While inside the hotel, they ran into Laurie Richards, who, without much pressing, willingly admitted to allowing Elisa Pike to use a hotel room for the occasional shower, provided the woman coughed up the necessary five bucks.

Pike wasn’t the only one. Richards also admitted to accommodating a certain number of discreet Red Hill townsfolk who had fallen on hard times. Showers were five dollars per family member, rooms twenty bucks a night, everything paid in cash, no food stamps accepted. Charlie Baker, the man who owned the hotel, knew nothing about any of this. The thought that he might find out reduced the woman to soul-tearing wails.

‘Now I know why she was acting like someone with a hot coal pinched between her cheeks,’ Darby said from the passenger’s seat. She had her window half open and was balancing the Styrofoam box of food on her knees. ‘She’s terrified Baker’s going to find out about her little sideline.’

‘I’m sure as hell not going to tell him.’

They were driving on yet another long and seemingly endless road bordered by trees on both sides. Apart from the clean, fresh air, she couldn’t fathom why anyone would willingly submit to living in such a barren and lonely place. As she ate, shovelling food into her mouth as though the container might be ripped from her hands at any moment, she kept glancing in the side-view mirror to see if they were being followed.

‘Lancaster probably won’t tell him either,’ Williams said.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because Laurie’s more valuable to him under his thumb. He’ll use her to keep an eye on you guys. She’ll do it too. What you told me about how Laurie bounced to attention when he came by? It’s because she knows Lancaster’s a power player in this whole incorporation thing. If she plays her cards right, he might throw a job her way, one with benefits. God knows she needs it.’

‘You know her? Laurie?’

‘Not personally. Her husband died in his sleep, and I had to go over and investigate, you know, rule out foul play.’

Williams had one hand draped over the steering wheel and was staring out the window, clearly distracted. Darby was sure he was processing the boatload of information she had just given him; she was having a hard time processing it herself. Her thoughts felt scattered, like a glass vase that had fallen and exploded into a hundred shards.

‘I don’t even know where to start,’ he said.

Darby swallowed her food. ‘Maybe that’s the point.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Chances are he was watching us yesterday inside the bedroom,’ she said. ‘He knows I found the area he cleaned up. Maybe he’s scared we found something. Or maybe he’s scared we’re going to find something.’

Williams shifted uneasily in his chair.

‘What, you disagree?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not at all.’

‘So what does our guy do? He decides to crawl out from whatever rock he’s been hiding under all this time and makes contact with me. Threatens me. But he knows I’m not going to blow Dodge because of a single phone call. So what does he do next?’

‘He sends out those pictures of you and your … lady parts.’

Darby spoke with her mouth half full. ‘Lady parts? What’re you, a nun?’

Williams chuckled. ‘I was trying to be respectful,’ he said, and glanced at her. ‘You know, there’s a stable right up the road. I can stop by and get you a feedbag.’

‘Sorry, I’m starving.’

‘Really? I hadn’t noticed.’

Darby chewed, glad that Williams was joking around with her. She didn’t want him feeling stiff and embarrassed over what had happened with the pictures.

Then, as if reading her mind, he said, ‘This morning, everyone getting those photos –’

‘It’s over with. Done.’

‘You always this cut and dry?’

‘Once a psycho tries to split your head open like a cantaloup,’ Darby said, forking a piece of steak, ‘it puts everything else into perspective.’

When he didn’t ask any questions, Darby knew he had Googled her and read all the articles about what she’d seen and endured inside Traveler’s basement of horrors.

‘I admired the way you handled it. And I’m sorry you had to go through that.’

‘Thanks. Now back to our guy,’ Darby said. ‘He sends out these full-frontal shots showing my lady parts, as you described them, to everyone in Red Hill PD. On the surface it looks like he’s trying to embarrass and frighten me. He hates women; it’s a part of his MO. Maybe a part of him is hoping I’ll pack my bags and leave. At the very least, he knows that sending out those pictures will throw me off my game, direct my attention elsewhere.

‘But our guy’s devised a more insidious plan. He places malware into the pictures and turns our phones into walking listening devices and GPS trackers. It’s brilliant when you actually stop to think about it.’

‘You admire this guy?’

‘You don’t?’

Williams glanced over to see if she was joking. She wasn’t.

‘The Red Hill Ripper isn’t your average garden-variety sadist,’ Darby said, and dug her fork back inside the container. ‘He’s completely unique, and extremely intelligent. And cunning. Don’t ever forget that part. The pictures he sent of me, leaving that burner on Pike’s van window – he’s creating these multiple distractions to keep our focus away from what happened inside the Downes home, from whatever mistake he made there. And he’s doing a great job of it. He’s pulling the strings and making us dance. He’s got us all involved in the world’s biggest circle jerk.’

‘Circle jerk,’ Williams repeated flatly.

‘They taught us to speak that way at Harvard. Part of the curriculum.’

Williams cracked a smile and then it suddenly died on his lips. He had withdrawn his attention again.

He inhaled deeply and visibly stiffened.

‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ he said.

37

Darby speared the last piece of steak on her fork, wondering if Ray Williams was going to tell her about the pictures he’d been accused of taking inside the Connelly house.

‘Teddy and his people are going to be a permanent fixture in our lives from now on,’ Williams said.

‘I kind of got that impression when Lancaster asked Laurie Richards to book him a few rooms. What’s going on?’

Williams scratched the corner of his mouth. The air blowing inside the cruiser was cool and smelled of pine and wood smoke from a nearby fire.

‘Robinson tell you that those pictures of you were also sent to four uniforms who were out on patrol this morning?’

Darby nodded. ‘He said you went out to meet them, to make sure they deleted the photos from their phones,’ she said. ‘Thank you for that, by the way.’

‘You’re welcome. One of the guys I met after the debrief, Ricky Samuels, told me he saw a Brewster crime scene van parked in the driveway of the Downes house at about nine or so. I drove over to the house but the van wasn’t there. No one was.

‘I went back to the station and told the chief. Robinson got on the horn and called the Brewster sheriff, guy by the name of Patterson. He told Robinson he thought it might be a good idea to have a second set of eyes go through the house. Form a joint task force that will take a good, hard look at –’

‘The feds are already handling the evidence,’ Darby said.

‘Robinson mentioned that.’

‘Their Denver office is sending back the two agents with forensics experience, along with the mobile lab.’

‘This isn’t Boston. Here, the sheriff’s office has more power than a local police precinct.’

‘You telling me this bozo sheriff believes he’s got people who are better equipped and more experienced than those employed at the federal lab?’

‘I’m saying there’s a movement afoot to hand over the reins of the Red Hill Ripper investigation to Teddy after what happened last night at the Downes house.’

‘That bullshit story about the patrolman, what’s-his-name, Nelson, taking pictures inside the house?’