Oh. Okay. If that was the case, then it fit in a grisly way: he was setting up the victims with the person who would watch them die.

Too many investigators come up with a theory and then try to prove it. Calvin taught me to do the opposite—to hypothesize and then try to find flaws in the theory. “The truth will withstand all inquiries,” he told me once. “Vigorously try to disprove yourself. When you can no longer do so, you are finally on the pathway towards a valid deduction regarding the case.”

Never assume. Hypothesize, test, revise.

I passed the information along to Cyber to analyze and to see if they could trace the location of the site’s administrator.

Greer had come through for me and gotten a reservation tonight at seven at Giuseppe’s, and I’d sent a text to Christie that I would meet her there. Now I heard back from her, letting me know that she was home from the airport and was looking forward to seeing me at the restaurant.

Pumpkins, huh? she texted.

Cheaper than hiring agile pedestrians.

I’ll meet you at 7.

See you in a couple hours.

++++

Timothy considered canceling tonight’s book signing.

No, no, no. You can’t. You have to go. People might get suspicious. If they get suspicious, they might come looking. And if they come looking, they’ll find out what you did to Julianne.

He wanted to tell the voice that he hadn’t done anything to Julianne, but there she was, dead and cold upstairs in his bedroom.

Resting in his bed.

He said nothing.

Alright.

He would go to the signing, and afterward he would figure out what to do with the body. Something permanent. Something that wasn’t going to bring any suspicion onto him.

Thinking about her caused him to be distracted and made it hard to decide what section of his book to read at the signing. His muscles were aching, one of the symptoms of his condition—exacerbated, no doubt, from the fatigue of shoveling out that hole earlier in the day—and he felt like he had no energy, like he was spiraling down and down and down, deeper into some sort of obsidian sadness. He didn’t like the word “depression,” had never liked it. He wondered if he should start taking his meds again.

No, the drugs take too long to work anyway, and remember how they dull everything? Muting the good, the bad, making you live in a living fog? Don’t take the meds. You can handle this on your own.

Timothy paged through the novel Julianne had read to him when he met her at the waterfront, and then reviewed the next chapter. Maybe this was what he was looking for. Maybe this was the section to read tonight at the bookstore.

Maybe maybe maybe maybe.

48

Deer Valley Airport

Phoenix, Arizona