The sole survivor of a heartbreaking family tragedy…

Claire Bowen, a haunted psychologist, devotes her life to helping troubled women rebuild theirs. But her dream of a family with her new husband, Robert, a pilot and local hero, begins to crumble as disturbing revelations from his past emerge.

And a grieving cop who lures a killer from the shadows…

Detective Joe Tanner, struggling to overcome his wife’s death while raising their little girl alone, heads the task force formed to stop the monster who has resurfaced with a chilling message.

Race the clock in a life-and-death struggle to save the next victim…

In the wake of five cold-case murders across Los Angeles, one of Claire’s most promising patients vanishes. Gut instinct tells Tanner the truth is within his grasp, while Claire is torn between guilt and terror over what’s to come. As time runs out, both are pulled deeper and deeper into an unspeakable darkness.

Praise for the novels of Rick Mofina

THEY DISAPPEARED

“Mofina is one of the best thriller writers in the business.”

—Library Journal (starred review)

“You’ll love this. The story...is told at a nearly frenetic pace that just might turn you into a speed reader. So settle in, you won’t be able to put this book down till the last page.”

—RT Book Reviews

THE BURNING EDGE

“Rick Mofina’s tense, taut writing makes every thriller

he writes an adrenaline-packed ride.”

—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author

“Mofina keeps you on the edge of your seat…

kept me up into the early morning hours—the plot is so well written that I could not put the book down!”

—www.readertoreader.com

IN DESPERATION

“A blisteringly paced story that cuts to the bone.

It left me ripping through pages deep into the night.”

—James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author

“A superbly written thriller.… Timely, tense and terrifying, this book is sure to be a big hit!”

—Brad Thor, #1 New York Times bestselling author

THE PANIC ZONE

“Taut pacing, rough action and jagged dialogue

feed a relentless pace.

The Panic Zone is written with sizzling intent.”

—Hamilton Spectator

VENGEANCE ROAD

“Vengeance Road is a thriller with no speed limit!

It’s a great read!”

—Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author

SIX SECONDS

“Six Seconds should be Rick Mofina’s breakout thriller.

It moves like a tornado.”

—James Patterson, New York Times bestselling author

Into the Dark

Rick Mofina

www.mirabooks.co.uk

This book is for Carsten Stroud,

a wise master who showed me the way.

This is an evil among all things that are done

under the sun, that there is one event unto all:

yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil,

and madness is in their heart while they live,

and after that they go to the dead.

—Ecclesiastes 9:3

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Acknowledgments & Note

1

Temple City, California,

2007

It started with the neighbors’ dog.

Tucker, the Bradfords’ cocker spaniel, was barking, but Ruth Peterson, who lived next door, paid no attention to him as she got ready to run errands. Her thoughts were on the new shoes she needed for her son’s graduation from Berkeley in two weeks. Then, moving through her home, she glimpsed Tucker in the Bradfords’ yard.

That’s odd. Why doesn’t Bonnie see to him?

Ruth dismissed it, but as she collected her purse and keys, the barking made her wonder for a few seconds. Tucker was a good dog, friendly, and Bonnie Bradford’s kids, Jimmy and Jessie, adored him. Ruth never heard a peep out of him, certainly not at night.

In her driveway, Ruth reached for her car door but hesitated.

Tucker’s barking was stronger now as it rose from the backyard.

Ruth took stock of the Bradfords’ neat ranch-style house and bit her bottom lip. She hated to disturb Bonnie, not when she was trying to meet a deadline for her latest screenplay. Bonnie’s ex, the building contractor, had the kids with him in Thousand Oaks for a week and she was using the time to finish her script. At least that’s what she’d told Ruth when they’d chatted over the fence the other night.

Still, Ruth grew concerned at Tucker’s continual barking.

After giving it a moment, she walked over to Bonnie’s front door and rang the bell. Nothing happened. Not a hint of movement inside. Bonnie’s car was in the driveway.

She had to be home.

Ruth went around to the back, where Tucker greeted her on the patio with more barking before entering the house through his little dog door. It squeaked a few times, swinging in his wake.

Ruth knocked.

Nothing happened, other than Tucker resuming his barking, now with an eerie echo as if the house were vacant. Ruth knocked again harder, but this time when she struck the door, it opened, startling her.

Strange.

Catching her breath, she gripped the handle firmly and poked her head inside the entrance to the kitchen.

“Bonnie! It’s Ruth Peterson, is everything okay?”

Tucker emerged, barking in the silence.

Unease swirled in Ruth’s mind.

Maybe Bonnie’s slept in, or left her house with a friend, or forgot to lock the door, or she’s listening to music with headphones...

“Bonnie!”

Ruth stepped into the kitchen and took quick inventory. She saw nothing on the table or counter, no dishes in the sink. The stove was switched off. Nothing was on. Nothing seemed awry, except for the dog.

She lowered herself, and Tucker rushed into her arms.

“Goodness, you’re trembling.”

His barking evolved into a mournful yelping, then he squirmed until she set him down and watched him trot down the hallway still barking.

Ruth followed him.

She was familiar with the house. Bonnie had invited her over for tea several times and they got along well. Scanning the family room and living room, she saw nothing that looked out of place.

The air was still.

Ruth called out for Bonnie again as she walked along the hall.

The children’s rooms with their movie and pop-star posters were empty, their beds were made and all toys were in place. A wide-eyed teddy bear, its mouth a permanent O, stared at her from Jessie’s bed.

Ruth moved down the hall and stood at the entrance to Bonnie’s small office. Sunlight flooded the room. Pages of script were spread over her desk and credenza. Next to her computer keyboard: a ceramic mug, half-filled with tea, with World’s Greatest Mom emblazoned on it.

The desk lamp was still on.

Looks like Bonnie stepped away briefly from her work.

As Ruth moved toward Bonnie’s bedroom, she detected an unusual smell. The light, pleasant citrus fragrance of Bonnie’s house now contended with a coppery metallic odor.

Tucker stood at the entrance to Bonnie’s bedroom, barking as if alarmed by—or terrified of—what was inside.

When Ruth looked, her immediate thought was a question: Who made this awful mess in Bonnie’s bed? She could not believe her eyes.

Ruth didn’t remember screaming or racing from the house to the front yard. She never recalled Len Blake, the retired firefighter two doors down, dropping his garden hose and leaving it running as he rushed to her aid. Ruth had no memory of telling him over and over that she needed to get to the mall to buy shoes.

All Ruth remembered was that if he’d stopped holding her, she would surely have fallen off the face of the earth.

In the whirlwind that followed there were police, TV crews, the yellow tape sealing the house as stunned neighbors watched the moon-suited investigators come and go.

Then the detectives came with their questions.

For nearly two weeks the gruesome murder of a single mother in her middle-class suburban home remained one of L.A.’s top news stories. Pictures of the pretty screenwriter accompanied every report.

Ross Corbett, Bonnie’s ex-husband, seemed devastated at her funeral.

Detectives traced her final movements in an intense effort to find a lead in the case. But they had no solid physical evidence and no suspects. Bonnie Bradford had no enemies, no debts and no unusual lifestyle networks. She lived an ordinary life and was loved by everyone who knew her.

Detectives compared her murder with other cases, looking for links, a pattern, anything. Nothing emerged. They set up a tip line, appealed to the public for help, but as weeks became months, Bonnie’s death remained enveloped in mystery.

Her children never returned to their home in Temple City. Eventually the Bradford property was sold and Jessie and Jimmy moved in with their father. Ruth Peterson and her husband sold their home and moved to the Bay Area to be closer to their son.

After the first year passed, the Los Angeles Times published an anniversary feature on the unsolved murder. Investigators, hopeful that it might jar someone’s memory and yield a tip, were disappointed.

In the years that followed, the primary detective on the case retired. Eight months later, his partner died of a heart attack.

The case grew colder.

It looked like Bonnie Bradford’s killer had gone free.

2

Commerce, California

The image on the computer screen resembled a child’s crude painting of an outstretched hand.

Ghostly and somewhat grotesque: five misshapen fingerprints stood out from five reddish-brownish rivers that meandered amid smudges down the white page.

It was feathered amid the kid art, the take-out menus, a calendar, notes, business cards, a snapshot of mother, daughter and son beaming at the Santa Monica Pier, all pinned to the family bulletin board in the kitchen.

Typical of a young, happy family, Detective Joe Tanner thought.

It was getting late. He was expecting a call at any moment. While he waited he went back to his work.

The board stood in innocent juxtaposition to the outrage down the hall. Down the hall is where a neighbor had discovered the body of Bonnie Catherine Bradford in the bedroom of her home in Temple City, nearly six years ago.

Bradford, a thirty-four-year-old divorced mother of two children, had been tied spread-eagled to her bed and—well, the crime scene photos illustrated what the killer had done. Tanner clicked his mouse, opening more photos on his computer monitor.

The walls, the bed, “frenzied overkill,” one of the reports said.

It didn’t matter how many times he’d looked at the pictures in the past few weeks, Tanner still seethed at the fact that whoever did this in 2007 had gotten away with it.

The Bradford killing had now fallen to Tanner and the detectives with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Cold Case Unit. It was among the hundreds of other cases they oversaw. And in that time a few tips had surfaced: people heard talk on the street, in a bar or a jail cell, but ultimately all of them dead-ended.

Even as leads turned cold, the Bradford case, like the others, was always there, calling out to be solved. But no matter how frustrating it was for cold case investigators, it was brutal for the survivors who called or wrote, struggling to make sure the death of their loved one would never be forgotten, that one day, justice would be done.

Bonnie Bradford’s ex-husband, Ross Corbett, who’d long been cleared as a suspect, called Tanner on anniversary days, the day they were married, the day Bonnie was murdered or Bonnie’s birthday.

“We had our troubles, but I always loved her,” he’d say as Tanner listened with sincere compassion. “Are you any closer? Is there anything I can do to help?” Corbett always asked the same thing.

But it was Corbett’s last call, some three weeks ago, that hit a nerve. He’d told Tanner how the kids at his son’s school had said that the cops were never going to find the guy who killed Jimmy’s mom.

Tanner knew better than anyone that there were certain types of killers you couldn’t stop—like the one who took my wife—but the one who murdered Bonnie Bradford was not one of them.

This case was solvable and it was his duty to clear it.

The question was: How?

After Corbett’s call, Tanner and his partner, Harvey Zurn, set out once more to take another, “fresh” look at the case by first pulling out the thick accordion files. They also delved into the unit’s database for the computerized files of the Bradford case and reviewed all the witness statements given by those who knew or had any dealings with Bonnie in the weeks before her death. They went through files and reports going back in the last year of her life. They consulted file notes about her habits, hobbies, the patterns of her life, who she had contact with. They called up people and re-interviewed them, even challenged the validity of statements that seemed questionable.

Tanner followed the creed of a long-retired detective who’d told him that in most cases, the key you need is right in front of you.

And something surfaced.

Tanner had been examining the crime scene photos, doing his neo-Sherlockian best enlarging them on his computer screen. The victim’s hands and fingers were bloodstained owing to defensive wounds, the reports had noted.

Studying a file of photos the scene people had taken of the rest of the home, he’d come across a family bulletin board in the kitchen, plastered with a calendar, business cards, notes and works of kid art. In the Bradford collection he saw a colored pencil drawing of a cat, another one of sunflowers, a single page with a handprint in paint and then a small paint-by-numbers of dolphins.

