“Lie there. Just lie there. Let it go. Even if you feel that you have strength, that you know what you’re doing, just lie there.”
Alex Maple blinked.
It was the blonde woman. An angel? Was she angel? Or was she a ghost?
Or maybe a real live woman, just trying to help him!
“What did they do to me?” he asked her. “Why do I feel this way?”
“They took your blood.”
“They took my blood? Why?”
“They will use some in the ceremony tonight. They will drink it, to gain your knowledge, to gain your strength. Don’t worry, they don’t expect you at this ceremony. They expect us both to be in and out of consciousness.”
In and out of consciousness—that meant that the blonde woman was not a ghost or an angel. She was alive. She was real; she was flesh and blood.
He wasn’t on a table; he was on a bed. The bandage was still on his arm, but there were no needles or anything else attached to him. He was in a ward of some kind, he thought. Maybe, when it had been a mental institute, this had been where the sick patients had been brought. It had been the infirmary.
Sick patients!
Sicker than usual...
“They took blood from you?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“To drink?”
“I’m not that kind of worthy,” she said, a bitter amusement in her voice. “I don’t even know. But he’s done it before. He’ll do it again. You can’t fight...you’re very pliable when you have no blood.”
“But we need to fight!”
“Those who fight, die.”
Alex was quiet for a minute, afraid.
“Do they die just because they fight?” he asked.
“They die at the full moon. The full moon is closest, you see. Go figure—it makes the darkness lighter, but it’s when the power of hell is supposed to be the strongest. He wants to bring Satan to earth—or, perhaps, make all his followers believe that he is Satan.”
“Why?”
“Power? Money? All the good things.”
Alex was thoughtful. Blood! They’d bled him. Yes, that would make him weak. He wouldn’t be able to fight. But the person who had attacked him and the others in Boston had not been weak.
She must have been reading his mind.
“Hallucinogenics and other drugs. He makes people forget where they came from. He shows them what will happen to them if they don’t obey. Death is not evil, you see, not in his world. Those who die in the service of the master are rewarded.”
“How...how do you know all this?” he asked her.
“Because I pretend all the time,” she said, and again she laughed softly, and it was a bitter and pained laugh. “Because I have been here...waiting my turn. I’m the sacrifice for what he sees as his high holy day—as soon as he’s exactly in Jehovah.”
“He can’t do that...he doesn’t know where it is. I don’t know where it is!”
“Make him think that you do—or he will kill you. He already doubts you. He has talked about taking your friend. Victoria Preston. She is, you must see, in his mind, perfect. Because she could be the messenger—and the sacrifice!”
“But...” Alex was stunned. He thought about Vickie constantly. He was holding on to the irrational belief that he could communicate with her, that she could somehow hear him when he shouted with his mind. He’d wanted her to find him—and he’d wanted her to stay far away. Both. And now...
“She’s not a virgin!” he said triumphantly. “Not meaning to be rude here or anything, but she sure as hell isn’t a virgin, so she wouldn’t be a good sacrifice!”
“While I don’t know your friend, I doubt it matters if she’s a virgin. That really doesn’t mean anything anymore. He creates his religion as he goes along. He is like any fanatic—he can twist anything into his way of seeing it.”
“We have to escape. That’s all there is to it. Somehow, we have to escape.”
“When you’ve figured out how,” she told him softly, “you let me know. Shush! Someone is coming.”
Someone was coming.
Hooded figures.
“Come along, come along now!” one of them told the woman.
“Yes, yes, of course,” she said, leaning heavily upon the one who spoke.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
“Yes, of course. I am always okay. I am so honored! It is my time to see the master.”
Then they were all gone. And Alex tried to rise and he fell back; he didn’t have the strength.
He began to weep.
He wanted to fight so badly.
He could only fight with his mind.
But then again, throughout his life, his greatest strength had been his mind.
Now, he just needed to figure out how to wage the battle.
* * *
Vickie was still sitting at the table with Devin, Isaac Sherman, Charlie Oakley and Frank Sanderson when the email came through from Roxanne.
She stared at the picture.
It could only be one man, and that one man was someone she knew—and someone Roxanne had met, as well.
Professor Milton Hanson.
Barnes, she reckoned, hadn’t recognized the man in the picture because he really had no reason to know the professor.
And, Vickie reckoned, Roxanne hadn’t said anything, because of course she and Officer Jim Tracy had worked together to create the likeness.
