Page 68 of Code Violation

“Did he see us coming up?” Asked Forrest.

Rufus snorted. “Of course he did. You two were louder than a herd of damn elephants. On the positive, it may have slowed him down a bit.”

“He’s on the hunt, isn’t he?” Magnus said.

“He is.”

“How are we going to stop him?” Forrest asked.

“I had a lot of time to think about this since Friday.”

“Yeah? What’s your idea?”

Magnus was eyeing his dad with a mix of affection and exasperation. Forrest was fairly sure that once this was over Rufus would be on the receiving end of a lecture.

“I think we need to set up Forrest or Lani as a lure. Lani would be best. Dina seems to be obsessed with, er, needing female blood for a sacrifice.” Rufus shuddered.

“What the fucking hell.” Forrest wasn’t letting Lani put herself in danger. She already did that every day of the week. “No way. Lani is still recovering from being shot.”

“As if telling Lani she can’t do something has ever worked,” Magnus remarked.

“Right now, today,” Rufus said, “is our best shot at getting this guy. As Nero says, he’s on the hunt. Dina is desperate—why, I don’t rightly know, but if we don’t stop him, another innocent will die.”

* * *

“So,” Lani said as she stared around at them. They were all seated in Rufus’s living room, where they were pawing through Rufus’s old newspapers for any hints that could help them. Lani, Wanda Stone, and Chief Dear had joined them, and Dear had declared the house a makeshift command center. “My role is to play the helpless woman while the brawny men use me as bait and then rescue me from a psychopath who has possibly been killing women since I was a girl, all on the orders of our mother. Have I summed it up right?”

Lani wore casual clothing—jeans, sneakers, and a thick, black hoodie with CSBFS in block letters and the silhouette of a walking Sasquatch making the international sign for peace. She’d been at home and probably bored. Again. It wasn’t as easy for her to circumvent doctors’ orders when things were quiet in town. When Forrest had called her, his sister had answered on the first ring. Personally, he thought she sounded a little too excited about acting as bait for a killer.

“When you put it like that,” Magnus sputtered.

“Nah, I get it.” She shrugged carelessly. “But I’m older than his usual target.”

“I’m no expert on the psychology of serial killers,” Dear said. “But it sounds like Dale is acting on Dina Paulson’s orders, not that he has a type. I wish we knew who he’d been after when he ended up killing Ned. I’d like to make sure they are safe.”

“Probably one of the teens who cuts through town heading for PizzaMart or something, maybe someone who lives around Yew street? Wanda lives close by there,” Rufus said, “and Romy would cut through if she was heading over to walk the dogs.”

Wanda’s gasp was immediately followed by a growled, “Over my dead body.”

Forrest blanched at the thought of Vincent Barone’s daughter being targeted. Or anyone’s kid, for that matter. He didn’t want Lani out there, but she was the logical choice. Their only choice. He might remember her as a toddler with her face pressed into his neck, but these days she was a trained police officer with a few tricks up her sleeve.

“We need to get a move on,” Rufus snapped, rising from his seat on the couch. “He’s close. I can feel it in my bones.”

“Alright.” Lani fluffed her shoulder-length red hair before pulling up her hood. “I don’t think I look eighteen, but I could probably pass for late twenties.”

“You look a lot like Dina did back then,” Nero said from behind one of the newspapers.

Forrest peered over Nero’s shoulder. He’d opened the Sentinel to the page with the article about the group. A picture of all six of the pioneers was set under the fold. Dina and Witt stood side by side in the middle, with Dale and Jane on one side and the third couple on the other. The resemblance to Dina and Witt was plain as day.

“You want me to pretend I lost my dog, or what?” asked Lani.

“Maybe a cat,” suggested Rufus. “A dog might frighten him off.”

“Plus, it gives a good reason for you to be out there for a long time. We all know cats don’t come when you call,” said Dear. “We’ll do our best to hang back but use the signal if you’re in immediate danger. We know nothing about this guy.”

Lani had tucked a walkie-talkie in the pocket of her hoodie. If something happened where no one could see her, she would press the panic button.

“We do know Dale tried to enlist in 1976 but was given a 4F,” Nero said. “Who knows, maybe he had bad teeth? He was probably very bitter about being rejected. Jane and Dale married in 1977, no kids that I’ve been able to find. It looks like Jane might still have relatives in Timber, but I didn’t find any Lockwoods when I searched. What we do know is that he’s dangerous.”

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