The handprint.

Something about it struck Tanner as odd. Call it instinct, or a gut feeling but it just seemed out of place, even though it was neatly overlapped by the children’s work.

Where did that handprint come from? The inventory sheets indicated that while appointment notes from the calendar were followed up on, nothing from the bulletin board had been processed. Where was that handprint now?

Tanner called Ross Corbett.

“We need to see the artwork from the bulletin board that was in the kitchen. I hope you didn’t throw it out?” Tanner asked him.

“No, we had a moving company collect most things and move them into storage,” Corbett said. “We wouldn’t have even looked at what was on that board, we were too traumatized.”

No one at the time had noticed anything different about the bulletin board.

Corbett volunteered to let Tanner and Zurn accompany him as he retrieved the artwork from the bulletin board. The drawings were stored in a file folder and were in good condition.

Jimmy Bradford, who was now thirteen, shook his head when Tanner and Zurn had asked him if he had made the handprint.

“Nope, I didn’t make it. I would’ve remembered.”

Jimmy’s eleven-year-old sister, Jessie, hadn’t made it.

“I drew the cat and the flowers. Jimmy made the dolphin picture,” she said. “I never saw that hand thing before.”

Tanner and Zurn had sent the handprint to the crime lab for analysis days ago. Charlene Podden, a forensic technician, alerted Tanner that morning that she’d have a preliminary report to him by five today.

The waiting started gnawing at him because it underscored that this potential evidence should’ve been analyzed at the time of the murder but wasn’t. At 5:41 his landline rang at his desk.

“It’s Charlene at the lab. I’m sorry for the delay, Joe.”

“You find anything on that handprint?”

“This is just a preliminary, okay? We need to do more work.”

“More work? Charlene this case has been cold for six years. Tell me how come this stuff was not processed six years ago.”

“Maybe it was overlooked. Maybe somebody made an assumption, or lost a report. Look, I honestly don’t know. It was before my time.”

“Okay, forget it. Let’s get to work. What can you tell me?”

“The drawing was produced with blood, human blood.”

“The victim’s blood?”

“Some of it.”

“Some?”

“And there are latents,” Podden added, “but they have to be processed, Joe, so give us time to get to that.”

“Are they good?”

“Yes, and there’s more.”

Tanner pressed his phone harder to his ear.

“There’s something under the largest, darkest smudge, something the artist intentionally covered or concealed on purpose—a message in tiny letters, likely scratched using the tip of a pencil.”

“What does it say?”

“‘I’m just getting started.’”

3

Alhambra, California

He’d been patient.

Hiding so long in the house where he’d been watching her, studying her.

His heart thundered against the bones of his rib cage. He inched toward her without making a sound until he stood over her bed as she slept

Skin tingling with excitement he fought the urge to look at himself in her mirror.

He’d taken such loving care preparing for tonight.

His face was coated in thick white makeup so bright it glowed, like some evil Kabuki force. A swath of red smeared in a downward curve across his mouth. His cheeks were a maelstrom of theatrical cuts and scars, while large smudge pools of black accentuated his hollow eyes, his left one wept a trail of painted teardrops.

He was naked.

Now, here he was, standing over her.

Watching her.

He owned her.

Amber Pratt: She was a lonely secretary, an abused, heartbroken woman.

She was prey.

He knelt beside her, drawing his face near enough to drink in her breath, his aching to touch her as silent as the flicking of a snake’s tongue.

Do it now.

As he stood to take action, an inexplicable spear of doubt pierced him.

It felt so painful he wavered.

Suddenly Amber stirred, moaning and rolling over.

No, it was not right. Not yet.

He sank back into the darkness and disappeared into the night.

4

Los Angeles, California

As Claire Bowen sat at the wheel of her car on Wilshire Boulevard waiting for the light to change, she met the sweetest pair of eyes.

They belonged to the pigtailed little girl crossing the street with a woman who was pushing a stroller holding a sleeping baby. The woman must be the girl’s mother, Claire judged by the resemblance.

As the trio moved across the intersection in front of Claire, she guessed the girl to be about three. One of her tiny hands gripped the stroller. The other was clamped on the stuffed bunny tucked under her arm. Her pretty eyes were locked on Claire’s.

Claire gave her a small wave and a smile. The girl’s little fingers holding the bunny wiggle-waved back. The mother, who’d noticed, gazed down at her daughter with wearied joy.

Will I ever know that kind of love? Claire asked herself.

It was a bittersweet moment that hammered home the fact that time was running out for her.

All Dr. LaRoy’s office said was that he needed to see me this morning.

Claire knew that her chances of having a child decreased with each passing day. She was thirty-five and happily married to Robert Bowen, a pilot. She was a psychologist with a successful practice and a lot to be thankful for. But ever since she was confronted years ago with the probability that she would never have children, she felt something was slipping away. She had to hang on to the hope that things would work out.

She’d never give up.

Claire was a survivor.

A horn sounded behind her.

The light had turned green. As she continued driving, towering condo buildings rose before her. She had accepted that some things in this world were absolutes. We’re born, we die, and there is only so much in between that we can control. But she was unwilling to accept that she would never be a mother.

She had gotten pregnant three times, but in each instance she’d suffered a miscarriage. She had seen many doctors and had faced countless tests, examinations, procedures and treatments.

Nothing worked.

The specialists found complications linked to her failed pregnancies. But throughout her anguish she would not give up, even when the odds mounted against her.

Even when they’d nearly destroyed her.

Claire’s memory flashed to the frightening incident that had ended her first marriage a few years ago. She did not want to think about it now. One thing was certain: there was no telling what could’ve happened had Robert not been there that day, which had marked the beginning of her life with him. Unlike Cliff, her first husband, Robert never made her feel as if she was less of a woman or that her infertility was her fault.

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Robert said when she told him about it. “We’re in this together, Claire.”

Robert went through everything with her in their three years together—tests for him, new workups for her. Robert’s count and motility were fine. And while they sought new doctors, new experts for Claire, the reality was sobering. Aside from Claire’s problems, she knew the chances of miscarrying increased for women thirty-five and older; along with the risk of late-pregnancy complications.

As a psychologist Claire counseled herself to prepare to accept that nothing was working, that her feelings of emptiness, anger, guilt and depression were normal reactions. She’d struggled not to let her infertility dominate the good life they had built together.

But it was so hard.

The problem manifested itself every day, every time she saw a pregnant woman, or a mother pushing a stroller, every time someone in her circle announced a pregnancy, a baby shower, a birth, it was there, underscoring her isolation.

She had devoted herself to helping troubled women, women who’d been abused. She guided them through the tragedies in their lives, helped them recognize lifelines, repair the damage and take control. Because she was contending with her own secret sorrow, it made her better at her job.

Above everything, she counseled her patients to never, ever, lose sight of the possibility that things could get better.

For Claire, her latest grasp at hope now stood before her at the edge of the Wilshire Corridor in the shape of a gleaming ten-story complex and the offices of Dr. Marlen LaRoy.

He was one of California’s leading fertility experts—a pioneer specializing in controversial treatments. Claire had been seeing him for the past few months. In that time she’d undergone a series of procedures and examinations to determine if she was a candidate for a radical experimental treatment.

Claire had been surprised, and mildly annoyed, when his office called her this morning to make a sudden, unscheduled appointment without giving her a hint as to what it was about.

She steered her Toyota into a parking space, then reached for her phone. Making this appointment meant she had had to juggle sessions with her patients, which was a concern.

She called her assistant.

“Doctor Bowen’s office.”

“Hi, Alice, it’s Claire. How is everybody doing?”

“So far so good. Except for Amber Pratt.”

“Amber? I don’t see her until next week.”

“She said she’s anxious, feels like she’s being watched. She wants to push up her next session.”

“Okay, see what we can do. Thanks. Gotta go.”

Claire took a deep breath, then headed into the lobby and stepped into the elevator, hoping she could get back to her practice by eleven.

“Ms. Bowen.” The receptionist stood to greet her. “Thank you for coming. Our apologies for such short notice, but Dr. LaRoy has to fly to a conference in Dallas today and insisted on seeing you beforehand.”

The receptionist directed Claire to the doctor’s office.

LaRoy was standing at the window, talking on his cell phone, and indicated for her to take the chair across from his desk. LaRoy was a thickset fifty-nine-year-old New Yorker, who’d graduated from Harvard. He had white hair and an air of sweet, gentle grumpiness. He finished his call, took his seat.

“Hello, Claire. We’ve got some results. I need to show you something before we talk.”

LaRoy began pecking at his keyboard that faced two monitors. He swiveled one toward Claire and showed her a series of images and graphs. For the next several minutes he reviewed the goal of the previous tests and procedures Claire had undergone. As LaRoy went over every detail, pointing to the monitor and explaining other images, Claire felt her pulse quicken.

“This is all good, right?” she said.

“It’s very good. Claire, this means you are receptive to the new drug and new cycle therapy. I’ll need you to sign some paperwork and take some literature home and read it.”

“Then what?”

“We’ll start you in a few weeks.”

“And then?”

“Within a few months you’ll be pregnant.”

“I’ve been pregnant before.”

“Yes, but I’m quite confident that this time you’ll give birth to a healthy baby.”

Tears filled her eyes.

“Really?”

“We’ve checked your results carefully. All the indications are strong, Claire.” LaRoy passed her a tissue. “Really strong.”

5

Van Nuys, California

Pilot Robert Bowen eased the Gulfstream jet into the corporate hangar for ExecuGlide and cut its twin engines.

He liked the G200. It had a smart design and flew evenly no matter what the conditions were. Taxiing and landings were fluid.

God, how he loved to fly—loved the rush of power and control, to rise above everything on earth.

“That was a nice touchdown, Tim. Good to be home,” he said to his copilot, switching everything off and unbuckling his belts.

After bidding farewell to the eight TV producers they’d flown on a multi-city charter to Seattle, Vancouver and San Francisco, Bowen collected his bag and signed off on the flight. Heading for his SUV in the parking lot, he turned on his phone to text Claire, to let her know he’d returned.

A text from her was waiting for him.

Wishing you a safe landing. Dr. LaRoy’s office called me in this am. No appt—wouldn’t say why. Have to scramble. Good news maybe??? Talk later.

Love C.

Bowen responded.

Good landing. Good trip. Good luck with doc—any word?

He waited several minutes.

When no response came he figured Claire was driving, or with the doctor.

After placing his bag in the rear he got into his SUV. Nothing was out of place. No disturbed maps, take-out wrappers or filthy commuter cups. It was spotless, showroom clean and still smelled new. Bowen insisted on order. The leather seats squeaked as he buckled up. He flipped on the radio and listened to traffic conditions, then decided to take Ventura to the 101, rather than swinging over to the 5.

Joining the freeway traffic, he considered Claire’s text to him. He was hopeful her sudden call to see Dr. LaRoy would result in good news. How many times had they had their hopes raised only to be disappointed? It was not fair to Claire. It hurt him to see her anguish. She ached to have a baby, he wanted one, too, for her. It had cost them thousands, but he didn’t care. He loved her and would do anything for her. He didn’t want to lose what he had with her, the way he’d lost what he’d had with his first wife.

Cynthia.

Like Claire, Cynthia was beautiful and so giving. In his quieter moments he still thought of her. They had been so in love. At that time he was flying commercial, his schedule was brutal and he was rarely home. Cynthia began to change. She complained, grew jealous and started imagining terrible things.

