“If you’re trying to make me feel better—”

“I wouldn’t lie to do it.” He took my arm and steered me around a pile of dog shit on the sidewalk, then motioned to the scratches on my forearm. “This woman confronted you in the middle of Main Street yesterday. Told you to stay away from her family and clawed you good. This morning she lured you into an empty building and knocked you flying down the stairs. Does that strike you as someone who’d run off and kill herself?”

“She wanted to protect her family.”

“By tooth and by claw, not by lying down and dying for them.” He unlocked the Jeep’s passenger door and opened it for me. “She was lying on her right side, with her left arm on top of the covers. When the coroner gives his report, he’ll say the injection site was on her left arm.”

“So someone snuck in and injected her while she napped?”

He climbed into the driver’s seat, keys in hand, and turned to face me. “The yard is fenced. There’s a doghouse, but no sign of a dog. No bowls, nothing. My guess is that it died recently. Maybe not a natural death. There’s a vacant house behind theirs, with tall hedges. The killer enters there, hops the fence, picks the lock, and comes in when they know she’ll be alone and asleep. Her daughter said she always napped when the baby did. Someone knew that. Someone who knew her. Like her lover, who wasn’t at home when we got to his place.”

“Alastair.”

“That’s where I’m laying my money, but I’m not ruling out Cody either. Whoever killed Tiffany killed the others, too. She figured out that he killed Ginny, Brandi, and Claire and he realized she had to go-but quietly, so no one would connect the dots.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But Cody could have found out that she was the killer, and killed her quietly before she brought them all down. Or Tiffany’s killer could be the person who has been stalking both of us, related or unrelated to the other deaths.” I sighed and leaned back in the seat. “Aren’t clues supposed to eliminate suspects?”

“So you agree that Tiffany was murdered, then?” he said, finally putting the key in the ignition.

I hesitated. It made sense, but I wanted it to make sense.

“I’ll wait to hear the coroner’s report,” I said. “But it’s a possibility ...” When I trailed off, he glanced over.

“The pillow,” I said. “There was a pillow in the crib. The oldest girl said it didn’t belong there. I just remembered why. When Logan and Kate were little, Elena wouldn’t put pillows or stuffed animals in their cribs. They’re smothering hazards. Tiffany’s baby is a little old for that, but I didn’t notice anything else in the crib. Even if Tiffany did decide to start giving her pillows, that one was for decoration, not sleeping on.”

“So someone put a pillow in the crib—Shit.”

He didn’t say what he was thinking. I already knew. I could picture it, the killer standing over the crib, looking down at the screaming baby, pillow in hand, thinking the unthinkable ...

As we waited to turn onto Main Street, a tow truck drove by. Hoisted on the back was a black BMW. My gut seized, and I stared after it as it disappeared from sight.

“That Michael’s car?” Adam asked quietly.

I nodded.

“Okay, we’re getting you back to the motel. That’s enough for one day. Time for rest, dinner—”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I want to be,” I said, softly enough that I didn’t think he’d hear, but he reached over and squeezed my hand.

“I know,” he said. “But let’s take a break from toughing it out, okay? We’ve done a lot this afternoon. Time to back up, give it time to gel, and plan our next move.”

I couldn’t argue with that. A car honked behind us and Adam pulled onto Main Street.

thirty

Jesse was on his way back to the motel when I called to tell him about Tiffany. He grabbed takeout from the diner and as we ate, we talked about Tiffany. As with Michael’s death, he wasn’t convinced it was murder. If Tiffany found out her husband was the killer, it made sense to him that she’d end her own life rather than face the consequences.

“Look at her,” he said. “Typical middle-class housewife. Appearances are everything. She couldn’t handle it.”

I disagreed, but didn’t say so. After arguing that Michael had been murdered, I hated to sound paranoid.

Jesse’s druid friend had gotten back to him. He was sure the ritual wasn’t druidic. So no movement on that front. What he did have was a lead on Cody’s illegal activities, but he wasn’t ready to share.

“If I’m right, it’s the same one Detective Kennedy was following,” he said. “Which means I want to tread carefully. I’m pretty sure there’s a supernatural link, even if Cody isn’t it. I bet that’s what his wife was talking about—she was using her powers to protect or promote the business. Anyway, it’s pretty vague and you guys have enough to work on, right?”

“Right.”

“Then I’ll take this, and when I have something, I’ll let you know.”

I WALKED JESSE back to his room and we chatted a bit. When I returned, Adam was stretched out on my bed, working on his laptop. He had a box of cookies beside him. Paige’s cookies and the commune ones. Paige’s were gone. I snatched up the others before he finished those, too.

“You got your own box,” I said.

“Yours was open. And I earned them. I found your druidic ritual.” He turned the laptop toward me.

“Seriously?”

“Yep. There’s a reason Jesse’s friend didn’t recognize it.”

He motioned at the screen, which showed a scanned page from our personal database. I checked it out.

“It’s definitely the same ritual,” I said. “Everything fits, including the sacrifice of a woman between her twentieth and thirtieth year.”

He pointed to the label at the top.

“A hunting ritual?” I said.

“Yep. For boar hunting with spears. You dip the tips into the sacrificial victim’s blood and they’ll strike the boar in the heart. Not a lot of call for that these days.”

“So it’s fake,” I said.

“It looks real enough ...”

“No, I mean it’s a red herring. Whoever killed those women wanted it to look like a real supernatural ritual. They dug up something so old that any supernatural investigating would know it was real, but would probably never ID it.”

“Or a human could have dug it up from an old book and decided it’d be away to throw investigators off the trail.”

“Sure, but my explanation is way more interesting. And speaking of interesting, I’ve been thinking about what Ginny Thompson was doing up at the cookie cult ...”

MY THEORY? BLACKMAIL. Someone might have commented on a resemblance between her and Alastair Koppel. She’d found out when he’d left town and put two and two together.

Then she looked at that big farm on the hill and to her, it would seem palatial. Her daddy, who’d never paid a dime in child support, now living the high life with a harem of young women. He owed her, and she was going to collect, and if he didn’t like that, she’d tell his secret to the world.

Or Brandi had pushed her into it. From what I heard of their relationship, that seemed more likely. It was Brandi’s idea, so she’d gone with Ginny to make sure she carried through.

Blackmail was a good motive for Alastair not to call the cops. And a good motive for Alastair—or Megan—to kill the blackmailers.

Adam had come to the same conclusion about why the young women went there. He wasn’t as convinced that it led to Ginny and Brandi’s deaths, but agreed there was enough of a possibility that we should get off our asses and head back up to that house for a chat with Megan.

WE STOPPED AT the police station first. Adam went in alone to properly introduce himself to Bruyn, chat him up, put him at ease ... Somehow he thought he could do that last part better without me. Go figure.