You Can’t Stop Me

Chapter Twenty-four

Billy Choi noticed first.

“Carmen isn’t usually late,” he pointed out to Harrow, as they were loading the buses to go to the Pratt PD. “Matter of fact, she’s usually the one complaining I’m late.”

Shrugging, Harrow said, “Probably just running behind. Why don’t you go see if you can hurry her up?”

“Turnabout fair play and all that? Sure, boss.”

Choi took off for the motel entrance. He was a professional, as far as it went, but he’d read enough Penthouse letters to harbor the hope that the gorgeous Carmen might answer the door wearing only a towel.

He clipped through the lobby, then down a long hall that intersected with a cross hallway. He turned right and strode down toward the last door on the right, Carmen’s. He spent the entire walk letting a sheer nightie stand in for the towel in his developing fantasy.

At the door, Choi knocked.

Ten seconds, and nothing.

He knocked again.

Still nothing.

He tried a third time, this effort harder than before, and waited... and still nothing. For the first time, Choi wondered if something might be wrong. Maybe Carmen was sick — Mexican food didn’t agree with everybody, after all, and that Tex-Mex fare had been rich.

This time, when he rapped on the door, any Penthouse fantasy long since flown, he shouted, “Carmen!”

Again, there was no answer.

Genuinely worried, Choi got out his cell phone and punched in Harrow’s number.

“Billy? Waiting for you two.”

“Something’s not right here, boss. I’ve knocked on the door till my knuckles are red, but I can’t get her to answer.”

“Be right there.”

As he waited, Choi kept knocking, and by now he would have settled for Carmen answering in a nun’s habit, which was definitely not a fantasy of his. Eventually, the guy across the way stuck his head out and complained.

Choi just snarled, “Go away,” at the portly man, who pulled his head back in his shell.

But more knocking only earned him further disappointment.

Finally, Harrow showed up, an assistant motel manager — a squat fortyish woman with brown hair, very red lipstick, and a white blouse over navy blue slacks — trailing him, having to work to keep up.

“She doesn’t answer,” Choi told them.

The manager stepped forward and knocked.

“Oh, yeah,” Choi said to her. “Knocking. I hadn’t thought to try that.”

“Billy,” Harrow cautioned.

She kept rapping, getting no answer of course, but she was also running a pass keycard through the lock.

The woman opened the door, but Harrow held up a hand.

“Remember,” he told the assistant manager. “This may be a police matter, and I need to check it first.”

“You bet, Mr. Harrow,” she said, obviously impressed with her guest.

So, Choi thought, J.C. had played the celebrity card. Good. Whatever it took...

Harrow looked around the motel room and the bathroom. Choi followed, while the manager remained silhouetted in the doorway.

The room was vacant, the night-table lamp on.

“Where’s the bedspread?” Choi asked.

“Gone,” Harrow said.

“Something to wrap somebody up in, maybe?”

Harrow’s silence was confirmation.

Checking the bathroom himself, Choi spotted her cell phone plugged into the electrical socket. “Cell’s here, boss.”

Harrow peeked in.

Choi said, “She’d never leave the room without that phone.”

“Not voluntarily,” Harrow agreed.

“Unless she stepped out for some ice or pop or something, and... ran into something.”

Or someone.

Neither man could say it out loud, but both thought it.

“What happened here?” Harrow said. He was calm, but it was a cop calm, edged with steel.

Choi had a thorough look-around, particularly on the floor, and noticed something near the door. On one knee, he bent as close to the carpet as he could and discerned a small spot.

Dark.

Nearly maroon, as it dried.

“Blood,” Choi said.

Harrow knelt beside him, and they both studied the drop, no bigger than the diameter of a good-sized sewing needle.

“Good catch,” Harrow said.

Always nice to get a compliment from the boss, but Choi didn’t feel like celebrating.

On his feet again, Harrow said to the assistant manager, “Call the police — tell them that J.C. Harrow’s group has a missing person here at the motel, and we think it’s an abduction.”

The woman’s eyes were big and her mouth hung open, but she remained motionless.

“Go,” Harrow said.

The woman swallowed, nodded, and trundled off down the hall like a reluctant tank moving into battle.

Harrow got out his cell and punched a speed-dial number.

“Laurene?” he asked.

Choi could not hear her response.

Harrow told her, “Carmen’s been taken. Bring your crime scene kit to her room, now.”

He told Laurene to send the rest of the team ahead to the PD to keep working the serial killer case. This was likely the same unsub, and they needed to find him.

When Harrow got off the phone, Choi asked, “You really think it’s him? You think it’s our bull’s-eye guy?”

Harrow sighed. “We’re in a town with less than seven thousand people, and other than the police chief and a few other cops, we don’t know anybody here. Carmen didn’t know anybody. Yet it looks like someone got her to open the door, Tasered her, then abducted her.”

“Taser?” Choi asked.

“One drop of blood, and only one drop of blood — what do you think would cause a wound that wouldn’t bleed any more than that?”

Choi lifted an eyebrow. “Taser.”

Harrow made another call, this one to Chief Walker. He explained the situation, told the chief what they were doing, and clicked off.

“How’s the chief feel about us getting involved?” Choi asked. “I mean, this isn’t our crime scene...”

“He’s up for the help. He’d have to wait for the state crime lab to come down, do what we’re doing, and then maybe wait a month for the results. Right now, we’re Walker’s favorite visitors.”

Laurene came up to the open doorway at a trot.

“What the hell happened?” she asked, as she set down her big metal crime scene case in the hall, just outside.

Harrow pointed out the stain on the carpet and explained what they figured had happened.

Laurene’s upper lip curled nastily. “She just opened the door, and let this asshole take her? What does she think peepholes are for?”

“She’s not a police professional, Laurene. We’re all housed in this motel like a bunch of kids on their way to the big game. She thought it was one of us.”

“Gonna have to have a talk with the girl.”

Choi said, “Really think that’ll be necessary?”

Harrow said, “Cut the crap, boys and girls. You are our two crime scene analysts. Go over the scene fast. The cops are on their way.”

Laurene’s eyes widened. “And they’re fine with us taking over their crime scene?”

“I’ve cleared it with Chief Walker. Anyway, if there’s evidence, I want us to be the ones that find it.”

“That I get,” Laurene said.

As she went to work, Billy said to Harrow, “You don’t need two of us to process this small a scene.”

“Get the security video for the motel, and any business around here that has it. Then grab one of these cops who are about to show up, and have him drive you to the PD. Get the chief to set you up in a room and find something on that video we can use to track this son of a bitch.”

That didn’t require a reply, and Choi didn’t offer one, just tore down the corridor the moment Harrow was done. Choi found the dowdy assistant manager in the office off the check-in, hanging up the phone.

“Police are on their way,” she said.

“Good. How many security cameras do you have?”

The woman had to think about that, then she ticked them off on her fingers. “Parking lot out front, lot on the side, lobby... then there’s three where the two main halls intersect. Six altogether.”

“Tape or disc?” Choi asked.

“Disc,” the manager said.

“May I have them?”

“Shouldn’t I save them for the police?”

“We’re working with Chief Walker’s blessing, ma’am, and every second counts.”

The woman fetched the discs and soon was handing them to Choi.

“Was there a night manager last night?”

“Yes — Ann Ford.”

“She wouldn’t be here now, would she?”

The manager shook her head. “Went home when I came on.”

“Did she mention seeing anything or anyone unusual?”

Another head shake.

“A male, who wasn’t a guest, who may have asked after Ms. Garcia?”

“No, but that girl Ann spends most of her time with her nose buried in some romance book or other. You know, those Harlequin things, where a strong man drags off a willing woman?”

Choi didn’t bother with a reply — he just took the discs as three cops strode into the lobby like a small army, Chief Walker out in front.

When he saw Choi, the chief asked, “Where’s your boss?

“Harrow’s at Carmen Garcia’s room — one forty. I’ve got the security video.” Choi had a question he’d saved up for the chief: “What other businesses around here would have security cameras?”

Walker needed only a second or two to think. “Convenience store across the street. Bank two blocks down, on the left — ATM camera and the parking lots.”

“All right,” Choi said. “I’m going to want to gather any other video, and then’ll want space at your facility to go over them. Somebody to assist, and clear the way for me, would be great.”

Turning to an officer, Walker said, “Jake, go with Mr. Choi here. Make sure the convenience store and the bank cooperate. If they want warrants, have them call me.”

The blond patrolman stood six-two and looked like he had just stepped out of a recruiting poster for the Aryan Nation. “Yes, sir. I saw Mr. Choi on TV, sir.”

“Good for you,” the chief said patiently.

Choi shut his eyes momentarily, and managed to suppress any remark.

Chapter Twenty-five

Forty-some minutes later, Choi was set up in a dark room in the Pratt Police Department with a DVD player hooked up to an old tube TV. While most of his team was down the hall, working their own specialties, he was subjected to your classic Dirty Job But Somebody’s Gotta Do It: going through security video, grainy washed-out footage, looking for even a single frame that showed something it shouldn’t, something off, a person in the wrong place, a car that looked out of place, any damn thing.

Mounted where it met the cross corridor, the camera on the hall from the lobby should reveal anyone coming in that way. Ten rooms were on each side to the left, and ten more to the right. Other cameras gave views of that same corridor in either direction.

Choi started with the hallway with Carmen’s doorway. He would fast-forward until he saw someone, then would slow down, back up, and look from just before the person entered until they went into their room. Shortly after midnight on the video, his teammates made their appearances — Jenny went into her room, Anderson into his, and even Choi himself. The last one to enter a room, at the far end, was Carmen... then nothing.

He fast-forwarded as slowly as possible — unlike the old VHS, DVDs skipped frames rather than skimming over them. Finally, nearly half an hour after Carmen had closed her door, someone came down the hall.

Choi sat up.

With the person’s back to the camera, all Choi could make out was a sweatshirt and jeans and a ball cap.

Choi’s cell seemed to leap into his hand; but he didn’t hit any of the numbers just yet. Instead, he watched as the ball cap — wearing man — at least that much seemed clear, that this was indeed a male — fairly swaggered down the hall, in a gait with purpose and no hesitation.

Someone who knew where he was going...

Ball Cap stopped just short of Carmen’s room, and knocked. A pause while he waited. Then, he lifted the front of the sweatshirt slightly and withdrew from his waistband what, from this angle and distance, appeared to be a gun... but Choi already knew it wasn’t.

When Carmen finally opened the door, Choi somehow managed not to yell, No! at the screen.

Instead, he merely watched in mute rage as the Taser fired, and he caught just a glimpse of Carmen before she tumbled back into her room.

The man went in after her, his face still not visible as he slipped in and shut the door.

After a minute or so, the door opened, and he stepped out with a human-sized shape wrapped in the bedspread over his shoulder, like a carpet hauler making a delivery. The door to the side parking lot was right there, couldn’t have been handier, and the guy disappeared through it.

Choi hadn’t seen anything that would help them identify Carmen’s attacker — all he had accomplished was to confirm that Carmen had indeed been abducted.

He hoped Jenny could work some of her computer voodoo and enhance the picture enough that they’d be able to ID the guy; but he frankly didn’t hold out much hope, from what he’d seen so far.

He gave Harrow a call, and reported.

“So it’s a kidnapping,” Harrow said.

“Yeah. Where does that leave us with the FBI?”

“...I’ll work on that. Keep at that footage. Maybe you’ve seen enough to make him on the convenience store or bank video.”

“Still some motel vid to check, too. Anyway, I’m on it, boss.”

He pocketed his cell and changed discs to check the hallway coming from the lobby. Without a key card, the front door would be the only way the guy could get in at that hour.

He fast-forwarded to just short of the time the man came around the corner into Carmen’s hallway. This camera provided a view from the intersection with the cross-corridor straight to the front door.

The man came in, head down, glanced for a second toward the front desk to his left, then kept coming right at camera, seemingly aware of its presence and not wanting to give it a good look.

How did he know the camera was there?

Had Ball Cap been in a motel of the same chain, laid out identically, or had he been in this particular motel before? Was he a local? A non-local who had cased the place?

When the man disappeared from the shot, Choi reran the disc twice before he decided he hadn’t missed anything. The next disc was the main parking lot, but there was nothing to see. The abductor had probably parked on the side and walked around, staying close to the building. Otherwise, he would have to carry Carmen’s body to the front, and that was unlikely.

This camera, from above the entrance, swept back and forth across the parking lot and revealed no sign of movement after the team’s buses emptied and they’d all come inside.

The camera on the side of the building was mounted above the door too, and similarly swept back and forth. Choi synced up the time for when the kidnapper and his package should have popped out the door, but the investigator saw nothing. Problem with the camera was that it showed the lot and nothing of the sidewalk next to the building, aimed just a few degrees too high.

“Shit,” Choi said.

He kept the video rolling, hoping the guy would come out and cross the parking lot to one of the vehicles...

...but he never did.

Choi was just about to give up when the camera swept left and caught the roof of a vehicle sliding by to the right.

“There,” he said, pointing to the right as if that would make the camera move faster.

Painfully slow, the camera finally swept back to the right, Choi expecting the truck to be long gone. To his surprised delight, the truck sat at the motel entrance, its tail to camera.

Better to be lucky than smart, he thought.

A car passing on the street had forced the truck to wait, and those few seconds were Christmas to Choi.

The truck was obviously a Ford F-150, gray on the washed-out security video, and the license plate stared right back at him, as did a sticker on the back window. From here, nothing was clear enough to make out, but he felt Jenny Blake and her laptop would see this stuff just fine.

He dialed Harrow, who answered on the second ring.

“I think we’ve got the son of a bitch,” Choi said, then he explained.

“Get Jenny on it,” Harrow said. “Anderson’s been going over the map some more — he thinks whatever the target’s center indicates, it’ll be within Smith County. Probably a town called Lebanon — about a hundred seventy miles north of here, straight up US 281.”

“How soon we leaving?”

“That’s up to Jenny. Get her on this. Once she’s got what she needs at the PD, we’re on our way.”

“You got it, boss.”

Soon, after Jenny Blake had loaded the contents of not only that disc onto her laptop, but all the rest — including the convenience store and bank footage — she told Choi they were set to go.

“Already?”

“Yup. I’ll do the work on the road. You found a good image, Billy. Shouldn’t take long.”

Within half an hour, both buses and the semi-trailer crime lab were rolling up the highway toward Lebanon, Kansas, where three hundred people normally lived. When Crime Seen! showed up, they would add twenty-some to the population of the town, which would represent more growth than the place had seen in a decade.

The team rode in the trailer-cum-crime lab, each working in his or her own way on finding Carmen Garcia. Though the search for her kidnapper and that of the serial killer were almost certainly one in the same, the team was now centered upon getting Carmen back.

No camera or audio personnel were in the crime lab, the camera teams having been ushered to the bus by Harrow. The lab was now off limits for them. The TV show was a secondary concern at present (really, it always had been); but now they were trying to save one of their own, and didn’t care to cater to camera crews underfoot.

In the lab, Harrow sat them down right away, and stood in their midst, working them like an actor doing theater in the round.

“We have a kidnapping,” he said, “and that means FBI.”

Laurene asked, “Have we called them?”

“Chief Walker will be doing that. I asked him to give us, well... what they used to call in old western movies, a head start.”

Chris Anderson was frowning. “Why?”

“Because if we waited for the FBI, we would be stuck back there, Chris, as material witnesses to that crime. We aren’t law enforcement, and we aren’t required to deal with the FBI until or unless they catch up with us.”

Laurene said dryly, “So keep an eye on caller ID.”

Harrow nodded. “We’ll cooperate with them, of course. But right now I think we have a better shot at this bastard than they do.”

Pall said, “No wonder you didn’t let the cameras record this.”

“Michael, would you suggest we wait back there, and turn this over to the FBI?”

“No. Make that, hell no. I never had any use for those stuffed shirts.”

Coming from the well-dressed, fairly formal-of-speech Pall, this was pretty amusing. But nobody laughed or even smiled. Or, for that matter, objected.

“We will of course cooperate fully,” Harrow went on. “The originals of the security-cam discs are back with Chief Walker — the federal investigators will have access to the same evidence as we do. If anyone feels I’m overstepping, or putting the team in any legal jeopardy, say so now. And I won’t try to stop anyone who feels that calling the FBI right now is the thing to do.”

No one did.

They had been on the road for just over an hour now. Jenny Blake was working on enhancing the crappy quality of the security video from the motel. Choi was next to her, at a computer station, checking convenience-store video, Laurene nearby going through bank cam footage. Anderson was at another computer researching Lebanon itself, and Pall was testing the blood from the motel room to make sure it really was Carmen’s. Having seen the security video, Choi already had no doubt.