It shouldn’t have ended the way it did, but they couldn’t continue and that was that. Why dwell on it? Sometimes, even after all these years, he’d felt something was unresolved and wished he could talk to Cynthia, to tell her he was sorry about the way it had turned out for them. But he had a new life now, a good life, and you can’t go back in time.

Bowen left Ventura and got on the 101 southbound. There was more traffic, but it was moving at a good speed. He’d gone less than half a mile when something blue rocketed by in the left lane, startling him.

He cursed.

The thing must’ve been doing one-thirty. Looked like a pickup truck. He couldn’t tell the model as it knifed through the lanes ahead, leaving a wake of brake lights and angry horns.

That idiot’s going to kill somebody.

The distraction passed, and with it, Cynthia faded from his mind.

He repositioned his grip on the wheel, maintained a safe speed as his thoughts had drifted back to the first time he’d met Claire. The scene with her and her husband. Bowen shook his head slowly until the images of that day dissipated. Since that time all he’d wanted to do was protect Claire, let nothing hurt her again. But how do I protect her from heartbreak—from forces that are beyond my control?

He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. He was forty-five, and some days he couldn’t see what Claire told him she’d seen and liked: The small crinkles around his eyes, his chiseled jaw, his thick salt-and-pepper hair. He was six-one, about one-eighty. His workouts gave him an athletic build. But he didn’t see the strong, decisive, capable, kind man that Claire saw. He saw a man who’d failed too many times, a man constantly at war with himself, a man unworthy of her.

At times he would steal glimpses of her when they were at home, or while he waited for her at her office. He liked how her hair curtained over her eyes when she studied her notes, or the way she slid her small silver cross back and forth on her necklace chain when she was on the phone with a patient. She was devoted to them—compassionate and caring, never allowing her own heartache to interfere.

He didn’t deserve her.

As he drove, Bowen massaged his temple. A million things rushed through his head. He was tired from the flight and stressed over those rumors of looming cutbacks at the company.

He couldn’t go back to commercial. He couldn’t face those hours again and that kind of strain at home. He just couldn’t. Look at the toll it had taken with Cynthia. He couldn’t go through that with Claire.

But that was the least of his worries.

There was more, much more.

The darkness is back, stirring again.

It had been triggered by Claire when she started taking serious steps to have a baby, because in a corner of his heart he knew that would change everything.

The darkness is taking over. Sometimes at night, I feel I—

The chaos of horns and screeching tires jerked his concentration to the freeway where traffic ahead had come to a standstill.

6

Los Angeles, California

Robert stopped and got out of his SUV, joining other drivers craning their necks at the heaps of mangled metal several car lengths away.

A boy, about twelve, staggered between the stopped cars toward him. The kid’s face glistened with crimson scrapes. His T-shirt with a T-Rex on it was torn, smeared with blood. Somewhere a woman was screaming.

“Por favor ayuda!” The boy’s eyes, wide with shock, found Bowen’s and he switched to English. “My mother, my sister, please, mister, they will die. Please save them!”

Robert’s mind raced.

“Por favor ayuda!” the boy pleaded again before he collapsed into the arms of a well-dressed woman who’d stepped from a Mercedes. She wrapped her Realtor’s jacket around him as he sobbed, “Please! My mother...my sister...they’ll die. Please, mister!”

Bowen tore off his tie and ran to the carnage.

Some motorists were calling 9-1-1 while others, uncertain what to do, stood helpless. Black smoke now curled from the wreckage.

Bowen counted three vehicles: a pickup that appeared to be a landscaper’s truck was turned around, its front smashed and air bags depleted. Mowers, tillers, tools and supplies were scattered. He saw a small green car that had flipped onto its roof. Then he saw a van; it was on its side with its hood folded open and its engine on fire. A man was climbing out of the van’s driver’s side. Blood oozed from his mouth as he gritted in pain. Bowen got hold of his arm and got him to the ground.

“I’ve got a first aid kit,” said a motorist wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt who’d stepped forward to help.

When Bowen turned to the inverted car, something splashed at his feet. He looked down to a widening puddle with the telltale rainbow film and smelled the fumes. Fuel cans from the landscaper’s truck had ruptured, spilling gasoline everywhere around the overturned car, pooling in spots. Bowen glanced at the flames licking from the van’s engine a few feet from the car.

The fire was growing.

His stomach lurched. He saw a hand reaching from the car and heard a woman crying softly as someone shouted at him, “Get out of there, man! There’s too much gas, it’s going to blow! Back off! Get out!”

He ignored the warning and hurried to the driver’s side of the car. He dropped to his hands and knees. Everything had been unfolding with dizzying speed, but it slowed the instant he saw the woman.

She was upside down. Her hands and arms hung to the ground. The air bags had deployed. She was still belted to her seat and pleading weakly.

“Please, save my baby.”

Bowen’s attention moved beyond the woman to the back. He saw the child, about a-year-and-a-half-old, upside down, strapped in its car seat, little arms hanging down.

“Please,” the woman cried.

In a surreal moment Bowen saw how the gasoline now seeped into areas of the car. Then he noticed among bags of clothes, boxes of cereal and cans of soup, a leather-bound bible. It had splayed open, a light wind lifting the pages.

The blood rush in his ears pounded him into a trancelike state.

He found himself looking into the woman’s terrified eyes.

He swelled with pleasure, his ears rang and an ancient, familiar, evil erupted inside him.

Let her die.

I hold this woman’s life, and that of her child, in my hands, the power over life and death, the power to rise above everything on earth.

Go ahead and plead.

I love it.

I am the beginning and I am the end.

I’m going to let you die. Your baby, too. I’ll watch you die.

“I’m sorry,” Bowen said. “I can’t reach you. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes bulged. Her fear excited him, pushing his sensual gratification to a new level.

“Please!” she gasped.

Keep begging. Beg me for your life.

She coughed. Her voice was fading.

“Please, I beg you, please! God, someone, please save us!”

The break in her voice connected with Bowen, telling him he could not let this happen. He closed his eyes, battling himself for control as the woman’s cries slowly pulled him out of his trance and back into the chaos.

“Okay,” Bowen said. “Okay, ma’am, I’m going to get you out.”

He maneuvered his upper body deeper into the car and, while on his knees, reached up, feeling for and finding the woman’s seat belt buckle.

“Can you get your arms around my neck?” he said.

He felt her lock her arms around him, felt her trembling, she smelled of soap and sweat and was nearly choking him as he tried to depress the button to release the belt. The woman’s full downward weight had created pressure and the button refused to depress.

Bowen tried but it wouldn’t move.

Panicked motorists were shouting.

“Get out now!”

“It’s going to go up—get out!”

He glimpsed the flames horribly large and nearing the gas pools that patched their way to the car. He reached deep into himself and with every bit of strength he had in him he lifted the woman’s weight upward, taking pressure off of the belt while depressing the button with every fiber of strength he had until he heard: click.

The belt released.

The woman slid down onto him and he immediately dragged her out of the car where helping hands seized both of them.

“My baby!”

Bowen shook off the people pulling him to safety and crawled back into the car for the child.

“No, don’t do it!” Someone shouted. “It’s too late!”

The fire had now grown large enough for Bowen to hear its roar as he scrambled inside to the baby’s seat. He shifted his body, relieved to hear the child crying. He reached up, fumbled for the buckle and button, and lifted the child to ease weight from the buckle.

Click.

He got it.

Taking a deep breath, he disentangled the baby from the car seat. He started snaking backward with the child at his chest. He’d just gotten his legs out the window when someone screamed—

“Oh, my God!”

He turned to see the flames lapping the gasoline pools, felt the air spasm as the pools ignited in a chain reaction creating a blinding, churning wall of fire that swallowed them.

7

Los Angeles, California

Claire Bowen was unsure her feet even touched the ground as she left the building and got into her car. She cupped her hands to her face.

I have to tell Robert.

Glancing at the time, she reached for her cell phone and read his response to her earlier text to him.

Good landing. Good trip. Good luck with doc—any word?

Great, he’s back, she thought, her fingers blurring as she texted him.

Can you call me now!!!

As the minutes passed, she scanned the literature about ovulation. Not much there she didn’t already know. She glanced at her phone. Unless Robert was stuck in traffic or couldn’t pull over, he was usually pretty quick at getting back to her. Two minutes passed, then three.

While waiting, Claire revisited a small concern. Over the past few weeks he seemed to have become a little withdrawn, as if wrestling with something. Whenever she’d asked him about it, he’d tell her that he was merely lost in his thoughts, leaving her to wonder if everything really was okay with him.

Claire checked the time. Too excited to wait, she pressed her cell’s keypad for his number. The phone rang twice before a woman answered.

“I’m sorry,” Claire said. “I’ve misdialed.”

“This is Robert Bowen’s phone,” a woman said. “Who’s calling?”

What the heck?

“I’m Claire Bowen, his wife. And who are you?”

“Mrs. Bowen, I’m a nurse at Pacific Breeze Memorial Hospital. I just called your office. Your husband’s just been brought in—”

“Brought in? What for? What happened?”

“He’s been involved in a car accident—he’s—”

“A car accident? Is he hurt? Can you put him on the phone now, please?”

Claire could hear the hospital’s loudspeaker system echoing in the background.

“I can’t. He’s with the E.R. doctor, Mrs. Bowen—” Claire fished out her keys and turned the ignition as the nurse continued. “All I can tell you at this point is that he does not appear to have any serious injuries.”

“You’ve seen him? You’re certain?”

“Yes, I’m in the E.R. He’s been brought in for observation. It’s just happened now. We’ve got a number of trauma patients.”

Claire keyed the hospital’s name into her GPS. She could be there in twenty-five minutes, less if the traffic was good.

“Please tell him I’m on my way.”

“Certainly, Mrs. Bowen.”

“Wait, what’s your name?”

“Lilly Springer.”

“I’ll ask for you at the desk.”

When Claire ended the call, her phone rang.

“Claire, it’s Alice.” Alarm sounded in her voice. “The Pacific Breeze hospital just called about Robert and a car accident.”

“I know. I just spoke with the E.R. nurse. She said he’s okay.”

“Oh, thank heaven.”

“I’m on my way to the hospital.”

“Okay, want me to clear your schedule for the rest of the day? You have a couple of hours until your next patient.”

“Don’t move anything yet. I’ll have a better idea after I get to the hospital. I’ll call.”

Driving through the city, Claire took a few deep breaths to keep calm, never letting go of the nurse’s assurance that Robert was not hurt. But it ran counter to human nature not to worry and Claire would not be assured until she saw him, until she held him.

She thought of their last moment together a few days ago and remembered his cologne, the rustle of his crisp shirt and the brush of his lips on hers. She was still in bed and he’d bent down, lifted her hair and kissed her goodbye in the early morning before he’d left for this trip.

“I love you,” he’d whispered.

And now this.

This reminder of how life can change in an instant.

The web of our existence is a fragile thing.

Claire knew that too well from her own life and the lives of her patients—how dreams could be taken away or shattered. We’re on the threshold of becoming parents—a dream they had long been denied.

Arriving at the hospital, Claire saw four ambulances at the emergency entrance. Nearby she saw a number of police vehicles and TV news trucks. She hurried through the automatic doors. Half a dozen media people had gathered around a hospital official at one side of the lobby and were pressing her for information. Claire continued to the woman seated at the reception window. Behind her, two staff members stood as they worked at computer terminals.

