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PART TWO
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PART THREE
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PART FOUR
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PART FIVE
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PART SIX
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Teaser chapter
Epilogue
Copyright Page
For Wendy
Love always
PART ONE
These be
Three silent things:
The falling snow . . . the hour
Before the dawn . . . the mouth of one
Just dead.
—ADELAIDE CRAPSEY, “Triad”
1
Creighton, Maine, two years ago
Gasping for air, Qui
The killer was far enough ahead of him that he couldn’t be seen through the trees, but occasionally Qui
Qui
Qui
It was like a fox hunt, and he was the fox.
The killer, whose grisly calling card read simply D.O.A., pressed on through the rustle and crackle of last year’s dead leaves, listening to the barking dogs, the occasional human shouts. His pursuers were gaining on him. It was as if they were actually having fun with him. With him!
He was out of breath, and almost out of options. But almost could be the most important word in the English language.
The ground was gradually falling away. He could see it begi
Almost there!
The hectic barking of the dogs was getting louder. More frantic. He wondered what kind of dogs they were. The animals sounded as if they were in a frenzy, as if they wanted to kill him.
And maybe that was the game.
The killer glimpsed a blue-green plane of water through the foliage ahead, and his hope surged. The lake!
The question was, where along the shoreline was he going to emerge from the woods? Where would his sudden appearance not draw attention and bullets?
This can still work! It can still work!
He put on what in his mind was a burst of speed, but was in reality simply a great deal of thrashing around, like an exhausted long distance ru
Almost there!
Almost!
2
Sarasota, Florida, 1992
“Dwayney!”
The house where it happened was at the edge of the water. The green lawn sloped gently away from the house, to an Olympic-sized swimming pool that appeared to merge with the bay. It made for an interesting illusion.
“Dwayney, honey?”
Maude Evans was lying posed on a webbed lounger at the edge of the rectangular pool, looking oddly as if she were floating on an invisible horizon. Every half minute or so she stretched her lithe, ta
“Dwayney, fetch me another drink!” Maude called.
Dwayne’s body jerked. He’d been half dozing in the late-morning Florida sun. He peered over at Maude above the dark frames of his sunglasses. Looking back at him, Maude held up her drink and swished around what was left in the bottom of the glass. A clear signal and command.
He obediently went inside to the kitchen and carefully made a whiskey sour the way he’d been taught. Dwayne personally didn’t like whiskey sours. For that matter, what limited experience he’d had suggested to him that he’d never like alcoholic drinks. But after building Maude’s drink he sipped it to make sure it tasted the way she wanted it to taste.