"-or mother and father," they said together.

Jade's face clouded. "He's like a f.u.c.kin' plague descending on the house. Punishes the parents, then toys with the children like playthings."

"Do you think he'll always kill the parents?"

"If you'd like, you're welcome to join me for dinner. Earl and the kids are at a baseball game, so they won't be back until later. Earl always says there's nothing like baseball at dusk, but I think . . ." Her voice droned on incessantly in the background, carrying through the house to Allander.

He walked right past the antique phone on the little wooden table and began opening doors to the rooms off the hallway. He found the laundry room and leaned over the dryer to open a cabinet. A large iron sat back safely from the edge. Allander smiled as he removed it and began to wrap the cord around his wrist.

"I thank you so much for your hospitality," he called down the hallway as he walked toward the voice still emanating from the kitchen, the iron swinging freely at his side.

Jade paused for a second, biting his cheek pensively. He grimaced as he ran his thumb across his bottom lip. He had come to trust Travers with more and more information.

He rose to his feet. "I have something to show you."

The iron, matted with blood and tangles of hair, swung back and forth, still wrapped around Allander's wrist. It dangled just above the floor as he peeled a piece of crisp skin off the turkey and dropped it into his mouth, savoring its rich flavor.

He turned on the radio, and a Beethoven piano concerto, The Emperor, played loudly from unseen speakers.

The woman's arm protruded from around the corner of a large cooking block situated in the middle of the kitchen. Thin, dark hair stood out against the forearm, and the wrist wore a gold watch. It ticked, and Allander took comfort in its consistency.

He stepped around the corner of the block to admire the rest of the body. The face was severely battered. Allander thought he could discern the distinct shape of the iron from the indentations in the forehead and right cheek. One of his swipes had missed the head and punctured one of the generous b.r.e.a.s.t.s, but it bled far less than the other wounds.

A pool of blood drained from her head and ran along the seam where the floor met the cooking block. Allander waved his hand to the music as he bent over, delicately dipping his index finger into the blood like a paintbrush.

Jade returned to the room with the small wood carving he had stolen from the Atlasias' bathroom. The detail on it was extraordinary, the solid chunk of wood transformed to a lifelike rendering. From the etched initials and date on the bottom, Jade knew that Allander had carved it, and had done so when he was only fourteen. Already, it showed the hand of an imaginative thinker.

Jade set it down on top of Allander's sketch of the sets of hands. The carving showed three monkeys sitting side by side, blended together at the midsection. The first one covered his eyes, the second his ears, and the third his mouth. Their hands matched those in the drawing perfectly-one set facing each other, one set pointing at each other, and a solitary hand angled up at forty-five degrees. The three monkeys looked as if they knew a great secret. As if they spied someone stalking you, lurking in shadows behind your back.

An ideal symbol for repression. Allander's own parody of the Freudian process.

"Oh my G.o.d!" Travers exclaimed. "See no evil, hear no evil-"

Allander stood before the large pane of gla.s.s that provided most of the light for the modestly decorated family room. His finger was covered in blood, and it ran down his forearm, dripping off his elbow.

He stood back and admired his lettering. "S N E." Same initials, different meaning. Speak no evil. Not much risk of that happening.

In the kitchen, the woman's mouth drooled profusely, spilling blood onto the wooden floor. It leaked from the hole where her tongue had once been.

Allander felt no s.e.xual desire for her. The killing was easy, so the thrill it brought was lessened. Her screams brought ecstasy, of course, as did the sound of her body being battered. But without the s.e.xual challenge, it just wasn't the same. He'd be moving on soon, moving on to the real object of his desires.

But she was an educator; she had the hypocrisy written thickly across her face. He detested educators who spewed forth nonsense. He had warned little Leah about them too. They talked just to hear themselves speak, but they feared the truth like all others. Well, he had stopped her tongue at last.

He finished his lettering and wiped his hand on his shirt. Then he went into the kitchen, stepped over the woman's body, and fixed himself a drink. After taking care of the body and the floor, he found himself a clean shirt in a drawer and put it on. Heading back to the front of the house, he pulled a large wooden chair around to face the front door, and began his wait for Earl and the kids to return home.

38.

J A D E continued to chew ice. It helped to keep him focused. He cooled himself by running the cup across his forehead occasionally, enjoying the drops of water that rolled down his face.

