The detective marched through her open office door with the air of a military colonel. Maggie smiled at him and rose from her chair, but he waved her back down. Stoic, even a little angry, a muted kind of inescapable stress, as if he were on his way to shop for his own coffin. What a shit day that would be.
She lowered herself back into her seat and waited. Maggie had not liked Reid Hanlon when they’d met, and not only because he was interrogating her about a patient—he was handsome if you were into an air of confidence that smacked of superiority. She’d since come to understand that this cantankerous persona was an attribute of his profession, honed through years of interrogations and gut-wrenching crime scenes. Now she knew him well enough not to be irritated in kind.
Not that she knew him really well. Maggie knew Reid as most knew colleagues in dovetailing professions. And their respective occupations were probably closer than even he realized. Until her home had burned down, Maggie had helped ferret domestic violence victims out of town by way of her father’s place. Not entirely legal, but safer than throwing around weapons like prizes in a T-shirt cannon. Her mother’s habit of providing guns to domestic abuse victims had gotten sticky—literally—when one of them killed their abuser and his colleagues.
Reid set a cup on her desk beside her glass paperweight—a coiled snake. New. The last one was still in evidence. Chai spices wafted on tendrils of steam into her sinuses. She’d never been much for coffee; life was bitter enough.
Reid slumped into the seat across from her with his coffee, then slugged a sip from the spout. His gray suit was perfect, pressed, a violet tie cutting a shiny bruised line from neck to navel. But the cuff on his right wrist…
She nodded at his arm. “Is that blood?”
Reid lifted his sleeve and squinted at it, then tugged the suit cuff back down over the shirt’s hem, hiding shiny silver cufflinks more suited to dinner with your attorney than a day at a crime scene… or a day in a shrink’s office. “It was a long morning.”
Ruh-roh. Reid was rarely upset by the crime scenes he processed. It wasn’t that he didn’t care—he did, and deeply—but once the victims were dead, the best way to help them was to get justice. Today, something was different. Had he known the victim?
She raised her chai from the desktop, removed the lid, and met his eyes. “So, Mr. Hanlon, why don’t you tell me why you’re here.” Standard shrink-speak.
He seemed to pick up on the jab. His eyes brightened momentarily, then dulled again as he leaned toward her. “I need a favor, Maggie. A big one.”
“I’m not getting rid of Fluffy, so don’t even try it.” She winked to show she was joking, though the statement was true enough. Her father had given her the spider in a rare lucid moment—low care requirements, long lifespan. To keep her company when he forgot who she was. Fluffy kept her company more often than not these days.
Reid smiled, but it appeared forced. Maggie didn’t trust fake smiles, and she liked the expectation that anyone should fake happiness a great deal less.
“Do you work with children?” he asked.
Oh man. He was a homicide detective, so asking about kids in any capacity was a bad sign. “Sometimes. Usually depression or trauma as opposed to things like ADHD.” All her cases edged tricky. If you believed Owen, she had a streak of adrenaline junkie in her and she liked her stakes high. The scar on the back of her head would agree with him, if it were sentient and jerky enough to call her out. “Why do you ask?”
“An eight-year-old boy witnessed the murder of his family this morning. I can’t get anything out of him. I suppose I should also ask you for help with the kid who noticed the blood from outside the window—he was pretty distraught, too. Maybe I can pass along your number.”
“If he just saw a dirty window, I wouldn’t push for therapy unless he’s showing signs of distress. Maybe watching him for a few days would be a better idea—see how he’s handling it.” But the one who’d watched his family murdered was a different story.
“I’ll ask the parents about Kole Bishop—that’s the kid who spotted the blood in the window—but he was probably just anxious at the attention. He didn’t see the bodies. What I really need from you is to work with Ezra, the victim. I need the information he has locked in his head.”
She leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms. “I’m not sure that’s a good way to start a therapeutic relationship. If you just need someone to talk him through identifying your suspect—”
Reid shook his head. “That’s the problem: He hasn’t said a single word. Not one. Numerous people have tried to speak to him. I even had the neighbor and his scout leader come over, hoping the familiarity would help, but he didn’t make a peep.”
She frowned. “So how do you know he saw anything? Could he have slept through it?” That would be the best-case scenario. It was not ideal to wake up and find your family dead, but it was worse to watch them take their last breaths.
Again, Reid shook his head. “I found him in the bathroom, clutching the murder weapon, covered in their blood.”
Wait… what? “Did he kill—”
“No way he’d have been able to subdue his father. The kid’s tiny, even for eight.”
Maggie glanced into her cup, specks of tea floating around like tadpoles—like poorly inked teardrops. “Is it possible the killer didn’t know he was home? That he hid until the killer left, found the weapon, and holed up until you got there?” Shock could make a kid shut down. And while she generally tried to avoid preconceived notions, with a traumatized child, it was pertinent to know where not to poke a sharp stick.
