't like dark men?"

Cassie kept it light. "It's lawyers. I mean, I know he's been a judge, and now he's a prosecutor, but all those lawyer jokes just get to you after a while."

"And he's a politician too," Abby noted sympathetically.

"Worse and worse."

"I suppose you could try reforming him."

"Oh, no. Any woman who tries to reform a man deserves everything she gets."

Abby laughed.

Cassie smiled, then said, "Abby, who is that woman? The one coming toward us?"

Abby looked. "Oh. That's Lucy Shaw, poor thing."

"What is she picking up? I thought it was litter, but – "

"Nobody knows what she thinks she's picking up. Whenever she manages to escape her son's watchful eye, she ends up roaming the streets picking up invisible things until he comes looking for her."

Remembering, Cassie said, "Oh, yes, Ben told me about her. And nobody knows what did this to her?"

"Not that I've ever heard. I just assumed it was Alzheimer's, even though she couldn't have been much past forty when I first noticed her roaming the streets."

"She looks about seventy now," Cassie murmured.

"I know, but she's younger. When she was a young woman, she was famous for her needlework. Apparently she still does some in lucid moments, because her son usually sells a few pieces at the church bazaar every year." Abby paused, then added, "I should go call him now. She never seems to wander into traffic or get hurt in any way, but she isn't dressed warmly enough to be out here."

Lucy Shaw was wearing faded jeans neatly rolled up above her ankles and a cotton cardigan over a T-shirt. Untied and ancient Reeboks flapped on her sockless feet. Her mostly gray hair was untidy but not witchy, and she was almost painfully thin.

She turned up the walkway that led to the Sheriff's Department. She had been moving steadily and straight down the street, but now she moved much quicker, bending only once to pick up whatever her mind told her was so important. She held one hand cupped close to her body, as though holding small items, and her other hand curved around it protectively. She stopped near the foot of the steps, straightened, and stared at them with vacant eyes.

Gently Abby said, "Miss Lucy, you shouldn't be out on such a cold day."

Those faded blue eyes sharpened, stared at her for a moment, then shifted to Cassie. "They're all over." Her voice was paper-thin and whispery. "Scattered all over. I have to pick them up."

"Of course you do," Cassie said quietly.

"You understand?"

"Yes. Yes, of course."

"It wasn't my fault. I swear, it wasn't my fault."

"No one blames you," Abby soothed.

"You don't know." The faded eyes returned to Cassie's face. "But you do. You know the truth, don't you? You can see the face he hides from everybody else. His true face."

Cassie and Abby exchanged glances, and then Cassie said, "The face who hides, Miss Lucy? Who are you talking about?"

"Him." She leaned toward them and whispered fearfully, "He's the devil."

"Miss Lucy – " Abby began.

Lucy Shaw reached out suddenly, one hand gripping Cassie's knee with unexpected strength. "Stop him," she hissed. "You have to."

Cassie caught her breath and stared into the old woman's eyes.

Then, as abruptly as it had begun, Lucy Shaw's moment of lucidity was over. Her eyes seemed to film over, and her hand fell away from Cassie. She stepped back, her hands cupped protectively once again near her middle, and said fretfully, "I have to pick them up. All of them. I have to…"

Quick footsteps thudded up the walkway, and a thin man of about forty-five who bore an unmistakable resemblance to Lucy Shaw caught her arm. "Mama. Come along home, Mama."

"I have to pick them up," Lucy told him anxiously.

"Yes. We'll pick them up at home, Mama."

Abby said, "I was about to call you, Russell."

"She didn't mean to bother you." His voice was a bit rough, his tone defensive.

"We know that, Russell, we were just worried about her."

"Thanks," he said, but he was scowling. His eyes shifted away from Cassie and his grip tightened on his mother's arm. "Come along now," he said gently enough.

"They're scattered all over," she murmured sadly.

"Yes, Mama. I know."

The two reached the end of the walkway and turned back the way Lucy had come. When they reached the corner, they turned and vanished.

"Where do they live?" Cassie asked.

"Two streets back from Main. Close enough." Abby looked at Cassie curiously. "You went white when she touched you. Did you – could you see anything?"

Cassie didn't reply for a moment, and when she did her voice was abstracted. "Have you ever tried to see something in the face of a shattered mirror?"

"Is that what a broken mind looks like to you? A shattered mirror?"

"Hers does."

"Did you see anything in it?"

"No, nothing clearly enough to identify. Except – " Cassie looked at Abby, frowning. "Except kittens." "Kittens?" "Yeah. Kittens."

Abby had intended to tell Matt about the phone call she had received, but she was reluctant to hang around the Sheriff's Department, waiting for him. When he still hadn't returned by four o'clock, when the clouds began rolling in and the chill in the air deepened, she decided enough was enough.

"I'll tell him you were here," Cassie said, then eyed her in sudden realization. "Why were you here? I mean, considering how careful you two usually are to avoid attention."

"No reason."

"Uh-huh. What is it, Abby?"

"I got a call. Just some nut breathing heavily into the phone, that's all." And whispering her name. "It was probably just Gary playing games. Look, I don't want to worry Matt. I just wanted to see him."

"I'll tell him about the call," Cassie said. "Abby, this is no time to hold back when something spooky happens. Even if it is just your ex tormenting you, Matt needs to know. In the meantime, you keep Bryce with you."

It was good advice, and Abby took it.

She drove back home, not quite as restless or uneasy as she had been earlier, but not entirely calm either. She wanted to see Matt. And she was reasonably sure she would see him that night; she knew him, and knew he would come as soon as possible after Cassie told him about the call.

Besides which, they hadn't seen each other since those tense few minutes at the mall the previous day, and Matt seldom let two nights pass without them being together.

He would be upset after the day he'd had, and he would be tired. And hungry. Abby raided her freezer for the ingredients for a stew, and within an hour had it bubbling on the stove.

When the phone rang, she didn't hesitate to pick it up.

She never got the chance to say hello.

"You bitch!" Gary snarled. "Did you think I wouldn't find out about him?"