“Is it really necessary?” Nellie asked for the second time.

“Bishop says so, and I agree with him,” Finn replied. He kept his voice low. “We might not know much about this killer, but who he’s targeting seems clear enough. We’re potential targets, Nellie, both of us.”

“You’re always armed and I have Leo,” she pointed out, glancing to one side to see her big dog relaxed on his bed out of the way of foot traffic. She did, in fact, own a gun, but it had lived in the drawer of her nightstand for the last few weeks. When there hadn’t seemed to be a threat to her in Salem any longer.

“Still. We know this killer is vicious and . . . on a mission. We don’t know how he chooses individuals, how he decides who he wants to kill and when, or even if he’s working from some kind of kill list he’s had ready for a while. We don’t know how he’s managed to take three people without any witnesses. We don’t know how he was able to hide or dispose of Megan’s car. We don’t really know what he’s capable of, except the extremes of violence and cruelty. So we take precautions. That’s sensible, right?”

“I guess.” Nellie pushed her plate a few inches away, frowning. The food was excellent as usual, but her appetite had vanished completely when she’d learned about Simon. The friendly cousin she liked very much was seldom far from her thoughts. “Still no word about Simon?”

“You know I would have told you. No word. No sign. And not much more we can do to search for him until morning.”

“No searching after dark.”

Knowing what she was asking, Finn said, “Having regular nighttime patrols on the slopes before, especially weeks ago when Duncan was so dangerous, was different, Nellie. We knew who and what the threat was. But now? This? Most of my people are members of the Five. Potential targets. And even aside from that, I’ve barely got enough manpower to do a thorough search during the day and keep up regular two-deputy patrols here in town and in the rest of the valley at night, to keep people on the phones, manning the station just to take ordinary calls.”

“I wasn’t criticizing,” she murmured.

Finn nodded.

“I hate this.”

“I know. So do I.”

Nellie shook her head slightly. “With Duncan gone, his followers, I thought things would be better. It’s like you said: At least what he was, what he planned, was pretty damned obvious. And why. We knew he was behind what was happening. But this killer . . . how could he have been hidden for so long, for months? Longer if there were signs nobody noticed, and there had to be, right? You don’t just wake up one day and decide to butcher another human being. I didn’t have to see the . . . the remains brought down out of the mountains to know how viciously they were killed. The more recent one, at least. Everybody’s talking about it.”