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  "Whatever. Point is, I don't want to embarrass those men and their families. They're good, decent, responsible citizens, most of them. Come morning, they'll regret what happened and that's good enough for me. What do you say, Landware? I'll talk about it with Charlie in the morning."

  "You won't have to. You're right. He'll feel the same way. There's been enough bad news for one day."

  "Mighty decent of you," Ben said. "Appreciate it. Saw you around town today. Saw you and Charlie every time I turned around, seemed like."

  "Just doing what Charlie pays me to do, trying to find some fresh angles on what happened."

  "Any luck?"

  "I found out how people in a small town like Devil Creek respond to a tragedy like this. City people shake their heads and put it behind them a few minutes after hearing about it. These folks take it a lot more personally because it is personal to them."

  Ben nodded. "Oh, they'll squabble amongst themselves sure enough, believe that. But a thing like this makes everyone forget the small stuff. Reckon that's the up side of everyone knowing each other in a town this size."

  "I just heard you tell those men that you're interrogating Tobe Caldwell. Anything new that we could make public?"

  "Those media folks from out of town will be camped out on my doorstep first thing tomorrow, I suppose," Ben said. "I'll have a public statement then. I think it's wrapped up. Bobby snapped and went on a rampage. There's nothing more to it than that."

  "I was telling someone the same thing a little while ago. I hope we're right."

  Ben frowned. "Why wouldn't we be?"

  "I don't know, Chief. The thought just came to mind."

  "Heck, son. Didn't mean to bite your head off. This whole day's worn me down and now I've got two newshounds instead of one to deal with over at our town paper, and me just getting used to Charlie Flagg always standing around watching like he's taking notes on everything that's going on, which he probably is."

  "Nature of the beast. He does have a newspaper to fill up once a week."

  "Speaking of Charlie, where is he? Why isn't he here?"

  "He sounded exhausted when he called me."

  "Come to think of it, he looked a might peaked when I spoke to him this afternoon. Figured it was because he showed up right after the shooting." Ben felt his expression grow tight. "He saw what an M-1 will do to a man up close. Fella hasn't seen something like that before, it can shake him up."

  "It can shake him up if he has."

  "Amen to that. Well, good night, Landware."

  "Good night, Chief."

  Ben stood there and watched the other man walk to a Jeep parked on a side street adjacent to the parking lot. He found himself thinking about Mike Landware's neighbor, the new teacher in town. Robin Curtis reminded him of his own daughter, vaguely in appearance but mostly in spirit, and he realized that he felt protective of Robin.

  The Jeep's taillights left the parking lot and were gone.

  There was something about Mike Landware that Ben wasn't sure about. Nothing he could put his finger on but he was not sure what to make of this new man in town. Because of his protective impulse toward a hardworking single mom named Robin Curtis, who reminded him of his Val, he decided to do some checking on Michael Landware.

  Whenever he got the time.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The beast within awakens.

  It's been building all day. He felt fine yesterday. Then, this morning, he awoke to the incredible pressure between his temples, pulsating. Strangely, the sensation was not at all unpleasant at first. The day is strange, so strange, the beating of drums constant inside his head.

  When he hurried to the aftermath of the shooting to see what he could do to help, he saw death. Smelled fresh blood on pavement. Red red red blood. And God help him, he became aroused. Got himself a hard-on like a length of pipe. So wrong. So good. He doesn't understand.

  No one seems to notice that he's . . . different. They speak of nothing but what the Caldwell boy did. They do not understand. He, on the other hand, does understand. He doesn't know why or how. He cannot tell anyone. But he knows. He understands the beast within. Tonight, the beast controls him. He exists only to fulfill the trembling need that pulsates through him, fueling his loins with fire.

  He awakened after dusk. Got up off the couch. Went to the kitchen. After some comparison, selected the biggest and sharpest knife he could find. He left the house without being seen, stalking the night. The night temperature is crisp but he wears no jacket over dark clothes. He is a predator in its element.

