DEAD BEFORE DARK
Wendy Corsi Staub
Zebra Books, April 2009

PROLOGUE

Attica, New York

June

They called him the Night Watchman.

Back in the late sixties, he stole into women’s homes after dark on nights when the moon was full and they were alone. He slaughtered them--and always left an eerie calling card at the crime scene.

The authorities never publicly revealed what it was.

For over a year, the killer engaged in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the local police and FBI, the press, and the jittery populations of cities he so sporadically struck beneath a full moon, claiming seemingly random female victims.

No one ever did manage to figure out how or why he chose the women he killed.

The only certainty was that he watched them closely in the days or weeks leading up to their deaths. Learned their routines. Knew precisely where and when to catch them alone at night, off-guard and vulnerable.

Out of the blue, the killing stopped.

Months went by without a telltale murder. Then years.

The Night Watchman Murders joined a long list of legendary unsolved American crimes, perhaps the most notorious since the Borden axe murders almost a century before.

Unsolved? Of course Lizzie was guilty as hell. She was acquitted based only on the Victorian presumption that a homicidal monster couldn’t possibly dwell within a genteel lady.

Back then, few suspected that pure evil was quite capable of lurking behind the most benign of facades.

A hundred years later, as the Night Watchman went about his gruesome business undetected, even those who knew him best had yet to catch on. He–like others who would come after him: Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer–was a monster masquerading as a gentleman.

Unlike the others, though, he was never apprehended. Not for the Night Watchman murders, anyway.

A theory came to light, when the bloodbath was so suddenly curtailed, that the killer had either died himself, or been jailed for another crime.

As the decade drew to a close, the lingering public fascination with the Night Watchman faded and was finally eclipsed by the elusive Zodiac Killer.

Years went by, decades dawned and waned, the nineteen-hundreds gave way to a shiny new millennium.

Once in awhile, some Unsolved Crimes buff would turn the media spotlight on the Night Watchman.

For the most part, though, he remained shrouded in shadow, and has to this day.

Ah, well, the darkest night always gives way to dawn.

He emerges into the hot glare of summer sunlight on what happens to be the longest day of the year.

Fitting, isn’t it?

He smiles at the final uniformed guard standing sentry over his path to freedom.

The guard doesn’t smile back.

They never have. They simply keep a joyless, steady vigil, scrutinizing the most mundane human activities, day in and day out, night in and night out.

Night in and night out...

Ha. No joy in it for prison guards, anyway.

Street clothes are on his back for the first time in three and a half decades; bus fare home is stashed in his pocket...if he had a home to go to.

Thirty five years is a long time.

But finding a place to live is the last thing on his mind as he walks toward the bus stop, free at last, with nightfall hours away.

* * *

New York City

August

“Five minutes,” a cute twentysomething production assistant announces, sticking her short, chic haircut into the green room.

Lucinda Sloan promptly pulls out a compact, snaps it open, and finds a stranger looking back at her.

Oh, for the love of...

The reflection shakes its head.

Thanks to the morning show’s makeup artist, she’s wearing more makeup than usual.

A lot more makeup.

More makeup, quite possibly, than she’s ever worn in her life–or at least since her sixth grade coed dance at The Millwood Academy, a milestone occasion for which she also stuffed her bra with toilet paper. Twenty years later, that’s hardly necessary, though if it were, she wouldn’t bother. These days, she’s strictly a lip-gloss and blue jeans kind of girl.

But if Lucinda Sloan has learned anything at all in this forty-eight hour media feeding frenzy, it’s that pre-camera primping is de rigeur here in the big leagues. All national television news show guests are plopped into the hair and makeup chair, regardless of whether they’re a movie star or a run-of-the-mill psychic who just helped snag a notorious Jersey Shore serial killer.

Though she belongs to the latter category, Lucinda looks, at the moment, like the former.

It’s the lipstick. Definitely. Her mouth is slicked red, the very shade of fresh blood. Maybe that was the intent, given the macabre topic of her impending segment.

Blood.

Lucinda suppresses a shudder, remembering the gore she encountered at a secluded Monmouth County farmhouse just a few days ago. Thank God the only blood shed at the final crime scene belonged to the killer, slain by the cops to save the would-be victim’s life.

Fourteen year-old Tess Hastings is now laid up with a broken leg at home in Montclair. Her parents, Camden and Mike, have protected her from the press so far, but they’re here in the green room themselves.

Mike, handsome in a suit, sits with a protective arm around his pregnant wife, as though someone is going to snatch her away. And no wonder, after their family’s ordeal.

Your family is safe now--the lunatic can’t hurt you, or anyone else, ever again, Lucinda wants to tell him.

