“But there’s nothing threatening about that picture.”

Bolton nodded. “Except that it was taken at all and then sent to Ms. Gennaro. Have you ever heard of Evandro Arujo?”

“No.”

“Alec Hardiman?”

“Nope.”

“Peter Stimovich or Pamela Stokes?”

Phil thought about it. “Both sound vaguely familiar.”

Bolton opened the file in his hand, passed photos of Stimovich and Stokes to him.

Phil’s face darkened. “Wasn’t this guy stabbed to death last week?”

Bolton said, “A lot worse than stabbed.”

“The papers said stabbed,” Phil said. “Something about his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend being a suspect.”

Bolton shook his head. “That’s the story we leaked. Stimovich’s girlfriend had no ex-boyfriend of note.”

Phil held up the Pamela Stokes photo. “She dead, too?”

“Yes.”

Phil rubbed his eyes. “Fuck,” he said and it came out in a ripple as if riding a laugh or a shudder.

“Have you ever met either of them?”

Phil shook his head.

“How about Jason Warren?”

Phil looked over at Angie. “The kid you were trying to protect? The one who died?”

She nodded. She hadn’t spoken much since we arrived. She chain-smoked and stared out the window facing the back yard.

“Kara Rider?” Bolton said.

“She was killed by this asshole too?”

Bolton nodded.

“Jesus.” Phil came off the counter gingerly, as if not sure there’d be a floor waiting to meet him. He crossed stiffly to Angie, took a cigarette from her pack, lit it, and looked down at his ex-wife.

She watched him the way you’d watch someone who’s just been informed he has cancer, not sure if you should give him space to lash out or stay close to catch him if he crumbles.

He placed a hand on her cheek and she leaned into it and something deeply intimate—some acknowledgment of what rooted them to each other—passed between them.

“Mr. Dimassi, did you know Kara Rider?”

Phil withdrew his hand from Angie’s cheek in a slow caress and walked back to the counter.

“I knew her when she was growing up. We all did.”

“Had you seen her recently?”

He shook his head. “Not in three or four years.” He stared at his cigarette, then flicked ash into the sink. “Why us, Mr. Bolton?”

“We don’t know,” Bolton said and there was an edge of desperate irritation in his voice. “We’re hunting Arujo now and his face will be plastered over every newspaper in New England by tomorrow morning. He can’t hide long. We still don’t know why he’s targeting the people he’s targeting, except in the Warren case where we have a possible motive—but at least now we know who he’s targeting and we can watch both you and Ms. Gennaro.”

Erdham came into the kitchen. “Perimeters of both this house and Mr. Dimassi’s apartment building are secure.”

Bolton nodded and rubbed his face with fleshy hands.

“Okay, Mr. Dimassi,” he said, “here it is. Twenty years ago a man named Alec Hardiman murdered his friend, Charles Rugglestone in a warehouse about six blocks from here. We believe that Hardiman and Rugglestone were responsible for a string of murders at the time, the most notorious of which was Cal Morrison’s crucifixion.”