Dead Before Dark

(e-book)

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 interest in the elusive Zodiac Killer.

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

Once in a while, 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 twenty-something 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, but 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 rigueur 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 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 T-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 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 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 a 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 Hermès 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 fairy-tale ending had a fatal postscript. But at least the dashing Rainier 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 fiancée 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 that 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 Hastingses 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 soundproof door: on-air talent who are household names, authoritative producers, bustling stagehands, jeans-clad cameramen, 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 Aniston 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 had 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 fifty-seven, 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? the author 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 master’s and was assigned to the FBI’s BSU as a criminal profiler. There, he studied the complex cases of known 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 came up with a proactive 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 for 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 reemerge, 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’s 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 kidnapped?

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 the word 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 basis?

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 superhero 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 boogeyman 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 KIDNAPPED GIRL.

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

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

Now that Mr. and Mrs. Hastings’s daughter has been found, they—with the assistance of Lucinda Sloan, are looking into the death of Mrs. Hastings’s 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.

PART I

5:40

Chapter One

When it’s over, he stands back to survey his handiwork.

Almost.

He reaches out with a gloved hand to adjust the sleeve of her pajama top, pulling it lower on her wrist.

Better.

He pushes back a few strands of her hair, the better to assess the frozen grimace on her mouth.

Ah. Very nice, indeed.

He pries open the corpse’s clenched right fingers. First, he slides the silver signet ring from the pinkie and puts it aside. Then he unzips the pocket of his down jacket and pulls out a plastic Ziploc bag.

Painstakingly, he deposits the contents of the bag in the palm of her hand. Then he closes her fingers again to form a fist.

Good. This was a last minute idea—a nice little twist to keep them all guessing. To let the almighty Lucinda Sloan know that she no longer has control of her own life.

That he controls her now. He controls everything.

Picking up the pinkie ring, he dredges it through the puddle of blood. He seals it into the Ziploc, dripping red, and puts the bag back into his pocket.

And now, the grand finale.

He takes out a tube of lipstick, uncaps it, gives it a twist, and pauses to admire the slanted, waxy tip.

Then he runs it over the dead woman’s lips, staining them a scarlet shade to match the pool of blood in which she lies.

There.

You’re perfect, darling.

Her gaping eyes seem to be fixed on his face now in vacant, terrified recognition, belying the fact that she never saw him coming. Not until the last moment.

They never do.

He takes one long, last look; then, satisfied, he leaves her.

Just before closing the door behind him, he snakes a black glove around the doorjamb to turn off the light, leaving her alone in the dark.

She won’t mind. Not now.

Maybe she wouldn’t have before, either.

For all he knows, she was never afraid of the dark.

But some people are.

Some people are terrified.

Outside, he takes her house key—a duplicate of the one he’d brazenly borrowed from her purse in an unguarded moment—and slides it under the WELCOME mat. Just to make things a little easier, when the time comes.

You really have thought of everything, he congratulates himself.

He pauses momentarily at the foot of the driveway to leave behind another calling card, placing it in a spot where it probably won’t be discovered right away—if ever.

But it’s there.

He always plays by the rules.

At least, when it comes to his own little game.

He chuckles softly as he slips away into the night beneath the light of a full moon.

Gazing out the passenger’s side window at the Federal brick row houses lining the cobblestone street, Lucinda reminds herself that she loves her new neighborhood.

Really, she does.

Philadelphia’s Society Hill is safe, convenient, historic, beautiful…and very few people know to look for her here. That’s the important thing.

In the midst of the media attention following the Hastings case, her phone number and address were leaked on the Internet. She was inundated with phone calls and drop-in visitors seeking her help. Families of missing persons from all over the country, private detectives—even a few furtive law enforcement agencies that made it clear she was their last resort.

She moved last month, got an unlisted number and a new e-mail address.

It isn’t that she no longer wants to work as a psychic detective—or that people haven’t offered exorbitant fees for her services.

On the contrary, she doesn’t charge at all. She doesn’t have to, thanks to family money. She lives very comfortably off the interest of her trust fund.

But there are only so many people she can help, and she intends to stick with the old routine: Inspector Neal Bullard of the Philadelphia Police Department tells the families of missing persons about her, and brings her on board if they’re interested.

They usually are, regardless of whether they believe in this stuff. People whose loved ones have vanished are desperate enough to try anything in order to bring them home.

Here we are, Jimmy Molinero, at the wheel beside her, announces as they pull up at the curb beneath the exceptionally dim yellow glow of a lamppost.

Some people probably find the district’s old-fashioned street lights charming. Lucinda will take the bright white wattage of modern fixtures any day.

Home, sweet home. Jimmy puts the Mercedes into park and gestures up at the three-story brick townhouse.

Lucinda murmurs in agreement, reluctant to admit that she feels about as at home here as she did on the Dutch Antilles island of Curaçao, where the two of them just spent the long President’s Day weekend.

Their rented Caribbean villa was picturesque and upscale. But it wasn’t…comfortable. She wasn’t comfortable. She couldn’t quite relax, despite day after leisurely day spent in abundant warm sunshine with attentive staff doling out cocktails mixed with the island’s namesake liqueur, the same inviting shade as the sparkling Caribbean Sea.

Truly, there was no reason for