Best to make everything consistent. Victim number three. An older victim, to be sure. Clearly not the Rose Killer’s usual type. But victim number three. Proving once and for all the Rose Killer’s terrible legacy, because what kind of monster attacks a cancer-stricken elderly lady? Not even Harry Day had been so merciless.

Once again, murder wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Who am I? I don’t know. I’ve never known. How can any person really figure that out?

What do I look like? A shell of normalcy. Because all kids learn quickly that normal is important, meaning if you’re not normal, you’d better go out of your way to look like it.

Primary motivation: To feel just like everyone else. Which, of course, is the one thing I can never feel.

Purpose of operation: If I can’t be like everyone else, I will be better than everyone else. I will hone my powers. I will be you. I will be me. I will be death. I will be salvation. I will be all things. And then I will finally have everything I want.

Net gain: Freedom at last.

Happy New Neighbor turned away from the mirror. Happy New Neighbor had been fretting long enough. No more thinking. Time to do.

Happy New Neighbor moved into the closet, kneeling down, then working carefully to pry up the three loose floorboards. A minute later, the shoe box came into view.

Removing the lid, gazing down at the contents. Knowing what must come next. And feeling the strength that comes with resolution.

Purpose of operation: To see what a pain specialist who couldn’t feel pain is really made of.

Net gain: Winner takes all.

Chapter 27

CHRISTI WILLEY WAS EXACTLY WHAT D.D. had pictured. It depressed her a little. There had been a time in her policing career when she’d promised herself the moment her job became a cliché, she’d hang up her hat. And yet here she was, at the Pru Center food court in downtown Boston, meeting with a former inmate and her parole officer, and yeah, Christi Willey was mostly what you’d expect, down to the overgrown bleached-blond hair, slumped shoulders and darting blue eyes.

Christi’s PO had called Phil while they were all still brainstorming in D.D.’s home. Per Phil’s request to meet with any parolees who’d once served time with Shana Day, the parole officer had a candidate: Christi Willey, released last year after serving twenty years in the MCI for a variety of offenses, including accessory to murder. The former inmate had agreed to answer their questions in return for one request: that Adeline be present.

Not Shana’s sister. Nor Dr. Adeline Glen. But Adeline.