“May I help you?”

“I’m here to see my husband, Robert Bowen. I’m Claire Bowen, his wife. I spoke on the phone to an E.R. nurse, Lilly Springer.”

The receptionist’s face registered recognition and she turned to the women behind her.

“Lil?”

One of the women stepped from the counter. She was fresh-scrubbed, with a ponytail and an upturned nose.

“Hello, Mrs. Bowen, I’m Lilly.” She nodded at the door to the right of the window and it buzzed. “Come through here, please.”

Antiseptic smells hung heavy in the air as they moved down the polished hallway. The nurse’s soft-soled shoes squeaked when they stopped at a small waiting room.

“Please have a seat, Mrs. Bowen. The doctor will be with you shortly.”

“How long before I see my husband? You said he was okay?”

“Yes, it should only be a few more minutes.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“The doctor should have more information.” The nurse smiled before leaving.

Claire took stock of the room—of its brown faux leather sofas and outdated copies of Time and People on wicker tables. Still tense from the drive and worry, she sat down and inhaled slowly. On the sofa facing her, a woman with a wrinkled face bowed her head to the rosary in her gnarled fingers. The beads clicked softly and her lips moved as she prayed. Sitting beside the woman was a younger man. His T-shirt, blue jeans and work boots were stained with blotches of paint. He looked as if he’d rushed here from a work site. He stared into the worn ball cap in his lap as if it held his past and his future.

They were the only people still in the room with Claire when a man arrived, wearing a white lab coat over blue scrubs and carrying a chart.

“Mrs. Bowen, here for Robert Bowen?”

“Yes.” Claire stood.

“Dr. Shaw.” He shook Claire’s hand. “We’ll talk in the room across the hall.” The room was smaller; the doctor left the door open indicating their conversation would be brief. Claire stood while he tapped a pen on the chart as he reviewed it.

“Your husband’s fine.” He kept reading.

“Can you tell me about his car accident?”

“As I understand it, he was not involved, but came upon it and helped rescue people. He was pulled away just as the wreckage exploded.”

“Dear God.”

“He’s lucky. He and the people he saved are fine. He’s got some abrasions and very mild shock, but he can go home. We’ll give you sedatives so he can rest at home. I’ll take you to him, then you can sign some papers for discharge.” He smiled.

“Thank you, Dr. Shaw.”

“And we understand there are some press folks who are interested in talking to him out front. That’s entirely up to him of course.”

They turned to leave but the doorway was blocked by the man who had been in the waiting room with Claire. He was holding his ball cap with both hands, slipping its rim through his paint-flecked fingers.

“Can I help you?” Dr. Shaw said.

“Please forgive me, but I overheard—” he nodded to Claire “—about your husband.” Claire shot a questioning glance to Dr. Shaw, but the man continued. His accented English was strong. “I am Ruben Montero. My son, Alex, he is eleven and he was in the accident with my wife and daughter. They were delivering donations to our church.”

“Yes,” Dr. Shaw said, recognizing the name. “Alex. He’s with Anne, Dr. Feldstein. Would you like me to see about him?”

“No, I’ve spoken to him. We’re going to see my wife and daughter soon. But Alex told me what this lady’s husband did for my wife, Maria, and our baby, Bonita.”

“Oh, yes. He must have helped get them to safety,” Claire said, surprised when Ruben Montero suddenly took her hand.

“He saved the lives of my family,” Claire felt Montero’s callused hand tighten on hers and looked into his face, close enough to notice his stubble. “For that, I thank him with every beat of my heart. Tell him for me.”

“I will, Mr. Montero.”

“You are blessed for having such a man for your husband. You are blessed because a man like this...a man like this, is rare.”

8

Los Angeles, California

Robert Bowen was alone.

He was sitting on the table of the examination room. The faint ringing in his ears had stopped. He stared at the large clock on the wall above the eye chart and scales. Outside the closed door he heard the loudspeaker’s muffled dispatches over the bustle in the hall while here, in the quiet, he listened to the whir of the clock’s movement.

It was only a moment ago that he’d held the baby...

...then hands grasp his legs, drag them from the car...clear, the explosion, lift the wreckage, rattle the debris, the flames, heat, hands drag them...the ensuing mayhem, the baby’s cries, the sirens, the paramedics: “Can you hear me, sir? We’re taking you to the hospital... The baby’s going to be okay!”

Everyone had survived, they’d told him, with no life-threatening injuries.

A miracle.

The clock’s minute hand swept time.

He was still shaky. His few scrapes had been cleaned and dressed. A nurse had said Claire was on her way.

The room smelled of rubbing alcohol and held a trace of gas. His white shirt, torn, streaked with road grime, along with his pants, was stuffed into a clear plastic bag in the corner. They’d given him a surgeon’s T-shirt and pants to get home in.

He stared at nothing, contemplating the last few moments. Adrenaline was still rippling through him. He massaged his temples, shut his eyes and again he was cast back to the accident.

An ominous wave rolled over him then suddenly...the hands that had grasped his legs became talons pulling him into the inferno, dragging him down, down, down, through the burning recesses, through the lava slime of every shame, to the breathing, heaving bubbling pit of every foul, cursed thought, every bestial urge. Every vile desire, until he came to... It calls to him now, demanding he answer: Why did you let the woman and her baby live?

Bowen said nothing.

No one knew the battle raging within him.

The soft buzzing of the clock’s movement filled the silence that passed.

He continued massaging his temples. For how long, he didn’t know. But he kept rubbing until his heart rate slowed, his breathing slowed, until he heard the clock, the subdued sounds of the loudspeaker and activity in the hallway as the door to his room swung open and Claire entered.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey.”

She hugged and kissed him.

“How are you doing?” She brushed his hair lightly, taking quick inventory of his scrapes.

“I’m fine, how about you?”

Tears filled her eyes as she nodded and smiled.

“Good. Let’s get you home.”

An administration staff member and a nurse helped Claire expedite Robert’s discharge. As they stepped out of the hospital, Claire saw Ruben Montero turn from talking with a half a dozen reporters.

“That’s him, with that lady, the man who saved my family.”

Microphones and bright TV lights collected around them.

“Sir, are you Robert Bowen?”

“Yes.”

“Carmen Chow, First Witness News,” said a woman in her twenties wearing heavy makeup. “Sir, this man says you saved his family. Do you consider yourself a hero?”

Bowen looked at Claire then at Carmen Chow.

“No, I just did what anyone would’ve done in the same situation.”

“We’re told a lot of people at the scene were afraid,” one reporter said.

“Not this man.” Ruben Montero beamed, taking Robert’s hand and shaking it. “This man is a good man, a great hero!”

A razor-thin line of unease cut behind Bowen’s smile.

He knew the truth.

9

Downey, California

Standing in the kitchen of his bungalow, Joe Tanner watched the old video playing on his cell phone of his wife, Rebecca.

“Hi, Joe. I’m feeling pretty good today, I almost think I can beat this, I—” She tried to smile from under the bandana covering the fine tufts that used to be her hair. “If I don’t beat this, just hug Sam today for me, okay.”

As she touched a tissue to the corners of her eyes, he traced her face on the screen with his finger.

“That’s it for this one, sorry,” she said.

The video ended.

It was among several hundred Becky had left him, and even though it had been two years, just seeing her and hearing her gave him comfort. It helped him through the hard days, like today. He was anxious about his meeting and what he was going to do about the big break in the Bradford case.

It’s what I have to do.

He checked the time on his phone. He was running late. He went to the fridge for milk and eggs, smiling at the watercolor flower framing a photograph of Becky, when she still had beautiful hair. This latest piece of art was created by Samantha Tanner, Age 6, according to the artist’s signature. It was titled “My Mommy,” and was fastened to the door with a banana magnet, next to Samantha’s paintings of a polar bear, a house—“Our House”—and a smiling stick man and smiling stick girl holding hands, titled “Daddy and Me.”

Tanner tucked his tie into his dress shirt, draped a dish towel over his shoulder and started scrambling eggs. While they cooked he went down the hall calling to his daughter.

“Come on, Sam! You’re going to be late for school!”

“I can’t find my socks, Dad!”

“Laundry room! Let’s go!”

Back in the kitchen he poured two glasses of orange juice and checked on the eggs. Then he flipped through yesterday’s mail: junk, a few bills and a letter from a local charity he’d supported after they’d lost Becky.

Dear Mr. Tanner:

As someone personally affected by the disease, we’re hoping we can once again count on your participation to make this year’s fundraising event...

Sure, he thought, he’d be there. He set the mail aside and checked the eggs when the phone rang. It was Kim, his sister.

“Joe, do I pick up Sam today, or tomorrow?” she asked while munching. Sounded like an apple.

“You know I hate it when you do that.”

“Do what? Help my little bro?”

“Chew in my ear, wiseass.”

“Somebody’s tense. So—” she kept chewing “—is it today?”

“Hang on.” He consulted the calendar on the fridge. The notation “Sam—dentist checkup” occupied the next day’s square.

“It’s tomorrow. Sign her out of school at one, and thanks.”

“Got it. Then I’ll take her shopping for new clothes, just us girls.”

Tanner wedged the phone to his ear and served eggs from the frying pan onto two plates, then made toast.

“Oh,” his sister added, “my friend Remmie is wondering if you’re ever going to call her?”

“Stop trying to fix me up.”

Everybody in his circle had a desire to see him paired, including his relic of a partner, Harvey Zurn. “I keep telling you Joe, you should meet my cousin Linda, recently divorced with a little boy. She’s ex-military, a good cook with a good figure.”

On the other end of the line, Tanner’s sister sighed.

“You need to meet some women, Joey.”

“I’m fine— Sam, breakfast! Listen, Kim, I love you for helping me and looking out for me but my new unit’s keeping me pretty busy. Don’t forget, tomorrow at one. Thanks, sis. Please finish eating before calling people. I love you. Bye.”

As he set the plates down, Samantha entered the kitchen and before getting into her chair, pulled up her pant legs to reveal one blue sock and one pink sock.

“See? Everybody’s doing it, Dad.”

She had Becky’s eyes and her curls. At times, he could hear her voice.

“You’re a weird little kid.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Eat up.”

Afterward, while Samantha brushed her teeth and her hair, Tanner went to his small study for his badge. He then opened his gun safe for his weapon, clipped on his hip holster and collected his files.

During the drive through North Downey to Samantha’s school, he stole glimpses of her in the rearview mirror, sitting in the backseat in her booster seat.

“So how are you doing today, Sam?”

“A-OK, Dad.”

“Anything on your mind? You said something was bugging you?”

“How much longer do I have to sit in this seat for babies?”

“Two more years.”

“Two years? That’s like forever!”

“Don’t be in too big a hurry to grow up.” He grinned.

When they arrived at the school drop-off zone, Samantha climbed out of her seat and the car. Then she appeared at his window, her backpack strapped on. She drew her face to his and he leaned out to hug and kiss her.

“Love you, Daddy.”

“Love you, kiddo.”

He watched her enter the school, thinking how much she was like Becky. Then he looked at the files on his passenger seat and the summaries of several unsolved homicides. The first had happened ten years ago.

A wave of sadness rolled over him.

He could measure his life against these cold cases.

He couldn’t stop his wife’s killer, no one could. His challenge now: Would he be able to find the monster behind these slayings? He didn’t know if this meeting and what he needed to do were smart moves. Given the issue of timing, dates and some long-shot theories, it looked like his only option.