She must have just been staring at her phone in shock because, this time, Devin kicked her beneath the table. She managed not to cry out, startled.
She was sure that Devin had the same email and just hadn’t seen it yet.
“I think,” she murmured, looking around the table, “that Devin and I have to get back. I’m not sure what our plan is for the day.”
“I hope it’s to find Brenda’s killer,” Isaac said.
“And maybe, in that, Sheena Petrie’s killer, too,” Charlie added.
Frank waved a hand in the air. “Inch by inch—every last acre in the forest by the Quabbin must be searched. My Carly might still be alive.”
They all rose, leaving the table.
Charlie asked, “You’re going to keep me apprised of what’s going on? I may be retired for a long time, but I worked security. I know my way around trouble.”
“Of course!” Devin assured him.
She was looking at her phone, frowning.
Devin had never met Milton Hanson.
Vickie wasn’t going to speak to her until they were alone.
She realized she didn’t trust anyone.
Not even Charlie Oakley.
“Oh, my God!” Vickie said when they were in the car. “The picture—the likeness!”
“Who is it?”
“Milton Hanson. Brilliant professor. Political science, theology and history. He works with Alex, Devin. And the night I was supposed to meet up with Alex at the coffee shop, he was there!”
“Okay...if he was there, how did he have Alex?”
“Because he kidnapped him the night before, and spirited him away somewhere. Smarmy! That’s what my dad always called him. And he wanted to borrow a book. A book I took and hid. I have to get into that book, Devin—”
She broke off.
Her phone was ringing.
And it was Griffin.
“The sketch!” she said.
“Yes, it’s Milton Hanson. I’m trying to stay sane here. Is it possible that Roxanne got the description from the brothers, and twisted it to look like Hanson because she knows him?”
“No. Roxanne is an artist. She would have listened to every word said. She was with Jim, too, and Jim doesn’t know Hanson. Griffin! It’s him. I told you—he’s a smarmy bastard!”
“Smarmy still doesn’t mean murderer.”
“But it could!” Vickie insisted.
“Anyway, we’ve got to head back to Boston,” Griffin said.
“But we just got here. We just found a body in the Quabbin. And, Griffin, when we were at breakfast, we ran into Charlie Oakley—he’s out here.”
“We’re just going so you can talk to Gloria again, to try to stir something. We’ll drive in and drive back. Rocky and Devin will stay here. They can start searching the area. And Wendell Harper is on everything. Plus the state police will still be working while we’re gone.”
“All right. Why do you think that Charlie Oakley is out here, Griffin?” she asked.
“Because the death of Sheena Petrie ruined his life,” Griffin suggested.
“You think...”
“What?”
“You think that there’s any possibility he killed her himself?”
“We have no reason to suspect that,” Griffin said.
“But you don’t think that it’s suspicious that he’s here?”
“Sure. It’s suspicious. Rocky and I are going to meet up with Wendell Harper, then we’ll come back to the bed-and-breakfast for you.”
Vickie hung up and told Devin about her conversation.
“Something has to crack somewhere,” Devin said. “Maybe Gloria will remember something. She’s really the only lead we’ve got—the only living person we now have in custody who might know what’s going on, somewhere in the far reaches of her mind.”
* * *
Barnes had brought in a police hypnotist, but that had availed them little.
Gloria had certainly had a family at some time, and she was sure that she’d had a puppy. The puppy had seemed to have been the best thing in her life. He’d gotten big, he’d become a great dog and his name had been Wolfen. Then, Barnes told them, Gloria had begun to cry, and they’d had to end the session.
They were at the hospital, outside Gloria’s room. Vickie still seemed baffled—willing to help, but baffled.
“A hypnotist got nowhere, but you think that I can do something?” Vickie asked Barnes.
“I think she reacts to you,” Barnes said. “Vickie, this case just seems to grow and grow. Gloria’s a connector. She could remember things today. She could remember them in five years, according to both the doctor and the hypnotist. Unless something jars her memory.”
“And I’m that something,” Vickie said.
Barnes shrugged.
“Okay. But here’s a suggestion. Get me a puppy.”
“What?”
“She reacted to having had a puppy. Did she mention what kind?”
“A yellow Lab.”
“Find me a yellow Lab,” Vickie said.
“I can do that,” Barnes said. “You want to go in with her now?”