  He smells danger.

  Mid-block is an alley, and this is where he goes. A street light at the next intersection only deepens and darkens the shadows here. He presses himself against a brick wall. Headlights sweep the front of the building. A police car cruises past. He sees the inky silhouettes of the officers inside, patrolling the night. They do not see him. The police car moves on.

  He hears footsteps. Footsteps coming toward him through the darkness. The steady clip-clip of a woman's brisk walk. And he cannot recall where he is. Strange. He should know where he is. But does it matter? He could be anywhere. What matters is why he is here. The beast is hungry. Nothing else matters. The beast within him commands and he must obey. He wants to obey. He wants nothing for himself, only to serve the beast.

  She walks past him then. Denim. High-heeled black boots. Short jacket zipped against the evening chill.

  He emerges from the shadows, revealing his presence. She hears him. Turns to face him with a startled gasp of fright, and a sigh of relief when he steps closer.

  "Oh, it's you," she says. "You threw quite a scare into me. Guess I'm jumpy after what happened this morning."

  "I'm sorry."

  She senses then that something is different about him. Something is wrong here. She says, "You're out late, aren't you? Well, I'd better be on my way."

  No one else is nearby. No traffic. Adjacent buildings are completely dark, towering monoliths bearing mute witness.

  He attacks. She tries to scream. Tries to struggle. He is too strong for her, has strength he never knew he possessed, summoned up now to yank her to him. His hand covers her mouth, stifling her scream. He drags her into the deepest shadows. She is young. She struggles wildly, forcefully, vibrantly. It only excites him more. During their struggle, her body grinds against his. She can feel his arousal. This makes her more frantic. The beast is too strong for her. He is the beast. He throws her to the ground. Throws himself atop her. His drool drips syrupy mucus into her face. The knife plunges. Again. Again. Again.

  He moves hurriedly away from there. He encounters no one. His breathing, his heartbeat, slowly return to normal the further he gets from the scene. He completes the return trip to his home at a leisurely pace, nothing more sinister than a solitary man taking a starlight stroll.

  He will wash the bloody knife in his kitchen sink and replace it in the rack. He feels exhilarated. Within him, the beast is satiated.

  For now.

  Chapter Twenty

  By the end of her first week in Devil Creek, Robin had almost managed to convince herself that moving to Devil Creek, New Mexico may well have been the single worst mistake of her life since marrying Jeff.

  She had moved to this small, rural community to get away from crime, violence, and bad influences on Paul. And yet during the past week, in addition to the massacre, on the nights following the shootings something even more frightening was visited upon Devil Creek. More frightening because, unlike what Bobby Caldwell did, it represented the unknown. Bobby Caldwell's blood orgy of rage, for all its horror and the misery it wrought, could at least be understood for what it appeared to be: a random act of violence committed by a deranged gunman. The serial murders that began that night were different. A local woman going out to one of the town's convenience stores for cigarettes was the first victim, slain in the alley behind the laundromat on the edge of town.

  The regional and national news media agai
n descended on Devil Creek. This time, a contingent remained, housed at the local motel. The state police set up an office to assist in the investigation after an identical murder was committed the following night. A similar, as in identical, slaying had occurred on every consecutive night thereafter. Mrs. Russell, who ran the supermarket with her husband, was the second victim. She'd been stocking shelves and apparently let someone in through the back door after hours. The third victim was a rancher's daughter who had car trouble outside of town on the way home from her waitress job at Donna's Café. It appeared as if her killer had been the first person to happen along. The girl had trusted the person to assist her. The fourth murder victim made the most news because she was a media person from Albuquerque who had gone out for a stroll by herself along one of the dark streets of Devil Creek that paralleled Main, apparently thinking that there was nothing to be afraid of because she was street-wise from having lived in the big city. She'd even carried a .25 caliber automatic in her purse. The gun was still in her purse when they found her, stabbed to death like the others.