He picked up the stack of folders and the note affixed to it.

Mark Harding

Reporter

AllNews Press Agency,

Los Angeles Bureau.

10

Commerce, California

“I’m Mark Harding, here to see Detective Joe Tanner.”

The receptionist at the Homicide Bureau of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department greeted him with a weak smile and a cool assessment.

Harding stood just over five and half feet tall and was sensitive to his height and slight overbite.

“Good morning, Mark. And you’re with...”

“I’m a reporter with the AllNews Press Agency.”

Charmed, her smile broadened. “Are you British?”

“Yes.”

“I love your accent.”

The receptionist typed on her keyboard, spoke softly into her headset then looked to Harding. “You’re a bit early. Please have a seat. Detective Tanner will be here shortly.”

The lobby’s cushioned chair gave a vinyl squeak as Harding pondered how he’d come to be here to see Tanner. He didn’t know the guy and had never heard of him until a few days ago when Tanner called him.

“We understand you’ve been inquiring about doing a feature on homicides for your newswire service. Would you be interested in talking about some older, unsolved murders?” the detective had asked.

Tanner had been cryptic during the brief call, declining to get into details over the phone. Still, Harding had said yes because any reporter worth a damn knows that when a homicide cop invites you to a meeting, you don’t say no. At the very least, he might leave with a new source.

God knows I need new sources and a kick-ass story.

He’d been working at the L.A. bureau for a few months, but in that time the pressure to break a major exclusive was mounting. Since he’d relocated back to California, he hadn’t hit anything out of the park.

You blink and nearly all of your life goes by.

Harding was thirty-seven and grew up in Birmingham. He’d worked for several tabloids in London before getting a green card and landing a job with the Los Angeles bureau of Rumored Today, a despised but top-selling U.S. supermarket tabloid.

If reporters failed to break huge, shocking stories, they were fired. Harding hated every bit of it and got the chance to leave the sleaze behind when he broke a huge story about corruption in Hollywood. It resulted in a job with the AllNews Press Agency, the global wire service, first at its head office in New York.

Then Harding was forced to go to the dreaded Los Angeles Bureau, where he was expected to deliver huge stories.

So here I am in L.A., months without scoring a big story.

Harding rubbed his chin.

He had the idea of trying to pull off an exclusive, looking into homicides for any new breaks. In the past couple of weeks he’d put in calls, even sent letters with his card, to the LAPD, L.A. County, the FBI fishing for leads.

Nothing happened until now, when he got a call from Tanner.

Harding had to land a good story.

Sure, other people had it harder and he’d faced worse. He was reflecting on a few of the tense moments he’d had on assignments over the years when something vibrated near his heart.

He reached into his jacket for his phone and checked his messages. He had an urgent one from his boss, Magdalena Pierce, the L.A. Bureau Chief. She’d told him earlier that she disdained gritty crime stories and was reluctant to give him the morning for this meeting with an L.A. County detective. Her new text said:

We’ve just learned that a studio is under investigation for tax evasion. We need you here, pronto.

Harding rolled his eyes. Same old, same old. Magda just didn’t get it.

“Excuse me, Mark Harding?”

“Yes.”

He put his phone away, shook hands with a man he’d pegged at his age but about six feet. He was wearing a crisp shirt, tie, sidearm.

“Joe Tanner. Thanks for coming. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Sure. Look,” Harding said, “forgive me, I don’t mean to sound rude, but my bureau chief’s yanking my chain. Could we do this another time?”

“You have to go? You just got here.”

“Yes, I apologize.”

“I see.” Tanner was taken aback. “I’m sorry to hear that. Well, I suppose I could always call the Associated Press or Reuters.”

No, Harding could not let that happen.

“Hold on, wait. Can you give me a bit more so I can get my editor off my back, something to convince her this is more than a local Crime Stoppers type of cold case, something that holds national interest?”

“This concerns a number of homicides,” Tanner said.

“Homicides? Plural?”

“That’s correct and only one other person outside this building knows what I’m going to tell you.”

“Who’s that?”

“The person who committed them.”

“Jesus,” Harding said. “Let me call my desk.”

11

Commerce, California

Tanner escorted Harding beyond the homicide squad bay to the Cold Case Unit and a staff kitchen that was heavy with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

“How do you take yours?”

“A little of both,” Harding said. “I’m curious. Why did you decide to call me?”

“You showed some initiative with your letter, looking to do something on homicides. And I needed to be sure I went to the right guy for this.”

“How am I the right guy?”

“We needed to go to a wire service, because their stories go everywhere. I needed someone I could trust.”

“How did you decide that?”

“I remembered you from way back with the Hollywood Washington corruption story when you were with that awful rag, Rumored Today.”

Harding had uncovered corruption and bribery between production companies, some owned by Hollywood’s biggest stars and lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

His solid reporting had forced the national mainstream media to follow and credit Rumored Today. As the pressure for an investigation mounted, one angry superstar implicated in the scandal used a film premiere to humiliate Harding during a press conference where he was surrounded by reporters who were ignoring publicists’ demands they only talk about the new movie.

The enraged star singled out Harding.

“There’s the little sewer-dweller. Look at the tiny troll.” The star, who was over half a foot taller, stepped closer to tower over him. “Your stories are crap, Harding. Garbage. And when this is over, I’ll still have enough money for a thousand lifetimes, but as long as you live—” the star patted the top of Harding’s head as if he were a lapdog “—people will look down on you. You should get those teeth fixed, buddy.”

Embarrassed, Harding kept his cool while the star was globally chastised online and on news shows. Harding’s reporting led to a federal investigation. Several people were charged, convicted and jailed and the star who had demeaned Harding narrowly missed being charged and going to prison for his role in the corruption scheme.

“I knew some of the investigators on that one,” Tanner said. “You stood your ground with egocentric stars.” He handed Harding a mug of coffee that had a bulldog insignia on it. “You’ve sure gotten around over the years. How long you been back in L.A.?”

“A few months.”

Harding stared into his coffee for a few seconds.

Tanner let a moment pass before saying, “Let’s get started.”

He led Harding down the hall to an empty squad room.

“This is my partner, Harvey Zurn.”

Zurn was in his late fifties and had the warmth of a ball-peen hammer. Harding offered his hand and Zurn crushed it in his. His dark eyes burned into Harding over a thick dark moustache. The room’s blinds were drawn, dimming the light. Updates on a handful of murders written in a felt-tip pen ran across the board on one wall. Faces of the dead stared down from photographs. A laptop sat on a table, a large screen hung over the far wall.

“As I was saying earlier, we discovered some disturbing elements in several homicides and we want to reach out to the public, through a story by you,” Tanner said.

“What did you find?”

“I’ll get to that. We’re dealing with five specific unsolved homicides throughout greater Los Angeles, going back six to ten years. Find a seat. I’ll give you an overview.” Tanner settled at the laptop. “The first victim...”

A key clicked and the screen filled with the title One over a clear color photo taken in a wooded area. The corpse of a naked white woman rested on the tall grass, with her hands bound behind her back and a cord stretching from there to wrap around her neck. A clear plastic bag covered her head.

“Leeza Meadows. Age twenty-one. A birdwatcher found her body November 9, 2003, at the edge of Santa Clarita. She had been sexually assaulted, among other things, as you can see here.”

The screen filled with an enlarged photo of her head. Harding stared, blinked a few times then started making notes as Tanner continued.

“She was last seen leaving her job at the Misty Nights Bar & Grill. Leeza never went anywhere without her cell phone. It was not found at the scene. Two weeks after her body was discovered, someone used Leeza’s cell phone to call her home. Her father answered. The caller never spoke but her father insisted someone was on the line, refusing to answer his questions. Investigators determined the call was made from downtown L.A., but that’s as far as they got. No other calls were ever made on the phone, which is still missing along with a second item.”

“Which is?”

“We’re not saying. That item is holdback, a key fact known only to a few investigators and the killer.”

“Do you suspect it was the killer who called?”

“That’s one theory,” Zurn said.

Tanner’s laptop displayed another victim’s image, labeled Two, which showed a woman’s naked torso, on its back, in a shallow grave.

“August 11, 2004, during some construction work for a new subdivision in Topanga, a grader flattening the ground unearthed the body of Esther Fatima Lopez, age twenty-nine. She had been sexually assaulted and her throat had been slashed. She’d worked for an escort agency.”

A new photo titled Three showing a winding nature trail appeared on the screen. The image changed to a small hillside and the naked corpse of a white female, semiburied under branches.

“On June 3, 2005, in Lakewood’s Monte Verde Park, a grade-nine science class on a field trip found the body of Monique Louise Wilson, a thirty-year-old accountant from Artesia. She’d been sexually assaulted and strangled with her own panties.”

Slide Four showed an old factory and its storage area, followed by a slide of a steel drum containing a woman’s corpse.

“On April 16, 2006, in San Dimas, two teenage boys flying a radio-controlled airplane that crashed into the barrels near this abandoned fruit-packing plant discovered the body of Fay Lynne Millwood, age twenty-seven. She was an aspiring actress who’d been working in a bar in Burbank. She had been sexually assaulted. Family members confirmed her remains through tattoos and surgical scars.”

The fifth photograph was of a ranch-style bungalow, with children’s bicycles, balls and toys scattered across the front yard. The next image featured a kitchen, cereal boxes and empty bowls on the table, a cluttered family bulletin board.

Then the screen changed to an image of horror. In the bedroom, a naked woman in a spread-eagled position on a blood-drenched bed, each arm and leg tied to each corner. The walls cascaded with blood.

“On February 10, 2007, a neighbor discovered the body of Bonnie Catherine Bradford, age thirty-four, in her home in Temple City. Bradford was a script writer and a divorced mother of an eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed more than fifty times according to the autopsy report.”

Tanner shut down the laptop.

“The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department handles more than a thousand homicides a year,” he said. “I won’t go into discussion on our clearance rate other than to say it’s a fact that a lot of murders go cold. But no homicide is closed until the investigation is resolved.

“For years these five cases remained unsolved and unconnected among the hundreds of other cold cases. Recently, in reviewing the Bradford murder, we discovered a piece of critical evidence that had been overlooked—a cryptic message left at the scene by the killer.”

“What did it say?” Harding asked while taking notes.

“We’re not going to reveal that. It’s holdback,” Zurn said.

“What? You call me down here and hint at a big exclusive—”

“Easy, Mark,” Tanner said. “No one has this story. Listen, after we had the overlooked evidence analyzed, we found that it was irrefutably linked to these five cases with a solid common factor.”

“What could be the common factor among—” he flipped through his pages “—a waitress, a hooker, an accountant, an actress and a screenwriter? Did these victims know each other? Belong to the same book club?”

“Nothing like that. They’re linked by the physical evidence we found.”

“DNA?”

“We’re not prepared to go into details, but we realize that this killer left us a message,” Tanner said. “He wanted us to know what he’d done, that he’s responsible for these five murders across L.A. He’s very smart.”

“Are there more victims?”

“We used the information we’d found and ran it through local, state and national databases, ViCAP and others. So far, nothing’s surfaced to suggest other murders are linked to these five, but we can’t rule out the possibility. The evidence ties the five together, five murders in a string that began ten years ago and stopped cold five years ago with the Bradford case in Temple City.”

“Any theories on why they stopped?”

“The killer is dead,” Zurn said. “Or in prison, or moved on.”