Harrow was on the phone, and his half of the conversation with network president Dennis Byrnes served as a soundtrack for their labor.

“That’s right, Dennis,” Harrow said. “Abducted. Kidnapped, yes.”

A long pause was followed by the chipmunk sound of someone speaking quickly on the other end of a nearby cell.

Exasperated, Harrow said, “I don’t know what the network’s liability is to her family, Dennis. I’m sure it will be less, if you let us do our work, and get her back alive.”

Another pause.

“Ask the lawyers, Dennis... What? I haven’t really thought about it. Dennis, I have to get back to it.”

And Harrow clicked off and said, “Jesus.”

Choi asked, “What?”

“Byrnes wanted to know if I thought this would make ‘good TV.’”

Nobody said anything for a long time.

“You know what would be a good twist?” Choi asked. “The killer throwing Dennis Byrnes off the rooftop of UBC.”

“Bad taste, Billy,” Harrow said.

Laurene said, “But a good idea.”

“Oh shit,” Jenny said, and they all turned her way.

“What?” Harrow asked.

“Got the license number.”

“And?”

“It’s registered to Herman A. Gibbons of Lebanon, Kansas.”

Choi swung a fist, saying, “We’ve got him!”

But Jenny’s face registered confusion, not jubilation.

“What?” Choi asked.

“When I got the name from the DMV,” Jenny said, “I Googled the guy.”

“And?” Harrow asked.

The little computer expert met her boss’s gaze. “Herman A. Gibbons? He’s the Smith County sheriff.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Company was coming.

Wouldn’t be long now. They wouldn’t make it today, maybe not even tomorrow, but Friday for sure.

They could even do the show live from his house. That would be something — all those messages he had delivered would be worth it. And he had just the bait...

Leaned back in his frayed old lounge chair, the Messenger looked over at the couch where the TV girl lay on her back, duct tape over her mouth and binding her hands behind her back. She had awoken earlier, but homemade chloroform had put her back to sleep.

He took no pleasure in putting her through this. He hadn’t anticipated how uncomfortable this would make him, prolonged dealing with somebody up close and personal. Usually, delivering a message, it had been get in and get out. He’d mostly been able to avoid even viewing his targets as people at all, just dots on the big target he was making.

This was different. This was unsettling.

He expected her to be waking up soon. He’d had her for nearly sixteen hours now. Even in just the T-shirt and shorts, without makeup, she was still pretty.

In some ways, she reminded him of Cathy. Reminded him of what it was like to have a life, a wife, a family. The thing between his legs was twitching quite a bit now, and it felt good, but made him feel guilty. He was not about hurting people or humiliating them, not at all. He wasn’t that kind of person.

Suddenly he became aware of tears trailing down his cheeks. This was no time to give in to weakness. It was weakness, after all, his inability to protect his family from men who were stronger or more powerful than he was, that had put him in this situation. His weakness, not Cathy’s. Never Cathy’s.

The woman on the sofa awakened, slowly, looking around, not sure what had happened to her or where she was. He didn’t rush it. They had some time left — no need to be harsh.

He watched as she got used to her shabby new surroundings, took them in. When she finally looked over at him, he tried to smile, a sort of comforting, welcoming smile. But her face became a mask of fear and confusion and something else... hate? She didn’t need to hate him. He didn’t hate her.

Under the tape, her mouth tried to scream, but the sound was a muffled nothing, as she thrashed around on the sofa.

The thing twitched. Stop it, he told it.

Rising, smoothing his pants to keep that thing down and in its place, and moving to her side, he made cooing sounds, hoping to soothe her; but for no good reason, the closer he got, the more she thrashed and muffle-screamed.

Finally, as if to a naughty puppy, he said, “Now, honey, you have got to settle down.”

She glared at him. Big brown eyes, terrified and hateful and pretty.

“Look, tell you what — if you settle down, I’ll help you into the bathroom. You must need to you-know-what, by now.”

She continued to glare at him.

“Or...” He made a show of shrugging. “...you can go right where you are. Doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.” He turned away and folded his arms, and his chin went up, a disapproving parent.

She responded, as best she could, through the tape, not screaming, but a sort of pitiful plea now.

He turned back to her.

Her eyes were still wide, but something in them had softened.

“All right,” he said. “Bathroom it is.”

He unbound her feet, and, when she didn’t try to kick him or anything, he helped her up, then led her to the tiny bathroom. At the door, she implored him with her eyes.

“Sorry,” he said. “Can’t untie you. I promise not to look.”

She frowned.

“Sorry, honeybun, that’s as good as I can do. We can always take you back to the couch, and you can piddle yourself.”

The bathroom had faded green windowless walls, gray bubbled ceiling that was once white, rust stains in the sink, tub, and toilet. He wasn’t proud of it by any means.

“Ain’t much to look at,” he admitted when he saw the concern in her eyes. “But she’ll do the trick.”

He lined her up in front of the toilet, then — keeping his eyes on hers — he squatted a little and gently drew down her shorts. It twitched, and he told it, Stop that! When he got her situated on the stool he walked out and closed the door. Nothing in there for her to cause trouble with.

He listened at the door, heard tinkling, then no tinkling, and went back in, maintained eye contact as he pulled her up, then her shorts. He flushed the john. When they were back in the living room, he let her sit on the couch instead of recline.

“Thirsty?” he asked.

She swallowed. Then nodded.

He opened a cooler next to his chair, withdrew a can of Diet Coke for her, which he opened, then inserted a straw.

He crossed the room to her, and said, “This is your brand, isn’t it?”

She seemed momentarily surprised.

She shouldn’t have been, he thought — thanks to Facebook and MySpace, she’d supplied him a goodly portion of information about herself. Just because he lived in a crummy house didn’t mean he couldn’t use a computer.

He got his pocketknife out. “Hold still.”

Her eyes widened, but she froze. He made a tiny slit in the tape where her lips met. He was very careful when he did it, just as he was careful in every aspect of his life now. If he’d been careful back then, when he had a life with Cathy, maybe things would be different now.

He stuck the straw through the slit, then held the can up, saying, “Drink.”

She did.

“You’re going to have to lie down again, after this,” he said. “And you’ll have to take another little nap.”

She looked terrified.

“No, go ahead and drink — it’s okay.”

She drank but still looked scared.

“It’s just that I’ve still got a lot to do. Your friends will be here soon, and everything has to be ready.”

Her eyes widened.

He looked at her gravely. “Company’s coming.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

When Jenny Blake announced the F-150’s license plate belonged to the county sheriff, Harrow immediately suspected another switch.

He asked the computer expert, “What kind of vehicle is the plate registered to?”

Eyes on the screen, she reported, “A 2007 Chevy Tahoe.”

“Which,” Harrow said, “doesn’t look remotely like an F-150.”

Pall said, “He switched again.”

This news draped the mobile lab in glum silence. They all knew, too well, that the other license plate switches had led exactly nowhere.

Oh, in each case a trail had been left for the team to follow, but in the long run these searches had revealed no ties to the actual crimes.

This one, however, felt different.

Harrow said, “Certainly this being the sheriff’s vehicle can’t be a random occurrence. Must be a vehicle of choice.”

Pall said, “None of the other license plates appear to’ve been chosen for a particular reason.”

Anderson chimed in: “Just from cars registered to folks who lived along the trail.”

“A trail,” Pall pointed out, “that the killer wanted us to follow.”

Laurene said, “Think about it — nothing this guy does is random.”

“Right,” Pall said. “He’s a planner, a schemer. All the other plates belong to people who couldn’t possibly be our suspect.”

“Then in that respect,” Harrow said, “none were random choices. The killer has wanted us on his trail, wanted us to keep coming, and not get bogged down in the red herrings the license plates might provide. Why?”

Laurene said, “With just a little study, the killer could have picked license plates belonging to people who might’ve served as reasonable suspects, if only for a few hours.”

“Right,” Harrow said. “Still, in this instance, when he had the chance to throw us off the track, to cover his scent? What did he do?”

Pall said, “Just the opposite.”

That made Harrow very wary of what awaited them at the end of this road. And now that the killer almost certainly had Carmen, Harrow’s worry deepened.

“Shouldn’t we call the Smith County sheriff?” Laurene asked. “This Gibbons? And let him know we’re on our way?”

Harrow considered. If the killer had chosen to switch plates with the sheriff on purpose, there had to be a reason for it. The unsub would also have to assume that Harrow and the team would be talking to Gibbons ASAP, if only to rule him out as a suspect.

“No,” Harrow said, firm. “Let’s roll into town unannounced and play it by ear.”

Laurene frowned. “Why?”

Harrow explained his reasoning.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Choi said. “We’ve been eating this bastard’s dust for too long.”

Pall agreed: “Might not be much, but it could just be something our guy doesn’t expect.”

“Anything would help at this point,” Anderson said. “He’s been leading us around the whole darn time.”

Choi glared at the blond. “Could you goddamn it curse once in a while? You’re driving me bat-shit.”

Jenny asked, “Where is he leading us?”

Harrow said, “Well, to Lebanon. Beyond that, we don’t want to go there... because if the unsub stays in charge, Carmen could wind up dead. And maybe the rest of us too.”

“Let me check something,” Jenny said, and her fingers flew on the laptop keyboard, stopping occasionally, then flying some more. “Here’s an interesting stat — Settler Feed field corn KS1422 is sold in twenty-three counties in Kansas, one of which is Smith County.”

“Lebanon’s in Smith County,” Harrow said. “Did the unsub leave it on purpose, back in Florida? Or did he actually make a slip?”

Jenny shrugged. “Does it matter?”

Silence, but for the semi’s engine and rolling wheels, draped the little lab.

Finally, Harrow said, “We can’t exactly be subtle with two buses and a big rig, meaning when we rumble into town, everybody will know. Jenny, find me a rental car and a place to pick it up, well outside of town. I want to go in unannounced, and anonymous.”

Choi asked, “What about the TV show?”

Anderson said, “Hell with the TV show.”

Everybody clapped.

Everybody except Jenny, that is, who was again busy tapping the keyboard. “Renting the car is easy,” she said. “Assuming you have a credit card...”

Harrow smiled. “I have a credit card, all right — for my expenses, on UBC’s dime.”

This elicited more applause.

Harrow got out his wallet and passed Jenny the AMEX black card.

“Never seen one of these before,” she said.

“I hadn’t either,” he said.

Laurene came over for a look. “You wanna inspire me to catch bad guys? Some new Jimmy Choos would do the trick.”

Harrow said, “When we catch this guy, Laurene, and bring Carmen back safe and sound, I’ll put your shoes on my own damn card.”

Suddenly embarrassed by her flip remark, Laurene said, “We’ll get her back, boss. Carmen’s a smart, tough kid. And you’ve got yourself a good team here.”

“I know I do,” he told her, and them. “I know we came together under the umbrella, even the cloud, of this Killer TV concept. You know I’ve always viewed that as a means to an end. But finding the bastard that took my family away is not as important as getting Carmen back. I don’t mean to embarrass you, but... you’re my family now. And she’s part of that family. Game faces on, children.”

The team members, nodding, seemed every bit as determined as their leader.

“Nearest place to rent a car’s Topeka,” Jenny said. “Round trip, about three hundred miles out of our way.”

“Unacceptable.”

“What can we do?”

Harrow thought for a moment. “Rent the car,” he said. “Tell me when you have it ready, and find me a town between here and Lebanon, where we can pick it up.”

Jenny shook her head. “No way to get the car there.”

“You rent the car, I’ll get it to the drop point.”

She frowned, but said, “Okay.”

“I need ten minutes,” he said.

Sensing that Harrow wanted to be alone, Laurene took over, giving the others fresh assignments.

At the far end of the lab, away from everyone, Harrow sat at a work station and rotated his head. Next, he put his elbows in front of him, closed his eyes, and leaned forward until his forehead rested in his hands.

He didn’t sleep when he did this — the exercise was actually closer to meditation — but it gave him a chance to center himself, and to find that place within where he could focus and set aside frustration, exhaustion, anger, any issue that kept him from concentrating on what was at hand.

Critics of Crime Seen! and its new segment had already started howling, even after just two episodes. Despite a good number of positive reviews, Harrow ignored those and concentrated on the pans.

Some said he was exploiting the deaths of his family. He’d expected that — those voices had been there even during the first season. Others said the show suffered from a slow pace, because they had not yet captured, or even identified, the serial killer. After only two shows!

If Harrow thought there’d been pressure when he was sheriff, or at the DCI, this TV life was many times worse — about six million times worse, actually, and growing (if the overnight ratings were to be believed).

At times he wondered if some part of him needed this, if some dark secret place craved the celebrity, if he was, in fact, somehow profiting from his own misfortune. For years, he’d fought the battle of whether or not the deaths of Ellen and David were his fault.

He even found himself singing the familiar guilty survivor’s song: if only he’d been there...

His job had been to serve and protect. He had served the public well that day, protecting the President of the United States, but not his own family.

And now who was he serving — the public? The show? His own interest in justice? Revenge? Who was he protecting? Certainly not Carmen. The cast, the crew, and his team had become close to him, a chance to start over, and here he was putting his second family in harm’s way.

What the hell good was he doing?

He was trying to stop a madman, yes, but now that they had information, he could just step aside and let law enforcement do its job. He and his people were, in fact, actively avoiding the FBI at the moment, playing off the limitations of distance and personnel the federal field offices faced.

No, he’d had to push it, had to do it himself, with the help of the team, of course... Yet what had he accomplished? The abduction of one of their own.

But these emotions roiling within him had to be set aside, contained, compartmentalized until this was done, until Carmen was safe. He took a deep breath, held it, and waited for everything to subside, then let the breath out slowly.

When he sat back and opened his eyes, Jenny was standing there, a small sheaf of hard copy in hand.

“Got it,” she said.

“The car or the drop point?”

“Both.” She removed a sheet from atop the pile. “Russell, Kansas — it’s at the intersection of this road and Interstate seventy, running west from Topeka.”

“What’s all the paperwork?”

“Rental contract.”

“You did good, Jenny,” he said, taking the papers.

Then, on his cell, he called Dennis Byrnes and explained what he needed.

“What makes you think I can make that happen?” Byrnes asked.

“Dennis, you’re president of a major television network. What can’t you do?”

“Control the talent.”

“Then make the ‘talent’ happy. Does UBC have a Topeka, Kansas, affiliate?”

“No.”

“Well, you employ freelance crew all over the world. You must use somebody out of Topeka. Hire him or her to drive the car to Russell.”

“You’re lucky your ratings are on the rise...”

“Dennis, I’ll owe you one.”

“I know you will,” Byrnes said, and hung up.

Twenty minutes later, Byrnes’s assistant called with the details for picking up the car.

And when they got to Russell, everything went well. Harrow accepted the keys to a Chrysler 300, and he and Choi jumped in to lead the parade toward Lebanon.

In a hamlet called Downs, twenty-two miles south of Lebanon, the team pulled into a little diner-cum-truckstop that would serve as their staging area.

The diner was a retro affair, checkerboard tile floor, fixtures done up in black, red, and metallic silver, shiny and bright. Maybe ten late afternoon diners — truckers taking breaks, and farmers who had knocked off early for a cup of coffee — were scattered around the joint, all gawking for a second when the entire Killer TV team trudged in, from stars to PAs, camera and sound personnel as well.

Harrow figured — or anyway hoped — the reaction was due more to the size of the group than who they were. Famous people really turned heads in this part of the world; but once that second or two of recognition was over, locals tended to remember their manners, and go back to minding their own business.

Harrow recalled why he’d always loved the Midwest, and it reinforced his belief that, eventually, he would move back.

The diner manager opened up a closed-off area for them, and the booths and tables were soon filled. Harrow gathered the forensics team at a table, and included cameraman Hathaway and audio gal Hughes. The other camera and audio personnel had been given permission by Harrow and the diner management to go out and gather B roll.

Over coffee, Harrow said, “All right, gang — Laurene, Billy, and I will go into town in the rental. The rest of you will wait for our call and then join us.”

Pall, Jenny, and Anderson were clearly disappointed.

“Look,” Harrow said, “this is not personal. Billy and Laurene have the most experience, if things go sideways — that’s the only reason they’re going. Besides, you three are strong in the lab. I don’t want you in the field with me, when at any moment we might need you there.”

They didn’t look happy, but accepted their lot.

“What about camera?” Hathaway asked. “We are going to shoot this, aren’t we?”