Trouble is, that wouldn’t help. Once you’ve encountered violent evil, you never feel safe in this world again.

Who knows that better than Lucinda? Her life’s work has taken her to the darkest places imaginable; has shown her that human beings are capable of inflicting unspeakable cruelty.

She learned long ago not to let any of it get to her–at least, not on the outside. She’s not about to spend her life looking over her shoulder.

She’s a Sloan, after all.

Generations before her have traditionally valued a stiff upper lip almost as much as they have their material possessions. Lucinda might have eschewed the trappings of wealth in her adult life, but when high pressure hits, her own facade is stolid as the stone mansion where she grew up.

She sighs and snaps the compact closed.

“Don’t worry...you look great.”

The compliment--courtesy of Detective Randall Barakat–inspires an unwanted spark of satisfaction.

“Thanks.” Feeling his eyes on her--and not about to return the gaze--she busies herself wiping imaginary lipstick off her teeth.

An imminent live on-air interview is nerve-wracking enough. Sitting so close to Randy that she can smell his Tic-Tac breath takes that stress to a whole new level.

The Hastings case brought them together again after three years...but only professionally.

Randy’s married now, living seventy miles away from Philly on Long Beach Island, and Lucinda’s long over him.

Not.

But hey, she’s one hell of an actress.

Randy, on the other hand, wouldn’t win any Oscars for his performance since their paths crossed again last month. Lucinda doesn’t have to be psychic to know that he, too, has unresolved feelings. But she wouldn’t tap that vein if it were made of gold.

“Hey–what about me?” His voice conveniently barges into her thoughts.

“Huh?”

“What about me?” Randy repeats. “Do I look okay?”

Reluctantly, she glances up at him.

Black hair, blue eyes, dimples, bronzed skin. Yeah. He looks okay, and then some.

“Lucinda, can I borrow your mirror for a second?” Camden Hastings asks, and Lucinda hands it over.

Cam, an attractive olive-skinned brunette, has also been glammed up for the cameras. Her lipstick, though, is a subtle pearly pink.

Lucinda should be wearing pink lipstick, too, or a nice summer peach shade, or–hey! Here’s a thought: how about no lipstick at all?

Wistful, Lucinda figures that right about now on an ordinary Monday morning, she’d be home wearing an old tee-shirt, dishing up her usual breakfast: Cap’n Crunch or Frosted Flakes, coffee, and a can of Pepsi.

Then again, the green room spread isn’t too shabby. She was able to snag two glazed donuts and a Pepsi before heading into the makeup chair for the works, from foundation to curled eyelashes.

Next, she visited the hairstylist, who chattily tamed her auburn waves. Lucinda typically lets her hair hang down her back unfettered; it now nests sedately in a jeweled barrette at the nape of her neck.

Her hair is behaving itself and the lipstick hasn’t yet made its way onto her teeth, so she’s good to go. Not bad for a lip-gloss and blue jeans kind of girl.

Yeah, and she can’t wait to ditch the barrette, scrub her face, and stick this little black Chanel dress back in her spare closet. Way, way back, where it belongs, hanging beside the other relics of her society girl past. She’s kept only a few designer items; they come in handy for occasions like weddings, charity functions, funerals, lunch with her mother--only slightly more appealing than funerals–and national television appearances.

This happens to be her fifth national television appearance in the last forty-eight hours, and in her entire life. She’s starting to get the hang of it, though.

Her family isn’t.

In Bitsy and Rudolph Sloan’s world, a woman’s only proper place in the newspapers is on the society pages–or the obituaries. Her parents were horrified to see their only child splashed all over the news. They’ve left several messages to let her know.

“Do you ever pick up the phone for them?” Cam asked curiously when her mother’s number popped up on her cell earlier.

“Pretty much never.”

“That’s so sad.”

Cam’s reaction caught Lucinda off guard.

It’s been years since she questioned her relationship–or lack thereof–with her parents. Years since she went from being a poor little love-deprived rich girl to a self-sufficient woman whose life is enriched by friends and work–a vocation that, ironically, led to the communication breakdown with her parents in the first place.

“Tic Tac?”

Randy again. He produces a plastic box, gives it a little shake.

“No, thanks.” Lucinda can’t resist adding, as he pops yet another green pellet into his mouth, “I don’t want to go on TV with a green tongue.”

“I have a green tongue?”

“I’ve seen worse. But hey, your breath is minty fresh.”

Cam returns the compact and checks her watch. “Hasn’t it been more than five minutes?”

“Not even two.” Mike rubs circles in the small of her back. “Take a deep breath and relax.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

Cam has been looking at her watch repeatedly for the last twenty minutes–anxious, Lucinda knows, not to get the latest interview underway but to get it over with.

