She wondered now just how disturbed Frank Farman really was. Had he killed his wife? Had he killed only his wife?

It would have been so easy for him to pick his victims. Every woman would stop for a police car. Every woman would trust the man in the uniform who got out of that car. All he had to do was pull them over on a lonely stretch of road . . .

The breach of trust was unconscionable. And when she thought of what had been done to those women . . . No nightmare could have been more terrifying.

Shivering at the little jolts of adrenaline still zapping through her, she walked the entire house, checking windows, checking doors. Wishing Vince was there. Funny how quickly that was becoming a habitual thought.

She went into the living room and turned the television on just for the company of voices, and was presented with a bird’s-eye view of the sheriff’s office. The banner across the bottom of the screen read: SIEGE AT THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE: SHOWDOWN IN OAK KNOLL.

The building was surrounded by press and media helicopters sweeping the ground with spotlights.

Anne grabbed the remote and turned up the volume, catching the handsome LA reporter midsentence.

“. . . suspected in the alleged beating and strangulation death of his wife, whose body was allegedly discovered less than an hour ago in the trunk of this police car located on the lawn behind me—presumably Deputy Farman’s department vehicle.”

Oh my God.

“In an even more bizarre twist, the deputy’s eleven-year-old son is said to be in the building. He was arrested earlier today in connection with a stabbing in a nearby park.

“Speculation is, of course, rampant that the deputy may in fact be the notorious See-No-Evil killer who has been stalking this idyllic college town—”

Anne flipped from channel to channel to channel, every one of them showing the same scene from a different angle. None of them showing the drama going on inside the building, where lives were hanging in the balance.

Chapter 81

81

“What can we do for you, Frank?” Vince asked.

They had been at it for thirty-five minutes. Him trying to pull answers out of Frank Farman, slowly trying to get him to turn his back to the door. Farman, sweating and shaking now from the strain of holding on to the sheriff and keeping the gun up to his head.

Vince was fighting his own war of attrition, his own energy reserves draining to the last drop. He was starting to feel shaky too, but if he could just keep Farman occupied for a little while longer something would happen. The deputy would give up, or the cavalry would burst in.

The trick was to keep him talking.

“You need to sit down? You need something to drink? What?” Vince asked, planting those needs in Farman’s head over and over.

Farman blinked hard as sweat ran down his brow and dripped into his eyes.