"You want something to drink?" he asked Travers. He got up, peeling his bare back from the couch.

"Sure. Iced tea?"

"Water."

"Water's fine."

She heard the shoveling of ice cubes and sighed. She didn't know how much more ice crunching she could endure.

"We're at a standstill," she said when he returned.

"What are you talking about? We just figured out his pattern, what he's doing."

"Yeah, but how does that help us in catching him? In stopping him?"

Jade looked at her disdainfully. The doorbell rang, and he left to answer it without responding to her question.

Tony smiled broadly as he pushed past Jade and walked into the entranceway. "There's these two sperm swimming. And they're exhausted. They've been at it forever, seems like hours. Finally, one turns to the other and says, 'Hey! How much longer we got?' Other sperm looks back at him and says. 'Who you kidding? We just got past the esophagus!'" His laughter started as soon as he finished the joke.

Jade laughed, three notes descending the scale.

"Aren't you going to ask me in?" Tony said.

"You are in."

"Farther in?"

"Would you like to come farther in?" Jade asked flatly, turning his back on Tony and heading to the living room.

"Why certainly. I'd be delighted." Jade watched Tony's face when he saw Travers sitting on the floor. He could tell Tony was impressed by her.

"You didn't tell me your partner was here," he said.

"One of your friends, I'm surprised he doesn't think I'm the maid," Travers shot back without looking up.

Tony turned to face Jade, his eyebrows raised. "And all the charm of a rottweiler."

"Rabid," Jade said. "A rabid rottweiler."

Travers kept flipping pages.

Tony took a step back and pointedly looked Jade up and down. A pair of ripped shorts, no shirt, no shoes and socks. "You didn't have to get all dressed up just because I was coming over."

Jade grabbed the leg of his shorts. "What, this old thing?" he said.

Travers smiled, but still refused to look up.

"I gotta hop in the shower," Jade said. "Play nice with the rottweiler." He disappeared down the hall.

Tony sat down heavily on the couch. "So. I see you've met the ever unpredictable Jade Marlow."

Travers looked up at Tony and studied him carefully. There was a softness to his face, and she wasn't surprised to see the wedding band on his finger. She decided she liked him. "You could say I've had the pleasure."

"Frustrating, huh?"

"And more. Sometimes he's impossible. I take that back. He's always impossible."

Tony laughed and extended his hand. "Tony Razzoni."

"I know. You're one of the only people he talks about civilly. Anyone else I figure he would've shot at the door."

"I've dodged a few of his bullets," Tony said. He chuckled. "He's very intense."

Travers slammed down the file she'd been studying. "Intense? About what? About himself? He doesn't give a s.h.i.t about anything else. The victims, the families-nothing."

She immediately regretted her outburst, embarra.s.sed to be showing emotion about someone she presumably didn't like.

Tony ran his hand over the stubble on his chin, and looked at her knowingly. She hated that he knew Jade was under her skin.

"I met a guy a few years back, ran track with Jade at UCLA," he said. "Said Jade trained like n.o.body else-put in five-hour practices six days a week. In his junior year, he was a strong candidate for team captain. That's rare, you know, for a junior. The night of the election, he didn't show up. Most guys woulda killed to be captain, but he didn't even show up. Guy I talked to said he just didn't want it. But I think he was afraid of the responsibility, didn't want to run the risk of letting anyone down." Tony paused for so long that Travers thought he was done with the story.

"He won every single regular season meet in his junior and senior years. And he knew he would, the guy said. Even back when he missed that election on purpose."

Tony looked away from her, leaning back and spreading his arms across the top of the couch. "Guess he just didn't care, huh?"

They sat in silence, Travers flipping through a criminal psychology textbook and Tony picking at his nails.

39.

A L L A N D E R heard a truck pull into the driveway and then a man's deep voice followed by children's laughter. He had found a shotgun mounted on the wall of the study, upstairs, and a box of sh.e.l.ls in the cabinet beneath. Now he sat in quiet antic.i.p.ation, shotgun across his knees.

The front door opened and Earl entered the house. In his late fifties, he had a head of curly gray hair, and his skin was wind-blasted from years of working outside. Like his wife, Earl was a teacher. Allander had determined this fact earlier by looking through the photo alb.u.m in the living room. That's why he waited for him.