Harrow didn’t want them along but knew, whether he liked it or not, trying to do this without shooting footage would be the end of their show-within-the-show. And that was something he wasn’t prepared to give up yet.

Besides, he had imposed on Byrnes, and didn’t have it in him to double-cross the man.

“You and Nancy go with us. Stow your gear in the trunk. Pack as light as possible.”

“Roger that,” Hathaway said, catching Harrow’s toss of car keys.

Then the husky cameraman rose, Hughes tagging after, ponytail swinging, as they went to fetch their gear from a bus.

Harrow nodded to Choi, got up, and Choi followed him to a quiet corner. “Suppose, hypothetically, I wanted three handguns. Where would I go to get them?”

“You’d go to me.”

“Good to know.”

“What, no hypothetical hand grenades?”

“What?”

Choi grinned. “Just kidding.”

“Round up the Kevlar vests too, before we go.”

“Can do.”

They went back and joined the others at the table, where baskets of burgers and fries and other traditional diner fare was being served up.

“All right,” Harrow said, when everyone had eaten. “Let’s get ready. Any questions?”

“Excuse me!”

The voice came from just behind Harrow. It belonged to a matronly lady in purple knit slacks, a purple sweatshirt, and a large red hat. She and three similarly dressed women lined up near Harrow’s chair — he had to swing around a little to take them all in.

Then he rose, and said, “Ladies.”

“We do apologize,” the spokeswoman said, “for interrupting you.”

“We were just finishing our meals. No problem.”

“You are J.C. Harrow, aren’t you? And this is the Killer TV team, isn’t it?”

He smiled a little. “Guilty as charged.”

“We’re with the Red Hat Society. We all watch your show, and just love it.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Now the spokeswoman’s features grew somber. “We were wondering — you don’t think that killer you’ve been chasing is here in Downs, do you?”

He shook his head. “No reason to worry, ma’am. We’re just passing through.”

Their group sigh of relief amused Harrow and the rest. But he suddenly realized another problem with the size of their operation — rolling into a little town, their semi and buses all but announcing serial killer seemed the modern-day equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater.

“Well, uh... before you go, could we have your autographs?”

“No problem,” he said. Much as he wanted to hit the road, he was not about to insult matrons in a diner in Downs, Kansas. A napkin was passed around, and everyone signed.

“Where is that nice young girl?” the woman asked. “Carmen Garcia? We just love her.”

“We love her, too,” Harrow said. “She’ll be joining us later. Leave your address with my friends here, and we’ll see you all get signed photos.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Carmen promised herself she would not cry.

She was terrified, of course, but hoped she hadn’t betrayed that to the sick psycho who sat in the lounge chair across the room — just out of her sight line, at the moment. She still wore the Ozomatli T-shirt and shorts in which she’d been abducted.

At least he hadn’t stripped her naked — not yet anyway. Sometimes his eyes got a weird gleam that made her queasy... but she didn’t let herself think further along that line...

The room was dark, though it was daytime, slivers of light making their way around the edges of windows where blinds were drawn tight. Not pitch black, but dark enough to give her trouble making out more than the vague outlines of scant furnishings.

She lay on her back on a ratty sofa, a spring poking her backside, hands bound behind her, her mouth taped shut. Earlier, he had let her sit up for a while, but a short time ago he had pushed her back.

When he’d moved to her, she’d been scared all the more, not realizing he was still in the room. A low coffee table had been dragged into the middle of the floor, away from the couch. On a stand in a corner sat an old tube TV, but whether it worked, she didn’t know — it was either turned off or defunct.

She knew he was there now, she could feel him, watching her. Could feel the glittering eyes moving down her torso, stroking her legs, caressing her bare feet, then sliding their way back up to her face.

From where he sat, he could see all of her, and she could see none of him; but she knew he was there, all right. For one thing, she could hear him breathing, faint but unmistakable, like an obscene phone caller.

He spoke and she jerked.

“Do you want another drink?” he asked. His voice seemed almost soothing, concerned, yet somehow that only made it creepier.

She shook her head. She would have loved another drink, but that would only lead to her having to urinate again and suffer the indignity of him pulling down her shorts and forcing her to sit on that filthy toilet, a thought that made her want to puke.

And if she puked under the duct tape, she would choke and die. No, a repeat trip to the bathroom was something she would avoid, for as long as she could, anyway.

“You know this isn’t personal.”

He had shot her with a Taser, kidnapped her, brought her to this hell hole, forced her to expose herself in the bathroom, and even ruined her favorite T-shirt with that damn Taser.

What could be more personal than that?

“I know you’re wondering, why you? The others must’ve wondered the same thing too, I guess. Only with them, they didn’t have the kind of time you do... to think about it? I am sorry you are uncomfortable in this prolonged way. With the others? I could just deliver my messages, and they’d be gone, and I’d be gone. Simple. Straightforward.”

That he remained so calm, so blasé about the murders of so many people, chilled her even more than the kidnapping. This man could kill her and feel no more emotion about it than if he were mowing the grass or licking a stamp.

“With you,” he was saying, “it’s more... complicated.”

Complicated or not, it sounded like he meant to kill her.

She had little memory after opening her motel-room door, seeing the man, who, surprisingly, had no face in her memory, then the Taser, then this sofa. The amount of time that had passed between was blank.

Even if it hadn’t been long, with the sun visible around the windows, Harrow and the team must know something was wrong...

They would be looking for her. She just had to hope she could last until they found her.

“I want you to know, Ms. Garcia, this isn’t personal. I don’t do this to humiliate you. I don’t do this to make you feel uncomfortable. I would not strip the clothing off you and do something sexual. I am not that kind of person. Just so you know. Just so you know.”

But she didn’t know. She didn’t even know if he was trying to convince her...

...or himself.

Chapter Twenty-nine

The sun was well along its westward journey, but the temperature remained warm, though a soft breeze blew in from the south when — just before five in the afternoon — Harrow and company rolled into Lebanon. Laurene Chase rode shotgun, Choi and Hathaway sandwiching Hughes in the back of the Chrysler rental.

They headed directly to the sheriff’s office, where Herm Gibbons’s ’07 Tahoe was nowhere to be seen. Harrow parked the rental, and told his people to stay put while he went in to get the lay of the land.

A single glass door opened into a tiny vestibule that had a bulletproof window and a telephone on the wall. Straight ahead was another glass door, this one locked, its glass crisscrossed with wire.

He picked up the receiver and waited only a few seconds before a pleasant female voice said, “May I help you?”

The fiftyish woman sitting at the dispatcher’s station was not unattractive, though her red hair was a shade that did not exist in nature.

“I’m looking for Sheriff Gibbons,” Harrow said, not identifying himself yet.

“The sheriff isn’t in — could someone else help you?”

“Do you have a detective I could speak to?”

“I’m sorry. Detective’s with the sheriff. They’re at a crime scene.”

Something lurched in Harrow’s chest. Were they too late?

“Where?” he blurted.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the woman said, starting to sound a little cross. “We don’t give out that sort of information.”

Frustrated, Harrow considered trying to trade on his name, but thought better of it. When he was on the job, he’d always hated people who played the “Do you know who I am?” card, and he refused to become one of them now.

Had to be another way to find the sheriff, and what seemed to be Lebanon’s only detective.

“Thank you for your help,” he told the woman.

“Mr. Harrow?”

His eyes met the woman’s. The dispatcher gave him a pursed, possibly flirtatious smile. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

Busted, he smiled and nodded to her; and he was about to hang up when her voice in the receiver whispered in his ear.

“I wish I were allowed to say that if you were to drive two miles out of town, on Granger Road? You’d find Sheriff Gibbons and Deputy Wilson — at the old Morton place.”

Smiling through the glass at his benefactor, he asked the phone, “Not meaning to bribe a public servant, but could you accept an autographed picture as a token of thanks?”

“Not until after eleven at the Old Mill.”

“The Old Mill?”

“Bar about two blocks over. It’s on Granger Road too.”

“Might take you up on that,” Harrow said pleasantly. “Let’s see how my visit with the sheriff plays out.”

“I’m Janet, by the way,” she said, smiling again.

“J.C.”

“I know.”

Back outside in the car, Laurene Chase asked, “What did he say?”

“He’s not there.”

“Where is he?” Choi asked.

Starting the car, Harrow said, “A crime scene.”

“A crime scene where?”

Harrow caught Choi in the rearview. “Why, do you know the neighborhood?”

Choi smirked in the mirror. “Boss, nobody likes a smart-ass.”

Thanks to the rental’s GPS, Harrow quickly found Granger Road, and after driving two and a half miles on a two-lane highway into the country, he came upon the sheriff’s Tahoe and a county cruiser, light bar flashing, parked on the narrow shoulder.

Pulling around the vehicles, Harrow saw the sheriff and deputy herding sheep back into a fenced-in field.

After parking on the shoulder, Harrow turned the emergency flashers on, and they all climbed out, Hathaway and Hughes going for the trunk, lanky Laurene stretching her legs and looking amused by the sheep-herding effort, breeze lifting her cornrows. Harrow watched Choi go over and give the officers a hand.

Looking at Hathaway, who was pantomiming turning a key in a lock, Harrow shook his head.

When he got closer to the cameraman, he handed him the keys and, sotto voce, said, “Not until the gate’s locked. I don’t want any footage that’s going to make these men look silly. We don’t need any rustic comedy. Understood?”

Hathaway nodded. “I guess somebody’s gotta get those sheep off the road.”

“That’s right. I herded cows like that back in Iowa, and nobody put it on TV.”

Harrow seldom ordered Hathaway around, because the senior cameraman knew his job well enough that Harrow stayed out of his face. On the other hand, when Harrow spoke, Hathaway paid heed.

Using his cell, Harrow made a quick call to Jenny Blake, reading her the number off the plate on the back of the sheriff’s Tahoe.

“Let me know when you’ve run it,” he said.

Jenny didn’t bother to answer, just clicked off and got to work.

As Choi chased the last of the sheep through the gate, the deputy — balding and about fifty — closed the gate and latched it. Choi climbed back over the fence as Harrow walked up to the sheriff.

Beefier than his associate, his brown hair full but showing signs of gray, the sheriff wore the same tan uniform shirt as his deputy. The only differences were a gold star on his collar where the deputy bore a single gold bar; also, the junior officer wore brown uniform pants where the sheriff was in blue jeans.

Harrow said, “Sheriff, I’m—”

“J.C. Harrow,” the sheriff said, holding out a hand. He had brown eyes, a square jaw, and a thin-lipped straight line of a smile.

Shaking hands, Harrow said, “Your dispatcher called you.”

The sheriff nodded. “Janet’s a big fan of your show, and she rang me right after you left the office. I’m Herm Gibbons, by the way — Sheriff of Smith County.”

“Good to meet you, Sheriff.”

“Herm, please.”

“Herm,” Harrow repeated. “And make it ‘J.C.’” He introduced Choi and Laurene, then pointed out the camera crew.

“They’re free to film,” Gibbons said. With a head bob toward his associate, he said, “This is Deputy Colby Wilson.”

The deputy shook hands all around. To Choi, he said, “Thanks for the assist. You don’t look like a country boy.”

Choi said, “I’m from the wild, wild East.”

“I was told you were at a crime scene,” Harrow said to the sheriff. “Is this it?”

The sheriff nodded. “Some fool opened the gate on purpose.”

Choi blinked. “And that’s a crime?”

Gibbons grinned. “Around here it is. More serious than cow tipping, son, less so than rustling. Sheep get out in the road, they can cause an accident, since not everybody obeys the speed limit in the boonies. Doesn’t really seem to be the sort of offense, though, that’d attract the host of Crime Seen! What really brings you around?”

“In Pratt last night,” Harrow said, “one of our staff was abducted.”

“One of your own? Damn!”

Briefly, Harrow explained.

The sheriff frowned. “Hell of a thing. How are you people holding up?”

Nods all around, and Harrow said, “We’re dealing with it by going proactive.”

“Good for you — that’s the only way. A plus on your side? Chief Walker’s a good man, and the FBI’ll back him up — may take ’em a day or two to find their way to Pratt, though.”

“We frankly haven’t connected with the federal people yet. With our unofficial status, well...”

“I get it, J.C. You want to stay in the game, and those boys are likely to sideline you. Is there some way we can help? Something that makes you think your kidnapper’s headed our way?”

Harrow said, “The suspect drove a Ford F-one fifty.”

Deputy Wilson put in: “No shortage of those in Kansas.”

“We have a license number,” Harrow said, and gave it to them.

“Hell,” Gibbons said, frowning, jaw dropping.

Deputy Wilson was frowning, too. “Herm — don’t tell me you know who that vehicle belongs to?”

“Not the truck,” Gibbons said, “but the license number — it’s mine.”

“Yours?” Wilson blurted. “What...?”

To Harrow, the sheriff’s surprise seemed genuine.

“Sheriff, we’ve been chasing switched plates since New Mexico. Someone is trying to draw us here. Any idea who, or why?”

The sheriff and the deputy traded a long look, but they were both shaking their heads.

“This is a quiet town,” Gibbons said. “Always has been.”

“And you can’t think of anyone,” Harrow said, “who might abduct a member of my crew? We think he’s trying to draw attention to himself or perhaps some perceived problem or even injustice by a civil servant.”

Gibbons shook his head again, but added, “We’ll sure look into it. We’ll get the state boys down here to help out too.”

“I appreciate it,” Harrow said.

Once again, they’d gotten close, and the trail had gone cold. Before Harrow could ask another question, his cell vibrated.

“Excuse me,” he said, and stepped off a few feet and answered the call. “Harrow.”

“Jenny. I hacked the Kansas DMV and ran the tag you gave me. The plate is registered to a red Ford F-150.”

“Same truck as our suspect.”

“The one we’ve been looking at is probably a 2000,” Jenny said. “This one is a 2007.”

“And the owner?”

“Brown,” Jenny said. “Daniel T.”

She gave him the address.

“Thanks, Jenny. And Jenny? Do me a favor.”

“Yes, boss?”

“Don’t use the term hacked on a cell conversation.”

“Got it, boss,” she said, and clicked off.

Turning back to the sheriff, Harrow could see that Gibbons, Wilson, Choi, and Laurene had moved to the rear of the Tahoe, and were looking at the plate.

Harrow walked back to join the group.

“They’re not your plates, are they?” Harrow asked, looking down at the back of the sheriff’s SUV.

“They’re not mine,” Gibbons agreed almost robotically. He seemed to be trying to figure out when they might have been stolen.

“I just got a call,” Harrow said. “My computer specialist says the plates are registered to—”

“Daniel T. Brown,” Gibbons said.

Wilson appeared shocked. “Brown? No shit...”

Harrow felt his eyebrows raise. “How did you know that?”

Gibbons shook his head, sighed. “Dan Brown had this job before I did. He’s the retired Smith County Sheriff. I know his plate number well as I know my own.”

The suspect using the license plates of a retired civil servant sounded alarm bells.

Harrow said, “We need to see him right away.”

Shaking his head, Gibbons said, “Not until tomorrow night, at the earliest. He’s fishing in Canada — one of them backwoods places. He’s supposed to be flying home tomorrow.”

“Lebanon’s a little small for an airport.”

“He’ll land in Kansas City and drive back.”

Harrow did some quick thinking.

Since Brown fit the profile of the previous victims — at least in that he was a retired civil servant — Harrow was concerned that by using his plates, the killer might be sending a message that Brown and his family were the next intended victims.

On the other hand, all the other victims had been killed in their homes, poised for quick discovery by the returning male head of the house. In that sense, Brown being out of town might be a break for them.

Harrow asked Gibbons, “Is Mr. Brown married?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Does he have kids?”

“Grown, both of them.” Gibbons was frowning now. “J.C., are you gonna tell me what the hell this is about?”

The children being grown didn’t fit the profile. Odd.

Harrow said, “I’m glad to tell you all about it, but prefer to do it in your office, not on the roadside.”

“We can do that,” Gibbons said. “With the sheep in, I’m getting ready to go there now.”

To Deputy Wilson, Gibbons said, “Colby, go tell Mr. Riley we’ve got his sheep back, and we’ll do what we can to find out who opened the gate.”

The deputy nodded and went back to his patrol car.

Under his breath, Choi said, “Don’t forget the fingerprint kit,” and Harrow gave him a look.

Gibbons was turning to go too, when Harrow said, “One more question.”

“Yep?”

“How old are Brown’s children?”

“Lori is twenty-five, a teacher. Mark’s twenty-one. He’s at KU.”