With their daughter safe and sound, their recently troubled marriage back on track, and another baby on the way, the Hastings have no interest in being on TV. They wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for the Ava Neary. It was Lucinda who alerted Cam that her older sister’s long-ago death might not have been a suicide after all.

Maybe I shouldn’t have told her...or at least, not so soon after what happened to Tess.

But Cam needed to know, after all these years of trying to reconcile her own turbulent past, that nineteen year-old Ava didn’t jump from the top floor of Manhattan building that long ago day. She was pushed to her death.

Lucinda expected Cam to dispute–or at least question–that claim, based as it is on nothing more than a psychic vision of Ava struggling with a hooded figure before the fall. But Cam didn’t dispute it. Maybe deep down, she already suspected the truth.

All this media attention over the serial killer is a golden opportunity to shed light on Ava’s case. Whoever took her life might still be out there. Someone, somewhere, might know something.

The Hastings agreed to all these interviews with the stipulation that Ava would be prominently featured–and that Tess would not.

The press would have a field day if they knew that the rescued girl’s mother–like Lucinda–is a clairvoyant. But Cam’s abilities are under wraps, and it was officially Lucinda’s ESP that led the police to the killer. Only Lucinda, Mike, and Randy are aware that Cam was having visions of her daughter’s abduction long before it became a frightening reality.

Lucinda returns the compact to her bag, a vintage Hermes Kelly–named after the late princess of Monaco who, like Lucinda herself, was a product of Philadelphia’s Main Line.

First Hollywood, then a real-life Prince Charming, whisked Grace Kelly away from all that. Granted, her fairytale ending had a fatal postscript. But at least the dashing Ranier claimed her as his royal bride.

Not so for Lucinda Sloan. Her would-be prince married Carla Karnecki, the proverbial truck stop waitress with a heart of gold.

She was already Randy’s live-in fiancé back when Lucinda met him.

Yet Lucinda felt an instant tug of attraction the moment they met and sensed that it was mutual, despite his being engaged.

Of course she fought it. So did he.

But working together day after day, night after night, under the most exhausting, heart-wrenching of circumstances, their emotions on edge...maybe it was inevitable that Lucinda and Randy would wind up in each other’s arms sooner or later.

It only happened a few times, and they both hated themselves for it.

Meanwhile, an oblivious Carla was blissfully planning the wedding, dutifully saving her tips for her dream house, and caring for her dying mother, Zelda.

Randy wanted to break the engagement. Lucinda told him not to do it, not for her sake. She never really understood why she reacted that way, and she later regretted it, thinking of what might have been.

But at the time, it was a gut reaction, and she always trusted her instincts.

Maybe she was so drawn to Randy because he was unavailable. Maybe she was too independent back then, freshly sprung from her gilded cage, not ready for all their relationship would entail if he were free. Maybe she just couldn’t handle what his leaving Carla would do to her conscience. Maybe she was afraid of needing him. Needing anyone.

Maybe, maybe, maybe...

So much uncertainty. She loathes uncertainty, and it dogged every move she made with Randy–even after it was over.

Did she expect Randy to tell her she was wrong about them? Did she want him to fight for her, make her change her mind?

As if anyone ever could.

But if anyone could, it was him.

Didn’t he know that?

No. He didn’t know.

Anyway, girls like Carla deserve a fairy tale ending, right?

Randy transferred to an out of state job on the Jersey shore. Married Carla.

Lucinda built a nice little life for herself and put the past behind her.

Now that Not-Prince-Charming is back on the scene, though, she’s got her work cut out for her. With three more joint press interviews scheduled in the next two days, Lucinda can’t escape Randy just yet.

“Okay, let’s go! Cell phones off, everyone. You’re on right after the author interview.” The production assistant is back to herd Lucinda, Randy, and the Hastings down the hall toward the studio.

People stride importantly past them in both directions, clipboards and props in hand. The scene is becoming familiar. Lucinda knows what to expect beyond that sound-proof door: on-air talent who are household names, authoritative producers, bustling stagehands, jeans-clad camera men, bright lights, a clip-on mike, arctic air conditioning...

The door opens, and in they go.

Yup–right again.

Lucinda is getting to be an old hand at this TV stuff.

“Nervous?” Randy whispers as they’re led to the interview chairs.

“Nah. Are you?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Liar.”

He shrugs, grins. “We can’t all be as cool and composed as the Comely Clairvoyant.”

She rolls her eyes. He’s quoting yesterday’s New York Post, which Lucinda’s friend Bradley Carmichael, who lives in Manhattan, called and woke her to tell her about at five-thirty a.m. when it was hot off the press.