“Where’s her doctor?”
“Her primary physician is off today,” Barnes told her. “The on-call doctor is seriously busy with a patient down the hall.”
Griffin shook his head, wondering how Barnes had managed to get another patient to keep the doctor occupied.
“I’ll go in with Vickie,” Griffin said. “Barnes, find that puppy, please. Oh! And what about Milton Hanson?” He’d told Barnes that the man who had apparently been with Helena Matthews when she had last been seen was a dead ringer for the professor.
“I have men looking for him. He didn’t respond at his residence. But don’t worry—we’ll find him.”
Vickie looked at Griffin. “Smarmy,” she reminded him beneath her breath.
Gloria looked better than she had the last time they had seen her—even though it hadn’t been long at all. Her color was better—she didn’t seem as pinched and strung out as she had, either.
She blinked, and then almost smiled when Vickie walked in ahead of Griffin.
And then she said her name.
“Vickie.”
Vickie nodded, smiling. “You remember me.”
“You saved my life. You and...” She paused, looking around and seeing Griffin, but no one else. “The other agent,” she said. “Oh, nothing against you, sir!” she told Griffin. “But I was told that Vickie and her agent friend saved my life.”
“And that’s true,” Griffin assured her.
“We still need to know why you wanted to take your life, Gloria,” Vickie said.
“I don’t want to take my life!” Gloria said fervently. “I don’t know why I did what I did, except that they’re out there. And I know that if we don’t do what we’re supposed to do, it’s worse. He’ll find us.”
“Who will find you?” Griffin asked.
Gloria thought about that. “Satan himself, I think.”
“Satan,” Griffin murmured.
“He told us that we believe in God, and if there is God, then there is Satan,” she said. “And...if we carry out his tasks, we sit with the great and those who are rewarded. If we don’t... I’ve seen what they do. It was better...” She stopped speaking, perplexed again. “And I’m so sorry. I know I should remember things, but I don’t. There are snatches of things that come back, but...” She broke off, shaking her head.
“I think you’re already doing better,” Vickie said pleasantly.
“Yes?” Gloria asked hopefully.
“Yeah. Well, you were living somewhere before you came here. I don’t think that you were staying in Boston. I think you were out by the Quabbin somewhere,” Vickie said.
“The Quabbin,” Gloria said softly. “Yes, the reservoir. We used to do nature walks there.”
“When you were a child?” Vickie asked her.
“No. No...not long ago. We would walk and look for things. For landmarks.”
“By the Quabbin,” Vickie said.
“And do you know what you were looking for?” Griffin asked her.
“There was a hill, a very pleasant hill, with a beautiful valley. And it was all surrounded by rich forests. There was an area where granite struck out of the earth, and it formed a natural podium, and it was where the high priests could speak to their flocks. And it was where...”
“Where what?” Griffin persisted.
Gloria turned to look at him. “It was where they gave to him that which was his. It was where they were before, years before... It’s where he will come now.”
Griffin glanced at Vickie.
“He had you looking for Jehovah?”
“Yes. Jehovah is out there, so near. Jehovah is key. He must find Jehovah. When he is there, he will find the granite high altar. The place where the words were written is there, by the granite. And when he finds it, we will bring Satan to earth, and be richly rewarded,” Gloria said. She blinked and shook her head. “I don’t want a reward. I just remember that there would be a reward. I—I don’t know what I wanted,” she said. “They...they all liked me. It was like...having a home.”
“You were with a group of people. There was someone who was a high priest, and you all flocked around him, right?” Vickie asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
“And you remember walking around the Quabbin?” Griffin asked.
“Yes, we had to find the hill and the granite shelf that made a podium. And there was a patch of land before it. Ezekiel Martin wrote into the earth. He knew that Satan was coming.”
“Satan was coming,” Vickie murmured, “but Captain Magnus Grayson, under the authority of King Charles II, made it first.”
“I didn’t even want Satan to come!” Gloria whispered. She frowned. “But... Martin. I thought that maybe we were related. I think that it was one of my names. That’s what he told me.”
“That’s what who told you?” Griffin asked.
“The high priest. He serves as Satan’s voice and body on earth, while we await the coming.”
“Do you remember where you met the high priest?” Vickie asked.