Tanner resumed. “In any event we think these serial murders have ended and that the case is solvable.”

“Really? You believe that?”

“We’re forming a task force with the LAPD, the FBI and other major police agencies,” Tanner said. “We’re going to follow every lead or clue to find the killer and clear these cases. We’re asking anyone anywhere who has information on any of these homicides to contact us.”

Before they wrapped up, Harding asked Tanner several more questions. Tanner gave him a file of information and photos along with the offer to help him reach relatives of victims, or to call him with any questions.

“The tenth anniversary of the first homicide is coming up,” Tanner said. “The profilers said an anniversary story may jog someone’s memory or yield a lead.”

“You’re using me to reach out to the killer, aren’t you?”

“We want him to know that while it took a little time, we got his message and now we’re sending him one.”

“Which is?”

“We may not be as intelligent as he is, but we’ll do everything in our power to find him.”

12

San Marino, California

The morning after the accident, Claire woke before her alarm and reached toward Robert’s side of the bed.

It was empty.

She lifted her head and looked at their bathroom. The door was open. The light was off. Maybe he couldn’t sleep? His body clock was always out of whack because he often flew across several time zones.

But his last trip had been entirely in Pacific time.

It didn’t really matter, she thought, he was always up at all hours prowling around like a cat.

It was 5:50 a.m.

She got out of bed, tired but cheerful from yesterday’s good news as she pulled on her robe and started for the kitchen to make coffee. Padding through their Spanish-style home, she noticed that the door to Robert’s office was closed. Light spilled from the bottom. She raised her hand to the doorknob but froze when she heard Robert’s voice. It was low and she only picked up bits of the conversation.

“No, I don’t want to do that... Are you listening, Cynthia... No...”

Cynthia? Claire puzzled. Is he talking to his ex-wife? What’s going on?

Robert was coming to the door. Claire left for the kitchen expecting to hear him behind her.

She didn’t.

She shrugged it all off, attributing any qualms to her early-morning grogginess. She made coffee, then went to their front step to collect the Los Angeles Times, the Pasadena Star-News and USA TODAY. Despite her pleas to save trees, Robert had insisted on the subscriptions. He was a news junkie.

She scanned the Times, finding a story on the accident inside under the headline Miracle Rescue in Fiery Freeway Crash. There was a dramatic photo of a car in flames taken from the video a motorist had recorded with his phone camera. Accompanying the story was a small picture of Robert at the hospital with the caption Hero Pilot Robert Bowen Saved Mother and Baby. They had seen TV news reports of the accident and rescue last night. Their phone rang with congratulatory calls from friends and interview requests from reporters.

Claire was proud of him.

After her first cup of morning coffee, a bagel with peaches, and daydreaming about a nursery, she got into the shower. She tried taking inventory of the day ahead, but as the steam clouds rose around her, Claire was carried back through time, back to her deepest wound. Her Grand Canyon of pain...

...Her father is gripping the handgun, pointing it to the ceiling, keeping it out of reach from her mother’s frantic fingers as they battle for it at the top of the stairs. In her other arm, Claire’s mother holds Luke, Claire’s baby brother.

Claire hurries to them, pounds her doll Miss Rags at her father’s legs.

“Stop it, Daddy!”

His gambling and drinking had cost him his trucker’s license. Her mother’s part-time teaching job pays little, bills are piling up. Collectors are calling. He stinks of alcohol, mirrors have been broken, furniture has been smashed, he’s raging again.

“I’m gonna kill all of you fuckers for dragging me down!”

“No, Daddy!”

Luke is crying.

“Claire, get out of the house! Go next door! Call the police!” Her mother yells but the gun explodes with the first shot, then Claire sees the barrel slowly turning toward her mother. As her mother fights him, Claire’s father falls backward grabbing her mother and Luke, taking them with him as all three fall down the staircase to a sickening crash on the landing.

“No!”

Claire rushes to the aftermath. The gun slides across the floor, her father moans, not moving, her mother is on her stomach, one arm is turned all wrong and Luke’s tiny leg sticks out from under her as she groans. “Claire, take Luke and run for help! Now!”

Claire takes her baby brother into her arms. “Please, Luke! It’s going to be okay!” A bright red ribbon of blood oozes from his ear. He does not move. His eyes are open wide. “Please, Luke!” Claire is in the street and flinches at the first shot; turns and sees the muzzle flashes of two more bloom in the window.

At eight years old, Claire was the sole survivor.

Her family was dead, her mother and her father.

Her baby brother had died in her arms.

Claire’s world had ended.

Her aunt and uncle in St. Paul adopted her. Their love helped her mend and start a new life. Claire’s counseling sessions with therapists never erased her scars but they’d helped her heal. Over the years she gravitated toward psychology and by the time she was in high school, she’d decided that she would become a psychologist.

While she went to college, Claire worked at clinics and crisis lines, helping ease other people’s pain. One night, while doing graduate work at the University of Minnesota, her car battery died. The tow-truck driver who came to her aid was Cliff Rivard, a former engineering student, who’d also studied business before starting his own towing company. He had seven trucks, a dozen employees and was doing well. Born in Duluth, Cliff was smart, funny and a Vikings fan. He was also easy on the eyes. Claire was attracted to him; they began seeing each other. Deep under Cliff’s handsome, rough exterior, Claire found a sweet center and before long she fell in love.

Two years later, after Claire got her PhD, they got married.

With the help of her mentor from the U of M, Dr. Martha Berman, a respected psychologist in neuroscience and stress, Claire became a licensed psychologist and found an entry-level position at a small practice in downtown Minneapolis. During this time she’d discovered that Cliff’s sweetness was hardening, that he often lost his temper with his drivers, cursing them, punching a desk or wall whenever something went wrong. At first she’d attributed it to the rugged nature of his business, given that they routinely dealt with fatal traffic accidents where they saw mangled corpses and body parts. Claire had tried to get Cliff to talk about his job, his stress and his temper, but he always refused.

Nearly three years after they were married, Claire was unable to get pregnant. She saw doctors and specialists, went through several examinations, procedures and had a laparoscopy.

Then came the day when one of her doctors, the one with the Swiss accent who’d kept her waiting forever in his office, entered with a file folder. He’d looked at her, removed his glasses and ran his hand over his face.

“I’m afraid the news is not good, Claire.”

Her heart had stopped as she caught her breath, only half hearing as he’d said that she had endometriosis and a range of other complications, leaving her with primary infertility.

“I’m afraid that the chances of you having a baby are less than five per cent and should you get pregnant, you would likely not carry to term.”

Alone in the car she’d slammed her palms against the steering wheel and sobbed before driving home to tell Cliff.

He had been stunned.

“What do you mean no kids, Claire?”

They’d grieved as they grappled with the realization that they could not have children. They’d kept trying and Claire had gotten pregnant but miscarried. She got pregnant again. And again, she miscarried. They’d considered expensive fertility clinics, using a surrogate or adopting but couldn’t agree on what to do, which made matters tense between them.

Cliff had started drinking more than the usual couple of beers after work.

Eventually, their private agony leaked to their circles. Word had gotten back to Claire that some of Cliff’s relatives had urged him to divorce her and marry a woman who could bear him children. When Claire had raised it with Cliff, it led to an argument that ended with him putting his fist through a wall.

Claire later saw that as the point when the seed of Cliff’s resentment toward her had been planted. Although he’d never said it, she’d seen it in his eyes. Her infertility had made her less of a woman to him. At that same time, Cliff’s company had lost several contracts to bigger competitors. He’d had to lay off four drivers while debts on his fleet mounted.

His business was failing.

Cliff tried to save it, but nothing he did could stop what was happening. In a short time he’d lost everything he’d built. And when the dust settled there was only Cliff with one old tow truck. Claire had known that Cliff’s identity was entwined with his company. It was how he’d defined himself, and the loss, coupled with the anguish of never having children with her, was overwhelming.

At times, Claire would wake up in the middle of the night wondering if she would ever be a mother. She’d prayed for a miracle as the strain on their marriage increased.

Cliff had lashed out at her.

He drank more, argued more, belittled her, demanded to know about every place she went, every penny she spent. In one instance when she had come home after lunch with college friends, he shoved her against a wall. Her head cracked a framed oil painting of mountains that had been a wedding gift she cherished.

Claire had begged him to stop drinking and talk to a counselor. She’d offered to go with him to seek counseling together.

He’d refused.

One night after leaving a bar for a service call, he’d crashed his truck into a tree. No one was hurt, but Cliff had been arrested, charged and jailed for driving under the influence and punching a cop at the scene. Cliff lost his license, his truck and insurance. After posting his bail, Claire had demanded he get help but he refused and kept drinking, flying into a rage when she tried to rid their house of alcohol.

“It’s your fault. You’ve ruined everything!” He’d screamed at her before knocking her to the floor. “You bitch, you’re useless to me!”

It had been the final straw.

Claire moved out that night. She’d done all she could, but accepted that Cliff was a violent, abusive man. Like her father. Men like that blamed others for their misfortune and used their fists to take out their anger on those who loved them.

I will not end up like my mother.

A few days later, before Claire flew to Los Angeles to attend a conference, she’d called Cliff and told him she wanted a divorce.

Ice-cold silence.

Then he’d hung up without breathing a word to her.

When her return flight touched down in Minneapolis, Claire spotted Cliff in Arrivals at the luggage carousel and grew uneasy. He must’ve lied to her office to get her flight information.

“We need to talk, Claire, please.”

He’d smelled of alcohol.

“No, it’s too late for that. You’re drunk, Cliff, go home.”

“Don’t do this to us. I messed up, I’m sorry. I’ll get help, whatever you want. Just come home.”

Her heart ached, she was torn, but she knew, as a psychologist, as a survivor and as an abused woman, what she needed to do.

“It’s over, Cliff.” She’d fought her tears. “I’m so sorry, but it’s over.”

He’d stood stone still, glaring at her, breathing hard, his jaw muscles throbbing. With sudden fury he slammed her against a column. Claire screamed as he mashed his forearm under her chin, pinning her by her throat.

“Stop, Cliff, please!” Claire rasped.

“What happened to us is all your fault, you useless fucking bitch!”

He raised his fist to strike her when a hand seized it, overpowering Cliff, wrenching his arm behind his back until he groaned in pain. Claire’s savior was a few inches taller than Cliff, strong and in uniform.

Keys jangled as two more people arrived, security officers who’d rushed to them and put Cliff in handcuffs. A small crowd gathered. Everything blurred. Her skin prickled with fear and shame. In the confusion that followed, someone—a police officer—took a brief statement from Claire, asked if she wanted to press charges.

No, she’d said then, she didn’t know, she needed time to think.

Waiting patiently nearby was the man who’d saved her: Captain Robert Bowen, the pilot of Claire’s plane from Los Angeles. He was concerned about her, so before leaving she’d agreed to have coffee with him in the airport once she’d finished with the police. After they’d found a booth, Claire regained her composure, thanked him, told him how embarrassed she was, explaining how she and Cliff were divorcing and it was a traumatic time.

“I understand,” he’d said. “I’m recently divorced myself.”

He’d seemed calm, confident and kind. As Claire had searched his dark brown eyes, she’d found a measure of pained sorrow, as if he perceived a great sadness no one else could see.

“If you ever want to talk about anything, Claire, let me know,” he said before they exchanged emails.

She’d kept in touch with Robert.