All the way back into town, Harrow mulled what they had learned so far.

Truth was, he didn’t know if they knew more or less than when they had driven into Lebanon, and Carmen’s time might well be running out.

He was starting to wonder if the killer really was making a target on the map — or did the bastard just have them running in circles?

Chapter Thirty

The sheriff’s office was a reconverted downtown storefront, as the deputy explained, letting in Harrow, Laurene Chase, Maury Hathaway, and Nancy Hughes (the latter two with camera and audio gear at the ready).

“Real sheriff’s office is in the county seat of Smith’s Center,” Wilson was saying, “but because of the tourist traffic? We need this auxiliary office here now, too.”

“Tourist traffic?” Billy Choi asked. “In Lebanon, Kansas?”

The deputy was taller than he was wide, but not by much, and might have played football without a helmet as a kid or been a bad boxer, his nose like a glob of flesh-colored Play-Doh haphazardly stuck onto his face.

To Choi, the deputy said, “Friend, you’re standing at the geographic center of the forty-eight contiguous United States. People come here for that.”

This throwaway information, these casual words, hit Harrow like an arrow — an arrow sent by a Robin Hood — like marksman into the dead center of a target.

Laurene and Choi had stunned expressions that said they got it too.

Some people went to Hot Springs for the springs, some visited Turin to see the shroud. Others, it seemed, came to Lebanon to say that they’d been to the center of the United States.

Harrow excused himself and gathered the little group back out on the sidewalk. The host of Crime Seen! allowed Hathaway and Hughes to record the brief discussion between himself and two of his forensic stars.

“So we’re here,” Choi said, pointing downward. “We’re at the center of target, right where he led us.”

Laurene said, “I’d say he must’ve grown up here — heard this ‘center of the United States’ routine his whole life, and worked backward from there, making the map into a big, round target.”

“Could be another red herring,” Harrow said. “Could be too easy...”

“Oh yeah,” Choi said archly, “it’s been way too damn easy. Especially for those fifty-some murder victims. J.C., we’re here. We’re at ground zero on the nutzoid map.”

Harrow had no argument.

“But how,” Laurene asked, “does this knowledge change anything?”

“It doesn’t,” Harrow said. “We proceed as before. It’s just... Billy’s right. We’re here. This is the end of the journey. So we make sure it’s the end of his journey, not Carmen’s.”

Choi and Laurene nodded gravely.

Sheriff Gibbons’s office reminded Harrow of his own back at Story County — a few framed citations and awards on one wall, bookshelves lining another, the third consumed by a large window overlooking the downtown, where traffic was sparse in the orange glow of the setting sun. The wall behind Gibbons’s desk was given over to a large Smith County Sheriff’s Department logo.

The deputy had brought in a third chair to join the two facing the sheriff’s large dark wooden desk. A combination phone-intercom rested on one desk corner, a computer on a separate table. Two photos in a double-frame faced the sheriff’s side, wife and kids probably.

Maybe, just maybe, the next target was Gibbons and not Brown.

Harrow shook his head. Some balls on this bastard, stealing the plates off both the retired and current sheriffs.

Laurene, Choi, and Harrow took the visitor chairs, while Hathaway and Hughes camped in a corner, prepping to shoot the meeting. They’d been waiting nearly ten minutes when Sheriff Gibbons strode in.

After the sheriff sat, Harrow laid out what they knew, what they thought, including the target on the map of the United States where they were all sitting dead-center.

For his part, Gibbons took it all in, not commenting till Harrow had finished. Then he moved his head to one side, widened his eyes, and said, “Hell of a story.”

“I wish it were just a story,” Harrow said.

Laurene sat forward. “We’re looking for a man with issues with authority. He’s going to be a person who isolates himself from the community, a loner. He’s probably going to have a record.”

Harrow almost smiled at the way Laurene had come to embrace Michael Pall’s profiling of their unsub.

“My guess,” she was saying, “is he’s had scrapes with the law where he’s been belligerent, combative — disorderly conduct, maybe even resisting arrest. He’ll be resistive to change. If he has a family, they’ll kowtow to him. In that type of situation, he’d be orderly, regimented. To the community, he’d appear a strict disciplinarian.”

Choi picked up: “The BTK killer, Dennis Rader, was a Cub Scout leader and supervisor in the Compliance Department of Park City.”

“We know about that son of a bitch,” Gibbons said, nodding. “Maniac was right here in Kansas.”

“So you know the drill,” Harrow said. “Can you think of anyone locally who fits that profile?”

The sheriff gave up a darkly amused smile. “Do I know somebody who fits the profile of a serial killer? You just saw me herding sheep, J.C. We’ve had maybe four homicides in Lebanon in as many decades. Why would my mind work along those lines?”

The sheriff’s frustration indicated a temper getting frayed, and Harrow was almost relieved when his cell vibrated. He excused himself, and took the call.

“Me, boss,” Jenny Blake said. “We’ve got something.”

“So do we — Lebanon is the center-point city of the United States.”

“Interesting. But I have something else — remember the fingerprint on the snow globe?”

“Sure,” he said, recalling with a pang that Carmen was the one who’d noticed the object was out of place in the dead child’s room.

“Finally got a hit on the print,” Jenny said. “We went through enough databases, and finally found it. U.S. Army. I had to—”

“Don’t tell me how,” Harrow cut in. “Tell me who.”

“The man’s name is Gabriel Shelton.”

“What do you have on him?”

“His service record lists his hometown as Lebanon, Kansas.”

“Just earned your paycheck, Jenny,” Harrow said, and could almost hear her smiling over the phone.

“One more thing,” she said. “I’ve sent his service photo to your cell phone.”

“Good. While I’ve got you, tell everybody, saddle up. I want you guys up here.”

“I’ll make it happen, boss.”

They signed off, and Harrow returned his attention to Gibbons, saying, “Sorry for the interruption — information from one of our team.”

Gibbons, his expression thoughtful, nodded.

“You’ve had time to mull it,” Harrow said. “Come up with anybody in town your department’s dealt with, who might fit our subject’s profile?”

The sheriff rocked back, sighed deeply. “J.C., I’ve known most of these people my entire life. Some are oddballs I suppose, some are peculiar or maybe set in their ways, some may be just plain crazy... but none stand out as crazy in the way you’re talking.”

“How about I throw out a name?”

“All right.”

“And you just tell me if you think it’s even remotely possible.”

“I said all right.”

“Gabriel Shelton.”

Gibbons’s eyes widened, then tightened. He sat forward. “You think Gabe is your man?”

“Gabe,” Laurene said. “So you know him.”

Rocking back again, the sheriff shrugged and said, “Like I told you, I know most everyone in town. There’s only three hundred people in Lebanon, and not even five thousand in the county. Met more than my fair share of ’em, some while I was out campaigning, others after I won the job.”

Harrow asked, “Where does Gabe Shelton fall?”

“Straddles both stools,” Gibbons said. “And since you’re pressing me... some of those things you listed? Disorderly conduct, problems with authority? Both are on Gabe’s record.”

Choi said, “May we see that record?”

Harrow almost smiled. The kid had never been so polite. Maybe he was catching on to the world beyond New York.

“Normally,” Gibbons said, “I’d say no — I’d insist on a court order. But I understand this is different. You have a kidnapping on your hands, one of your own... and you’re looking for a suspect who may be a serial killer.”

This little recitation had apparently been for the sheriff’s own benefit as much as Harrow and company’s. Gibbons turned and typed something into his computer.

Moments later, he said, “Come around here, and see for yourself.”

Gabriel Shelton’s mug shot showed an unlikely candidate for the serial killer pantheon. Shelton needed a shave and a haircut, but otherwise looked nothing like a threat — curly dark hair, big blue eyes, a firm-jawed face and the general demeanor (even in a mug shot) of someone you could trust — someone who might be your next-door neighbor.

The only thing disturbing to Harrow about the face was that he’d seen it somewhere before...

Harrow asked, “When was the mug shot taken?”

“Nine years ago,” Gibbons said. “We haven’t had much trouble from him since.”

Something about the face, the eyes...

Shelton’s police record showed nothing until a battery charge ten years back, and another two years later. Between were three disorderly conducts and several misdemeanors, chiefly unpaid parking tickets.

For about three years, Gabe Shelton went from anonymous citizen to minor-league asshole, then became barely a blip on the cop radar... just a speeding ticket (thirty-seven in a twenty-five mile-per-hour school zone), a few more parking tickets, but no subsequent arrests.

After three years of terminal bad attitude disease, Gabe Shelton had gone into sudden remission.

While Laurene went over the file in detail with the sheriff, Harrow called Jenny and got her to forward Shelton’s military record. Then he got Choi to show him how to bring it up on his phone.

Harrow wasn’t terrible with technology, but cell phones seemed to morph on him every six months or so, and the network kept giving him complimentary new ones. When Choi got Shelton’s record up, Harrow read it fast.

Born in 1957, Shelton had graduated high school in ’75, gone into the service on July 14 of that year; served four years, missing Vietnam by mere months, and was granted an honorable discharge upon his separation.

Everything seemed fine in Shelton’s life through his time in the Army. Which was no help. Harrow banished the phone to his pocket again.

He turned to Choi and asked, “Anything?”

Choi said, “Nothing you didn’t already know.”

Laurene said, “I’ve got Shelton’s address.”

This was good, if not surprising, news, and they would spring to action; but Harrow was troubled.

“There’s got to be more to it,” Harrow said. “This guy was living a normal life, then got pissed about something, and started turning up in a few police reports. Finally one morning he wakes up and decides to become one of the worst serial killers in American history? What made a good soldier and average citizen go so goddamn far off the rails?”

Gibbons said, “I can tell you.”

They looked at the sheriff. Harrow returned to his chair. Laurene was already back in hers, as was Choi. The sheriff’s expression seemed almost sheepish. He’d known something since Shelton’s name had first come up, and hadn’t shared it yet.

Now, softly, with the embarrassed tone of a kid caught stealing from a sibling’s piggy bank, he said, “About ten years ago, Gabe’s wife and kid... they were murdered.”

The investigators traded sharp looks.

“The thing is,” Gibbons said, shifting in his chair, “he always blamed my predecessor for it. Sheriff Brown?”

Harrow frowned. “He thought the sheriff killed his family?”

“Not that Sheriff Brown did it himself. But Gabe believed Dan was behind it, or anyway covering up... but he wasn’t. The state police came in and looked into the murders, and said our investigation was thorough, and by the book. And they came up empty, just like us.”

“It happens,” Harrow said.

“Shelton couldn’t accept that. That’s when the trouble with the authorities started. The disorderly conducts, the battery, all that crap. Then, fast as he lost it, Gabe stopped being a pain in our ass. Just straightened up and flew right — keeps to himself, and he’s been an okay citizen, far as it goes. So we stay out of his way, and he sort of seems to stay out of ours.”

Laurene said to Harrow and Choi, “So he’s recreating the crime done to him, and letting other public servants, sheriffs in particular, suffer like he did.”

Choi said, “I have nothing to add to that.”

Neither did Harrow.

“All right, Sheriff,” Harrow said, getting up. “Let’s visit Mr. Shelton, and see if he’s holding my team member.”

Rising, Gibbons said, “Sounds like probable cause to me.”

Harrow didn’t point it out, but the truth was, he wasn’t law enforcement anymore and didn’t give a good goddamn about probable cause.

All he cared about was getting Carmen back in one breathing piece.

Chapter Thirty-one

Outside the police station, Harrow handed the rental keys off to Laurene, telling her, “Everybody into Kevlar. I’ll be on the front line. You and Billy arm yourselves, but stay back unless you’re needed.”

“J.C., we—”

“You will obey orders. And one of them is to keep Hathaway and Hughes back. Tell them if they get killed we don’t have a show. Understood?”

“Understood.”

In the rider’s seat of the Tahoe, Harrow made a quick call to Pall and told him to get directions from Laurene. They were on the move.

“How far?” Harrow asked.

Gibbons said, “Five minutes — Shelton’s got a place over on the south side. It’s not much.”

The sheriff radioed for backup. Wilson and the deputy in the auxiliary office both said they were on their way, and two more deputies would be sent from Smith Center, ten miles to the west.

Night crept in, turning the houses of the quiet neighborhood into dark hulks with occasional glowing windows, set in yards that were shadowy voids that could hold just about anything.

Harrow recalled something an older officer had told him when he was a rookie: Kid, this job is ninety-five percent boredom and five percent piss-your-pants fear.

Harrow had laughed, but a look from the older officer had silenced him before adding, It’s okay to be so scared you piss yourself, long as you get the job done.

As they slowed to park, Harrow tugged from his waistband a nine-millimeter Browning he’d gotten from Choi. He checked the clip and made sure one was in the pipe.

“Got a permit for that puppy?” Gibbons asked, looking over in the dark SUV.

“Backup’s not here yet, and I’m going in,” Harrow said. “You really want to see my California carry permit?”

“No,” Gibbons said. “I just want my ass covered if something goes wrong.”

“Covered by me having a gun, or covered by me having a permit?”

“Yes.”

Even though he was tensing for action, Harrow couldn’t help but grin. “You’re some politician, Herm. I bet you’re one hell of a sheriff.”

“Second term, gettin’ ready to run for a third next year. I don’t mind havin’ the brownie points this could earn me, if it goes right... but I’m gonna make damn sure those points aren’t on sharp suckers getting jammed up my nethers, if it goes south.”

Harrow nodded. “This goes right and we get Carmen back, Herm, you’re the hero. Goes south, I’m the goat.”

“We are on the same damn wavelength,” Gibbons said with a cheerfully nasty smile.

The sheriff pulled to the curb and killed the lights, shut off the Tahoe, and they climbed down.

“Across the street,” Gibbons whispered. “Second house from the corner.”

Following the sheriff’s gaze, Harrow made out a white crackerbox, the F-150 sitting in a gravel driveway on this side. House dark, truck empty.

They stayed on this side of the street and walked quietly, two guys out for an evening stroll. Each held their pistols down against a leg, out of view from the house. As they drew closer, Harrow could see a one-car garage at the end of the drive, nearly behind the house. They crossed the street, keeping the F-150 between them and the crackerbox.

At the other end of the block, a deputy from the office was approaching at a walk, his arm stiff at his side as well. Just behind him were Laurene and Choi, the camera crew on their heels. Obviously, they had followed the deputy to the scene.

Gibbons gave them a small wave to hang back.

Deputy Wilson’s voice growled over Gibbons’s radio. “I’m in the back with my AR-fifteen. He’s not coming out this way unless he’s in a bag.”

His voice a hoarse whisper, Gibbons said, “Sit tight, Colby, and for Christ’s sake remember he’s probably got a hostage.”

“Ten-four,” Wilson said.

As they got to the pickup, both men ducked, Gibbons staying at the rear, using it for cover as he trained his pistol on the house. Moving up the driver’s side, Harrow stayed in a low crouch, and hesitated when he was even with the front tire.

He glanced toward the garage and saw nothing to indicate any life back there. Slowly scanning the yard between garage and house, Harrow tried to spot Wilson; but in the darkness, that was impossible.

Harrow reached up and touched the hood of the truck — cold. This vehicle hadn’t moved for some time. He crept forward, and peeked around the front — nothing.

He looked back at Gibbons, who gave him a nod.

They’d never worked together, but both had sheriffed for years, and each had a good idea what the other was thinking.

With Harrow’s nod, they rushed together, Gibbons from the rear of the truck, Harrow from the front. They met on the postage stamp front stoop of the dark, silent house.

Gibbons quietly opened the screen door, and the two stood for a long second listening, poised to make rude entry.

No sound from inside, no TV, no radio, and most important — and disturbing to Harrow...

...no sounds of life.

Chapter Thirty-two

Carmen was back on the couch again, but as day shifted to night, she felt more frightened than before. Late in the afternoon, when she’d finally managed to overcome her fear enough to sleep for a few minutes, he had roused her, and slit the tape that bound her hands behind her.

“Take off the shirt,” he said, voice as calm as if asking the time.

She fluttered her hands at her sides, trying to get some feeling back.

“No,” she said from behind the tape, and shook her head, seizing the courage to stand up to him.

Then the two prongs of the Taser touched her spine through the fabric of the T-shirt, and she felt her resolve melt.

“You know what this is,” he said, the prongs against her. “Don’t make me ask you again.”

He stayed behind her as she lifted the shirt over her head. He might be watching her back, but she moved carefully to make sure that was all he saw.