“You’re a tabloid star, darling!” Bradley, on his way to the gym, has always been oblivious to the fact that some people aren’t up at dawn to work out. “Just like Paris and Britney.”

Not quite.

But the press has been all over this story, particularly her role in it. She’s pretty much been portrayed as a Sexy Soothsayer Superhero–that being this morning’s Daily News tagline beneath a particularly flattering photo of her.

“The Daily News says you have a smokin’ hot Jennifer Anniston bod and a Demi Moore bedroom voice.”

“Bedroom voice?” She laughed at that. “If I’d been in a bedroom lately I wouldn’t have this voice.”

“Meaning...?”

“Meaning I always get hoarse when I’m over-tired,” she informed Bradley.

“Well, the world doesn’t know that. The world thinks you’re a smoldering femme fatale.”

Forget the world. Lucinda can’t help but wonder what Randy’s wife thinks of all this. Is Carla at home watching right now? If so, will she suspect that her husband and the Comely Clairvoyant slash Sexy Soothsayer Superhero were once a hot item?

Probably not.

Anyway, what does it matter? Once is the key word.

Once upon a time...

Yeah. Unlike Princess Grace and Carla Karnecki Barakat, Lucinda Sloan only got the fairy tale beginning.

* * *

Middlebury, Vermont

“Never, ever, ever turn on the television in the daytime. You do, and it’s all over.”

That was the advice Vic Shattuck’s former colleague David Gudlaug gave him upon his mandatory retirement from the Bureau’s Behavioral Studies Unit last summer.

Dave had already been retired for a good decade by then, and was full of other nuggets of advice, which didn’t, thank God, include buying an RV.

Vic’s had his fill of travel over a twenty-five-year career with the FBI. Not so with Dave, who’s on yet another cruise with his wife this month, somewhere in the Mediterranean.

Vic found that out from Dave’s son, who answered the phone when Vic called this morning to ask, with regard to turning on the television in the daytime, “What’s all over? The day? Life as I knew it? What? Is it really so bad?”

Vic’s wife Kitty left for work a little while ago as he settled into his chair in front of the TV.

“What are you going to do today?” she asked.

“Same as I do every day. A whole lot of nothing.”

He saw the look in her eyes. Kitty can say less with silence than most women can say with a week’s worth of words.

Vic has never been big on television–daytime, or otherwise. He managed to follow Dave’s advice, at first. Re-settled with Kitty to their native New England after years living near Quantico, he golfed every day the weather would allow. Kitty, who doesn’t golf, went stir crazy after a few idle weeks and found an accounting job at the university. On rainy days, he kept busy with Kitty’s lengthy Honey Do list around their new–albeit centuries old–saltbox home, mostly landscaping.

But then winter settled over the mountains of New England, and there wasn’t much to do--around the house or otherwise.

One morning, Vic turned on the television to see if it was going to snow–it was, big surprise--and wound up watching the entire morning newscast waiting for weather updates.

The storm held off till the next day, so he tuned in again to check the local closings and cancellations list–not that he had anywhere to be. And not that a winter storm in the mountains of Vermont was out of the ordinary in the least.

But it was good, sitting there in front of the wood-burning stove with a cup of coffee, catching up on what’s been going on in the world.

Not as fulfilling as working, of course. But he didn’t have a choice about that. You reach 57, and ready or not, there you go. You miss your job and the people. You try to stay busy. You think about the things you did right and the things you’d do differently and, always, about the one that got away.

When spring came, he started golfing again–until he threw out his back. Two specialists and one surgery later, he’s been ordered to stay away from the golf course until it’s fully healed.

So here he is, on a beautiful summer morning, watching the morning news as has become his daily habit. He’ll follow it up with a couple of lame talk shows targeted toward women, and channel surf after lunch, avoiding the shopping networks.

The way he sees it, as long as he stays away from home shopping, he’s not pathetic.

And as long as he remembers to keep dirty dishes out of the sink and fold the laundry, Kitty doesn’t seem to think he’s pathetic, either. At least, she doesn’t say it.

Maybe it was better when he was pleasantly oblivious to the news, though. Between the political coverage out of Washington, a passenger airliner crash in South America, and another hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast, things are looking pretty grim.

Vic looks around for the remote to turn the channel.

“This morning,” the beautiful anchorwoman says, “we’re going to talk with a New Jersey woman who as a child overcame the tragic suicide of her older sister, only to have her young daughter abducted by a serial killer just days ago. Meet the police detective and beautiful psychic who teamed up to rescue the teen and apprehend the killer–and learn why they are seeking new information on the decades-old so-called suicide.”

So-called suicide?