In moving from the wreckage of her marriage, Claire had devoted herself to her work, gaining more experience. All the while she’d email or phone Robert, who’d helped her through her worst days. Whenever he was in Minneapolis, they’d meet for dinner downtown or sometimes just coffee at the airport.

Robert was working on finding the ideal corporate piloting position in L.A. and leaving the demanding life of a commercial airline pilot that had played a large part in ending his marriage—“my wife couldn’t handle me being away so much.” It would give him the chance to spend more time at his cabin, fishing, he’d joked.

When Claire’s divorce was final, she’d found more reasons to fly to Los Angeles to be with Robert. She knew things between them were moving fast, but being with him was the best therapy, she smiled to herself.

About a year after her divorce from Cliff, Claire and Robert were walking on the beach near Malibu, when he’d stopped and looked long and hard into her eyes.

“I want to build a new life, but I can’t do it without you.” He’d dropped to one knee and took her hand. “Will you marry me, Claire?”

Her heart had soared and tears filled her eyes.

“Yes, but there’s something you should know. I may not be able to have children, but I don’t ever want to give up trying. I want you to know what life with me could entail.”

He’d taken a long time to respond, but when he had, her love for him deepened. He did not want to break it off or back out. And unlike Cliff, Robert never made her feel like she was less of a woman, or that her infertility was her fault.

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Robert had said. “We’re in this together, Claire.”

They got married in Mexico in a small, sunset wedding on the beach. Then they flew to Europe for a honeymoon in Paris and London, ending with a week at Robert’s secluded cabin out at Big Bear.

Claire moved to Los Angeles to live with Robert.

She got her license with the State. Soon, with the advice and support of her friend Dr. Berman, who’d since joined the department of psychology at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, Claire established her practice in San Marino, specializing in victims of abuse.

Now, as she stepped from the shower, Claire counted her blessings.

It had been a long road to the happiness she’d found. She was married to a good man and her dream to start a family was stronger than ever.

She put on her makeup and dressed, then went to her small home office down the hall to collect her files and her USB flash drive that contained encrypted copies of confidential electronic patient records. She always copied them to the small storage device.

Funny, it was not near her laptop where she’d left it. She looked around, opened a drawer—there it was.

I don’t remember putting it there.

She sighed, exasperated with herself. For the past couple of months she’d misplaced it a few times.

She found Robert in the kitchen reading one of the newspapers and eating cornflakes. She gave him a kiss and a hug.

“How’s my Freeway Hero doing today?”

“All good. I have to go in today.”

“Why? I thought you were off for the next few days.”

“Jenkins called from the company, he saw the news and reminded me that the company doc has to check me out, clear me for flying. Got to keep everything in line with the FAA.”

“You feel fine, right?”

“I’m good.”

“How about we go out for that dinner, tonight? Celebrate our family news, your heroics and whatever ensues?”

He hesitated for several moments as if his attention had taken him elsewhere before he returned.

“Yes, it’s a date.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“Yes, just had a little trouble sleeping, a little revved up from everything.”

Claire looked at him, taking stock. She was certain he was grappling with something, but decided this was not the time to press him on what she’d overheard, or anything else.

“All right.” She smiled.

Before kissing him again she snatched her keys from the counter. She headed for her car knowing that Robert was keeping something from her.

13

San Marino, California

Claire’s office was in a one-story medical building at Garfield Avenue and Huntington Drive on San Marino’s west side, close to South Pasadena and Alhambra.

It was shaded by fragrant eucalyptus trees and tucked behind lush holly hedges and blazing violet azaleas. The awnings offered seclusion from the busy street.

Because of yesterday’s drama, Claire had canceled all of her appointments for that day. Today, she had to catch up. It was early and her first patient had not yet arrived.

Alice Pearson, her assistant, was making coffee. The big-hearted fifty-nine-year-old had come with the office when Claire took over the suite from Leo Schwartz, a psychologist who’d retired. Alice was a die-hard fan of the L.A. Lakers. A framed photo of her courtside and beaming beside Jack Nicholson, another die-hard fan, sat on her desk. She had a copy at her home and a smaller one in her wallet.

When Alice saw Claire, she gave her a hug.

“Oh, Claire, I’m so happy everyone’s okay. That husband of yours— Wow!”

“I’m glad no one was hurt badly.”

“How’s Robert doing?”

“He’s pretty cool about it all. He’s my mild-mannered Clark Kent. So how do things look for today?”

“A full slate.” Alice passed her the agenda and patient list.

Claire went to her office, fired up her computer, inserted her flash drive and transferred the notes she’d updated at home two nights earlier. Sipping coffee, she reviewed files for nearly an hour before meeting her patients.

There was Dorothy, a fifty-three-year-old bank teller, whom Claire had been helping for nearly a year following the death of her violent husband. Then there was Vanessa, a forty-eight-year-old graphic artist, whose husband was addicted to cocaine and abused her. Her other patients included April, a thirty-six-year-old former high school teacher who wanted to leave her husband. And Madison, a thirty-one-year-old hairstylist, whose husband, a limo driver, was abusive, jealous and controlling.

That was how Claire’s morning and early afternoon had gone.

She ate lunch at her desk while working on her notes. All of her cases were different but they shared common factors. In many ways abused women were like hostages whose experiences were symptomatic of the Stockholm syndrome.

Seeing no way out, no alternative relationship, they bonded with the loving side of their captor-abuser, the part they’d fallen in love with, the part to which they had given their heart. They grew dependent on the spouse or partner to provide emotional comfort after an incident, usually during his repentant period. This would also be when the victims downplayed the violence and fell into denial.

Claire knew that no abusive relationship was violent all the time, but there were identifiable patterns and cycles in most of them—long stretches of calm, normal everyday living that were usually punctuated with an inciting event that led to a period of increasing tension culminating in the explosion.

With each patient Claire was on guard for danger signs.

Safety was paramount.

Many times she’d wanted to call police, wanted them to intervene in a relationship. But she could never lose sight of her ethical, therapeutic and legal obligations. Patient confidentiality was critical. Intervening was a heart-wrenching challenge. Often abusers had no clue their partner was seeing a psychologist. So there was always a risk of exacerbating a situation.

A range of agencies and outreach services was available to help victims of domestic violence, and Claire always ensured her patients were aware of them. Usually, she made arrangements on their behalf. She’d never had a patient die at the hands of her abuser but she knew therapists who had.

If pushed, Claire would stop at nothing to protect her patients.

Three graves in a Minnesota cemetery reminded her of what happened when no one intervened. Claire paused for a moment to bear that in mind before preparing for her last patient of the afternoon.

Amber was a twenty-eight-year-old office assistant. After initiating a divorce from her husband, Eric, a thirty-nine-year-old security tech, she’d moved out of their Long Beach apartment to Alhambra. She was now house-sitting for friends of friends who wanted to help her start over after the breakup of her marriage. They’d even helped her get a clerical job at the Huntington Library.

Claire consulted Amber’s file again. The abuse in the relationship was extremely violent. Eric had come close to going to jail. Amber had sworn out a restraining order against him, a no-contact order. She had been Claire’s patient for several months. They had regular sessions but Amber had pleaded to have her next session moved up as soon as possible.

“Patient reports being anxious, feels like she’s being watched,” the file note said. Claire flipped to the file on Eric’s information. It contained his photo with a copy of the restraining order. Her eyes found the note, “Employed at installing residential/commercial security systems.” Claire considered these factors as Amber sat down in her office.

Amber was wearing a dark pencil skirt and white top. She’d come directly from her job at the Huntington Library. She updated Claire on her divorce, Eric’s failure to show up at the last court hearing, the restraining order and the news that he was moving.

“Okay, Amber,” Claire said, “when you called, you said you feel like you’re being watched. This is a new aspect in your case. Is that why you’re here today? Why did you feel the need to move up your session?”

“This is going to sound stupid.”

“It’s all right. Take a breath and take your time.”

As Amber twisted a tissue in her hands Claire noticed her new nails, bright red with tiny bright pink stripes, something Eric would never have approved of. They symbolized the progress Amber was making in rebuilding her life.

“It’s going to sound weird,” Amber said.

“It’s all right. Just tell me.”

“It’s hard to describe, but one night, just a few nights ago, I felt ‘a presence’ in the house.”

“A presence?”

“Yes, like something, or someone, was in the house.”

“You live alone, no roommates, no pets. You’re still house-sitting in Alhambra?”

“Yes. So I went around the house checking windows and doors. I didn’t see anything. I went to bed, but as I drifted off I felt someone was watching me.”

“Can you describe this presence?”

“No.”

“Did you see anything, touch anything, smell or feel anything?”

“No.”

“Did you find any signs or evidence that someone, or something, a bird, a cat, a mouse was in the house?”

“No, nothing.”

“And the house has a security alarm system?”

“Yes, the owners I’m house-sitting for said it was one of the best.”

“Have you been having any strange dreams lately?”

“No. Not really.”

“Are you taking any new prescriptions or over-the-counter medications?”

“No.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Yes, it scares me.”

“What do you think it was?”

“Well, my first thought of course is that it was Eric. If anyone would know how to disarm and bypass a security system, he would.”

“Do you think he’s capable of this kind of behavior?”

“I don’t know,” Amber said. “The divorce is proceeding. Maybe he’s having trouble accepting it, but this is so strange, I don’t think he’d do something like this.”

“I see.”

“Then I thought that maybe I was just imagining the whole thing.”

“Did you call police, or tell anyone?”

“No, not so far. You’re the only one I’ve told.”

“I see. There are a few possible explanations.”

“Like I’m losing my mind.”

“No,” Claire reassured. “It could be a manifestation of your fear of Eric. That you are sensing this presence could be a reaction to your fear of Eric surfacing in your new life, because he was such a presence in the life you’ve left behind.”

“That could be it.”

“Every relationship is unique and the time it takes to heal varies,” Claire said. “You’ve taken several brave, life-changing steps. You’re undergoing a lot of pressure. This ongoing fear is real and to be expected. And given Eric’s violent past, and his profession, and the fact you’re ending your marriage to him, your fear that he is somehow stalking you is understandable.”

“So it’s all psychological? There’s no man hiding in my home?”

“Let’s hope not,” Claire said. “But we won’t take any chances by dismissing or underestimating the potential risk of danger, okay?”

Amber nodded.

“Remember we talked about an emergency plan, what to do if Eric ever tried to contact you?” Claire said.

“Yes.”

“Here’s what I suggest you do as soon as we’re done here. Call the security alarm company and ask them to send someone over to double-check the system at the house. Don’t go in the house. Meet them outside your home. And call the police, tell them your situation, tell them to look up Eric’s restraining order and ask them to check your house, too. Taking these precautions will help restore your peace of mind.”

“Okay.”

“Then I want you to consider moving in with a friend for a few days.”

“I will.”

“Does this help?”

“It does. Thank you so much, Claire.”

After Amber left, Claire poured a glass of ice water from her pitcher and updated various patient files before copying the day’s work to her flash drive to take home.

As it loaded, Claire began texting Robert.

It had been a long day, the muscles in the back of her lower neck and shoulders were rock-hard. But the stress couldn’t prevent her from smiling at the bright personal news on the baby front. Tonight would be a good night for that celebratory dinner—

“No!”

Claire’s head suddenly snapped to her office window.

Someone outside sounded panicked.

Claire left her desk. Through the curtain she’d seen Amber in the parking lot, contending with a man who had her backed up against a car.

