“No, C. C. Larsen did. When Gertie found him, she ran to C.C.’s to use the phone.”
“But C.C.’s house is a quarter of a mile from those rentals,” Claire said. Having lived here her whole life, she knew every street, every alley, every empty field and rental cabin. She’d searched them all, at some point, for her mother.
He adjusted his bag to redistribute the weight. “She didn’t want to go to another rental for fear of who might be there. You can understand.” Wrinkling his nose, he added, “C.C. and I watched ’em cart out the body.”
“This is terrible,” Vivian muttered, but she wasn’t really thinking about what she was saying. She was wondering if the panic intensifying her sadness over Pat’s death was justified or simply an echo of an earlier time.
“I tried to get a few more details from the sheriff, but…it was useless,” George said. “He told me he’s ‘investigating the incident’ and that he’ll know more later. He also said everything will be okay. But I don’t see how it can ever be okay for Gertie.”
The sheriff had answered without really answering. Vivian recognized his “cop-speak” because she’d heard it before. When her stepfather had been shot and killed, the investigators wouldn’t tell her or her family anything. Not knowing what was really going on had been almost as agonizing as learning that they were placing the blame on Virgil, her older brother, and prosecuting him, at eighteen, for murder.
“We’ve got a right to more information than that,” Claire complained. “It’s our community, too.”
George nodded. “I see those shows on TV. I know what can happen when a serial killer gets started. Psychopaths don’t quit till someone stops ’em. And this sounds like a psychopath to me. Who else would beat a man to death for no reason?”
“Do you think maybe some drug addict wanted Pat’s wallet and he wouldn’t give it up?” Vivian grasped at any feasible explanation, hoping the truth wasn’t what she feared.
“It’s possible, I suppose,” George replied. “C.C. told me that Gertie said his wallet was missing. But there was only about fifty bucks inside. Still, a bungled robbery would be better than a serial killer. Imagine someone like that Zodiac fella or—or BTK setting up shop here in the Chain of Lakes.”
Vivian couldn’t imagine it. That was the problem. Claire’s mother disappearing fifteen years ago was the only blemish on this town, and most folks believed she’d run off. Pineview, nestled so close to Crystal Lake, was picture-perfect. Safe. Close-knit. Stunningly beautiful. Untouched by the rest of the world. Apart from it, too. As George had said, Pineview didn’t even have cell-phone reception.
It did, however, have its first modern-day murder.
“The FBI would descend on us. The media, too.” George was expanding on his psychopath theory.
Claire checked the street, probably hoping to see her sister, Leanne, roll toward them in her motorized wheelchair. Crippled in a sledding accident when she was thirteen, Leanne drove it everywhere, even through the ruts on their road. “Maybe Chester over at the paper will get a letter from the killer, taunting Sheriff King.”
George staggered under the weight of his bag. “Or someone else will die.”
A real-estate agent beaten to death inside his own vacation rental spoke more of rage than a stalking type of murder, but Vivian didn’t say so. She preferred to fade into the background, didn’t want Claire or George to think she knew anything about the subject. No one here had any idea that her stepfather had been murdered, or that her brother had served fourteen years in prison before being exonerated. They had no idea of the problems that had started upon his release, either. Because all of that had happened to Laurel Hodges, not Vivian Stewart.
“If there’s a serial killer running around, the danger is far from over,” Claire said, but Vivian wasn’t so sure this perpetrator had killed just for the thrill of it. If the violent gang her brother had joined while he was in prison had caught up with her yet again, it could be that Pat had merely gotten in the way. Like that U.S. marshal in one of the places she’d been before. The Crew had slit his throat and left him bleeding out on the floor. They would’ve killed her, too, if not for—
She couldn’t even think of what had almost happened, because it involved her children. The men who belonged to The Crew were ruthless. They’d proven that, hadn’t they? They’d also proven that they could get hold of whatever information they wanted. Vivian was convinced that someone in the very agency charged with their protection had been talking. That was the only way The Crew could’ve found them before, when they were all living in D.C. So they’d left the witness protection program, assumed new identities yet again and separated. Other than Virgil, his wife, Peyton, and Rex, who lived in Buffalo, New York, no one knew where she was, not even their handler from WitSec who’d helped them relocate the first time. After all that, what more could she possibly do to keep her small family safe?
Should she have changed her children’s names, too? Because children were so difficult to trace—they didn’t sign up for credit cards or get jobs or do any of the other things that left a trail—she’d opted to keep their first names. They had a different last name, though, which they understood was because of her divorce. Her new first name, she’d told them, was because she liked it better. Even that had taken them a while to get used to.
“We need to look out for each other, report any strangers we see,” Claire said.
“But it’s tourist season,” George responded. “There’re always strangers this time of year, most of ’em young guys who’ve come to hunt or fish or canoe. And you know how rough some of ’em can look, with all their tattoos and body piercings.”
“Then we’ll have to keep an eye on all of them.” Claire glanced at Vivian, anticipating her full agreement, and did a double take. “Oh, my God! We’ve got to get you rinsed!”
She’d changed her hair. Drastically. Myles King noticed that right off. For one thing, she was now blonde. That suited her, but he didn’t know if he liked the cut; he couldn’t see Vivian clearly enough to tell. His neighbor waited just outside the dim yellow glow of his porch light as if she feared he might press her to come inside if she moved any closer. She always approached him as warily as she might a bear or some other dangerous animal.