She’d wondered if it would come to this — to rape. She had played it out in her mind, and even wondered if it might be to her advantage if he tried that, because he might untie her, and hadn’t he just freed her hands?

Somewhere in her mind, her own voice laughed a shrill hysterical laugh. To her advantage if he tried to rape her? That was a good one...

When she had the shirt off, he said, “Drop it.”

She dropped the garment.

Careful not to step around her, he handed her a blue sweatshirt.

“Put this on.”

As she stood there bare-breasted, holding the sweatshirt before her, she realized it was the Kansas University one he’d been wearing when he abducted her. She held it at arm’s length, disgusted by the thought. It didn’t smell rank, but it did smell like him... and the thought of having that aroma so close to her flesh repulsed her.

The prongs of the Taser touched her bare back. They were cold and hard and amped her fear up another notch.

“Put it on,” he said.

His voice quavered! Was he frightened? Aroused?

Finally, fear overcame revulsion, and she slipped on the sweatshirt, which was hot and scratchy against her skin. And, as she’d thought, his scent on it turned her stomach.

That was when he’d re-taped her hands, behind her again, and put her back onto the sofa. She saw him pick up her T-shirt, then he disappeared from view. No sound of the lounger reclining, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t sitting in it, just out of view.

Now, with dark of night settling over the room, she couldn’t tell whether he was in there with her or not. Her mouth was still taped shut, and she lay helplessly, eyes on shadows crawling across the ceiling.

When she heard a noise beyond the walls of the house, she froze. She tried not to breathe, afraid her breathing or the pounding of her heart would drown out the sound, should it occur again.

She struggled to identify what she’d heard.

Was it a footfall on a wooden step out front? The wind? Her imagination?

She strained to hear, every fiber of her being focused on listening, her only concession a fast prayer for the sound to repeat.

Then it did.

This time she was sure she’d heard something, and it did sound like feet on a wooden step outside. Then more footsteps, and she realized at least two people were out there.

Someone coming to rescue her?

Caution be damned, she rolled over, onto the floor, and her eyes sought her kidnapper in his chair.

The old lounger sat empty.

Outside, the sounds grew slightly louder. Were those muffled voices?

Through the tape, she yelled, “Help!”

The tape ate up the sound, but if Harrow or the cops or anybody was out there on that porch, she needed to try to let them know she was in here... alive!

Crawling on her knees, hands bound behind her, she used all her energy and will power to get closer to the door, as she continued to scream into the tape.

The going was slow, and the screaming seemed to eat up all the oxygen. Her breathing became labored as she crept ever so slowly toward the door...

Voices on the porch.

And even in the darkness, she could see the knob turn a little.

Then Carmen heard a distinct voice, outside.

“Hey, you kids! Get the hell away from there!”

She could hear the footsteps pound down the stairs...

...and slowly disappear.

The sounds were gone by the time the front door swung open and her abductor came in, wearing a white button-down shirt and nice black slacks.

Gazing down at her, shaking his head in disappointment, he said, “You’re not going anywhere.”

Though she’d vowed not to cry in front of this monster, and had been successful until now, Carmen could feel the tears welling.

“Kids,” he said, with a shrug and a glance toward the door. “What are you gonna do?”

I’m going to die in this room, Carmen thought, on the floor, helpless. I’m going to die right here...

Chapter Thirty-three

Gibbons raised a foot to kick open the door, but Harrow held up a hand.

He had an idea.

As Gibbons lowered his leg, Harrow reached out and carefully tried the knob. It turned easily, not locked.

Slowly, he swung the door all the way open. The room was pitch black and seemed to be empty.

“Flash,” Harrow said.

Gibbons produced a mini MagLite and stepped into the room, shining the light around, Harrow on his heels.

Other than furniture, the living room was empty. They moved to their left, Harrow pointing his pistol down a hallway to the right while Gibbons and his flashlight checked out the tiny kitchen.

“Clear,” Gibbons said.

Leading the way down the hallway, Harrow slipped into a minuscule bathroom on the right, the shower curtain drawn. Behind him, Gibbons sent the flashlight into the room even as he remained in the hall, pistol pointed toward the two rooms still ahead.

As his fingers touched the edge of the shower curtain, Harrow couldn’t help but picture the image of a dead, blood-spattered Carmen sprawled there.

He let out a breath, whipped back the curtain, and peered into an empty tub.

After a relieved sigh, he said, “Clear.”

Two rooms — presumably bedrooms — were opposite each other at the hall’s end. Gibbons and his flash led the way, then went left and Harrow right, finding himself in a master bedroom that he could make out fairly well, thanks to night vision and moonlight seeping through windows.

The queen-size bed came out from the right wall, a tall armoire immediately to Harrow’s left, a small closet beyond that. The wall to his left was bare except for a longer, low dresser with an attached mirror. Harrow tried to see the other side of the bed in the mirror, but it was all shadows. The opposite wall, painfully close to the bed, had two curtained windows with precious little moonlight filtering through.

Edging to his left, Harrow looked on the far side of the armoire — nothing. His back to the dresser and mirror, Harrow edged around, keeping track of the closet door.

No one on the far side of the bed, either.

His heart beat faster now, his breathing raspy as he squatted down, still trying to watch the closet as he peeled back the bottom of the spread and peeked under.

Nothing except for a couple pairs of shoes and slippers.

From the other room, Gibbons said, “Clear,” the sound of the sheriff’s voice giving Harrow a start.

It had been a while since he’d entered a house with no idea what lay inside, and he had to admit he was a little anxious — maybe more than a little, if his hammering heart was any indicator.

He rose and took two quick steps to the closet, and jerked open the door. Some clothes hung, but nothing else presented itself.

“Clear,” Harrow said.

He went to the doorway where Gibbons waited.

“Gone,” the sheriff said, flipping the switch for the bedroom light.

Harrow glanced at the sheriff, who was looking at something on the bed. Turning, following the sheriff’s gaze, Harrow saw it too.

It had been there the whole time, but Harrow had been so intent on clearing the dark room, he’d not noticed it — folded to display two round holes from the Taser down below the logo: the T-shirt Carmen had frequently worn back when she was a P.A. — the black shirt with the white circle enclosing the letters OZO.

Gibbons asked, “That belong to your teammate?”

“It does.”

“So she was here?”

Harrow looked around. “Somebody’s been here.”

He clicked the nine millimeter’s safety on and tucked it back in his waistband.

Gibbons radioed, “Clear,” to his deputies.

“Sheriff,” Harrow said, “you have any problem with my people processing this crime scene?”

“None at all.”

Using the walkie-talkie feature on his cell phone, Harrow passed along the message to Chase and Choi.

“Laurene, is the rest of the team here yet?”

“Yeah,” she said. “They rolled up a couple of minutes ago.”

“Good. You and Billy get your crime scene kits and work this scene. Start Billy in the kitchen — you take the master bedroom.”

“You got it, boss.”

“Her T-shirt’s here.”

“Her T-shirt?”

“Yeah.”

A pause, then Laurene asked, “Any of her other clothing?”

“Not that we’ve found. The shirt’s a message, I think. Get in here.”

Laurene gave him a ten-four.

He noticed Gibbons looked as rattled as Harrow felt. “First time into an unknown house in a while, Herm?”

Gibbons nodded. “How long for you?”

“Ten or twelve years,” Harrow said.

“Always a kick, huh?”

With a grim smile, Harrow said, “Safer than working traffic.”

The pair went outside and let the two crime scene analysts in to do their work. Standing in the yard with Gibbons, the two deputies, and the rest of the Killer TV team, Harrow had the empty feeling they were too late.

Though they hadn’t rolled into town with the whole damn circus, their presence had still somehow been known by the bastard.

Across the yard, Deputy Wilson and the other deputy from the office were smoking and chatting. Joining them, Harrow bummed a cigarette. The smoke felt warm and calming in his chest.

The cops in the yard, the dark house, even bumming a smoke, it all reminded him too much of when Ellen and David had been taken from him. Emotions he didn’t want to deal with right now were stirring within him.

His cell rang. “Harrow.”

“Where are you?”

The voice, a familiar one, was a surprise — it belonged to Crime Seen! reporter Carlos Moreno. “J.C., where are you?”

“Lebanon, Kansas. Where are you?”

“Same place,” Moreno said. “Downtown with a camera crew from the Topeka affiliate.”

“What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were in Chicago on a story.”

“I was till Byrnes called. He put me on the Cessna and had a camera crew meet me in Wichita. With Carmen kidnapped, he wants another reporter here.”

Harrow shook his head — he should have known the network president would pull something like this. If Carmen turned up dead, the coverage would be massive in all media, and Byrnes couldn’t allow UBC to shortchange itself on its own story. Harrow felt like Byrnes was writing Carmen off.

“Beautiful human being,” Harrow said, “our Dennis.”

“Yeah, but he signs the checks, J.C. What’s going on?”

“Just get out here, and I’ll fill you in.”

Harrow gave Moreno directions to the Shelton house.

In less than ten minutes, Moreno and his camera crew pulled up in a van marked with the call letters and channel number of UBC’s Wichita affiliate.

Moreno got out, came over, and the two shook hands.

“Sorry about this, man,” the affable reporter said.

“Not your fault.”

Harrow had just finished introducing Moreno to the locals when Laurene and Choi came out.

Choi trotted up and said, “Boss — there was a jewelry box under the T-shirt. I left it for the feds, but... I sneaked a peek. It’s full of wedding rings. Fifteen or twenty of ’em.”

One of them Ellen’s, Harrow thought, filled with excitement and dread.

“No fingers, though,” Choi added.

In her latex-gloved right hand, Laurene bore an envelope. She ignored the sheriff and handed it to Harrow.

Harrow asked, “You’re not worried about prints?”

She shook her head. “They’re frickin’ everywhere. He’s not hiding.”

Harrow accepted the envelope. In big block letters, HARROW was printed across the front. He opened the envelope and fished out a piece of paper.

Gibbons came up to him. “J.C., that’s evidence...”

With just a sideways glance, Harrow communicated with Hathaway, and the camera’s eye switched from Laurene and Harrow to the sheriff.

“It’s addressed to me,” Harrow said.

Gibbons, realizing he was on camera and that the whole nation would be siding with Harrow and not him, wisely backed off.

The letter was printed in neat block letters not unlike the envelope. Harrow read:

Below was an address.

Working to keep his emotions in check, Harrow handed the letter to Gibbons, who read it quickly.

“My God,” Gibbons said.

Harrow asked, “Recognize the address?”

The sheriff nodded numbly. Jerking a thumb toward the crackerbox behind him, Gibbons said, “Shelton bought this house after his family died. This address?” He held up the letter. “That’s the house he lived in when his family was murdered.”

My God indeed, Harrow thought.

“Ten years of this man’s life,” Harrow said, “have been building to this moment.”

Gibbons and the rest, including the camera, just stared at him.

“Let’s not disappoint him,” Harrow said.

Chapter Thirty-four

While the others loaded equipment and crime scene kits back into their vehicles, Harrow made two stops. The first was Jenny Blake, about to get on her bus.

“Find me everything you can about Shelton,” Harrow told her. “Find out what happened to his family, and get me everything you can about the investigation. Apparently there were two inquiries — local followed by state, when there were some conflict of interest concerns raised.”

She frowned. “But aren’t you going after Shelton now?”

“Yes. I may be in the thick of it when you come up with anything.”

“But you want it anyway?”

“I could well need it. Boil it down.”

“I’ll try not to be verbose,” she said with a perfectly straight face, then she disappeared up into the bus.

Next stop was audio expert Nancy Hughes. The blonde with the ponytail was packing up her boom mike to put in the trunk of the rental car.

He asked, “Can you rig me a special earpiece?”

“How special?”

“I need it for the usual reasons, particularly so Jenny can get to me. But for the main feed, I want to hear the sheriff and his deputies communicating.”

Hughes sneaked a glance over at the Tahoe, where the sheriff was conferring with his two deputies. “You don’t trust the local good old boys?”

“Our suspect has an unhappy history with local law enforcement. There’ll be guns and more guns at this shindig. I just want to know who’s doing what, so neither Carmen nor I wind up collateral damage.”

Nodding, Hughes said, “I don’t think that’ll be a problem — I may need some help tapping into their radio frequency.”

“Check in with Jenny on that, but try not to take up too much of her time.”

“Okay. Still, J.C. — that’ll be a lot of voices in your head.”

He gave up half a smile. “Maybe I’m used to that kind of thing.”

She grinned back, and took him by the elbow into the makeup Winnebago, where she wired him for sound and provided the earpiece.

Minutes later, when Harrow emerged, Gibbons came over. “J.C.! You want to ride shotgun with me again?”

“Sure, Herm. Particularly if it’s a real shotgun.”

“Ha! Come on, then.”

The deputies Gibbons had summoned from Smith Center had already set up a perimeter at the Shelton house. As Gibbons drove, he radioed to reroute them to the new target, and told them to set up a much tighter perimeter there — nothing in, nothing out.

Glancing at Harrow, Gibbons said, “You know that means your cameras too.”

“I’d do the same,” Harrow said with a shrug.

And back in his sheriff days, he would have. But now he knew that Hathaway and Arroyo were used to working commando style, even if the crew from the Topeka affiliate wasn’t. No matter how big a perimeter Gibbons set up, no matter how tight, his two principal cameramen would find a way to get the shots.

And at this point, Harrow doubted if he could even call them off if he wanted to. Hard news was in the air, and this was the Crime Seen! story to end all Crime Seen! stories... maybe literally.

Shifting subjects, Harrow asked the sheriff, “What exactly did happen to Shelton’s family?”

He’d pitched the ball casually, lobbed it in; but there it was.

At the wheel, the square-jawed Gibbons gave him a sharp look in the darkened car. “You of all people can’t be thinking of taking his side?”

That response blindsided Harrow.

He tried to chalk it up to Gibbons being defensive about his old boss’s reputation. After all, the state police had already questioned their investigation, and found no wrongdoing.

“It’s not about taking sides, Herm. It’s about going in to talk to this guy, and wanting the background, so he doesn’t just dismiss me out of hand.”

“Fair enough,” Gibbons said, feathers unruffling. “Shelton worked second shift at the radiator factory in Smith Center. It was a Friday in September, ninety-nine. He got off early that day. Gabe always claimed he took half a day off, to go home and surprise his wife and son with a weekend trip. Which always seemed like a lame-ass story to us, pardon my goddamn French.”

“So what happened?”

“Which version you want?”

“How many you got?”

Gibbons sighed. “I’ve got to tell you, even though I believe one of the two versions — and it’s sure as hell not Shelton’s — there’s really no proving either.”

“Okay. Start with Shelton’s.”

“Gabe claimed it was a home invasion. Said that coming from work, he got passed by a speeding car heading the opposite direction. Said there were three men inside, and all of ’em were wearing black ski masks. Then when he got home, Shelton says, he found his family murdered. Shot, almost execution-style.”

“And the other version?”

“It’s a simple story, about as old as they come. We think, a lot of us anyway, that Shelton committed the murders himself.”

“Why d’you think that?”

“For one thing, he got off early, at seven-thirty p.m., and the 911 call didn’t come in until after ten. Where was he, for all that time? Coroner placed the time of death between eight and nine.”

“Where did Shelton say he was?”

Gibbons shook his head, and his smile was knowing. “You’ll love this — said when he saw his family murdered, he flew into a rage, and went looking for that suspicious car he’d passed.”

Harrow said nothing for a while. Having been in Shelton’s place — or anyway the place Shelton claimed to have been in — he could see how the man might have raced off looking for the killers, full of rage and sorrow and revenge.

On the other hand, this was just the sort of alibi that guilty suspects made up, spur of the moment.

Harrow asked, “Did he find the car?”

The sheriff grunted a mirthless laugh. “Yeah — right where he left it: in his imagination.”

The night out the Tahoe windows was washed in moonlight, the world an ivory-blue that would have been soothing in other circumstances.

“So,” Harrow said, “Shelton claims he went out searching for the intruders’ car — then what?”

“Said, after a while, he just pulled over, and parked. And sat there and cried.”

Harrow could believe that; anyone who’d been through a similar tragedy could. But a hard-bitten law enforcement guy like Gibbons could easily shrug it off.

“Anybody see him, Herm? Sitting by the road crying? You said it yourself — Lebanon’s not a very big town.”

Gibbons shook his head. “Nobody came forward, and we put out the word, that’s for goddamn sure. What’s more, Gabe couldn’t even remember where he parked.”

“Convenient,” Harrow said, his skepticism outweighing his empathy. “Could he identify the car? Did he get the plate numbers or anything?”

