Kay Hooper - Stealing Shadows

"It wouldn't have mattered. Like the sheriff said, it would never have occurred to her that she should be especially careful going to her store on a Sunday afternoon. Nobody can be on guard all the time."

"You can, apparently." Why did her reserve, her aloofness, bother him so much?

"That's different."

"Is it?"

Her shoulders lifted in a little shrug and her gaze fell away from his. "Yes. But we aren't talking about me. There was nothing you could have done to save Jill. Accept that."

"And move on?"

"We don't have a choice. Death takes people away from us all our lives. We have to move on. Or die ourselves."

"I know, I know." It was Ben's turn to shrug. "But it doesn't help, knowing that. She was thirty-two years old, Cassie. Just thirty-two years old. She lived here all her life, and she thought she was safe. She should have been safe."

"It isn't your fault that she wasn't."

"Then whose fault was it?"

"His. That monster out there. And if he isn't stopped, he'll be responsible for even more deaths."

"He'll also be responsible for destroying this town. It's already started. Matt's had to put on more people just to answer the phone since word of Ivy's murder got out.

When the morning paper announces Jill's death… Things are going to get very tense very fast around here. Three murders in four days. Three women brutally killed, one in her own kitchen."

Cassie turned away to pour the coffee, and said very quietly, "The townspeople are going to be looking for someone to blame for those deaths."

"I know."

"Are there any likely targets?" She set his cup on the counter near him, then retreated a few steps with her own.

"You mean the easy targets? The homeless, the disturbed or mentally disabled, those with criminal records?"

"Yes."

"Not many." Ben picked up his cup and sipped the hot coffee, leaning a hip against the counter as she did. "We don't have homeless in any real sense. The churches in the area are pretty good at helping people in need. As for the disturbed or disabled, there are a few of those middle-aged men you see in most small towns, not 'slow' enough to be unemployable, but not bright enough to be trained for anything but pushing a broom. And there's one woman who's been a well-known character in this town for at least ten years. She escapes her son's watchful eye from time to time and wanders around downtown picking up invisible things from the sidewalk." Ben paused and shook his head. "Nobody knows what she thinks she's picking up, but if you try to stop her, she cries as if her heart's breaking."

Cassie looked down at her coffee. "The wreck of a life."

"Her son says she just went away one day."

"I wonder why," Cassie murmured. "Something like that, there ought to at least be a trigger."

"If something definitive happened, I don't know what it was. The family keeps pretty much to themselves, and they don't welcome questions. It's a common enough trait around here."

Cassie nodded distractedly. Then she seemed to rouse herself from pity and focus on the practical. "I would say she seems an unlikely target, but those men… The sheriff might want to keep an eye on them."

"He will. We've both seen a crowd turn ugly and start looking around for a target. That isn't something you forget, believe me."

"What about people with criminal records?"

"We have our share. The habituals commit mostly petty stuff though – housebreaking, fighting with their neighbors or their girlfriends' ex-lovers, drunk and disorderly. The sort of troublemakers who have their own bunks in Matt's jail and make regular visits on Saturday nights. As for anything else, crimes of real violence are rare around here. I've prosecuted a couple of manslaughter cases, but liquor and spite were involved both times. Convenience-store holdups, a few half-assed bank robberies over the years. But no crime to even hint there's someone living here in this town – or this county – who's capable of butchering three women." Ben sighed. "That high-tech forensics van Matt managed to wring out of his budget last year was mostly gathering dust. Until Thursday."

"So there's no one target a panicked town would immediately look to."

"Not that I know of."

"Except for me."

He waited until she looked him in the eye, then agreed. "Except you. But I'd say the possibility of anything happening to you because of that is very slight. Cassie, I don't doubt that when word finally gets out about you, there'll be suspicion. But in all honesty, even a panicked town would have to be totally out of its collective mind to suspect you of three especially vicious murders. It doesn't always take muscle to kill, but Jill studied karate as a kid, and Ivy quite obviously fought like a wildcat. You couldn't have killed them, and it's obvious."

"A reasonable argument. But the need to blame that grows out of panic is seldom based on logic, and you know it."

"I know it. Even so, I doubt anyone will seriously suspect you. Oh, they'll look at you and talk about you and wonder, and you'll probably get at least a few nasty phone calls accusing you of being a witch or worse, but I don't believe this town will condemn you as a killer."

Cassie returned her gaze to her coffee.

"He's the one you have to worry about. That madman out there. The threat to you is from him."

"I know."

"I talked to Matt about it this afternoon, and he's agreed to say nothing to anyone about you helping us. Neither will I, of course. The longer we can keep it quiet, the less chance there is of the bastard finding out about you."

She smiled faintly. "So you think we've got – what? – forty-eight hours or so before the whole town knows?"

Rueful, he said, "About that, probably. Secrets do tend to get out in small towns."

"Well, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."

"Just be careful, will you, please?"

"I will." She raised her cup in a small salute. "Thanks for sending out the security people, by the way. The place is like a fortress now."

"I wish I could believe it would keep you safe."

Cassie met his gaze fleetingly and set her cup on the counter with a sound of finality. "I'll be fine."

Ben might have obediently taken his leave, but she reached up to brush back a strand of hair, and once again the gesture drew his attention to her bandaged hand.

"You're bleeding," he said.

Cassie looked at her hand, where a thin line of red stained the white gauze. "Damn."

He put his cup on the counter and stepped toward her, reaching out without thought. "Let me look – "

She took a step back. "No. No, thank you. I can take care of it myself."

Ben forced himself to stand still. "Cassie, you're so tired, I seriously doubt you could read anybody right now. But whether you can or not, somebody needs to look at that cut. Me or a doctor, take your pick. I can have one out here in half an hour. Of course, he'd probably insist on a tetanus shot. They usually do. Better to be safe than sorry, they say. Me, on the other hand, I'd more than likely just put on fresh antiseptic and re-bandage it. But it's your choice."

Cassie stared at him. "Did anybody ever mention that you can be officious as hell sometimes?"

"Matt likes to mention it." Ben smiled.

She smiled back, if a bit tentatively. Then she drew a breath and visibly braced herself. "All right."

Determined not to make a big deal out of it in his own mind as well as hers, Ben asked briskly, "Where's your first aid kit?"

"In that cabinet by the back door."

"I'll get it. Sit down at the table and start taking the bandage off, okay?"

By the time he joined her with the kit, she had the gauze unwound, revealing a long, thin slash across her palm that was bleeding sluggishly.

Cassie said, "Funny, I didn't notice before. The cut exactly follows my fate line. If I were superstitious, I'd probably worry about that."