“Did she talk about these stories at Fiddler’s Mill?”

He looked up at her almost admonishingly, seeing through her ploy easily enough. “Aye.”

“And is that where you met? How old were you when you were there?”

Reave lowered his chin to his chest, letting out a slow breath.

“My family lived nearby there, and I just … drifted to the place as I got older. I did odd jobs for the man who owned it—tidying the place up, mending things. It became my home. Colleen turned up there in … the spring of 1977 I think it was.”

“In 1977, my mum would have been fifteen … She was just wandering around the countryside? She was a kid. What about school?” She stopped, realizing she sounded like an outraged aunt and Michael Reave was laughing at her.

He shrugged. “Things were different then. Colleen, she was wild, she didn’t get on with her dad, she didn’t get on with school … It was easier for kids to just get up and leave. No cameras watching, still wild places to hide. And the man who owned the land, he was good at making problems go away.”

Heather blinked, trying to imagine her mother as a rebellious teen. A few weeks ago, that would have seemed laughable, but now her mother seemed to be a shifting presence, someone that could change at any moment.

“This man. Who was he? The owner?”

“I don’t remember.”

That was an obvious lie. Heather ignored it.

“I’ve done some research into the place, read blogs and articles. It sounds like it was quite the party central, if you were part of the gang. A lot of drugs and free love?”

Reave shrugged. She could tell he was losing interest in her.

“Did you meet a lot of people there, Michael? A lot of women?”

“A few.”

“A lot of people think you’re responsible for a number of missing women we don’t even know about yet. Do you want to tell me about that?”

This time he didn’t even shrug, and the expression on his face was flat and very still.

“Mr. Reave … Michael, look, everyone believes you murdered those women. The whole country thinks of you as the Red Wolf.” She thought she saw a flicker of some new emotion in his eyes at that. “Maybe you can think of me as a neutral party.” She shrugged slightly. “Before I found those letters, I didn’t really know anything about you. Not anything beyond the tabloid headlines, anyway. Maybe you could take this as an opportunity to tell me how you saw things. Tell me your story.”

He watched her now, a tiny crease appearing between his eyebrows. He shifted in his chair, and Heather saw that he was considering it.

“My story?”

Heather nodded.

“My story.” Reave leaned back in his chair and looked at the wall. The prison guards shifted; one of them crossed his arms over his chest. They both looked bored. “I was a poor country kid. My father did odd jobs for people, some of them less than legal, I reckon. My mother was an angry woman. She didn’t like me much, but then I don’t think she liked anyone much. She was cold and turned inwards on herself, wouldn’t speak for days sometimes. I remember her stoking the stove up until it was fair spitting sparks, and she would sit by it for hours, until one side of her was all red and mottled, just staring at nothing. When she was angry with me, she would shut me away.” He cleared his throat and met Heather’s eyes again. “When a doe rabbit has kits, Heather, she has to feel completely safe. If she doesn’t feel safe, lass, if she feels that there is a predator in the woods, do you know what she’ll do?”