“At first, all he could say was that it was a dark four-door.”

“At first?”

“Yeah. When he was first interviewed, that is. Later, he said it was a dark brown Ford Crown Victoria.”

“Like so many cops use, right?”

Gibbons nodded. “In the second interview, maybe an hour or so after the first? Suddenly he’s sure the car was one of the two unmarked Crown Vics the county owned back then.”

Which sounded as weak to Harrow as it probably had to the investigating officers. Witnesses who changed or enhanced their stories automatically slid from the witness category to the suspect list. That Shelton had gone from something so vague to something so specific — especially implicating the sheriff’s department — had to raise alarm bells.

Harrow said, “Surely he’d didn’t just pull that out of the air, deputies killing his family?”

“Pulled it outta his ass is where he pulled it from.”

Harrow tried again: “Why would the sheriff and his people want to kill Shelton’s family?”

Gibbons managed a feeble grin. “That question came up at the time too.”

Again, Harrow had to try a second time: “And?”

“...There were real estate developers or speculators or what-have-you, buying up property in that neighborhood, around then. Shelton claimed the real estate people were using sheriff’s deputies as muscle — you know, to force people to sell.”

“And were they?”

Gibbons frowned at his rider.

Harrow met the gaze evenly. “Chief, I have to ask.”

“Yeah, I suppose you do. And I have to answer. And the answer is no.”

“How’d Shelton get that idea?”

Shrugging, Gibbons said, “You ask me, he was looking to deflect the blame from himself, and the deputies were a target of convenience. After all, we were crawling all over him at that moment. He just made up the first thing that came to mind.”

“No deputies ever worked for those developers?”

“I didn’t say that. A lot of law enforcement guys work second jobs, and in particular do security work for this party and that one. Probably some of our boys did that kind of thing for the real-estate boys. So what?”

Out the window, Harrow could make out a neighborhood that had a few houses and several obviously derelict homes, and some vacant lots. This late at night, no lights were on — the area looked like a ghost town. Still, even in a hamlet where everyone was early-to-bed and early-to-rise, he’d expect to see a light here and there.

But there was nothing.

“Your deputies clear the neighborhood already?”

Gibbons seemed puzzled, then, after a second, got it. “Oh, no... this neighborhood was pretty much all bought up by those speculators. It’s been sitting vacant for a while now.”

“Why let it sit? If they’re developers, why don’t they develop it?”

“Companies that own the houses think they have a plan. Been talk for years about a new four-lane, north-south highway to connect Interstates seventy and eighty. Hasn’t gone through yet, but one of these days...”

Harrow saw it instantly. “And the speculators feel they’re sitting on a goldmine.”

“I suppose.”

“Are they right?”

Gibbons gave an indifferent shrug. “Not my field.”

Moments later, the sheriff pulled the Tahoe to the curb, and killed the lights. The pair sat in the dark for a few seconds. A deputy leading the parade of Crime Seen! vehicles stopped a block farther back.

“Across the street, in the next block,” Gibbons said, with a nod in that direction. “Second house.”

From this distance, Harrow could barely make out the shadowy outline of the structure. “What’s the plan?”

Gibbons’s face was a blank mask. “Well, we’re sure as hell not gonna wait for the SWAT team.”

“Because the county doesn’t have one?”

“Bingo. But we do have a sharpshooter in Colby Wilson. You met him.”

Harrow nodded.

“He can pick a fly off a dog’s ass,” Gibbons said, “at five hundred yards.”

“How often does that come up?”

The two old pros exchanged grins.

The sheriff made a radio call to make sure the perimeter was up. The deputies confirmed the neighborhood had been isolated.

“So your plan,” Harrow said, “is let Colby take him out?”

“That’s it.”

“I have a Plan B, if you’d care to hear it.”

Gibbons said nothing.

“Herm, let me talk to him. Let me bring him in.”

The sheriff’s eyes met Harrow’s. “Are you freakin’ nuts, son?”

Gibbons reminded Harrow of himself when he’d been sheriff back in Story County. If the positions were reversed, he might have said much the same thing.

“I’m asking for a reason, Herm, and it’s not crazy.”

Gibbons stared at him, waiting.

“That’s my team member in there.”

No reaction.

“The note Shelton left at his house was addressed to me. He wants to talk — and he wants to talk to me.”

“Or he wants to kill the big-deal TV star and get his fifteen minutes.”

Harrow couldn’t really debate that one. “Maybe, but if he blames the sheriff’s office for the deaths of his family, what do you think he’ll do to my associate, if he sees one of your men?”

Gibbons considered that.

“And,” Harrow went on, “if he spots Wilson targeting him with a sniper scope, what are Carmen Garcia’s odds to grow old enough to see her grandchildren?”

“Not so good,” Gibbons admitted.

“Herm,” Harrow said, shifting in the seat, “this bastard killed my wife and son. I have killed him in my daydreams and my nightmares — trust me, you can’t want him dead more than I do. But more than anything right now, outdistancing even revenge, I value Carmen’s life.”

Gibbons sighed. “I can understand you putting your teammate first. But you and I know, we’d be doing the world a favor to take this prick out with a head shot, and save a whole lot of money and a whole lot of grief.”

“Maybe not. Maybe we want him alive. There are fifty-some murders out there, with twenty-some families attached, that need closure. He could provide that. We owe those families more than we owe the taxpayers a savings.”

For a very long time, Gibbons just sat there staring out the windshield considering his options.

“All right,” the sheriff said at last. “But you wear a vest and, no matter what, you don’t go in that house. Otherwise, no deal.”

“Fine,” Harrow said, not willing to push the negotiation any further. “And I’m already wearing my Kevlar longjohns...”

They got out, careful not to slam the SUV’s doors, and moved to the back of the vehicle, where the sheriff got out a boldly labeled SHERIFF’S DEPT bulletproof vest, and put it on. As Gibbons was doing this, Laurene Chase and Billy Choi appeared at Harrow’s side.

Laurene said, “Deputy wouldn’t let the cameras any closer back there than the next block over.”

She gave Harrow a raised-brow look that told him Hathaway, Arroyo, and their audio teammates were moving in covertly.

“That’s good,” Harrow said. “You two hang right here.”

Gibbons said, “Your boss is right — no closer than this.”

“Sure about that?” Choi asked Harrow, ignoring the sheriff.

“You have your orders,” Harrow said ambiguously.

Chapter Thirty-five

Together, Harrow and Gibbons crossed the street and moved up close to the first house. When they were safely into the shadows, Harrow looked back to see Laurene and Choi still beside the Tahoe, but with pistols drawn now, and obviously planning on following at a distance. They’d understood he intended them to ignore his instructions.

Gibbons withdrew his pistol and held it barrel down at his side. Harrow plucked the nine millimeter from his waistband, and the gun felt good in his grasp, an extension of his hand. He flipped the safety off and checked to make sure a bullet resided in the chamber.

The pair crept house-to-house like Kevlar-wearing, heavily armed kids playing ding-dong ditch. When they got to the corner of the cross street before Shelton’s block, they hesitated, Gibbons covering Harrow as he sprinted across and then cut through the yard of the corner house, to plaster himself against its wall, chest heaving.

Then Harrow returned the favor, as Gibbons crossed the street and pressed himself to the wall next to him.

Glancing back, Harrow could see Choi and Chase mimicking their moves half a block behind.

Harrow slipped the pistol in his waistband, but at the small of his back, safety off. If need be, he could get to it, easy.

Gibbons whispered, “Sure you want to do this, son?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Well, then — let’s go pay a call on a freakin’ maniac...”

Staying in the shadows close to the abandoned house, Harrow and Gibbons crossed the yard. Now that he was closing in on his target, Harrow could see the house where he’d been invited by the killer of his family.

The old two-story home had a long wooden unenclosed porch of the kind where a swing once had been, and had once been white, but even in the dark Harrow could see neglect had turned it dingy gray.

No lights.

That was no different from the other houses on the block, and Harrow hadn’t expected to see any. No curtains either, but blinds were pulled down over windows on the second floor.

As they drew closer, Gibbons — a few steps in the lead — stopped jerkily short, and Harrow pulled up even with him.

“Sheriff’s just seen me, Mr. Harrow,” said a voice from the porch.

Gibbons’s pistol was pointing at the darkness.

Then the killer stepped from the shadows and into the moonlight, his back to the house as he gripped his human shield with an arm looped round her waist, and held an automatic pistol to her temple.

Carmen Garcia wore boxer-style shorts and a Kansas Jayhawks sweatshirt that looked way too big, like a little girl playing dress-up in the oversized sweatshirt. Her hair was disheveled, but otherwise she appeared unharmed.

Her eyes revealed fear, but — at least with Harrow and Gibbons on the scene — she seemed to be keeping it under control.

Good, Harrow thought, his eyes on her. You’re doing good...

Shelton was in white short-sleeved shirt and black jeans, as best Harrow could tell.

Pressing the pistol’s snout to Carmen’s left temple, his voice oddly matter of fact, Shelton said, “The sheriff disappears, or it’s over right now.”

Gibbons stood firm, his pistol pointed at the killer’s head, only a splinter of which was visible behind Carmen.

“I can take him,” Gibbons said, his voice icy.

“No,” Harrow snapped. “Back off.”

“I can take him, I said.”

A head shot would mean all motor functions turned off like a switch — Harrow knew that damn well. But not much of Shelton’s head was showing.

And plenty of Carmen’s was.

Crouching down behind his hostage even more, Shelton yelled, “Gibbons needs to back off now!”

“You miss and kill my associate, Herm,” Harrow said softly, his tone just as frigid as the sheriff’s, “then you and I are going to have a real problem. You agreed that I could talk to this man — let me do it.”

Slowly, with obvious reluctance, Gibbons lowered his weapon, and his stance relaxed.

Gruffly he said, “Be right next door if you need me.”

As the sheriff backed away, Harrow eased to the left, putting himself between the man on the porch and the retreating lawman, halting the pissing contest between the two armed parties before it came to Carmen — or any, or all of them — getting killed.

Shelton was still trying to keep an eye on Gibbons as he receded into near-darkness.

“Look at me, Mr. Shelton,” Harrow said. “I’m the one you wanted to talk to — here I am. Look at me.”

Slowly, the killer’s attention shifted to Harrow.

“I’m here,” Harrow said. “You don’t need to send any more messages.”

From behind Carmen, who looked only slightly more relaxed by having the sheriff in the next yard, Shelton said, “You... you know I’ve been sending messages?”

“Sending messages, and creating a target. Yes.”

“Lebanon,” Shelton said, his head popping out just momentarily, revealing an extraordinarily awful smile in an ordinary face. His blue eyes didn’t seem to blink much. “The center point. Where it began. Where it ends.”

“Was there no easier way, Mr. Shelton? Did my family have to die to make up for the loss of yours? Did so many families have to die?”

Shelton was quiet for a long moment — night sounds, insects, birds, rustling trees, provided an eerie orchestration.

Finally, the man holding Carmen managed, “Sacrifices had to be made. Innocent blood is always part of a sacrifice. I’m sorry about your family, Mr. Harrow. I’m sorry about all of them. But they did not die in vain. You are here. And my message will be heard.”

“What is your message, Mr. Shelton?” His voice seemed calm, but within him, Harrow was waging a battle with his emotions, fighting the instinct to rush this sick bastard and blow his demented brains all over that porch, and if Carmen weren’t in harm’s way right now, that’s exactly what he’d do.

From behind the wide-eyed Carmen, Shelton blurted words like pus exploding from a squeezed boil: “They killed my wife and son!”

“Easy,” Harrow said, and patted the air, trying to calm both Shelton and his hostage. And himself.

“That is my message,” Shelton said, his composure back. “Those selfish, evil bastards murdered my family, and left me in a world of pain.”

“Who murdered your family, Mr. Shelton?”

“Brown, Gibbons, their deputies — the whole wretched lot of them... They’re in it together.”

Carmen’s expression begged Harrow to be careful.

“Mr. Shelton — you need to put the gun down, and talk to me. I promise you will have time in front of my cameras to deliver your complete message to the public.”

“You’ll edit it to—”

“No! You are too important now. You have sent messages that have been heard all over this land, but not understood. This is your chance to correct that. To explain.”

Shelton seemed to be thinking this option over. Harrow couldn’t see much of the man, with Carmen a helpless puppet in front of him; but perhaps Harrow’s words were getting through...

“You know, Mr. Shelton, some say you killed your family.”

“Don’t ever say that!” The one eye visible flared. “I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her right now and—”

Carmen was holding her breath, frozen in fear.

“I am not saying that, Mr. Shelton! I am saying that the messages you’ve sent seem to say you’d be capable of such a thing. I know all too well that you have killed other men’s families... why not your own?”

Carmen’s eyes narrowed, questioning Harrow’s tack.

“Stop saying that! Stop saying that. You’re wrong; you’re misinterpreting everything I’ve meant to say.”

“That, Mr. Shelton, is why you need to put the gun down, and go in front of our cameras and explain yourself to the world. Explain that you would never have harmed your family.”

Almost entirely hidden behind his hostage now, Shelton spoke in a clear but oddly small voice in the quiet night: “How did you feel, Harrow, when they accused you of killing your family?”

“...I felt terrible. It made an unbearable sorrow more unbearable.”

“Well... I’m sorry for that. But you did get the message, didn’t you?”

“I... I did.”

“And now you know that I didn’t kill my family. Because I know you didn’t kill yours.”

This logic was nothing Harrow wished to spend time exploring. All he wanted right now was to talk this pathetic but so very dangerous creature into giving up and letting Carmen go.

A vein twitching in Harrow’s forehead was the only hint that under his calm exterior he was fighting the urge to jump the rail of the porch and shove the nine millimeter in the man’s mouth or maybe just strangle him; the desire to destroy the monster that killed Ellen and David coursed in him like lava, burning through his every capillary, vein, and artery.

“You can take my word,” Shelton said, “as the man who killed your family, I did not kill my own.”

Carmen’s eyes were wide with fear, but managed to convey to Harrow that she didn’t understand this insane reasoning any more than he did.

Only Harrow did understand. It reflected how twisted his own path had been that he knew damn well Shelton confessing the murders of Ellen and David, freely, was a gesture of sorts, a blood-stained olive branch.

They had a bond. And only the lunatic on that porch, and the man below who’d been driven half-mad by the lunatic’s actions, could understand that bond.

“I believe you, Mr. Shelton. Why don’t I come up there, and we’ll discuss this further?”

“I like you where you are.”

“No, you need to meet me halfway. You let me take Carmen’s place, and we can work the rest of it out. It’ll be a show of good faith.”

A bit more of Shelton’s head became visible over Carmen’s shoulder as the killer got a better look at Harrow.

“All right,” Shelton said. “You take a step at a time and wait for me to say take another.”

“Fine.”

“And I want your hands up!”

“Fine.”

Harrow approached the stairs — six of them — and took the first one. Shelton moved back, closer to the front door, but the angle of the moon put him in more light. Carmen’s eyes weren’t so wide now; she seemed almost relaxed, or as relaxed as a person could be with a gun snout to her forehead.

“All right, another step.”

Harrow took it.

“Another.”

Harrow did so.

Then Shelton’s eyes darted right, and Harrow realized the killer had seen something he didn’t like.

“You stay put, Herm!” Shelton yelled. The arm around Carmen’s waist tightened and she made a sound, like a child picked up too roughly. “You stay the hell put!”

Harrow glanced over and saw Gibbons at the edge of the shadows of the house next door — he was motionless, but for the weapon in his hand, dropping by degrees.

“Back off, Sheriff,” Harrow said, loud, firm. “Mr. Shelton is complying with everything I’m asking. Let me do this.”

Gibbons dissolved into the darkness.

After several long seconds, Shelton said, “Okay, Mr. Harrow. Take another step.”

He stepped, and in the earpiece whose occasional cop chatter he’d been ignoring, Harrow finally heard something worth registering: “Suspect in better light. Still no shot.”

The voice of the deputy, Colby Wilson.

The sniper was probably deep in the shadows of the houses across the street or possibly on a rooftop. Harrow risked a glimpse right, and caught sight of a boom mike peeking out at the back corner of a porch — either Hughes or Ingram had moved in pretty close. Harrow had gotten away with the glance because the killer’s attention was still on Gibbons, or anyway the darkness where the sheriff lurked.

So Harrow risked a quick look in the other direction, and thought he saw a part in the curtains on the first floor of the nearest abandoned house. The sniper? Or the unblinking eye of a camera?

“Mr. Harrow! What are you looking at?”