In other words, they’re looking into the possibility that it might have been a homicide. Interesting.

Vic stops looking for the remote.

“But first,” the anchor continues, “we have the author of a new book on the disappearance of aviator Amelia Earhart, and he claims to have solved the mystery at last.“

Ah, Amelia Earhart. One of the great unsolved mysteries of all time.

Solved?

Vic watches the segment with interest. The author is a journalist who has spent the past two years with a team of scientists digging up convincing forensic evidence on an island in the South Pacific.

“What made you decide to write this book?” he is asked as the interview winds to a close.

The journalist shrugs. “I’ve just always been obsessed with what happened to her.”

“I know the feeling, buddy,” Vic mutters.

It was an obsession with an unsolved case that led him to FBI work in the first place.

He’d gotten interested in crime back when he was a psych major and a notorious murderer was terrorizing the northeast–the one the press called the Night Watchman. He became so fascinated by newspaper accounts of the murders that Kitty–who was just his girlfriend at the time–had a suggestion for him.

“Why don’t you solve the case?”

“Because I’m not a detective.”

Kitty just looked at him.

The next thing he knew, he’d changed his mind about becoming a shrink.

With Kitty’s support, he filled out applications, endured tough interviews, passed incredibly difficult tests. Eventually, he found himself in a four-month FBI training program in Quantico.

As an agent in the seventies, when a rash of what his future mentor Robert K. Ressler coined “serial killing” took hold across the country, Vic grew even more fascinated by the criminal mind. Curious about what made human monsters tick, he found that his earlier interest in psychology came in handy on the job.

For four years, he took college courses in deviant psychology by night, hunted down the bad guys by day. It might not have been the dream situation for a happily married father of four kids–the youngest being twins--but he and Kitty made it work.

It all came together when he earned his masters and was assigned to the FBI’s BSU as a criminal profiler. There, he studied the complex cases of known serial killers–including the most notorious of all time, Charles Manson–and applied what he learned to active, unsolved cases.

And to inactive cases.

Revisiting the long-exhausted evidence on the Night Watchman murders, he pored over every detail and conjured a profile of the perpetrator. He anticipated what the unknown subject’s next moves were likely to have been, and come up with a pro-active plan to lay a trap for him.

All the while, he imagined the satisfaction he would find in solving one of the most notorious cold cases in Bureau history.

It didn’t happen.

He profiled the killer as an organized, highly intelligent white male. He was young, probably in his early twenties at the most when the crimes occurred. His relationships with women were unfulfilling. He felt no remorse after killing and was in no hurry to get away; on the contrary, he meticulously staged the victims and left a distinct calling card at the scene.

Yes, Vic knew who they were looking for

He just didn’t know when–or where–or whether--the unsub would strike again.

He didn’t.

Still, not a day goes by, even after almost forty years, that Vic Shattuck doesn’t wonder what happened to The Night Watchman.

All those brutal killings--and then nothing.

Vic has a theory, of course–just like everyone else who ever had anything to do with the case. The killer either died, or went to prison on some unrelated crime.

For years after the murders had ended, the evidence boxed away, pending inactive, Vic held his breath. He waited for him to re-emerge; waited for another woman to turn up dead at the hands of the Night Watchman.

There were a number of crimes with a similar M.O.: woman who lives alone is killed by an intruder in the night. One, years after the last known Night Watchman murder, was even an obvious–and flimsy--copycat crime. It was a domestic abuse case that ended in murder, and the husband tried to make it look otherwise.

No one bought it for a minute, not even the press.

The moon wasn’t even full that night.

But for the investigators, the dead giveaway--as it were--was that the Night Watchman’s calling card, the one that had never been revealed to the public, was conspicuously absent at the scene.

The victim’s lips hadn’t been smeared with red lipstick.

* * *

It’s the red lipstick that gets him.

It always has been.

She’s a beautiful woman, yeah. Great body–skinny with big boobs. Just the way he likes them. Who doesn’t?

But that luscious red mouth has him mesmerized, even before he actually hears the words spilling from it in a hauntingly throaty voice, or reads the caption superimposed over her image.

LUCINDA SLOAN, PSYCHIC DETECTIVE.

Fascinating.

Utterly fascinating.

“Yes, I’ve been involved in missing persons work for years now,” she informs the handsome interviewer in a throaty voice, “but they don’t always turn out this way.”

“In other words,” the interviewer says, “you don’t always catch the bad guy–or woman, as the case may be? This was just a lucky break?”

She appears to weigh her response carefully before acknowledging, “It was absolutely a lucky break in the sense that Tess Hastings’ life was saved. But two other girls lost theirs to a ruthless serial killer.”

