Except for him.
And only when he was alone.
Cobwebs dangled from the exposed beams of the floor above, where the old John Deere sat parked, as it had for the better part of a decade. He ignored the scrape of tiny claws against the bricks of the floor. Let the mice and rats and squirrels, or whatever rodents chose to live down here, be. A rattler or two wouldn’t be bad, either. Anything to ensure that he wasn’t bothered.
He walked past bins of rusted tools to his private room, the old chamber once used for root vegetables and apples to winter over. His great-grandmother’s old milk separator, a device that hadn’t been used in fifty years, still stood guard at the heavy, padlocked door, and there was rust on the walls where pipes had once brought water to and from a wringer washer that had occupied a space in the corner. He had to duck to keep from hanging himself on the lines where once upon a time, long, long ago, sheets had been draped to dry in the winter.
Unlocking the padlock, he pulled open the old door his great-great-grandfather had built before refrigeration. The door was nearly a foot wide and filled with sawdust. When the door was sealed shut, any sounds from within were completely muted.
Once inside, he snapped on the fluorescent lights and locked the door behind him. The room was instantly awash in the unsteady bluish illumination, and it was as if he’d been propelled forward in time by a century and a half. Stainless-steel counters gleamed against three walls; a computer center complete with wireless modem, twenty-five-inch monitor, and all the technology to keep his private business safe and secure filled one corner.
An oversized map of North America stretched over a bulletin board that filled one long wall. It was a political map, showing state lines, cities, and roads. Scattered across its flat surface were red pushpins. Thirty-seven in all. Each indicating the spot where one of the pretenders lived. Like spatters of blood marring the smooth surface of the map, the pins reminded him of how much work he had to do and soon.
They were a worry, those pins, a serious worry.
There were far too many of them, he thought. There were a few other pins as well, ones with black heads, indicating death. Those pins affixed photographs to the map, though the pictures were turned facedown, showing only white squares of paper with dates of birth and death written in solid black letters. There were six of these in all, scattered across the United States.
But he was making progress—steady progress. It was slow going because he could rely on no one but himself; he’d learned that lesson the hard way.
Smiling to himself, he removed a red pin from the Southern California area, then walked to his printer, where a digital picture had already been printed. Shelly Bonaventure’s frightened face stared back at him, and he grinned again, satisfied by the look of pure terror on her countenance. She’d known at that moment that she was about to die. He’d snapped the shot with his cell phone just before exiting the back door of her apartment, then sent it wirelessly here.
He’d taken too much time with her; he’d heard the sound of sirens fast approaching as he’d let himself out and dashed across the street.
But he’d managed to get away.
Again.
Using the scissors he kept in a drawer, he cut
the small picture from the paper, trimming away the excess, then carefully placing her date of birth and death on the back of her picture before pinning it, facedown, with a black pushpin. No longer could he see the small Photoshopped head shot she’d used as her publicity picture.
Perfect.
He surveyed his work, noting the others that had died before Shelly, and the raft of faces of those still alive, those waiting to serve out their sentence. They were in their own ways striking, all between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-six. Mostly brunettes, though there were a few bottle blondes in the group and a couple of redheads.
The pictures were clustered mainly in the Northwest. Two in British Columbia, both near Vancouver Island, one in Alberta, several in Washington State, a slew in Oregon, and some scattered in California. Three in Nevada, two in Arizona, and a handful in Montana. One lived as far away as Delaware, and there were six in the Midwest. Three in Chicago.
The ones who lived within the same district or state worried him as the deaths could be considered suspicious if he wasn’t careful. Shelly’s “suicide” was a risk. The others, so far, appeared to have died in accidents, no questions asked.
All of which was perfect.
Meticulously orchestrated.
But there were so many more.
He glared at the cluster of pins that swarmed around Missoula and Grizzly Falls. Access to each of those pretenders would be easy as they were nearby.
But when so many people in their late twenties and early thirties ended up dead, the authorities would take note.
Unless there was a huge catastrophe and they all died together, along with others, of course, to throw off suspicion. And he’d have to either distance himself from the tragedy or, more likely, be a part of it and escape, not entirely unharmed.
That would be tricky; but it caused his blood to sizzle a bit as he thought how clever he was. He’d baffle the police and turn out a hero and be revered ... but no! He had to blend into the woodwork, couldn’t afford to have any kind of light shined upon him, couldn’t allow some idiot member of the press to start digging....
He walked to a file drawer and pulled it open. Inside were neat folders, information gathered over time on each of the pretenders. Some were thick, others slim, but it didn’t matter.
He opened the first one, and his gut twisted as he glared at the picture tucked within his notes.
Dr. Acacia Lambert.