Harrow’s eyes snapped back to the killer. “I’m just nervous.”

“Don’t con me. You try conning me, and she’s dead and you’re dead. And I’m dead, but I don’t care because I died a long time ago, so don’t you con me.”

Harrow gestured easily with the upraised hands. “I was checking to see if my camera crew was in position and getting this.”

The slice of his face visible behind Carmen’s included an eye that widened. “Are they? That would be good.”

“Yes, it would. It would get your message out in a much better way.”

“Are they out there?”

“I don’t know. You said, don’t con you. I think so. But I just don’t know.”

Shelton allowed Harrow up the final few steps, and then Harrow was facing Carmen and her captor — perhaps four feet separating them. Ivory washed over Carmen, and she looked fragile and lovely and, of course, terrified.

In Harrow’s ear, the deputy said, “If Harrow’d move a step to his left, I could cap this sumbitch.”

But Harrow moved not an inch, his eyes on the slender wall of flesh that was Carmen, behind which her captor hid, only barely visible there.

What had happened to Jenny Blake? Where was her intel?

Harrow felt the situation slipping like sand through his fingers. Maybe he should dive left and let Gibbons’s man take the shot...

“Okay, Mr. Shelton. Here I am. Let her go, and I’ll be your hostage.”

“I let her go, and a sniper takes me out. Probably that shit Wilson. He’s in on it too, you know!”

“We had a deal...”

“I want a TV camera. You said I could talk to a camera.”

In his left ear, Harrow finally heard Jenny: “Shelton’s wife was named Cathy and his son Mark.”

Harrow said, “How do you think Cathy and Mark would feel about what you’re doing? About what you’ve been doing for the past ten years?”

The eye on view flinched, but the killer’s comeback was quick: “How would your wife feel about you tracking me down, all over hell and TV and gone?”

“She’d hate it,” Harrow said.

“Like mine would what I’ve done.”

“And yet you kept on.”

“I did. And you’re here, aren’t you? What our gentle wives would have done is beside the point. You and me, Mr. Harrow, we’re men. Screwed-up men. We do what we can. We do what we have to do. Anyway, the dead don’t get to have opinions. And your opinion is, you’d like to kill me.”

Carmen’s eyes pleaded with Harrow. He wasn’t sure what she was begging him to do. He wasn’t sure she even knew.

“Maybe,” Harrow said. “Maybe not. We both know this much — nothing brings them back. Not revenge, not justice, nothing. I’d guess you know that better than anybody, Mr. Shelton.”

“Sheriff Gibbons was lead investigator,” Jenny whispered in his ear. “Shelton was his only suspect.”

Wondering why the sheriff had omitted being the lead investigator, Harrow said, “Why does Gibbons think you killed Cathy and Mark?”

“He doesn’t — he was in on it. He’s part of the conspiracy.”

“I need to hear about this conspiracy. America needs to hear. It’s time to let Carmen go, Mr. Shelton, and get those cameras up here and—”

But Shelton was somewhere else: “They wanted the land, all the land,” he was saying. “The ones that wouldn’t sell, they drove out.”

“But you did sell,” Harrow said.

His face flashed from behind Carmen’s and his brow was clenched and his mouth twisted. “Only after they killed my family! That money they gave me, their blood money, that’s what’s financed my deliveries. Oh, I bought that little crummy shack on the other side of town, but the rest, the insurance money for Cathy and Mark, every dollar and cent’s been used to deliver my message to the world. To let everyone know the kind of greedy goddamn grubbing that’s been going on in the center of America.”

“And what is going on, Mr. Shelton?”

“I told you! They want all the land.”

Jenny whispered, “Shelton sold out to Castano Developments.”

“So Castano Developments wants all the land in this neighborhood?”

“Not just here! Everywhere.”

“The whole town?”

“Everywhere, all of it!”

“They want all the land.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“And they kill people to get it.”

“Yes, yes, yes — and they’re using the deputies and cops, and maybe even the state police as their hatchet men.”

“The state police?”

“Yes, them too. I went to them after Cathy and Mark were killed. They came back and said they couldn’t find anything either. That meant they had to be in on it too. Maybe even the FBI — they listened nice and polite when I drove up to Kansas City, to tell them all about it. But they didn’t do a goddamn thing. Didn’t even pretend to do something, like the state police did. No one has... not till you, Mr. Harrow. Not till you.”

Carmen’s eyes begged him: Stop him... end this...

“When did you talk to all these people?”

“In the weeks and months after the murders, but they didn’t do a damn thing. That’s why I started delivering the messages myself. I knew sooner or later someone would come to my rescue.”

Harrow knew these were the ramblings of a lunatic mind. Shelton thought the evil developers were after his land, and everyone’s land everywhere, and that all of law enforcement had conspired to kill his family.

At this point, the only remaining question was how to get Carmen away from this crazy, before the man decided to deliver one last message...

“Mr. Shelton, how long have you been after these people? Ten years?”

“Ten years.”

“Well, I’ve been investigating this for only a few months. I did look into my family’s deaths, but it took me all these years, and some corn from this county, to bring me to this porch. So if you want us to stop them, you’ve got to share the information you’ve found. That’s going to take time, and we can’t do it here, not like this. We’ll get you in front of a camera, and you will tell your story, and you will tell it in detail.”

Shelton said nothing. The hand with the gun seemed to be shaking, just a little. Was that good, or bad?

“You can’t stay on this porch with a gun to my friend’s head forever,” Harrow said. “Let her go. I’ll stay with you as your hostage, until the cameras can come in.”

Shelton swallowed. “We could go inside and talk. Where this started. Where they killed them. That would be... dramatic, right? Good for TV?”

The gun dropped from Carmen’s temple, but Shelton’s arm was still looped around her waist as the man shifted, about to ease out from behind the woman, if Harrow was any judge.

And in his right ear Harrow heard: “I’ve got a shot, do I have a go order?”

From the darkness, where he was shouting into his radio, Gibbons’s voice registered for all to hear: “Go!”

“Bastards!” Shelton said, and ducked behind Carmen again as the sound split the night and the shot thunked splinteringly into the front door between Harrow and the captor with his hostage.

Shelton’s sudden movement caused Carmen to stumble and the two went down in a heap, Carmen screaming, Shelton making animal sounds as they hit the old wooden slats of the porch. Then Shelton was on his knees, pulling Carmen’s hair as he tried to bring her up as a shield again, his gun-in-hand rising to take its place at her temple.

Looking down at them, Harrow didn’t hesitate — his hand whipped around his back and came back with the nine millimeter, which he aimed and fired in one smooth motion, the bullet punching through Shelton’s forehead, the crack of his skull audible, the gunshot itself a thundercrack that seemed to shake the old house.

The gun clunked from the killer’s hand to the porch as limp fingers released Carmen’s hair, and the self-styled messenger slumped to weathered wooden slats, dead as his family, dead as Harrow’s family, oozing brains that had been damaged long prior to the bullet.

Then Carmen was in Harrow’s arms, sobbing, holding him tight, as they sat on the bottom porch step. For his part, he just stroked her hair and let her cry.

Chapter Thirty-six

Hathaway and Arroyo were next to Harrow and Carmen, filming even before Gibbons and his men got there.

“Byrnes broke in on America’s Wackiest Wedding Videos,” Hathaway said, obviously stoked. “That’s the network’s second-biggest show, you know.”

Arroyo said, “Whole thing went out on the network live — seven-second delay, of course, in case somebody got shot.”

“That’s entertainment,” Harrow said, and Carmen interrupted her crying to snort a laugh, then returned to her tears.

Even as the cameramen spoke, they never stopped shooting. The audio personnel were moving in now, as well.

Laurene and Choi appeared, and managed to each get in the way of a camera as Harrow helped Carmen to her feet. With Laurene, getting in front of a camera was accidental; with Choi, Harrow wasn’t so sure.

Finally he asked Carmen, “How are you doing?”

Her tear-smeared face had a bitter cast. “You talked him down. They didn’t have to take that shot.”

“I know. Bastards risked both our lives.”

“You gonna do something about that, boss?”

“You bet your... paycheck.”

She managed a feeble smile. “You think I could go back to being a PA now? Stardom suddenly doesn’t look so good.”

“No going back, Carmen. We’re both stuck.”

“Are your ears ringing? Mine are.”

“You were close to that gunshot. It’ll ease up.”

That was when Carlos Moreno came up and cornered them, microphone in hand. Apparently Gibbons’s perimeter was as secure as a sand castle at high tide.

Moreno thrust the microphone at Carmen.

Harrow was about to slap the goddamn thing aside when she pulled away from him, stood upright.

Moreno said, “Carmen Garcia, we’re on live on UBC. How do you feel?”

And the former hostage was instantly “on.”

“Well, Carlos, I can tell you this — it’s good to be alive. I owe everything to J.C. Harrow, who has to be the bravest man on the planet.”

“What about the alleged killer who held you captive?”

“Carlos, I feel bad for Mr. Shelton. He was a very troubled soul. He lost his family, much as J.C. did...”

Harrow had heard enough. He moved toward the sidewalk, where various official vehicles were pulling in.

Sheriff Gibbons came up to him. “You did good, J.C.”

“You didn’t,” Harrow said.

The sheriff’s expression might have been the aftermath of a slap. “What the hell...”

“Your goddamned deputy tried to gun him down just when I’d talked him into coming in peacefully.”

Gibbons took a step back. “We didn’t know — we couldn’t hear...”

“Hell you couldn’t,” Harrow said. “You were right next door and heard everything. And the second your guy Wilson had a shot, you told him go for it — risking my life, and Carmen’s, needlessly... and robbing us of a suspect who might clear up countless murder cases.”

“Goddamnit, Harrow, he had a gun on the Garcia woman! You would have done the—”

“Same thing? Don’t think so. He was surrendering, you dick. Your man, and your go order, put the two of us in the line of fire. Then I had to do your dirty work for you.”

“Well, J.C., I’m sorry you feel that way, but I feel we did the right thing. You’ll cool off, and you’ll think about it, and—”

Harrow had heard enough of that bullshit, too. He walked away from the increasingly noisy scene, needing some silence. Heading toward the crime lab semi, he felt someone fall in next to him.

Laurene Chase.

She gave him a sunny smile. “Rough day at the office?”

He shrugged. “Same-o, same-o.”

“Carmen’s alive,” she said. “That’s a good day at the office, no matter what else went down.”

He nodded, not knowing if he really agreed. He was thrilled Carmen was alive, but he had been so close to bringing in the suspect the same way...

Up ahead, Pall and Anderson were pacing like expectant fathers. Jenny Blake stood off to herself a little, arms folded. They all fell in line behind their boss and his number two, following like puppies.

Harrow’s cell vibrated. Checking the caller ID, he saw: DENNIS BYRNES.

Holding out the phone to Laurene, he said, “You talk to him.”

She took the phone, and he went up the metal stairs and into the crime lab to be alone.

He closed the door and sat down in a chair. The man who had killed his family was dead, killed by Harrow himself. But Ellen and David were gone forever, and any sense of closure was not revealing itself.

Why did he feel so goddamn empty?

And why did this long journey still feel unresolved?

Chapter Thirty-seven

Once Harrow was tucked away in the semi, Laurene Chase and Billy Choi stationed themselves at the stairs, blocking the way, as the other three team members — Pall, Anderson, and Blake — went off to check on Carmen.

The cell Harrow had handed off was throbbing away in Laurene’s grasp. Finally she took the call.

Dennis Byrnes’s voice exploded in her ear: “Harrow, that was bloody awesome! You are the man!”

“Mr. Byrnes, this is Laurene Chase. J.C. isn’t taking any calls right now. He’s winding down. You’re obviously aware of what he’s been through.”

“I am, Ms. Chase, and let me share my enthusiasm and delight with you. You tell J.C. that the UBC switchboard is lit up like Christmas, and the website’s crashed, so many viewers trying to get through. This is the moon landing and the final episode of M*A*S*H and the Super Bowl with Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby tossed in for good measure.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“It’s a fantastic thing. This goes beyond our network — every other broadcast network and all the twenty-four-hour news channels are breaking into their regularly scheduled programming, and why? To advertise UBC and Crime Seen! You tell J.C. that I don’t know how he managed this, but—”

“He didn’t ‘manage’ anything, sir. He did what he promised you he would — he tracked down the murderer of his family and let you broadcast it.”

“Ms. Chase, you tell Harrow I want him back in LA tomorrow. We have to get to work and figure out what we’re going to do for November sweeps to take advantage of this wave of publicity.”

“You do realize, sir, a man is dead, and one of our reporters almost got killed.”

“But she didn’t get killed,” Byrnes said. “The star of my show saved her. Christ, Chase, don’t you know a happy ending when you see one?”

Laurene clicked off the call, and turned off the phone. Suddenly the lowlifes she’d dealt with back in Waco didn’t seem so bad.

Glancing in Choi’s direction, she said, “Seems the show’s a hit.”

The young man shrugged. “You know what they say — give the people what they want. All we need to do to stay popular? Shoot somebody every week. We could take turns.”

Laurene didn’t smile at that. “That’s a little dark, Billy.”

“You think? We did something good here, boss lady — we shut down one of the worst serial killers in history. Yet I still feel like I could use a shower.”

“I know,” she said, and shivered. “I know.”

Chris Anderson got to Carmen, with Michael Pall right behind and Jenny Blake trailing. But they all had to wait while Moreno finished his interview with the rescued star.

Hathaway and Arroyo were shooting from different angles, bright lights atop each camera catching their subject in a cross fire, both Hughes and Ingram grabbing sound, with Carmen’s teammates media savvy enough by now not to interrupt.

Distant sirens howled and grew closer, and the darkness was alive with headlights heading their way — and not just emergency vehicles, Pall knew. The media, no matter how far they’d have to travel, would get there so fast you’d think they beamed down from a starship. And there would be gawkers too, from hither and yon. The three hundred souls of Lebanon, Kansas, would be waking to find their hamlet grown by ten times or more, and they’d be in the geographical center of not just the United States, but an international media storm.

“Thank you for your time, Carmen,” Moreno was saying, giving his co-worker his most earnest look. “I know you must be as exhausted as you are relieved that this ordeal has ended.”

Carmen managed a wan smile for the reporter (and the camera), which didn’t fade till Hathaway said, “And... we’re clear.”

Moreno gave her a lopsided grin and shook her hand. “Great job, Carmen. Very brave to come straight out of that mess and be so professional.”

“Thank you, Carlos,” Carmen said, but Pall could tell the weight of it all was starting to settle on the woman. On camera, she’d seemed quietly strong, and her delivery had been halting only when it aided the story she was telling.

But with the camera off, Carmen — in the sweatshirt provided by her late captor — looked battered, as if her legs might give way under her at any second.

This was lost on Moreno, who soon was off in search of the sheriff or Harrow, or some other interview, with Hathaway, Arroyo, and the audio team in the star reporter’s wake. But Pall, Anderson, and Blake ringed their co-worker protectively.

“What do you need?” Pall asked her, touching her shoulder lightly, gently.

“I need,” Carmen said, trying to smile, but Pall could feel her trembling, “out of these awful clothes. Can I please get out of these awful clothes?”

“Let’s get you to the bus,” Pall said, and put a hand on her far shoulder and the other hand on her near elbow. To the others, he said: “I’ll take her — you two make sure no one bothers us.”

Uniformed officers seemed to be everywhere, directing traffic and trying to get an ambulance in for Shelton, even though everyone in the United States with a TV knew there was no real rush.

Pall and his charge reached the bus and got up inside, Jenny leading the way, and Anderson staying outside to guard the door.

Jenny had been prepared for this — which impressed Pall — and had a fresh change of clothes ready from Carmen’s own suitcase, underthings, jeans, a Juicy Couture shirt and sandals. Carmen went into the restroom, was in there a while, presumably washing up, and emerged, if not a new woman, a fresher-looking one.

Jenny led the former hostage to a chaise lounge and sat with her, while Pall brought Carmen a bottle of water, which she gulped greedily, twice, then just stopped and seemed to be letting her stomach settle. Pall sat down on the lounge opposite, sitting forward, watchfully.

The three sat in silence for several minutes, Carmen starting to sip the water again. Jenny was rubbing the woman’s arm lightly, as if letting Carmen know she was not alone. Again Pall was impressed with Jenny, whose quiet, loner demeanor seemed to be slipping away.

Finally, her eyes unblinking and almost dead-looking, Carmen said, “You know, he didn’t have to die.”

