Tonight she had her arms full—a purse that kept slipping off her shoulder, a suit bag, a tote bag. She juggled the stuff as she fumbled with her car keys. She was paying no attention to her surroundings.

Fitz watched her get into her cute little green Mini Cooper. He waited for her to get the car started and negotiate her way out of her parking spot and into the street. When she was about a block away, he started the van and drove out after her.

The Alien was on the prowl tonight.

He hung back, running with no lights. The streetlights were bright enough. He didn’t want her to notice headlights coming behind her, didn’t want her looking over her shoulder.

He followed her out of her neighborhood and onto 494, where he popped his lights on and felt free to run a little closer up behind her. He dropped back a few lengths again when she signaled for her exit and left the freeway. The television station was only a couple of blocks away now. But at the bottom of the off ramp, Dana Nolan signaled to go left instead of right.

Fitz couldn’t help but smile to himself as he let her drive on ahead of him. She turned into the parking lot of a Holiday gas station / convenience store. The name made him laugh out loud. Holiday—just like the news people liked to call him. Doc Holiday. Perfect.

He drove past, then doubled back around.

The place was well lit and busier than anyone might have expected at that hour. A big bearded guy in a snowmobile suit was pumping gas into a four-by-four truck with a snowplow on the front. Two cars other than Dana Nolan’s Mini were parked near the building.

Fitz pulled in two spaces down from the girl and went inside. The clerk, a tall, gaunt African guy, gave him a cautious look. Somali, Fitz figured. His skin was absolutely black, making the whites of his eyes stand out shockingly bright in his long, narrow face.

Fitz smiled broadly and banged his gloved hands together a couple of times.

“Holy smokes, it’s cold out there!” he said. “Why do we live here, right?”

The Somali guy didn’t feel compelled to answer, though he had probably asked himself the same question a thousand times every winter since his arrival in Minnesota. A lot of the local Lutheran churches were keen to rescue people from whatever shithole God had originally thrown them into—the Hmongs from Cambodia in the eighties; the Somalis in the nineties. The irony was laughable—plucking people out of some of the hottest fucking hellholes on earth and plunking them down in Minnesota, where they had to be freezing their asses off six months out of the year.

Dana Nolan was busy getting her coffee and doctoring it with artificial creamer and chemical sweeteners.

“That stuff’ll kill you!” Fitz said cheerfully, grabbing a cup and pouring himself some French roast from one of the pots on the counter.

The girl glanced at him with a sweet smile and a laugh. She squinted like that actress, Renée Zellweger, her eyes all but disappearing into slits above her cold-rouged cheeks.

“Oh, I know,” she said. “It’s so bad for us, but I can’t start my day without it.”

“I hear you,” he said, tearing open a pink packet and dumping the contents into the nasty, oily blackness of the convenience store coffee. “Some mornings I think I should just get coffee injected straight into my veins.”

“Me too! I say that all the time!”

“Hey . . . ,” he said, giving her the perfect friendly, quizzical look—a little surprise, a little uncertainty, a little smile. He raised a finger. “You look like— You’re not—”

She was pleased with the prospect that he might recognize her. This was part of why she had gone into broadcast news—to get that rush of self-importance at being recognized in public places.

“You’re that girl from the news!” he exclaimed with delight. “I’m right! Am I right?”

She beamed, eyes disappearing again. “That’s me!”

“Dana. Right? Wait ’til I tell the missus!” he said. “We watch you every morning! You know, I work nights for the DOT. I’m just getting home and my wife is just getting up. She teaches third grade at St. Ann’s. We have some breakfast together and watch the news.”

“That’s so nice to hear!” she said. “We start so early, sometimes I wonder if there’s anyone out there awake to see us.”

“Oh, believe me, we’re watching.”

“I’d better get going, then,” she said, moving a step toward the counter. “I don’t want to be late.”

“It was great meeting you, Dana,” Fitz said, grinning. “Just wait ’til I tell the missus!”

She laughed and beamed, the picture of sweet, innocent youth. “Nice meeting you too!”

He stuck out a gloved hand. “Frank Fitzpatrick,” he said. “Call me Fitz.”

She shook his hand, her grip a little hesitant, meek. She would be easy to dominate.

“Nice meeting you, Fitz,” she said. She gave a little wave as she moved toward the counter. He waved back, smiling widely.

And that is how it’s done, he thought, watching her pay the Somali guy for her coffee, then hurry back out into the cold. Identify the potential victim. Engage the potential victim in a nonthreatening manner on neutral ground. Establish a cordial connection, thereby causing the potential victim to lower her defenses.

The next time he encountered Dana Nolan, she would recognize him as that nice man from the Holiday station, the friendly guy who watched her on the news while having breakfast with his wife. He wasn’t anyone she needed to be afraid of.

And that assumption would be the worst mistake she would ever make in her young life.

He picked a couple of doughnuts out of the bakery case and took them and his coffee up to the counter to pay. The Somali guy rang him up and took his money without joy.

“You have a nice day, sir,” Fitz said enthusiastically. “Stay warm!”

And he went back out into the frigid early morning, got in his van, and drove home to eat his doughnuts and watch Dana Nolan on the news . . . and fantasize about how he was going to kill her.

23

He was sound asleep and dreaming. In the dream he was fighting. Left, right, front kick, spinning back fist. He was breathing hard, sweating, his muscles straining. He couldn’t see his opponent, just a black shape that was bigger than he was, stronger than he was, and seemed to be all around him at once. He spun and kicked and threw his fists.

Then something had hold of his wrists and he couldn’t pull away. He came awake with a start and a gasp.

“Kyle!” His mom’s voice. “Kyle, wake up! You’re having a dream.”

Kyle sat up, pulling back from her, pulling his hands free. The anxiety of the dream was still on him. He felt like he was drowning in it.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, focusing on her face. She sat on the edge of the bed. The light on the nightstand was on. Her expression frightened him. Too serious. Worried. It was the middle of the night.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, a chill running over him. “Did something happen to Dad?”

His father worked undercover narcotics. It was a dangerous job. He’d been hurt before. Kyle had always secretly feared that his dad could be killed and he would die thinking Kyle hated him. Panic and guilt rose inside him.

“No, no,” his mother said. “Your dad is fine.”

“What are you doing? You scared the shit out of me!” he said, his voice cracking.

“Kyle, I need to ask you some questions,” she said.

For the first time, he became aware of another person in his room, by the door. His mother’s partner, Sam Kovac, looking grave. Kyle looked from one of them to the other and back.

“What’s going on?”