“I understand you were working with the police to find those missing kids and had had visions of their deaths before Tess Hastings was kidnaped?”

“Yes.”

“And you tend to use a process called psychometry, is that right? You make physical contact with something that belonged to the person you’re trying to find–say, a piece of jewelry or clothing–and you are then able to glean information about the person?”

“That’s right.”

Psychometry.

He finds a scrap of paper and a pen, writes it down along with Lucinda Sloan, Psychic Detective.

“And that’s what you did in the case of those two missing girls?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever think there was hope of finding them, Ms. Sloan?”

For a moment, she bites her luscious lower lip. Then, shaking her head, she says, “I didn’t, no. It’s not an exact science, but in my line of work, I’m brought in after the fact, so with my visions, I tend to see things after they happen.”

“In other words, when it’s too late.”

She nods.

“Do you ever get immune to dealing with human anguish on a daily life?”

“Not immune–I guess accustomed is a better word.”

“How do you cope?”

“It’s never easy. You have to be able to compartmentalize your life–you know, remove yourself from it.”

“Remove yourself.” The reporter nods. “I understand that you were supposed to be on an Alaskan cruise vacation right about now, but you missed the boat, so to speak, in order to help find Tess Hastings.”

“That’s right.” She shrugs. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Detective Barakat, hindsight is twenty-twenty, but I’m sure there are some on your force who might have criticized you, at the time, for putting any stock into a psychic’s visions?”

Regrettably, the camera shifts to a man whose caption reads DETECTIVE RANDALL BARAKAT, LONG BEACH TOWNSHIP.

“Well, it’s not like I went around broadcasting it.”

“How did her involvement come about? Was it official, or unofficial?”

“Unofficial–I mean, I’ve known Lucinda for years. We used to work together on missing persons cases when I was back in Philly. I’ve seen her do some amazing things.”

Oh you have, have you?

The detective’s gold wedding band is clearly visible as he fidgets with his lapel. The guy is married–not to the amazing Lucinda with the luscious red lips, or the caption would undoubtedly say so.

But something in the man’s blue eyes–a flicker of admiration, a flash of regret, a glimmer of lust, perhaps–conveys that Detective Randall Barakat has more than casual interest in Lucinda Sloan, Psychic Detective.

Hmm.

Interesting.

“They’re calling Lucinda a super hero these days, Detective Barakat. Do you agree?”

“Sure. You know, danger goes with the territory when you’re a cop. But Lucinda, she’s fearless. Nothing ever fazes her.”

The camera darts back to her as the interviewer asks, “What do you say to that, Lucinda? Is there anything at all you’re afraid of?”

“The dark,” she says promptly–almost glibly, with a jittery little laugh and a sidewise glance at the detective.

Again–interesting.

“You’re afraid of the dark?” the interviewer looks amused.

But she’s not kidding. She means it. I can tell.

“Ever since I was a little girl. I guess I always figured bad things couldn’t happen in broad daylight, you know? When the sun goes down, the boogey man comes out.”

His gaze narrows.

He stares thoughtfully at her until the camera cuts away again, to a man and woman identified as CAMDEN AND MICHAEL HASTINGS, PARENTS OF KIDNAPED GIRL.

The interviewer drones on, questioning them about their ordeal. His mind drifts until screen shifts again.

In sheer disbelief, he finds himself looking at a vintage photo captioned AVA NEARY, SISTER OF CAMDEN HASTINGS, SUPPOSED 1970 NYU SUICIDE.

“Now that Mr. and Mrs. Hastings’ daughter has been found, they–with the assistance of Lucinda Sloan, are looking into the death of Mrs. Hastings’ sister, who supposedly jumped to her death from a building at New York University over thirty-five years ago.”

Well, well, well.

What a small world.

Lucinda Sloan’s red mouth announces, “We’re asking anyone who knew Ava Neary at NYU and might have any information on the period leading up to her death to please come forward.”

A small world indeed, he thinks, as an idea ignites in the mind once deemed, by a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, competent to stand trial for matricide.

Tried, convicted, sentenced, rehabilitated.

Time served.

Case closed.

No longer a threat to society.

Or so it was assumed last June, when the Night Watchman was unwittingly released after serving thirty-five years in prison.

PROLOGUE

New York City

Monday, October 8

1:46 p.m.

If you look hard enough, you can always find it.

The wise man who once said that to Laura wasn’t talking about the internet, but the phrase has become her mantra for all things.

He was right, of course.

There it is.

She’s been looking, and she’s found it.

Her hand trembling on the mouse, she leans closer to the monitor and clicks to enlarge the window.

LOCAL WOMAN ARRESTED IN FLORIDA

Local woman.