Gloria stared at her blankly. Then it seemed that her face brightened and new energy filled the whole of her body. “Music! I was at a concert. A concert in the park. It was...a big park. It wasn’t far from that big building that used to be a museum. It was full of all kinds of arms and armor, but now...they moved the stuff to an art museum. But the park isn’t far. There were a number of acts. A really great Beatles group. Some guys who did... Dylan! They did a bunch of Dylan.”
“Guys? Or a brother-and-sister act?” Vickie asked.
Gloria nearly jumped out of the bed. “Yes! A brother-and-sister act. They were very good!”
The duo. Cathy and Ron Dearborn.
She went on to name several of the cover songs the sister and brother did, songs that Vickie had seen them perform.
“So, you met the high priest at a music concert. What did he look like?” Griffin asked her.
“Oh, he...”
Gloria went dead blank again. “I... I remember his voice. I remember him saying that I should join with him, that it was wonderful, that it was sweet music all the time. He had such a way about him, such a smile, such a tone of voice...”
“But you don’t remember what he looked like?”
“Red. He wore red. Like a sheet over his face. No...like a cloak and then a weird headdress kind of a thing, and then—I think it hung from the hood he was wearing.”
“He wasn’t wearing anything like that at a concert, was he?” Vickie asked.
“No...”
“Will you help a sketch artist lay out what you do remember?” Griffin asked her.
“Of course—but it’s just a mask. Or a scarf, or a little sheet. His eyes...they gleam. I think that they gleam all the time. As if hell’s fires are really alive in him.”
Griffin and Vickie looked at one another.
She had started to shake; Vickie quickly changed the subject.
“What about your puppy?” Vickie asked. She smiled at Gloria. “We’re trying to get you a puppy now—or, I should say, Detective Barnes is trying to find a puppy. You can’t keep it at the hospital, and I’m not sure how we’re going to get you situated once you’re out, but my parents are friends with a really great vet, and he’ll keep him until you’re ready.”
“I’m not going to be charged with...with something horrible?” Gloria asked her.
“I don’t believe so. Not unless you remember you did something?” Vickie asked her.
“We had our calling. We were sent out for our calling,” Gloria said. She seemed excited again. “I had other names, but I could swear... Martin. Gloria Martin!”
“We’ll tell Detective Barnes. He can try to find you in the system now that we have a name that may be the right one,” Vickie told her.
Barnes had great timing; he chose that moment to come in with a puppy.
He was something of a miracle worker, Griffin thought, because he had, in less than twenty minutes, come up with the cutest little ball of yellow fluff imaginable.
Gloria cried out with delight; Barnes put the puppy into her arms. It began to lick her face, its little tail going a million miles an hour.
“Just like Wolfen! He can be Wolfen II!” Gloria said. “He’s beautiful, he’s... But really? How do I keep him? I don’t have a home, I...”
“You do have help,” Vickie told her.
Of course, within a matter of minutes, someone on the hospital staff had called out the administrators; the dog had to go. It wasn’t a service dog of any kind.
“We’ll watch out for him, I promise,” Vickie told her.
Gloria was staring at the puppy. “Martin. I wasn’t born with that name. But it is my legal name now. My mother married him.” She looked at the three of them, one by one. “My friend gave me the dog. It was okay for a long time. But he drank. He started to beat my mother. Then he started to beat me. And then they took me away, and they took the dog away. I think that I was about ten.”
Vickie looked over at Griffin. He saw the expression on her face. She felt so much for kids who had it hard.
Gloria had been easy prey.
They left the hospital, assuring Gloria that things would be figured out soon enough, and the puppy would be fine, waiting for her, when she was ready.
“You two are something!” Barnes said. “How did you know I didn’t borrow that dog? He could be a prize pooch, worth thousands.”
Griffin laughed. “He’s not. You sent someone to the local animal shelter.”
“All right, I did. So what are you going to do now?”
“Exactly what I said. Thankfully, between them, my parents have friends everywhere!” Vickie told him.
“So we’ll stop by the vet. And you’ll try to find out where our girl, Gloria, came from?” Griffin asked.
“I’m on it,” Barnes assured them. “No sign of Milton Hanson as of yet. And he isn’t answering his cell phone, work phone or home phone.”
“Gloria mentioned the couple again—the sister-and-brother act who sang at the coffee shop. I think we need to find them. They said they were going to be in Worcester.”
“I’ll call Wendell on that—get the state police looking for them. And if you can, use all the federal help we can get on the two, as well,” Barnes said.
