The moment the guy’s car pulled out, Jack looked directly at where I was hiding. I stepped out, expecting to be lambasted. But he only waved me toward the car.

“So is that the last we’ll hear of Boris Nikolaev?” I asked as I climbed into the car.

“Better be,” Jack muttered. “Damned inconvenient.”

I shook my head and reached for the radio dial.

“Won’t change anything, Nadia.”

I looked at him, fingers on the knob.

“Find out now. Find out at Evelyn’s. Won’t change what happened.” His gaze slanted my way. “You know what happened.”

I nodded and turned on the radio.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

THIRTY-TWO

As promised, the Helter Skelter killer had taken another victim at noon. As for whether he struck on the dot of noon, I’ll leave it for the more dramatically inclined reporters to speculate. What I do know is that the victim was found less than ten minutes past noon, when her friends called into the kitchen to see why she was taking so long with the coffee. At the time of the murder, they’d been tuned to CNN waiting for news of what was unfolding a few steps away. The irony of that would be lost on no one. Of everyone waiting for news of the next victim, one person became that news.

The audacity of the killing was lost on no one, either. Not only had he struck in an occupied home, but one with a state-of-the-art security system, in one of the most supposedly secure gated communities. The message was clear—if I can get to her, I can get to anyone.

That promoted exactly the kind of paranoia that gated communities preyed on. I’d pulled a hit in a “high security” private club, in the middle of a golf tournament, and let me tell you, I’ve done harder—much harder.

But of course the media was already playing it up, making it sound like he was some kind of phantom who’d slipped past not only the armed guards at the gate, but a fully armed home security system.

Fully armed, my ass. How many people rearm their system when they’re indoors entertaining, with friends coming and going? My guess was that the homeowner had reactivated it when she’d learned of the murder. If the system had been off, the Feds would figure it out, but I doubted that tidbit would make it to the six o’clock news.

Jack needed to call Quinn before we got back to Evelyn’s, so he stopped at a Cracker Barrel near the state border. I went in to grab coffees to go, then got sidetracked by the display of old-fashioned candy. When I returned to the car and found Jack wasn’t back, I put the coffees and candy inside and went to look for him.