Page 71 of Wicching Hour

I sat back down and Declan held out a hand for the evidence bag. He pulled open the top and then shook the gum wrapper to the mouth of the bag, to make it easier for me to take. Lifting my ungloved hand, I turned back to Hernández. “The lab has already checked it, right?”

She nodded. “They found a couple of partial prints, but nothing they could identify. And again, we don’t even know if that was his.”

I picked up the wrapper.

He pulls the stick of gum from his pocket. He’s watching the long-haired woman watering her plants. He pulls open the wrapper with his teeth and then slides the stick into his mouth. She goes back in, turns off the lights. As he waits to see her again, he begins folding up the wrapper into smaller and smaller squares.

The sun has set behind clouds. He enjoys surveilling her while hidden in the dark. Shortly after, her garage door goes up. Her Jeep backs out and she drives away as her garage door closes. He considers running for the door before it closes, but he’d be too exposed. If she glances in her rearview mirror, she’ll see him. He’s excited but not reckless.

He waits a few long minutes, pulls on thin blue surgical gloves, and ghosts his way to the sliding glass door off the patio. Crouching, he pulls a screwdriver out of his pocket, jams it under the door, and lifts it off its track, popping the lock.

He slides the door open and slips in, pulling a penlight from his pocket. The apartment is small but he takes his time, going through drawers and in cabinets, thrilled that she has no idea he’s looking through her life, finding out her secrets.

He opens her closet door, puts the penlight in his mouth, pulls off one glove, and slides his free hand along the fabric, allowing himself time to consider what it will feel like when he takes control of her, when he squeezes the life out of her.

He goes to her bathroom and opens the medicine cabinet, his face flashing in the mirror for a brief moment. He studies her prescriptions, disappointed there’s nothing more interesting than allergy meds, birth control pills, aspirin, and dental floss in the cabinet.

He checks the time, does one last circuit through the apartment, making sure that everything is where it was when he entered. He decides to screw with her, taking a quart of ice cream out of the freezer and leaving it on the counter to melt. Let her wonder.

He goes to the back door, checks, and seeing no one, slips out and away.

Declan caught the wrapper in the evidence bag as it fell from my fingers. I slid on my glove and closed my eyes, trying to hold on to the reflection I’d seen in the medicine cabinet mirror.

“Did you—” Hernández began, but I held up a hand to stop the question.

“I need my sketchbook and a pencil,” I told Declan.

He grabbed them for me and put them in my lap. Trying my best to hold on to the image, I opened my eyes and began to draw.

THIRTY-TWO

What Is Wrong with Me?

Iworked quickly, trying to get his face before it faded from my memory. When I finished, I realized everyone was in a circle around me, watching. I reared back. There were too many emotions too close to me.

Declan made a pushing motion with his hand. Hernández, Tyler, Jake, and Bracken all moved to the ocean side of the deck.

“Bracken, when did you get here?” I asked.

“Good morning, my dear. I saw the crowd on the deck and decided to investigate. You were working. I didn’t want to disturb you, so I made everyone some tea.”

I looked back at the others and realized they were holding my mugs. Smiling at my great-uncle, I said, “Thank you. I promised them tea and kept getting distracted.”

He waved away my thanks. “You’re busy. I wasn’t doing anything—other than taking one of your brownies for breakfast.”

“Can I get you a muffin or something? A brownie doesn’t seem like enough,” I said.

“Perhaps not for these young men, but for an old one like me, it’s perfect.” He pointed to my drawing. “Now, tell us about him.”

So I did.

“He breaks in before he attacks?” Hernández asked, scribbling in her notebook.

I nodded, ripping the sketch out of the book and handing it to her. “I don’t know if this is new for him or if he’s always done it. He was getting a charge out of being there when she wasn’t, though. It made him feel powerful. Leaving the ice cream out was a dick move, but he enjoyed the idea of scaring her, making her question herself and then question if someone had been in her home.”

She studied the drawing. “The ball cap will make identification impossible, but how sure are you on the lower half of his face?”

The killer was wearing a black ball cap, his head angle down and a little to the side as he opened the cabinet. “Maybe ninety percent. The jaw is right. The temple, the ear, those are right. It’s the nose I’m not positive about. I saw his reflection for a split-second.”

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