Earl stopped when he saw the outline of Allander's figure in the darkness of the living room ahead. The boys hadn't noticed Allander's presence, and Earl's eyes closed regretfully as he heard the door click shut behind them. With one muscular arm, he swept his two boys, aged ten and sixteen, behind his back.

"You know," Allander said, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward until a sliver of light fell over his face. "You shouldn't allow guns in the house. There's an overwhelming likelihood that they'll be used against members of your own family." He smiled sweetly and waited to see a change of expression sweep across Earl's face. He was not disappointed.

"You'd better pray you didn't touch her," Earl said, his voice lowering to a snarl.

"I don't pray," Allander replied. "And I did touch her."

Earl lunged forward, his fingers spread in fury. The hatred in his eyes was extraordinary. Allander knew the man would have no qualms about tearing the flesh from his body with his bare hands.

The first shot hit Earl in the stomach and stopped his momentum, knocking him backward. He landed in a sitting position about two yards in front of Allander's feet.

His fingers pushed in and felt the rush of blood where his stomach wall had been. He raised his head to look at Allander just as the second shot blew much of it from his shoulders. Chunks of flesh landed in the entranceway, skidding past the children's feet before sticking to the wall behind them. Blood sprayed the large mirror on the left side of the room.

"Well, that was certainly a helpful exercise," Allander said cheerily as he loaded two more sh.e.l.ls into the shotgun and rec.o.c.ked it. "I hope no one else loses his head over this little matter."

The sixteen-year-old started to cry, his shoulders heaving. The younger brother remained silent, staring at Allander with wide eyes. He stepped back against the door, and Allander smiled as he saw his little pink fingers grasp the older boy's hand.

The boys sat back to back in two of the kitchen chairs, bound to their seats by thick duct tape coiled around their bodies just under their chests.

The thrill of power rushed through Allander's body, touching him to the bone. He almost had to shake it off like a chill. He had come to settle another score, to revisit the teachers with a bit of retribution. The children had just been an extra. He liked having them just as they were; he could perform any action he desired on them and they could do nothing about it. Very few people had ever experienced such complete control.

Allander had been considerate enough to remove the mother's body from the kitchen before he took the boys in there. He had even mopped up the blood. Fathers received their retribution publicly, but he could never show children their dead mother. She was safely out of sight, one room over in the family room.

The older boy had stopped crying, but his breath still came with sobbing urgency. He shrank back from reality, shock glazing his now vacant eyes. The little one had not made a sound.

"Well, my young friends, what are your names?" Allander asked politely. He was perched on a high stool facing the boys and he dug a kitchen knife into his seat absentmindedly, cleaving little peels of wood from the surface.

"We're not your friends, and we're not telling you our names. We're not telling you nothin'." The ten-year-old jerked his head toward his older sibling. "Don't tell him nothin', Ted."

Allander smiled. "Well, if he doesn't tell me nothing then he would, in fact, be telling me something. A double negative makes a positive. Your advice isn't concordant with your desires."

The ten-year-old looked at Allander and squinted his left eye to form what he thought of as an intimidating glare. "Well, we're not tellin' you anything then."

"So young, and so untender?" Allander laughed. "Very well. But I don't think this one has much choice given his present condition." Allander gestured to the older boy with a flick of his head. "They don't talk much, you see, when they're in shock." His eyes narrowed and he dug the knife deeper into the stool. "It's a very trying time."

He raised his eyes to the younger boy. "I will ask you one more time and then I will kill you and I will find out what your name was anyway by hunting around in your room and it will all have been an exercise in futility. So you'd best respond."

He leaned forward and stared at the boy eye to eye, their noses almost touching. "What is your name?" he purred.

"My mom said not to give out my name to people."

"Oh yes. You might find yourself in a dangerous situation," Allander said, laughing. "Besides, I don't think your mother's in a position to punish you anymore. Come now. Out with it."

The ten-year-old bit his lower lip for a minute and didn't respond. Allander flipped the knife over once and caught it by the handle. He began to step off the stool.

"Alex," the boy said quickly. He never once removed his eyes from the knife's blade.

"Well, Alexander, you and I are going to have some fun. But first, I must take the precaution of removing your brother."

Alex still kept his eyes trained on the knife. A look of horror was creeping into his eyes; Allander could see it blossoming beneath the clear green irises.

"Don't you hurt him. Don't you hurt Ted."