But she wasn’t, of course. She almost never joked.

Serenity Hutchins was hunkered in front of her computer screen when Kendall made her way across the small newsroom.

“I want to talk to you. I have something I need to discuss with you.”

Serenity looked up. “You do?”

“Yes, I do.” She dropped a photo on Serenity’s chaotic desk.

Serenity looked at it for a long time, her eyes finally returning to the detective’s.

“She was pretty. Who made this?”

“A forensic artist from Portland. Her name and number’s on the back, in case you want to interview her. I’m giving this to you first. It goes out to the Seattle, Tacoma, and Bremerton media tomorrow.”

Serenity nodded. “I’m all over it, Detective.”

“I’m sure you are.”

Kendall turned toward the door. She didn’t hear the reporter thank her, although she did. She was focused now on the part of police work that depended on the public and whether or not someone would help her find out the name of the dead woman. She brushed past a girl talking to the receptionist at the front desk. She didn’t know right then that she had walked past a young woman who had also caught the killer’s eye.

She didn’t know there were others too.

Melody Castile had one thought that reverberated in her mind. It was a kind of mocking refrain that she knew no longer carried the kind of weight she might have hoped. Better her than me.

The figure on the filthy mattress was streaked with blood and her own feces. Fear had caused her to let go of all bodily functions. She was weak, barely breathing. Her mouth had been covered by the now-familiar silver-gray duct tape.

“Clean her,” Sam said, unbuttoning the snaps on his blue and red flannel shirt. Pop. Pop. Pop. His undershirt was torn, and he pulled that over his head, flexing his biceps and his triceps for his adoring audience. “Then Baby and Daddy are gonna play.”

He stepped out of his jeans, kicked them aside, and stood there nude, his penis already hard.

“Is she okay?” she asked.

“She’s alive,” he said, “so I guess not.” He let out a laugh and bent down. The woman on the plastic-covered mattress couldn’t speak, but her eyes were flooded with terror. He slapped her, and the woman shook. “See, she’s alive.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“Now, get naked,” he said, looking over at Melody, who was already unfastening her bra, “and let’s have some fun-you know, until one of us can’t anymore.”

Melody reached for the baling wire and grinned at him.

“Want me to spin my web?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

Chapter Twenty-nine

October 5, 3:30 p.m.

Key Center , Washington

The drive out to her sister Melody’s place took almost an hour. Serenity Hutchins kept her radio on an eighties music station playing hits that were popular before she was born. She listened to the Waitresses’ song, “I Know What Boys Like” and wondered how come music wasn’t fun like that anymore. Her sister, Melody, and her husband, Sam, lived on almost five acres in a log home just outside of Key Center on the Key Peninsula. The Castiles had a son named Max who had just turned eight. In fact, the gathering that afternoon was to celebrate the boy’s birthday and the last sure sunny day before the Northwest rains kicked in and stole the last of the summer. The music was loud in her little black car, but more out of habit than a desire to blast her eardrums. Serenity had gone so long with a loud muffler that after she finally fixed it, she’d gotten used to a decibel level that threatened hearing damage.

Relationships between sisters are always complicated. Any sibling can vouch for that. But with a ten-year age gap, Serenity and Melody shared little more than the commune-style names their mother had given them.

Melody had resented her sister from the time her parents brought her home. She’d suddenly been demoted to helper and sister instead of the center of the universe. Whenever her mother and father left Serenity in the care of her sister, she’d feign attentiveness until the door shut behind them.

She never changed Serenity’s diaper. She never gave her a bottle. She just let her cry it out until she saw the headlights of her parents’ car in the driveway.

Later, there were hair-pulling, screaming, and setups to get her in trouble. Serenity was far from perfect. She’d learn to give as well as she got. One time she found a condom wrapper in a park and planted it in her sister’s room. Melody got a beating from her dad and a smile from her sister. Both sisters held memories distorted by their own wants and wishes. Theirs was a relationship in a constant mend.

At least they played at it as though they cared. Attending Max’s birthday barbecue was part of the game.

Serenity parked her car and knocked on the door.

Sam, dressed in blue jeans and a faded red shirt, answered. He was forty-four, broad-shouldered, and a little more than six feet tall. On this particular afternoon his black hair was wavy and a little long, swept back from his forehead. Sam Castile was a man of a thousand looks-facial hair that changed from a full beard to a goatee and then back to a Fu Manchu. He was handsome in a Marlboro Man way, weather-beaten and a little too tan.

“Your sister was thinking you forgot,” he said, letting her inside.

“She always thinks the best of me.”

Sam shook his head. “Now, now.”

“She started it. Or you did.”

There was some truth in what she said, and it only made Sam Castile suppress a smile. He loved lighting the fuse between his wife and her little sister.

Max ran up to his aunt, eyeballing the small package wrapped in blue tissue paper she held at her side as he hugged her.

“For me?”

Serenity kissed the top of his head. “It sure is, Max.”

The boy reached for it, all smiles.

“Video game?” he asked, taking the present.

“You’ll see.”

She followed her brother-in-law into the kitchen, where her sister was slicing onions and lemons.

“Need some help?” she asked, finally.

“I thought that was you driving in. Do you really have to blast the neighborhood with your music?”

Serenity wanted to say, “What neighborhood? You live out in the middle of nowhere.” But she kept quiet.

“Really, what can I do?” she asked.

Melody went about her chopping. She was a pretty brunette who wore her hair pinned back even when she wasn’t in the kitchen. A silver pendant hung around her neck like a swinging pendulum as she attacked an onion with her knife. Melody had light blue eyes, so pale, that sometimes, when the light hit them just so, they looked like shiny black beads floating in pools of white. Her skin had always been flawless, although Serenity thought she could finally see the tiny creases around her mouth from smoking and too much sun.

You’re getting old, sis, she thought.

Sam took a beer from the refrigerator and held it out to Serenity.

“No, thanks,” Serenity said.

He removed the top and started to drink.

Melody just kept slicing, filling the air with the scent of onions and lemons, the garnish she’d planned to adorn the salmon that her husband had caught on one of his overnight fishing trips.

“How’s work?” he asked.

Serenity shrugged. “Oh, you know, boring most days.”

Melody ran a fillet knife along the fish’s spinal column, expertly separating the bone from the rosy flesh.

“I’m glad you’re getting so much out of your college degree.” Melody never missed an opportunity to say something about how her parents had put Serenity through school when she herself had had to drop out.

“Seems like you’ve had some interesting things to write about lately,” Sam said.

“You mean the election of the Fathoms o’ Fun Queen?” Serenity said, her tone deadpan.