“Straightaway,” I said, and hung up.
Already heading for the stairs and the fax machine in my attic office, I called to Bree, telling her about the sketches about to come in.
“Be right up,” she called after me.
I’d no sooner climbed to the attic and stepped into my office than I noticed something off. I couldn’t place it at first but then saw that a penholder Damon had made for me when he was seven had been moved from beside the phone on my desk to the far end of the credenza. In the ten years I’d had it, I’d never moved it more than an inch.
I looked down, saw a few tiny specks of sawdust, and then startled when my cell phone buzzed, alerting me to a text. It was from Ali’s teacher, Mrs. Hutchins. My head snapped back when I read it.
Our speaker last Thursday was Mr. Thierry Mulch.
Thierry Mulch? The same guy who’d sent me that letter with the—
The fax machine rang, connected, and started to print. I just stood there staring at the message and then stared at the penholder.
Over the sound of Bree coming up the stairs, I remembered Ali saying, “He smelled weird. Just like the zombie.”
Had someone, Thierry Mulch, been in my house the night before last? Had Mulch moved my penholder?
Bree knocked, entered, said, “Sketches?”
Preoccupied, I gestured toward the fax, unable to shake the idea that the crazy man who’d pointed out the connection to the earlier massage parlor killings had been to my son’s school, been close enough that Ali had smelled him, and then might have broken into my—
“This guy looks familiar,” Bree said, excited.
“What?” I said, looking over to see her studying two drawings laid out on my desk. “Where?”
“I can’t place him yet,” she said, then tapped on the drawings. “But I know I’ve seen him somewhere in the last week or so.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I swear.”
I came around the desk beside her, wondering if I was going to be looking at the face of Thierry Mulch. I saw the two perspectives of the killer, one in a hoodie looking right at me, and the other wearing a suit and in profile.
Both drawings showed a baby-faced character in his late twenties.
Immediately I had the sense that I’d seen him before as well, but I couldn’t place him at first. But then, in the blink of an eye, I saw him dressed differently and was assaulted by the images of several encounters I’d had with him recently, and felt no doubt.
“Tha
t creepy cold-blooded sonofabitch,” I whispered. “He was right there in front of us the entire time.”
Part Four
Reckless Hearts
Chapter
67
In utter disbelief, Marcus Sunday sat in the front seat of the blue Tahoe down the street from Cross’s house, gaping at the live feed from the attic office streaming on Acadia’s computer.
On-screen, Cross’s wife said, “Who?”
“I’ll explain on the way downtown,” Cross said, grabbing up the drawings and exiting his office with Bree right behind.
“What’s going on, Marcus?” Acadia said, confused. “Who was right there in front of them?”