“I’ll call my office,” Griffin said. “They’ll check New England, and keep going if they need to.”
“Living in plain sight,” Vickie said. She shook her head. “If they’re part of it...well, it has to be on their own terms. They’re working...they were staying in Boston. But still, Gloria definitely described a band that sounded tremendously like them, playing when she met the high priest. And they lied about coming from Athol.”
“And who the hell lies about coming from Athol?” Barnes said. “We’ll be on it. She didn’t happen to have a good recollection of what the high priest looked like, did she?”
“His face was like a red sheet—that’s what she said. She couldn’t think of anything else,” Vickie told him. “It worried her. I’m sure he played one of his memory mind games on her—with the right combination of drugs once he gathered her into his fold.”
“We’ll be back out in Barre,” Griffin told him.
They parted ways, Vickie holding the little Lab puppy.
“I’m praying that you really do know this great vet!” Griffin said. “I don’t think that Mrs. McFall allows pets at the bed-and-breakfast.”
She laughed. “Yep. You can turn right, next corner. He’s just a few blocks away. And after that, we need to stop by my parents’ place.”
“Oh?”
“I hid that book from Milton Hanson. Now, I have to find it and read it myself.”
* * *
Vickie read for the two-hour trip back to Barre.
They arrived just as the sun was setting over the array of hills and mountain peaks that could be seen in the distance, and it was beautiful. She remembered that the creation of the Quabbin had taken mountains and turned them into islands, but she still couldn’t find a reference to a place where there was a hill or mountain with a great granite slab.
But she had found really interesting information as regarded Ezekiel Martin.
“You looked perplexed,” Griffin told Vickie as they drove into the driveway at Mrs. McFall’s.
“It is perplexing. Okay, Ezekiel Martin was born in England. He came to the New World with his family when he was still fairly young. While his parents had been hard-line Puritans—lovers of all things Cromwell and far beyond—they weren’t that far from a more prosperous form of life.”
“You lost me,” Griffin told her.
She smiled. “His family had been wealthy in England. Remember, Puritans didn’t believe in any of the trappings of the traditional church. Gold chalices and all that. Anyway, Ezekiel’s father was a fanatic, but his grandfather had been a lord. Supposedly, the Martin family of his village—in England—had been ridiculously wealthy. They’d been responsible for tearing down a number of churches. All kinds of gold and jewel-encrusted implements that had once belonged to the church supposedly disappeared—among the Martin family.”
“So, our devil-rouser—Ezekiel Martin—wound up pissed off at everybody,” Griffin said. “The Church of England, the Puritan church, his family—and everyone else.”
“He was a bitter man, certainly. I still don’t get it—I just don’t understand how people can play others in such a way. I mean, convince them of ridiculous things.”
Griffin was thoughtful for a moment, and then he shrugged and turned to her with a self-deprecating grin. “Ridiculous is different to different people. Remember, it was ridiculous to think that the earth was round. Many people find the entire Judeo-Christian concept of God—with or without Christ being the son of God—as ridiculous. I happen to have my faith, and you have yours. But that’s what faith is. Easy to think back about how people in the Middle Ages fell victim to their beliefs—especially here, in Massachusetts!—when they first came over. Imagine! The world was dark and frightening. The indigenous people weren’t always friendly. Sicknesses raged—it was probably easy for Ezekiel Martin to convince others that God had totally forgotten them, but raising Satan could provide them with lives that were good and rich and safe.”
“I understand how we’re all willing to believe what we want to believe, but it’s disturbing that young people can be talked into something so dark.”
“Hey. Children and teenagers are talked into becoming suicide bombers. What’s in our minds is usually far more important than what is truth.”
“Well,” Vickie said, aggravated. “I don’t believe that the real killer here—the man behind it all, head Satanist or whatever—believes in his cause. He’s a horrible human being, evil—for real! But there’s something else he wants that has nothing to do with Satan. Griffin, call Barnes again, please,” Vickie said. “We really need to know if he’s found Milton Hanson yet.”
Griffin pulled out his phone, although he looked as if he wanted to tell her that he would have let them know immediately if they’d found the man.
He spoke briefly with Barnes. “No Hanson,” he told Vickie. “But he said that it’s important that we get out to the Quabbin as quickly as possible.”
“Something has happened there?” Vickie asked.
He nodded.
“Another body has been found.”
