“You say killers love routine,” Hollis reminded him. “Especially serial killers, which this one appears to be if he’s killed Megan and one more, probably Cole Ainsworth, and is holding or has already killed a third.”

“True. But I believe Nellie is safe enough at the bank, and I suspect she’ll have guardians other than Leo watching over her while she comes and goes.”

Hollis, remembering the whole report of what had happened here in January, looked at him thoughtfully. “The crows. Guilt? Because of what happened to her father?”

Diana said, “Didn’t that happen years ago?”

Bishop nodded but said, “American crows can live to be twenty or more years old, so that may be part of it, assuming crows are capable of experiencing guilt. Or it may simply be that these crows belong here in Salem and have generational memories. They do share their knowledge about people, individuals, with their own kind, and being a Cavendish—at least here in Salem—probably forms a natural bond between Nellie and the crows, especially if communication between the birds and that family has been in existence as long as we believe it has. For whatever reason, I’m fairly certain they’d protect her.”

“Well,” Miranda said, “there are certainly more of them than there are of us, so anything they can do to help is a good idea in my book.”

“As long as I don’t get eaten,” Hollis said.

—

FINN JOINED THEM in time for coffee and grim tidings and was able to confirm both that no Salem resident had been reported missing overnight and that Megan Hales’s family had indeed believed that she had left Salem abruptly after her fiancé had eloped with another woman.

Diana winced. “With no warning at all, not even a Dear Jane letter? I’ll say she was jilted.”

“There was an uproar about it back in the summer,” Finn said, still frowning over the new information of her true fate. “Most of the Five take care to marry outside their own families for obvious reasons, but it’s still a bit uncommon for a man from one of the Five to marry a woman from another. Megan was engaged to Paul Ainsworth, which was unusual enough. Two months before what would have been their wedding day, he eloped with a cousin. Of his.”

“So that was the uproar,” Hollis said. “A cousin.”

“Yeah, more or less, though Paul also caught hell for jilting Megan when he came back last fall. But . . . for anyone spending their lives in Salem, especially one of the Five, the gene pool is already limited by sheer lack of numbers. Aside from any religious or moral concerns, biology definitely plays a role in what any society considers the norm. Inbreeding can cause serious health issues, even between distant cousins and especially over time, so it’s strongly discouraged.”

“Because it wasn’t always?” Miranda guessed.

“Way back, no, it wasn’t. Given the times, there were thoughts of keeping family lines ‘pure,’ especially once the Five found this valley and settled in, because according to the lore they’d been persecuted because of their Talents.”