13.

When Wardell was gone Kirsten sat a few moments, staring down at the picture of Thomas Kanowski. Police don’t like to share information with non-police … even ex-police. But Wardell had shared with her. A lot. Sure, Larry Candle made the intro, and some cops spoke well of her, but that didn’t explain it. The explanation was that Wardell was working a homicide with no leads, and he wanted to solve it. He was reaching out, doing whatever he could that might bring in something. Whatever he’d heard about her was important, though, because it made him believe he could trust her, and that she might even be of help.

And maybe she could, but how? The various police departments surely suspected by now that they were faced with a serial killer. They could call in an FBI profiler—if they could find one not working twenty-five hours a day on terrorism. They could assign forensic experts to analyze and compare the tiniest bits of evidence taken from the three scenes and the three victims. They could share information with each other and with a phone book full of federal, state, and county agencies and offices and databases—by computer, at the speed of light.

They could do all that, assuming anybody cared enough. And even if they did, she’d be outside the loop—and no way Wardell or any other cop would get her inside.

So?

So, just as she’d told Dugan, to help Michael her focus shouldn’t be on identifying and apprehending the killer. Her job was protection. On the other hand, she’d be most effective if she could figure out which priest on that newspaper list was the next target. The eighteen had already been whittled down to fifteen. Was there a pattern?

There certainly was a pattern in the sense that so far none of the victims had lived at Villa St. George. She had a copy of the list, but she hadn’t asked Michael which ones lived there and whether he knew where the others lived.

What about a pattern regarding the type of abuse? The charge against Thomas Kanowski—denied, but proven in court—involved an eleven-year-old boy, almost certainly prepuberty and thus classic pedophilia. The charges against Stanley Immel—denied and not proven, although certainly possible—involved two young girls, probably both prepuberty and therefore pedophilia also. So what about Emmett Regan? Was it boys or girls? Pre- or post-? All of the above?

Meanwhile, though, she was very close to the Kanowski crime scene and she had a photo to show. And what investigators do best is investigate, not read tea leaves. She slipped her bag over her shoulder and went out to her car. She had “a crummy late-night bar called Bunko’s and two twenty-four-hour adult book stores” to visit.

Stepping out into the cool, damp night air, she felt around in her bag for her cell phone to call Dugan. But no, it was late. He might be asleep already. She dug out her car keys instead and hit the button to unlock the door, then stopped and stared. The Celica was parked right under a light in the lot. But something seemed—

Damn! The right rear tire. Flat. How could it go flat just sitting there? Had some idiot asshole punk let the air out? She squatted down beside the wheel. The valve looked fine. And then she saw the hole, right in the wall of the deflated tire, near the metal rim. A puncture, like an ice pick would make.

Her breath froze in her throat, and a bone-deep chill and a clammy sweat broke over her body simultaneously. She stood up and whirled around, looking in every direction, hand wrapped around the Colt .380 in her purse. The two clerks were clearly visible inside the doughnut shop, talking and giggling. A car passed by on the street, then another one going the other way. Otherwise, nothing.

She pulled her raincoat close around her. Idiot asshole punk? Possibly. But the muscles tightening around her heart questioned that, said maybe it was someone who knew her. Maybe someone who had promised her HERE I COME. Someone who had called her and said nothing, then painted a blood-red target on her door.

*   *   *

She didn’t know how long she’d been standing there when a couple of sheriff’s officers pulled up in a squad car. Kirsten managed to stop them in their dash for coffee long enough for them to tell her about an all-night truck stop out near I-90. Not that she couldn’t change her own damn tire, but it was drizzling now and she wasn’t about to. She went inside and called.

By the time a tow truck finally arrived the rain was pouring down. She finished her coffee and a second glazed doughnut—God only knew how many grams of fat—and watched out the window as a black man, in a yellow hat and slicker, changed her tire. He came inside, smiled, and said she could either pay him on the spot and go on her way, or follow him to the truck stop and buy a new tire.

“I’ll buy a new one.”

His smile widened. “That’s the smart thing. You don’t wanna be driving around without a spare. And you can’t fix the bad one, either. You run over a nail and I’ll put in a plug that’ll outlast the rest of the tire. But a hole in the sidewall? No way.”

She figured anyone who could change a tire in five minutes in a hard cold rain and not lose his smile knew what he was talking about. She followed him, bought a new tire, and had them check the spare. She took the punctured one with her, too. This time, overreaction or not, she would go to Renfroe Laboratories … with the tire and the postcard both.

By the time she filled her tank with gas and paid for everything, it was midnight and still raining, although now it was back to a drizzle again. She was dog-tired and emotionally drained, and hyped up on coffee. She was also ninety miles from home. She sat in the car and used the cell phone to call Dugan. It rang about five times and he finally picked up.

“Is that you?” he said.

“Your favorite wife,” she chirped. She could tell she’d woken him up, and she didn’t want him to lose more sleep than he had to. “Just called to say I’m way out in Rockford and I don’t feel like driving home in the rain, so I’m gonna find a motel and crash, and drive back in the morning. Everything’s fine. No problem. Don’t worry. See you tomor—”

“Kirsten.”

“What?” She didn’t like his tone.

“You’re not telling me the truth.”

“No, really. I’m in Rockford.” Chirping again. “I had a flat tire and it’s late and—”

“Not about that. I mean about ‘everything’s fine’ and ‘no problem’ and the rest of that bubbly bullshit. What happened?”

“Jesus,” she said, “aren’t I entitled to have a secret? Maybe I’ve taken a lover.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “I hope he hasn’t forgotten his Viagra. Now tell me, what’s going on?”

“Okay, I give,” she said. “I had a scare, but it may have been all in my mind. Anyway, it’s over and no one’s hurt or anything. I’ll tell you about it, but tomorrow, all right? Honest. Right now I’m beat, and I’m gonna crash.”

“Good. I believe you.”

“And you’re not gonna worry, right? Because—”

“G’night, Kirsten. See you tomorrow.”

“Love you, too.” But he’d already hung up.

*   *   *

Kirsten meant what she’d said about calling it a day. She left the truck stop and drove around until she was certain there was no one following her and then went to a Holiday Inn. But when she got there she didn’t even go inside.

Besides, she knew the real reason she didn’t feel like driving twenty miles north and showing Thomas Kanowski’s picture around wasn’t because she was tired. It was because she was nervous. No, make that afraid. Not of the clientele she might run into at a dingy bar and a couple of porno stores in the middle of the night, but afraid of something … some person … entirely unrelated.

Unless her punctured tire was random vandalism—which she didn’t believe for a minute—someone must have been tailing her all day: from home to the train station, the Art Institute, Dugan’s office, the seminary, and all the way to Rockford. And she’d never spotted him. What bothered her even more than her carelessness, though, was that now she had been careful, and knew there was no one behind her … and still she wanted to hide away in a safe place. Which is why she had to go forward, tonight.

Because she would not allow herself to be shut down by fear. Not tonight. Not ever.