Sharon Logan.

Whenever Laura has a chance to get to a computer, she enters the name in a search engine and prays nothing will come up.

Today, her prayers went unanswered.

According to the online news account from her hometown paper, Sharon Logan is being held without bail in Tampa for attacking a girl named Calla Delaney and trying to drown her in her family’s swimming pool. She’s also being questioned about the murder last summer of the girl’s mother, Stephanie Delaney, originally ruled an accidental fall down the stairs.

Those poor people.

Jaw set grimly, hand unsteady on the mouse button, Laura closes out the screen. That’s all she needs to know.

It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

That’s why she had to get away. She just couldn’t take it anymore–the constant tension, the growing paranoia, the constant, smothering attention; being treated as if she were still a child, even now that she’s in her twenties.

Laura knew that if she stayed, eventually something would have to give. She didn’t want to be there to witness it.

But...murder.

She never really imagined it would be that extreme.

And...Florida?

What was she doing in Florida?

Who are the Delaneys?

Does it matter?

Maybe it should.

But after all those years of being the girl who lived in the purple house with the crazy lady, all Laura cares about is that she’s finally free.

Free, and not looking back.

“Excuse me, Miss...are you done with that computer? Because we have people waiting to use it.”

She looks up to see a librarian. Not one of the friendly ones she’s gotten to know since she started coming here a few months ago; rather, the one who shushes people and scowls a lot at people who hog the computers.

“Oh...sorry. I’m finished.”

She grabs her backpack, makes her way through the hushed library, and emerges on a crowded Manhattan street.

People rush past without giving her a second glance. No one knows who she is. Who Sharon Logan is. No one cares.

That’s why she’s here. That’s just the way she wants it.

Especially now that Laura knows it finally happened. The crazy lady finally snapped.

Murder.

Laura knew, when she woke up this morning, that today would be the day the search engine would yield something.

If you look hard enough, you can find it.

Years ago, when he said those words, he was talking about hope.

About finding hope, in the midst of despair.

“If you look hard enough, Laura,” he said, handing her tissue after tissue to dry her tears, “you can find it.”

She clung to those words, somehow managed to find a glimmer of light on the darkest days; just a shred of hope to keep her going.

Yet now that it’s all over–now that she’s here, and Sharon Logan is a thousand miles away, in jail for murder...

Now, ironically, Laura’s mantra has been altered.

Every morning, she wakes up thinking it, praying it:

If you really, really, really want to get lost–really need to get lost–then no one can ever find you.

CHAPTER ONE

Lily Dale, New York
Monday, October 8
1:46 p.m.

“All right. Tell me everything. And I mean everything!”

Calla Delaney and her father look at each other, then back at Odelia Lauder, standing in the front hall waiting impatiently for one of them to start talking.

“Gammy, it’s really complicated.” Calla sets down her heavy duffle bag and shifts the laptop computer bag to her other shoulder, wishing her grandmother hadn’t pounced on her and Dad the second they walked in the door from the airport.

It’s been a long day already, saying goodbye to the Wilsons down in Florida, driving to the airport in Tampa, flying from there to New York City, then from New York to Buffalo, waiting for the luggage, renting a car, then driving almost an hour south to reach Lily Dale.

Odelia’s little two-story cottage with its peeling pinkish-orange paint was a welcome sight. They arrived just as a cold rain began falling from an overcast sky, typical weather here in southwestern New York State.

Calla, in jeans and a fleece sweatshirt, was prepared for it.

Dad, wearing shorts, flip-flops, and a tee-shirt, was not.

“I’ll get some warmer clothes when we get there,” he told Calla earlier when she warned him that his outfit, which is fine for Florida--or southern California, where he’s been on a teaching sabbatical since August--just won’t cut it up here.

Poor Dad. It’s not like he even had a chance to pack a bag for what’s turning out to be an extended, unexpected trip east. He hopped on a plane from L.A. on Saturday when the Tampa police informed him that his daughter had just been attacked by a lunatic killer.

Again.

Only Dad doesn’t know about the first time, well over a month ago.

That, of course, was a different lunatic killer.

Right.

Incredible, really, the things that have happened to Calla since she came to live with her grandmother in this tiny, gated lakeside village filled with century-old gingerbread cottages...and psychic mediums.

“Odelia,” Dad says, “there’s a lot to discuss.”

“I’m listening.” Gammy looks from him to Calla to him to Calla. “Hello?”

Not knowing where to begin, Calla avoids her grandmother’s expectant gaze. She stoops to pick up Gert, who’s rubbing against her ankles, purring, welcoming her back.

“Why don’t we let Calla go up to her room and relax,” Dad suggests, “and I’ll fill you in.”

