“But he was convicted.”

“For Rugglestone’s murder only. Nobody wanted to admit that they’d suspected a serial killer was out there and didn’t notify the general public. No one wanted more egg on their faces after the son of a decorated cop was arrested for a brutal murder. So Alec went to trial for Rugglestone’s murder and he was sentenced to life in prison and he’s up at Walpole rotting away. His father went to Florida, probably died trying to figure out where it all went so wrong. And none of this would matter, I suppose, except that someone crucified Kara Rider on a hill and someone else gave you my name and the name Alec Hardiman.”

“So,” I said, “if there actually was more than one killer, and Alec Hardiman was one of them…”

“Then the other one’s still out there, yeah.” Dark pockets had formed under his eyes and hollowed them out. “And if he’s still out there after almost twenty-something years, and he’s been holding his breath all this time for some sort of comeback, I’d say he’s probably pretty pissed off.”

16

It was snowing on a bright summer day when Kara Rider stopped me to ask how the Jason Warren case was going.

She’d changed her hair back to its original blond and she was sitting in a lawn chair outside The Black Emerald wearing only a pink bikini bottom and the snow fell to either side of her and piled up by the chair, but only sun fell on her skin. Her small breasts were hard, and beaded with perspiration, and I had to keep reminding myself that I’d known her since she was a little kid, and I shouldn’t be noticing them in a sexual context.

Grace and Mae were half a block up, Grace placing a black rose in Mae’s hair. Across the avenue a pack of white dogs, small and gnarled like fists, watched them and drooled, thick streams pouring from the sides of their mouths.

“I got to go,” I said to Kara, but when I looked back, Grace and Mae were gone.

“Sit,” Kara said. “Just for a sec.”

So I sat and the snow fell down the back of my collar and chilled my spine. My teeth chattered as I said, “I thought you were dead.”

“No,” she said. “I just went away for a while.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Brookline. Shit.”

“What?”

“This place looks just the fucking same.”

Grace stuck her head out of The Black Emerald. “You ready, Patrick?”

“Got to go,” I said and patted Kara’s shoulder.

She took my hand and laid it against her bare breast.

I looked at Grace, but she didn’t seem to mind. Angie stood beside her and they both smiled.

Kara stroked her nipple with my palm. “Don’t forget about me.”

Snow was pouring on her body now, burying it.

“I won’t. I gotta go.”

“Bye.”

The legs of her lawn chair collapsed under the weight of the snow, and when I looked back I could just make out her form under drifts of soft white.