  And now here it was, Saturday.

  Identical slayings. The media, tabloid and otherwise, repeatedly referred to the murders as brutal and said they were sex-related, but were no more specific than that. They didn't need to be. Everyone in town knew that the victims had been stabbed, then raped. The grisly, nauseating details were common gossip.

  What no one knew was the identity of the killer. The police were unable to uncover any leads. There was only one certainty. The killer was a resident of Devil Creek. The authorities didn't say this in so many words, but everyone knew it had to be the case. No drifters or suspicious characters had been sighted before or after the nightly killings began. Another indication that the killer was a local was that no real struggle appeared to have been put up by the victims, as if they'd been caught completely off guard after they'd allowed the killer to approach them.

  Naturally, everyone in town was on edge. Robin could clearly see the birth of awareness in the eyes of Devil Creek's residents of what people in urban areas had long taken for granted. You could not trust your neighbor. No one was safe. She sensed a discernible, escalating paranoia among the townspeople, born of the knowledge that someone within their midst, someone they interacted with every day, was the one responsible for these awful serial murders.

  Unless, thought Robin, the killer is someone from my life.

  But realistically, how in the world could such a thing be? Take a perceived shadow fleeting across a bedroom shade, and two telephone calls from a surly ex-husband. Could that conceivably add up to having any connection whatsoever to what was happening in Devil Creek? But there were lingering doubts, even if she could not force herself to give voice to them. The more she thought about it, the more it sunk in how her ex-husband's treatment of women had always been abusive. With her it was psychological. She was never thin enough to suit Jeff. She spent too much on family expenses. That kind of thing. Additionally and perhaps more importantly, though, his sort of bang-every-bimbo-in-sight sex drive was more about predatory misogyny rather than the pursuit of anything approaching romance. Could that sort of profile fit someone who would perpetrate terrible crimes against women if he felt he'd been pushed too far, and snapped. Was that Jeff? Did he hate women enough to be a serial killer? And if so, how would that possibly benefit him regarding his telephoned threats to ruin her paradise? And how could anything so insane have anything to do with the massacre perpetrated by Bobby Caldwell?

  She had arranged with the phone company for caller ID, but there had been no more calls from him.

  Nonetheless, throughout the week Robin continued to have trouble falling asleep. She lost her appetite. She felt as edgy as everyone else did. At least there had been no reappearance of a silhouette darting across her bedroom shade, no further indication that a stalker lurked around her house. Maybe Mike Landware was right, she told herself. Maybe it had been that grubby psycho Bobby Caldwell.

  And so here she was at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, dressed casually in a new T-shirt and jeans she'd bought in Albuquerque on the trip down, wearing her favorite old pair of Reeboks, driving to school for a community meeting that had been scheduled to discuss the events of the past week. The public was urged to attend the meeting. The meeting had been scheduled to begin at nine o'clock. She'd been looking forward to sleeping in, but no such luck.

  As she drove to the school, she tried to fight off the depression that wanted to draw her in. The day was overcast with a high gray haze, the first overcast day she'd seen in New Mexico. Back home she had always liked cloudy days. She loved the outdoors, but there was something special about those days when it was fun to stay inside on your day off, snug and comfortable with a good book or some music or housework. She wasn't sure what she thought of cloudy days in New Mexico. She decided to withhold judgement. This morning's clouds only made her feel gloomy. When she first decided to attend the meeting, she'd initially planned to walk to the school. It was largely a lack of regular aerobic exercise that was contributing to her moodiness, she knew. The exhaustion she'd felt at the end of the first day of classes had only been physical exhaustion. But by the end of this first week, she had felt completely drained on every level—physical, emotional, and mental. She'd taken extra paperwork home every night. She wasn't getting any exercise. And instead of spending her Saturday morning like any normal person should, at home or running errands, here she was dragging herself off to a meeting, feeling like a robot whose battery was about to give out; a meeting called because this little of corner of the world had decided to go totally berserk coincidentally with the same time that she and Paul had arrived here to escape their own madness. So she was driving to the meeting because she was too pooped to take the walk. And late to boot!