Reid shrugged, took a long swallow from his cup, and winced; steam billowed from the hole in the lid. “I think the killer intended to murder him too, but something stopped him. If he wanted to kill the family without the boy, he could have snuck in any other night this week. Last night, and only last night, Ezra ran away from a week-long Boy Scout camp and climbed in through the kitchen window about half an hour before the murders.”
The killer had purposefully waited until the whole family was there… and changed his mind about murdering young Ezra? “How does an eight-year-old wander away from camp?”
“The camp is only three blocks from his house; it’s just tents set up in the woods near the scout leader’s place. I’m not sure how he snuck away, but we’ve got him marching home with his little backpack on a few different doorbell cams. If only they’d caught the suspect on film.” He met her gaze with muddy eyes—exhausted. Sad. “I think he walked home, climbed into bed, the killer entered a few minutes later and murdered mom, dad, then sister. Then the suspect took the boy to the bathroom to drown him, and for some reason… stopped.”
Wait, drowned? Hadn’t he said the boy was found with the murder weapon? Why would Reid think he intended to drown the child? Unless… “He’s done this before. You’re dealing with a serial?” You could have led with that, dude.
Reid nodded. “It started nearly two years ago. But the cases weren’t connected until recently because they all took place in different jurisdictions, and all in small towns that aren’t linked into the larger databases. That lack of resources is surely by design.”
“You’re positive it’s the same killer?”
“There were things about the scenes that only the killer would know. The positioning of the bodies and the toys he left… that wasn’t released to the press. So far, we’ve found three other sprees like this, three to six months apart—four families now, slaughtered while they slept. In all cases, the parents and the older sister were murdered with an ax and the youngest son drowned, a toy car positioned near the body. But he’s never left a survivor before. Not one.”
He blinked heavily and squared his shoulders as if the weight of the world was pressing down against him. Maybe it was. “I think the killer gave the boy the weapon. I think the killer spoke to him. What I don’t know is why. And any change in M.O. for this guy…”
Is significant, as it would be for any serial murderer. She leaned her elbows on the desk, the chai clutched between her palms, her nose tingling with cinnamon and clove. All the killers she’d met had a reason for their patterns—had a reason for killing the way they did. It might be an illogical reason, but it was a reason. Changing M.O. meant a psychological shift. And the different murder methodology between family members was also unusual. “It’s strange that he drowns the youngest boy but stabs the rest of the family. Does he do anything else to the youngest child’s body? Maybe wrapping him up or—”
“He positions the dead boys on the bath mat, arms crossed over their chests as if he feels intense remorse about killing them.” His voice cracked on the last word, and he covered it with a cough and another slug of coffee. “He might have some remorse for the rest of the family—he kills on his knees as if he’s praying while he does it. But he doesn’t show nearly as much guilt with them as he does with the youngest child.”
“Maybe the guilt got the better of him this time,” she said. Feeling shame about his actions might be a good thing overall, but it would leave the killer unsatisfied. He’d have to kill again sooner in order to slake his thirst, no bathtub pun intended.
“A killer growing a conscience… that feels optimistic.” From his tone, he didn’t believe it was likely. But no matter what the killer’s reasons were, the important part was making sure he couldn’t do it again.
“Do you know how he’s choosing the victims?” Her real question was: Is it possible that the boy knew the killer? But Reid was good at reading between the lines.
“The victims all have similar physical characteristics—blond children, sandy-haired parents—but I can’t find a single connection between the families. The first two didn’t even live here in Indiana; those murders took place in Ohio. As far as connecting the local families together, the children didn’t play the same sports, none of the parents shared workplaces or frequented the same grocery stores, none of them shared a babysitter. If there’s a connection, I have yet to find it.” But he wouldn’t stop looking. That was apparent in his tone.
She frowned, thinking. No similar sports or other activities, but if the killer was consistent—exacting even—with the physical characteristics, he wasn’t pulling them from the roster of a school. He had to see them in person before he marked them for death. “Who’s the child staying with now?” Perhaps she could work with someone he trusted, as Reid had tried to do with the neighbor.
“Me.”
She blinked. The state didn’t give traumatized children to just anyone, cop or not. And approval to be a foster parent usually took weeks.
“There’s no one else,” he said, as if he could read her thoughts. “His mom was an only child. The dad had a brother, but he’s currently in jail on possession, and I don’t think Ezra has ever met the man. And the neighbors never saw Ezra with friends.”
“I think staying with you is a good idea,” she said. “It’s possible that the killer knows Ezra—that he didn’t kill him because they had some connection before last night. If he knew this boy personally but not the other victims, it would explain why he couldn’t bring himself to finish the job.”
“That’s why you get paid the big bucks.” He ran his fingers through his hair. His forehead was damp.
“So, when do you want to bring him by?”
“He’s in the waiting room with another officer,” Reid said.
Her eyebrows hit her hairline. “Now?”
“You said you were done for the night. I took a chance.” He met her gaze. “Please. I don’t want another child to end up an orphan.” Or worse. She heard the rest of that thought as if he’d said it aloud.
Maggie pushed herself to her feet. “You owe me,” she said. But she’d never take him up on the favor. If she could help catch a killer, that would certainly be enough.