* * *
Griffin was glad that young doctor Evan Graves was the medical examiner they met when they reached the end of the road—literally, the end of the road, as it continued, but did so right into the water. Graves was knowledgeable and serious, and he was with the remains—which had been removed to the back of an ambulance—when they reached the spot.
“Remember what I was telling you about our other victim?” he asked Griffin. “This girl is down to bone. And, of course, the bone is why I know that we’re looking at a young woman. Probably about the same age as the last victim we found.”
“But this girl was killed earlier, right?” Griffin asked.
“I’d say she was killed a month before the other girl. You have two victims here...and I’m afraid that a year ago we also found another body. I wasn’t working here at the time, and they had it down as a bear attack.”
“The divers will have to keep looking for...more bodies,” Griffin said.
“Yes,” Dr. Graves told him. “Look. Look here.”
He paused and pointed to what should have been the victim’s neck. There was barely anything there anymore—and whether what was there was muscle or sinew, Griffin didn’t know.
“Right where I’m pointing,” Graves said.
For a moment, Griffin couldn’t see anything. Then he saw what appeared to be a slight scratch on the bone.
It was easy enough to see, once it had been pointed out to him.
The flesh was all but gone.
“Her throat was slit,” Griffin said.
Graves nodded. “Her throat was slit. I have a feeling that, if we disinter the young lady supposedly killed by a bear attack, we’ll find similar marks. Here’s the thing. I’m taking nothing away from the previous coroner. The victim—Brenda Noonan—was found in a terrible state, completely decomposed, just about. We have had a few bear attacks in the area. Lost in the woods, wandering... Even if the bear hadn’t killed her, it was more than possible that a bear had mauled her remains, or that other creatures had set in on her.”
“We were already looking to disinter Brenda,” Griffin told him. “My colleague was working on paperwork to make it happen earlier today,” he assured him.
Graves looked unhappy. “There’s talk, you know. There’s always talk around here. Wild parties out in the forest! Usually they tend to be frat parties—kids who come out here from Amherst, or one of the colleges in Worcester or elsewhere around the state. Most of the time, when we hear about something illegal going on, it’s because of a bunch of drunk frat boys. But...”
“But?”
“There’s talk. There’s always talk. A tourist heard something crashing through the woods. Bigfoot, usually—and, if bigfoot were to exist, hell, why not in the midst of deep woods like these. They’ve reported hearing music. Oh, of course people hear all kinds of things, late at night, in the woods. Ghosts. A lot of people enjoy creating drama. There are stories that there were old farmers who didn’t want to leave the Swift River Valley—they died, flooded out. There are stories that all the graves weren’t moved when the valley was flooded—the ghosts of those who were ignored rise above the water at night, calling out for help.”
“Dr. Graves, we believe that there is a Satanist cult alive and well and working in the area somewhere.”
“And I believe they’re killing a girl once a month,” Dr. Graves said.
Griffin hadn’t realized that Vickie had come to stand beside him at the back of the ambulance. She was staring in at the corpse—at what remained of the corpse.
“I think that Dr. Graves is right,” she said. “Maybe Brenda Noonan was his first victim—and he hadn’t learned how to dispose of the bodies. Or maybe he was just learning with her. But I do think that he’s killing once a month. Once a month—possibly when the moon is full. Referencing many religions and cults, there’s power in a full moon.”
“Just two days to go until the next full moon,” Dr. Graves pointed out.
“Just two days,” Griffin murmured.
He looked around. Night was falling on the Quabbin. The water glistened, bizarrely serene and peaceful. In the half-light, it was all exceptionally beautiful.
Endlessly big, or so it seemed. Old mountaintops now perching here and there in the water, having become little islands.
The forests grew darker, cloaked in mystery as the day came to an end.
“Forty-eight hours,” Vickie said. “Griffin, two days. If that’s true, we have just two days to save a woman who is being held out there somewhere. And Alex... Alex is out here.”
“There’s a slim chance. Vickie, we all want to catch this guy—just as quickly as possible.”
“Of course. But this guy has something special planned. He wants to know where Jehovah is. And he’s killing a woman a month now, at every full moon! I am so afraid.”
Griffin realized that he didn’t know if the woman was or wasn’t alive; he didn’t know if Alex Maple was still living.
He was very afraid that someone else was going to die.
And, looking at Vickie, he was suddenly very frightened that the killer intended for it to be her.