“That’s a great idea. Calla, why don’t you–”

”No!” She protests so loudly that poor Gert leaps from her arms and flees up the steps past Miriam, who’s materialized about halfway up, keeping a ghostly eye on things.

Both Dad and Odelia gape at Calla., who scowls back at them. “Please don’t shuttle me off to my room like a little girl. I’m not. I’m almost eighteen.” Well, she will be, in another six months. “I can deal with what happened. I mean, it happened to me, remember? Maybe I want to talk about it. Maybe I need to.”

She does?

You do?

Hmm. The protest sort of popped out of her.

Who knows? Her head has been spinning since the plane touched down. Maybe she does need to get everything out into the open.

Then again, just a few moments ago, the last thing she wanted to do was rehash the events of the past few days.

Face it. You really don’t know what you want.

“Oh, sweetie, you’ve been through so much. It just breaks my heart.” Her grandmother throws a pair of strong maternal arms around her.

Suddenly, for all her longing to be seen as an adult, Calla feels as though she’s about to crumple and cry like a baby.

“I’m okay,” she manages to squeak out unconvincingly.

No, she isn’t. She used to be okay. Before everything–before she lost her mother. Before her life fell apart.

She used to be sweet, and accommodating, and happy, and normal...

“You can’t possibly be okay. And you don’t have to be. Not yet. But you will be,” Odelia promises, reaching out to brush strands of Calla’s long brown hair back from her face.

Then, for the first time, she seems to notice the laptop bag. “What is that?”

“Mom’s computer. Now I’ll be able to check my email and do research for homework right from here, Gammy.”

Among other things.

“But this house isn’t wired for the internet, sweetie.”

“That’s okay. All I need is a phone jack. I can do a dial-up connection.”

“Well, then, you’re in luck. We have a few of those. In fact, there’s one right in your bedroom.”

“Really?” She never noticed it before.

Odelia nods. “Your mother begged me for her own phone when she hit twelve or thirteen. Back then, we didn’t have cordless, and she wanted privacy to talk to her friends. She used to be on it forever.”

Calla finds it hard to imagine her hyper-efficient mother lounging around chatting on the phone for hours. Mom wasn’t big on leisurely conversation–telephone, or otherwise. She liked to get right to the point, and then move on. In both business situations and in personal ones.

“Let’s go into the kitchen,” Odelia suggests. “I made lunch. You haven’t eaten yet, have you, Jeff?”

“We grabbed a couple of bran muffins at the airport earlier this morning, but Calla barely touched hers.”

“Well, they probably didn’t put the Raisinettes in, like I do when I make them.”

“What?” Dad’s eyes are wide.

“Didn’t you ever hear of raisins in bran muffins?”

“Raisins, yes. Raisinettes, no.”

“Well, chocolate is good in anything,” Odelia tells Dad with a shrug, eyes gleaming behind the pink plastic cat-eye frames of her glasses–which of course clash violently with her frizzy dyed red hair and her purple sweater.

If Calla were in a chatty mood, she might bring up the “snicker-noodles” her grandmother served for dinner one night--with cut-up Snickers bars as a featured ingredient.

Was that only a few weeks ago? It seems like a year, at least, has passed since that night.

And it seems even longer since Calla’s had any kind of appetite.

“Who am I to question your recipes, Odelia? You’ve always been a great cook.” Dad sniffs the air. “Something smells good. Tuna melts?”

Calla doubts that. Tuna melts would be far too ordinary for a creative chef like Odelia.

“No, but you’re close,” she tells Dad. “Come see.”

Calla smells tuna, too. Tuna...and a faint hint of Lily of the Valley.

That can only mean one thing.

Aiyana is here.

She darts a quick look around the room for her Native American spirit guide, whose presence is always accompanied by the scent of Mom’s favorite flower.

No sign of Aiyana, but...

Calla sniffs again. Yes, the floral smell is real, and of course there’s not a blossom in sight. Fragrant Lily of the Valley only blooms in springtime.

Aiyana...where are you?

Calla wonders if she’s just too worn out today to connect with spirit. She’s still new to this–she needs more practice when it comes to tuning into the energy.

Tuning out, as well. Sometimes, she finds herself bombarded with images and voices. It can be frightening.

Her grandmother promised she’d get the hang of it, though. That’s why she enrolled Calla in a Beginning Mediumship course with classes every Saturday morning.

Aiyana, are you trying to tell me something?

“Calla? Are you okay?”

She turns to see Odelia watching her with concern.

“I’m...fine. Just a little spacey, I guess. Maybe I need to go upstairs and lie down.” And see if Aiyana comes to me there.