Pall blinked. “Of course he did. J.C. had no choice — the guy was about to shoot you. Harrow saved your life! We all saw what happened.”

“No, I know. J.C. saved me — I owe him my life, I really, really do. But before that? Just ten seconds before that, Shelton was going to give himself up. He’d already let loose of me. He was about to go with J.C. and be questioned. And then they took a shot at him, and everything changed.”

“In hostage situations,” Pall said, “cops make tough calls like that all the time.”

“It feels wrong,” Carmen insisted. “J.C. was talking to him. Settling him down. Bringing him over.”

“Carmen, the man was a—”

“They’d been talking about the company that was buying up the land.” Carmen’s eyes were bright now. “Harrow got him talking about the developer, the company — what was it?”

“Castano Developments,” Jenny said.

“That’s it,” Carmen said. “Shelton really wanted to talk about that company. He wanted to open up. All of the killings, they were messages. Shelton was — in his sick, sick way — trying to tell us something. Only, then somebody took that shot.”

“Sniper missed,” Pall said.

Carmen shook her head, firmly. “No reason for him to shoot. Shelton was surrendering.”

“The sniper couldn’t possibly have known that.”

“But the sheriff was nearby,” Carmen insisted, getting worked up. “He gave the order.”

Jenny slipped an arm around her and said, “Honey, you need to rest. You’ve been through so much.”

Carmen swallowed and sighed and, finally, nodded.

“Why don’t you stretch out right here?” Jenny suggested. “Just rest and maybe even sleep a little.”

“I’d rather sit,” Carmen said.

“Well, that’s fine, too...”

“I’ve been lying down a lot lately.” She gave them a weak smile and then began to cry. Jenny had tissues ready, and Pall sat on the other side of her and was there when Carmen folded herself to him, sobbing.

Pall told Jenny, “Go ahead and go. I’ll stay with her.”

Jenny nodded. “I have some stuff I need to do anyway.”

She squeezed Carmen’s shoulder and went forward to the little office area behind the front seating.

Really, Jenny had only scratched the surface of Castano Developments, getting Harrow some key facts to use in the showdown with Shelton. But she was not one to leave stones unturned, and was anxious to get back to it.

Castano Developments, it seemed, was really little more than a shell company owned by something called Braun Realty, in turn owned by something called Marron Holdings, itself a partnered company with a firm called Brun Limited, a subsidiary of Kahverengi International, whose CEO was listed as someone named Danyal Braz.

And that was when she figured it out.

Soon she was off the bus and running. On informal guard outside the semi, Choi and Laurene saw her coming, and both wisely cleared her a path.

Within the semi, she found Harrow, sitting at a work station, his head in his hands. He heard her rush in and glanced up.

“Not now, Jenny. I need time to—”

“No time for foolishness, boss.” She fired up the computer adjacent to him and sat.

He was frowning at her. “What did you say to me?”

She almost smiled, the implied “young lady” so strong.

“Boss — Shelton? He was right.”

“What Shelton was,” Harrow said, “was crazy.”

“No argument. But he was also right.”

Interested now, Harrow asked, “What was he right about?”

“He said the deputies were the muscle for the company that wanted to buy the land, didn’t he?”

“He did, but he also included the state police and the FBI in on the conspiracy.”

“Take a gander,” she said, pointing at the screen.

Harrow scooched his chair closer and peered at the monitor. “Danyal Braz?”

“Funny spelling, huh?” Jenny said.

She pulled up the list of the companies she’d traced to and from Castano Developments.

“Here they are,” she said, “the whole chain of shell companies, subsidiaries, and partnered companies... all run by the same man.”

She hit the print button and, when the list popped out, handed it to Harrow.

He read aloud: “Castano Developments, Braun Realty, Marron Holdings, Brun Limited, and Kahverengi International.”

“Notice anything?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Harrow said. “Tongue twisters.”

“That’s because,” Jenny said, “the names are all in different languages.”

Harrow’s eyes tightened. He glanced at the list, then back at her. “Go on.”

“Castano, Braun, Marron — pronounced Mar-ón — Brun, and Kahverengi,” she said. “Castano? Italian. Braun? German, Marrón? Spanish. Brun? Portuguese. Kahverengi? Turkish. And Braz? Polish... but they all translate into English as the same word...”

“Brown,” Harrow said.

She smiled like a slightly demented pixie and nodded the same way. “The CEO of Kahverengi International is Danyal Braz — translated from Arabic and Polish, you get Daniel Brown. As in former Lebanon Sheriff Daniel Brown.”

“And that’s probably not a coincidence,” Harrow said dryly.

“My guess is,” Jenny said, “when I track down the board of directors and stockholders of Kahverengi International? There’ll be more familiar names.”

“Get on it,” Harrow said, rising. “I’ve got someone to see.”

“You got it, boss.”

“Oh! One more thing — track down the ubiquitous Daniel Brown. If he is on his way back to town, as the current sheriff says, I want him met at the city limits.”

“By the police?” Jenny asked.

“No. Have Chris Anderson do it — tell him to lay on the Southern charm. Brown should be told we want to interview him for the show — as an outstanding citizen of Lebanon. Tell Chris to get him in front of a camera crew and just stall his ass with local color questions.”

“Cool,” she said.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Harrow came down out of the trailer like his hair was on fire, and Laurene and Choi fell in with him.

“Where we going?” Laurene asked.

“To see the sheriff.”

“What for?” Choi asked.

“To ask him about a land deal.”

The trio moved down the middle of a street crowded now with bystanders, reporters, state cops, and God only knew who else. The Killer TV teammates were heading toward the house where Harrow had lately confronted a serial killer of record proportions.

Gibbons was holding court in the front yard of the Shelton house, his deputies around him in a semicircle, the stocky sniper Colby Wilson immediately to Gibbons’s right.

Carlos Moreno and the two camera crews were off to one side, taking a brief break, until they saw Harrow coming. Then they all jumped to their feet at once, and the red lights came on, little demon eyes burning in the night.

As he approached the conclave of uniforms, Harrow received a thin-lipped smile from Gibbons, who said, “There’s the man of the hour.”

With Laurene and Choi behind him, Harrow positioned himself a few feet from Gibbons, facing the semicircle of local law enforcement. The camera eyes and microphones moved in, keeping their distance, but — like snipers — with their targets well in view.

“We haven’t really had a chance to talk, Sheriff,” Harrow said pleasantly. “There’ll be some follow-up, of course. My firearm killed a man. You’ll want to take my statement.”

“Of course,” Gibbons said, good-naturedly. “But that can wait till tomorrow, J.C.”

“Sure. There’ll be a lot of do tomorrow. For example, we’ll need to dig into this whole Kahverengi International matter.”

Gibbons flinched at the foreign word, then squinted as if he hadn’t understood. “Afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, J.C. This is Kansas. We don’t deal with international anything, except maybe Harvester.”

His deputies chuckled.

“You’re being modest, Herm. You have a distinguished local citizen, ex-sheriff Daniel Brown, who does considerable international business, and land development all over the map... including right here in Lebanon.”

“I suppose that’s so. But it doesn’t have anything to do with this tragedy tonight.”

“Well, Gabriel Shelton thought it did. Just the mad ravings of a serial killer, though, right? If we were to take his lunacy seriously, then we’d have to believe Sheriff Brown and his deputies, ten years or so ago... you were one, weren’t you, Herm, a deputy of Brown’s? You’d have to believe a crazy story like deputies strong-arming local people into selling out when they didn’t want to, all because the sheriff thought a new highway was coming through, and that land would become valuable... Ridiculous. Crazy on the face of it.”

Gibbons and Wilson, and several other of the deputies, were getting fidgety, glancing at the cameras and boom mikes that were picking this up.

“J.C.,” Gibbons said tightly, “this needs to wait for another day. It’s not the kind of thing to air in public, now, is it? I mean, a person could get in trouble with libel or slander or that kind of thing, with fool talk like this.”

“Oh, but Gabe Shelton’s way past getting sued. Your crack shot, Deputy Wilson, almost killed him, and the attempt put me in a position where I had to. So you’ll understand why his words kind of... haunt me. I don’t take them seriously, of course, but we learned by studying his ‘messages’ that there was a method to his madness, as the saying goes.”

“You need to put a lid on this, Harrow. You are on very shaky ground...”

“Way I see it, Sheriff? Shelton was a monster, all right, but it took some greedy, violent bastards to turn him into one. Shelton’s family, mine, twenty-some families, all torn to pieces just so some solid citizens could own some land, and maybe make some money, for themselves and their own families.”

Gibbons turned away from Harrow and pushed the air with his hands. “Gonna have to ask you folks from the media to move back now — this is a crime scene.”

“It’s a crime scene, all right,” Harrow said. “If Shelton’s to be believed, his wife and children were murdered by three men in black ski masks driving a vehicle that belonged to the local sheriff’s department. He thought deputies had come into his house to threaten his family — maybe things got out of hand, and murder wasn’t the intention. But murder was born that night — murder on a grand scale, because Gabe Shelton... who must have had his problems all along... had something inside him break, and something else inside him trigger. A serial killer was made that night, formed out of other men’s greed and brutality. A damaged soul went out and did terrible things, including murdering my wife and family... committing the crime done to him, again and again, screaming for attention and justice through his twisted deeds.”

Gibbons swivelled and pointed a finger at Harrow, obviously wishing it could be a gun. “Now this talk is going to stop — right now. It’s inappropriate, and you are embarrassing yourself, Harrow. You need to pull it together and—”

“You don’t understand, Sheriff. I’m a TV personality. I just want to interview the lead investigator into the deaths of Cathy and Mark Shelton — and that’s you, right? And my first question is — why didn’t you mention that pertinent fact to us, Herm? Why did I have to find out for myself?”

Gibbons came up very close to Harrow. “You need to go, Harrow. Now. Or I will take you into custody for disturbing the peace.”

“Like you did Gabe Shelton?” Harrow whispered; this was for Gibbons, not the microphones or cameras. “That unmarked car he saw was real. The men in the masks were real. I wonder if you were one of them?”

The sheriff’s eyes popped; his mouth twitched, and he backed away. Then he said to his deputies, “Let’s cordon off this crime scene and get these media types out of here! We have work to do!”

The deputies flew into their jobs, and the sheriff came back over to Harrow.

“J.C., you are wrong about this. You are embarrassing yourself. This ended tonight. You killed the man responsible for taking your family away from you. You need to be grateful.”

Harrow, calmly, coldly, said, “I wonder if I’m looking at the man responsible for taking my family away? Certainly one of them.”

Gibbons swallowed, and turned his back to Harrow and went about loudly supervising his deputies as they worked the yellow crime scene tape and batted the media back.

Suddenly Harrow sensed someone at his side: Jenny Blake. She handed him a slip of paper. He read it.

Then Harrow made an announcement in a voice loud enough to freeze the deputies in their motion, and to bring the various cameras and microphones his way again.

“Excuse me! I have important information related to the aftermath of this case!”

Pin-drop silence.

“Former Lebanon sheriff Daniel Brown has left the country. His passport was okayed by Homeland Security tonight. He’s flying to South America.”

Across the yard, the sheriff turned toward Harrow with the look of a wet hound. “That son of a bitch...”

“Looks like he left you holding the bag, Herm,” Harrow said genially. “Who knows? Maybe you can get immunity.”

Harrow was having a smoke outside the semi when Deputy Colby Wilson, with the hangdog expression of all time, came tentatively over. The heel of a hand was on his holstered revolver.

“Can I talk to you a second, Mr. Harrow?”

“What do you want, Colby? I’ve said my piece.”

“I, uh... haven’t said mine. What you said about immunity... you think that’s a possibility?”

“I do, for the first conspirator who comes forward and comes clean.”

He laughed, but it was humorless, more a cough. “Is that what I come to after all these years? Being a conspirator? Who do I go to, Mr. Harrow? Who do I talk to?”

“I’ll get someone from the state police,” he said, and did.

Because of his knowledge about the case, Harrow was asked by the state police not only to sit in on the interview, but to conduct it. It was irregular, but there was a moment that needed to be seized: right now, Colby Wilson wanted to talk, and he didn’t ask for a lawyer to be present.

The interview was held in the Crime Seen! lab, since the state police did not under the circumstances wish to borrow facilities from the local authorities.

Colby Wilson said, “I was one of the guys in the car that night — Gibbons knew about it, but he wasn’t there.”

Harrow asked, “Who else was there?”

Wilson gave him three more names, all current Smith County deputies.

“Why kill Cathy Shelton and her boy? Doesn’t make sense, Colby.”

“We didn’t mean to.” He wasn’t able to look at Harrow. “It was an accident. We went there to scare them. Put the fear of God in ’em, or anyway the fear of Sheriff Brown. We shook her and slapped her around, broke some knickknacks, even some furniture... but she had this gun she got to, that we didn’t know about. When she aimed that thing at us, we didn’t have any choice. It was sort of like... self-defense.”

Sort of like, Harrow thought.

“And the kid had seen us...” The beefy deputy shrugged. “Things got out of hand.”

Harrow said nothing.

“At night, I close my eyes, and I see that kid,” Wilson said. “I didn’t shoot him myself! I didn’t do that! But I’ll never get past that.”

“Some things,” Harrow said, “you never do get past.”

Chapter Thirty-nine

The north-south highway turned out to be no rumor — the I-80–I-70 connector was due to start construction next year, and would be completed in less than three years, making the land Brown and his cronies owned worth tens of millions. Brown and his partners had also bought land in and between every small town along the route of the new highway. A major indoor mall and the United States museum in Lebanon were part of the master plan.

The show on the eighteenth had gone well, particularly a crowd-pleasing segment of Harrow and Laurene Chase on hand when a certain South American government, led by a president who “never missed” Crime Seen!, turned over a morose Daniel Brown to Interpol.

Jenny Blake had been surprised by how normal Brown looked — seventyish with a white beard and long hair, like somebody’s grandfather, not a monster at all. In profile, a little pudgy, he’d have made a good Santa Claus.

Now, on Monday afternoon, driving back to LA on the Crime Seen! bus, gliding across I-70 westbound, Jenny was with Pall, Anderson, Choi, and Carmen, watching satellite TV as Harrow did yet another in an endless parade of interviews.

If he’d gained national attention saving the President (and losing his family) and had become a reluctant star by getting his own crime-busting show, J.C. Harrow was in a galaxy of his own now. Many bad guys had been shot on national TV, but rarely a real one, by a real hero.

A backlash from gun control advocates was already well under way, and fringe types proclaimed (mostly online) that Shelton was either a hero or a victim. Not a hero certainly, Jenny thought, but a victim. Also a monster — as her friend Carmen could attest.

Valerie Jenkins, the missing bartender with the stray license plate, turned up in Omaha, Nebraska, with a new life that included another bartender gig and a trucker boyfriend she’d followed there.

But other loose ends would be much harder to tie up — twenty-some family killings that would challenge and bedevil law enforcement agencies all over the killer’s target-defaced map for months and even years to come.

On the screen, Carlos Moreno held the UBC microphone toward Harrow’s rugged movie-star features. Jenny wondered if Carmen wouldn’t rather be doing the interview herself; on the other hand, the reporter had declined a plane and requested that she ride back with the team.

Maybe we make her feel safe, Jenny thought.

Anyway, after her ordeal, Carmen could use a little downtime.

Moreno was asking Harrow, “How does it feel, getting an early pickup for a third season?”

“Gratifying,” Harrow said. “The team’s worked hard so far this season, but we never expected to wrap up our first case in three weeks. Still, we’ll have something special ready for November sweeps.”

Jenny shook her head. What could they possibly do to top their first three shows?

“You’d be considered a hero just for stopping Gabriel Shelton,” Moreno said. “Yet you’ve kept digging, working to put away the men who wronged the killer of your own family. Why would you do such a thing?”

Harrow paused. Then: “Shelton’s family were the first innocent victims. They deserved justice too. Also... he said something odd to me, that’s stayed with me — he said I’d ‘come to his rescue.’ Maybe in a way I did.”

Chris Anderson came up the aisle and plopped into the seat next to Jenny. They hadn’t dated or anything, but Carmen and Laurene might be right — Chris did seem to like her. He took her hand.

She shook free from him and said, “Not yet.”

“What?” Chris said in his lazy way. “I was just bein’ friendly.”

Out the windshield, Jenny saw what she’d been looking for since they left Lebanon — a sign that said WELCOME TO COLORADO.

Sitting back, smiling, Jenny took Chris’s hand in hers.

“Now it’s okay?” he asked, clearly bewildered.

“Sure.” Her smile widened. “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”