  She slipped a reggae tape into the car's deck and hummed along to the music as she drove, a conscious effort to lift her spirits and her energy level. She'd fixed Paul breakfast before leaving the house, quickly preparing them each an omelet. As they were finishing, Paul's friend Jared showed up. Paul said they intended spending the rest of the morning playing video games. Paul was washing the breakfast dishes when she left. He seemed recovered from whatever had been bothering him earlier in the week. The children of Devil Creek knew all about the serial murders of course, about the crazed killer nightly cruising their streets for fresh victims. But life went on for children—usually, it seemed, far easier than it did for adults. Since no children had been victimized, and the crimes had all been committed at night, Robin did not feel overly concerned about leaving Paul at home, especially since he had a friend visiting. She saw other kids out playing in their yards along the way as she drove to school, which managed to reassure her that Paul would be okay. Stop worrying, she told herself. Those other kids' parents aren't overprotective and you shouldn't be, either.

  Had moving to Devil Creek been the biggest mistake of her life? She reminded herself that moving here was not only intended as an escape, but also to prove something to herself once and forever. She did have doubts and insecurities about exactly how independent and self-reliant she truly was, and Devil Creek had seemed as good a place as any to find out. Sometimes, she knew she was stronger than some of the people in her life had given her credit for being. Other times, she feared she wasn't as strong as she liked to think.

  In Devil Creek, she had intended to find out. There were many things about her life here that she already liked very much. Teaching was grueling and demanding, yet filled with rewards that made it worthwhile at a soul-satisfying level. She enjoyed getting to know the roomful of young faces that constituted her class. And there were the daily visits with Connie Silva, who was fast becoming a good friend. As for that new-kid-on-the-block feeling she'd experienced on her first day at work, she'd reminded herself of an old Robert Louis Stevenson quote that had somehow always clung to a corner of her mind: "There are no foreign lands. It is always the traveler who is a foreigner." That pretty much summed up her sit
uation in the "foreign" surroundings of her new hometown. She would be fine. And then there was Mike, a nice guy who she was still slowly getting to know. And Mrs. Lufkin.

  But there could be no denying the fact that, beginning with the Caldwell boy's rampage, life in Devil Creek had become a near-constant exposure to the violent depths to which a human could sink. Slaughtered victim after victim. That was the day-to-day reality of life in Devil Creek these days. That is what her "new life" here had become.

  At least, she reassured herself, she had not been directly affected by any of it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  In the gymnasium, the faint smell of the locker rooms mingled with the stronger scent of fresh wax. At the far end of the gym, opposite the double doors through which she entered, rows of metal folding chairs on the shiny floor were occupied by sixty or so people. They faced a podium where a small group of people sat including Mrs. Lufkin, whom Robin hadn't seen since the day she'd rented the house.

  She'd been somewhat disappointed that she hadn't seen more of her feisty landlady whom she'd taken such an immediate liking to. During her visit with Mike Landware the night of their barbecue, Mike had noted that Mrs. Lufkin seemed to be not only one of the town's prime characters, as he put it, but one of its prime movers and shakers as well. The woman's presence on the Concerned Citizens Committee today was certainly proof of that. Robin recalled the older woman rushing off that first day to help with a church bake sale. Mrs. Lufkin was obviously just too active to stop by for idle chitchat, and of course, Robin had been extremely busy. But she intended to become better acquainted with the woman. She experienced a moment of fondness at first seeing Mrs. Lufkin here.

  As Robin crossed the gym toward the rows of chairs, Chief Saunders was in the process of wrapping up his remarks from the podium.

  "We've called in auxiliary deputies and I've increased the patrols," he was telling them. "Combined with the State Police, this means we'll have the community well-covered."