14

San Marino, California

Amber had unlocked her car in the parking lot and reached for the handle.

A hand shot out from behind her, stopping the driver’s door from opening. Amber whirled around, her skin prickled as she recognized the man with a steel-vise grip on her door.

“Eric! What’re you doing here? You’re not supposed to contact me!”

“I only want you to listen to what I have to say. I need to talk, Amber.”

“No! There’s a court order! Let go of my door!”

“Baby, please.”

“Have you been following me?”

He didn’t answer.

“Eric, let go of my door!”

He continued holding it.

Amber cast glances to the street, then the building, hoping someone, anyone, would come by. He was six foot two to her five foot three and he weighed about two hundred thirty pounds. His biceps bulged as he moved closer. She caught her breath.

“The judge extended the restraining order and fined you for not showing up in court,” she said. “Didn’t your lawyer tell you?”

“I know.”

“Then just leave me alone and we can let this go.”

“We’ve got too many judges and lawyers between us.”

“Don’t do this, don’t make things worse.”

“You’re still my wife.”

His big hand clamped Amber’s shoulder and he backed her against her car. Her heart was thundering. She couldn’t escape, couldn’t get into her purse for her phone.

“Eric, let me go or I swear to God I’ll scream.”

“Calm down, please. I need to talk to you without lawyers. That’s all.”

“No, we have to move on with our separate lives.”

“No, no, baby, don’t give up on us.” Eyes brimming, he’d softened his tone, presenting the tender side of him she’d once loved. “Baby, I know I’ve got problems. I hurt you, I know, I’m so goddammed sorry.”

“Stop it, Eric.”

“No, just listen. I don’t expect you to forgive me. That’s not what I’m asking. I’m begging you to stop the divorce. Come back to me. Give me another chance. Let’s start over. I’ve got a new job with my brother in Sacramento and I’m getting help. We can make it better than it was before.”

Fighting tears, Amber shook her head slowly.

“Baby, I promise, I give you my sacred vow I’ll change.”

She kept shaking her head.

“Please, baby,” Eric sniffled. “Please.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Eric, I’ve heard this before. What we had is gone. I can’t be with you.”

“What are you saying?”

“We can never, ever go back.”

All the blood drained from his face.

His voice dropped to a whisper.

“But without you, I’ve got nothing, Amber.” His grip on her shoulder tightened. “I’ve got nothing left in this world to lose.”

“You have to let me go.”

“I can’t.”

Amber struggled to break free, thinking she could run into the office building or down the street, or into traffic. Eric’s eyes narrowed until something inside them snapped. He seized her shoulders and shook her with such force her head whiplashed.

“Do you think I’m going to let this happen? You want me to beat some fucking sense into you?”

“No! Please, you’re hurting me.”

“Let her go!”

They both turned to Claire, who was standing in the parking lot a few feet away. She had one hand deep inside her shoulder bag. The other gripped the strap, braced for action.

“Who the fuck are you?” Eric maintained his hold on Amber.

Claire did not identify herself.

“This is none of your fucking business,” Eric said. “So fuck off, bitch.”

“It is my business,” Claire said. “I’ve alerted police that you’re in violation of a protection order. They’re on their way. Take your hands off of her and step away.”

Eric turned back to Amber, his breath tearing in and out of his lungs.

“She’s your fucking shrink, isn’t she? She’s the one putting ideas in your head, turning you against me, getting between man and wife!” Eric pulled Amber forward, then crushed her hard against the car. “I’m going to give her the same goddamned medicine!”

As he pulled Amber forward to slam her a second time, something hissed and a liquid stream splashed into his eyes. He doubled over screaming and cupping his hands to his face.

“Oh, you fucking, whoring goddamned bitch! You are fucking dead!”

Claire stood over him, gripping her can of pepper spray, ready to douse Eric again. Amber got into her car, locked the door and sobbed as they heard the sound of an approaching siren.

Eric sat on the pavement, writhing.

“Fuck! My eyes are burning! Fuck!”

A marked patrol car, its lights flashing and siren yelping to silence, braked in the parking lot and two uniformed officers with the San Marino Police Department took control.

Moments later, an ambulance arrived. Paramedics checked on Amber.

It was over in minutes.

The police officers handcuffed Eric and placed him in the backseat of their car. One of the officers dealt with Eric, checking his ID and processing it with the dispatcher. The second officer, D. Freeman, according to her name tag, spoke with Claire then Amber, taking initial statements while paramedics examined Amber and Eric.

“He’ll go before a judge for violation of his protection order,” Freeman said. “Most likely he’ll be charged. He’ll get jail time, but will likely be out in days.”

“Under the circumstances, I think we have to get Amber into a women’s shelter,” Claire said. “We also suspect he’s been stalking her and may have illegally entered her residence. We need you to check her home.”

“Okay, once we process him, we’ll meet you there.”

The paramedics said Amber had suffered some neck strain and might feel some swelling and tenderness later. If it became painful, she should go to a hospital, they advised while making a summary report.

“Are you comfortable with everything, Amber?” Claire asked. “Want us to call anyone?”

After tearful nods Amber said, “I’ll call my girlfriend.”

Officer Freemen finished noting their concerns then returned to the car. Claire and Amber could see Eric seething in the backseat. As it rolled away, he turned to them and his tearstained, inflamed gaze found Claire’s, telegraphing a raw, savage hate for her.

She did not flinch.

15

Santa Clarita, California

The address was in a residential section of the city that sat in a valley bordered by low, dry hills just north of San Fernando.

The area was once an expanse of rural emptiness, home to tranquil ranches and farms before it had surrendered to suburban sprawl—vast coral-stucco neighborhoods of schools, parks, big box stores and shopping centers.

Robert Bowen needed to see the home, a compulsion that had reached out from a dream. Have I not been here before? He was uncertain what he was searching for, only that he would know when he found it, he thought as he drove north from Van Nuys.

Earlier that morning, Allen Pace, who had been the team physician for the Dodgers before becoming ExecuGlide’s corporate doctor, gave him a going-over. Blood pressure, heart, breathing, eyes, reflexes, the usual.

“All your vitals are fine. You’re good to take your next trip, Bob. I’ll fill out the form. Everything’s normal.”

If you only knew, Bowen gazed at the driveways rolling by as he counted down house numbers, if you only knew.

Last night, when Bowen couldn’t sleep, he was suddenly battling the urge to talk to Cynthia as he contended with another “episode.” Then other torments emerged and he’d found himself online looking for this specific address. When he got it he was surprised and pleased to learn that it was for sale. It gave him the cover he needed to see it.

To get even closer.

And there it is.

He parked across the street, glanced at the for-sale sign. The ranch-style house was sky-blue stucco with wood trim. It had a curved driveway, sweeping front lawn and tidy landscaping. The clank of tools floated from the side yard.

Bowen got out and walked along the lush lawn toward the sound of hammering. A man, crouched near a garden bed, had just driven a nail into a piece of loosened trim. When Bowen’s shadow fell over him, he looked up, hammer in hand.

“Can I help you?” the man asked.

“Hi, I saw the sign. Is the house still for sale?”

“It is.”

“Are you the owner?”

“I am.”

“I’m interested in it. Would it be possible to have a quick tour? My wife and I are looking for a house in Santa Clarita.”

The man stood. He was in his late fifties and wore jeans and a flannel shirt over a faded T-shirt. His brush cut gave him the air of a retired soldier. His black eyes gleamed as they assessed Bowen.

“The agent handles that, everything’s supposed to go through her.”

“Well, I was in the neighborhood looking at another property,” Bowen said. “I’m not sure how long it will be before I’m back this way.”

The man twirled the hammer in his big, tanned hand as he thought.

“All right, seeing that you’re here, I suppose I could show you around.”

They entered the house through the front door. The living room was spacious with hardwood floors and a brick fireplace.

“You can burn gas or wood.” The man passed Bowen a listing sheet from the coffee table, after he’d set his hammer down. “I’m asking four-seventy-five. Taxes are just under five a year. It’s a three-bedroom. It’s all there on the page. Don’t worry about your shoes. We’ll go this way.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name?” Bowen asked.

“Meadows, Louis Meadows.”

“And what’s your line of work, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I retired from the navy. I was a cook on the Abraham Lincoln.”

Although the place was pleasant, there was an underlying sadness and a trace of Old Spice. The house had an eat-in kitchen, ample tiled counter space, a dishwasher, a double sink with a sprayer and garbage disposal.

“The kitchen’s new.”

Bowen nodded approvingly, glanced around with an ear cocked for anyone else in the house.

“My wife had it redone last year just before she passed away.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. My condolences.”

“It was cancer. She never got to enjoy the renovation.”

The dining room had a dark wood table and matching china hutch. Bowen wondered about the last time it was used. The bathroom was tidy. The master bedroom was neat. On the night table he saw a copy of From Here to Eternity and an old edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships. He also saw framed photos of two women. One of them was in her fifties. The other resembled her and was in her early twenties.

They moved to a second smaller bedroom with a desk and two-drawer steel file cabinet. A U.S. flag and map, with colored pushpins piercing various countries, covered a wall.

“This could be a guest room. I use it as a study,” Meadows said.

They moved down the hall to a room with a closed door.

“That’s the third bedroom. It’s bigger than the second one.”

Keeping his hands in his pockets, Meadows stared at the door in mild trepidation.

“Is this your daughter’s room?”

Meadows shot him a look, as if Bowen had read his mind.

“Sorry,” Bowen said. “I saw the photograph in the other room and I’d just assumed.”

“Yes.” Meadows made no move to show the room.

“Guess we don’t want to disturb her,” Bowen said. “I understand.”

But Bowen knew.

He damned well knew as he concentrated on the pain in Meadows’s face the way a patron absorbs the aftermath of it in a work of art, like Michelangelo’s Pietà. Bowen drank in Meadows’s pain, as he’d done with the fear of the woman he’d pulled from the car accident.

“No,” Meadows said. “My daughter’s not there.”

“Is she away at college?”

Twisting the knife in the wound.

“No.”

“May I see the room?”

Meadows hesitated as if waiting for the will to open the door.

“Yes.”

The room was cooler and smelled musty. Sunlight had caught the fine dust particles that were sent churning into the air when the door opened. On the wall, he saw a poster of Meryl Streep and a framed watercolor of flowers. He noticed the bulletin board with a calendar. Notes with hours under the word work were penned in for some dates.

The walls were an opaque bluish-green. The single bed was made with a white comforter. A stuffed bear was the lone occupant. There was a white desk with a laptop, a jar full of paper money and change, labeled Tips. The closet was open and empty save for a tower of cardboard boxes, sagging from age and marked in felt-tip pen with Leeza’s Things.

The room was a tomb to the life that had resided here.

“That’s a good-sized closet,” Bowen said, turning to his guide.

Meadows was oblivious. His eyes were going around the room as if he were seeing something from another time. He nodded slowly, took one last forlorn inventory before leading Bowen out and closing the door.

They moved to the laundry room—“All the appliances are included”—then to the family room. It opened to the patio and a view of the hills. They stepped back outside and Meadows leaned against his picnic table and folded his arms across his chest.

“It’s a good house. It’s a good neighborhood, a quiet family neighborhood,” he said as he contemplated the horizon. “Sorry, the agent’s better at showing the place. I’m not much of a people person.”

“No, I imposed,” Bowen said. “May I ask why you’re selling?”

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