Heather Graham - The Hexed

He looked at Rocky with an odd mixture of emotions, shrugged and started toward the crime scene. He turned back. “You coming?”

Rocky followed him. They hunkered down by the body and the medical examiner.

“Dead about four hours—give or take thirty minutes. Not too cold tonight, but not hot, either, so I think we’re looking at just about five o’clock,” the M.E. said.

“Broad daylight,” Jack muttered. “Sexual assault?”

“No. Probably pretty quick—merciful, under the circumstances. Looks as if she was standing here when her killer came from behind and slashed right across her throat. See the pattern of the blood spray—almost a straightforward gush. Then he just laid her down and arranged the body.”

Jack looked at Rocky. Neither of them spoke. Everyone knew how Melissa had died. She’d had her throat slashed. That much had leaked out; though, as far as he knew, only he, Jack and Vince, along with the cops and medical personnel who had worked the case, ever knew the details of the killing. With law enforcement and the powers that be afraid of both repercussions on the Wiccan community and that the investigation could be compromised, all the specifics had been kept quiet by the police, rather than let out for any would-be copycats to act on.

At the time, they’d all been so stunned and devastated, they’d never even spoken of it among themselves. They’d prayed and they’d waited for the murderer to be found....

And waited.

The killer eluded all efforts by the police to discover his—or her—identity.

Back then, the cops had talked about cults. Maybe they’d do the same now.

Within the hour, the body was on the way to the morgue. The crime scene unit continued to comb the woods, and Rocky stood with Jack by the side of the road.

“Shit,” Jack muttered, looking at Rocky. “I don’t study this kind of stuff—you know, the psychology of a killer. I guess you do. But my wife watches those shows all the time.” He paused and looked at Rocky a little sheepishly. “My wife—Haley.”

Rocky smiled. “Congratulations. I’m sorry I missed it. I guess I should have come home more.”

“We sent you an invitation to the wedding.”

“I never saw it. I was probably working out west and it never reached me.”

“Yeah, well, anyway, Haley is hooked on all the crime shows. She’s relentless—trying to tell me how to be a better cop all the time. I guess it doesn’t hurt. But how could this be the same guy? Melissa was killed, what? Almost thirteen years ago? I thought serial killers escalated, getting more violent and killing more frequently.”

“Usually. But there have been cases where a killer starts, stops, then picks up years later. Sometimes it turns out he was in prison for something else, but sometimes he just loses the urge until something happens to trigger it again. No one has ever really cracked the puzzle of the human mind. We can look for patterns, we can base our investigations on what we’ve learned, but we’re surprised all the time. This looks like the same killer, but we don’t know yet that it is.”

“Copycat?”

“Possibly. Are you lead on the case in Swampscott?” Rocky asked him.

Jack nodded. “They’ve taken everything else off my plate. They want this one solved.” He shook his head. “Nothing to do with Melissa. It’s just my job.”

“So,” Rocky said, “tell me about her.”

“Carly Henderson,” Jack said. “She was a redhead. We found her in the same kind of situation, small patch of woods in a semiurban area. She was a local. I don’t know who this woman was, but I’m willing to bet she’ll prove to be local, too.”

“Like Melissa,” Rocky said.

“Like Melissa,” Jack agreed.

* * *

“I definitely need a dog,” Devin said, leaning back against the door. It was locked and bolted. She’d checked the back door and the windows, too. She still felt on edge. “A giant dog. Or maybe an attack cat—like a tiger.”

I just found a woman with her throat slashed!

She suddenly wondered at her own courage—or stupidity—in running into the road. She might have flagged down the killer instead of an FBI agent. A normal person would have run back to the cottage, locked the door and called the police.

But what if the killer had hidden in her house?

At least she knew the killer wasn’t inside with her now. The young officer who had walked her back had made a thorough search. He’d gone into her closets and looked under the beds. And the cops would be nearby, searching the scene, for a while, she knew.

Poe squawked.

Her hands, she realized, were still shaking.

She could still see the woman all too clearly in her mind’s eyes. Lying there. Dead.

Poe let out another cry.

“I’m sorry. You’re a great bird. You just don’t have fangs and claws,” she told him.

It was all right. She was locked in, and she wasn’t opening her door to anyone.

Devin walked to the entertainment center—artfully hidden behind lattice doors—and turned on the television, wanting company.

She sat down at her computer, thinking that if she went back to work she would concentrate on the wonderful magic of her aunt—both her real aunt and her fictional Auntie Pim—and get lost in the joy of writing.

Except she didn’t.

Work? Was she kidding herself? She wasn’t going to get any work done now.

She looked up the murder in Swampscott.

The first site she opened, the local paper, gave her as much information as was available to the public.

The police have identified the victim found dead in the Swampscott woods on Saturday as Carly Jane Henderson. Ms. Henderson ran a local beauty salon and was a longtime resident of Essex County, though she was born and raised in Danvers. She was last seen leaving the O Club in Salem at eleven o’clock on Friday night, after enjoying dinner and cocktails with friends. Her car was parked at the local garage, where it remained until found by police. Police are seeking help to solve her murder. Anyone with any information regarding her whereabouts after she left the O Club is asked to please call the county sheriff’s department.

While police are closely guarding information regarding the murder itself due to the ongoing investigation, some local residents remember the murder of Melissa Wilson thirteen years ago. Melissa had left a friend’s house at around five o’clock, after a study date. She was later found the same evening in Peabody Woods. However, while Miss Wilson was seventeen, Carly Henderson was thirty-two.

The clock on the mantel struck twelve. Devin jumped, then stared at the softly chiming clock.

The two men had talked about...both murders. Or two murders. Or...

They’d known each other, she thought. The cop and the man she’d flagged down. Agent Rockwell...and Detective Grail. The two knew each other and...

She turned back to the computer screen.

Melissa Wilson.

She remembered the murder herself. She’d been about thirteen. Her parents had gone crazy with worry, of course. She’d barely been allowed out for weeks. But then events in the rest of the world had overshadowed one murder in little Peabody, and Melissa’s death had faded from the collective memory.

She’d jumped when the clock chimed; when her phone rang, she nearly flew off her chair.

Who could be calling at midnight?

She stared at the caller ID. She didn’t know the number. She didn’t even know the area code.

For some reason, though, she answered it.

“Hello?”

Images from books and movies swept through her mind. It was the killer. He was going to tell her that he was watching her....

“Miss Lyle?”

For a moment she didn’t reply. She couldn’t.