Late Friday night
Bruce was glad to find that Jackson was at Sophie’s house when they arrived; Brodie was staying with Grant Vining. Jackson had stayed at Sophie’s house, working on research there—and, Bruce knew, guarding the place.
Just in case.
It was late, but they sat and talked, telling Jackson the newest developments in the case.
“We think he’s killing them at the church or in the graveyard, but a forensic team found nothing—nothing at all?” Jackson asked.
“Nothing,” Bruce told him. “They spent the day combing the place for a drop of blood—for anything. Not a drop of blood or anything else found. The graveyard is open by day, and the church itself from ten to six. Sabrina Hayes is there during open hours, or, I’m assuming, someone else from the private organization that runs the place. Thing is, Sophie has had a feeling about it—she’s certain that there is something there. Tonight, we even heard suggestions from the living—a drunk couple from the bar across the street. A woman was certain the place was haunted—ghosts partying and all. Screaming.”
“And then,” Sophie said, “we heard from the dead. We know the killer goes there. And when he does, he wears a mask. Something like an old Greek tragedy theater mask.”
“Which we’ve seen being worn by the Hollywood Hooligans,” Bruce said. “Or so I assume it might be the same kind of mask.”
“But it’s going to be hard to share that information—since you got it from a ghost,” Jackson pointed out. “However, I know that we can do something.”
“What?” Sophie asked.
“First, I’m going to get Angela to go deeper—find every old plan of that burial ground and church. And then, well...the police have gone in. But not the FBI.”
“That will work!” Sophie said happily.
She rose. She looked tired, and tonight she might really sleep, Bruce thought. “You’re comfortable here?” Sophie asked Jackson. “You’re okay sleeping on the sofa?”
“Like a dream,” Jackson told her.
If he knew Jackson at all, Bruce thought, he knew that the man didn’t sleep much. And if he did, he’d awake at the slightest noise.
Sophie smiled and headed into her bathroom.
“I really like her,” Jackson told Bruce. “She just recently realized that she has a special talent?”
“She saw someone before, in college—and mentioned it to others. And they put her in therapy. I’m so glad that Marnie noticed something was up with Sophie and made me come out here...who knows? She might have been back in therapy again. And she is one of the most dedicated detectives I’ve ever come across. Tough—and determined to be tough.”
Jackson laughed. “Napoleon complex because she’s tiny?”
“No. Determination to be the best—because she’s tiny.”
“Get some sleep. I’ve gotten the call for the eight o’clock meeting.”
“Thanks.”
Bruce went into the bedroom; Sophie was already in bed. Naked.
He stripped down and crawled in beside her.
He slipped an arm around her, and then smiled. She was already sound asleep.
* * *
She was standing in the burial ground; the step tombs were right behind her, and the beautiful old Gothic-style church rose before her. Angels, Madonnas, cherubs and other beautiful funerary art seemed to come alive, along with the old broken tombstones, shifting where they stood or lay. Mist seemed to cover the place, and in her dream, Sophie tried to remind herself that it was LA, not San Francisco—but then again, mist could rise anywhere, and in the movies, it always rose in a graveyard.
It was a beautiful mist, silvery in color, and in its whirl, it seemed to make the cherubs and angels and all dance, and even the stones—the chipped and broken stones—had that sway.
There seemed to be a slight shudder in the ground.
An earthquake? Maybe just a tremor. The earth shook a lot in LA, often imperceptibly. You’d hear after the event that there had been a quake.
Maybe the tremor was causing the entire graveyard to shift and dance and...
As she watched, tombs began to burst open.
Vault and mausoleum doors burst open.
And the dead began to rise.
White and ghostly, caught in mist and silvery light, they rose. Old ghosts, those who had died young, some in finery, some in period clothing she tried to place...men in suspenders, women in cute little pillbox hats...an older lady in a long, late Victorian gown, a woman wearing a Mexican mantilla...they came from their graves, stricken and harsh...coming for her.
Ann Marie stood at her side, she realized.
Ann Marie...trying to protect others from the fate that had been her own.
But ghosts didn’t kill—did they?
“I’m trying,” she whispered.
An old man in frock coat walked up to her. “We need to rest. We see, we hear...”
“What do you see? Help me. How does he get in? How does he get out? How does he kill—and take the bodies out?”
“We can only see what we can see,” the woman in the mantilla said.
“And we see him come. In his mask. And we see him play...he reads with them. From Shakespeare,” the woman in the mantilla told her.
“And from Noel Coward, from movie scripts I know not,” said an old man.
“They read,” Ann Marie said softly. “And then they are gone. And then there are the screams.”
“You are the living,” the man in suspenders said.
“The living must help the dead,” another man said.
Then it seemed that they were all coming for her, one after another, all of them...in a horde! They were moving toward her in a white mass, shining silver in the bizarre mist and light. She moved backward, backward, and fell onto the lowest of the step tombs, the pyramid-like structure of tombs where she had been sitting the day before and were now behind her...
“Sophie.”
She woke. Bruce was at her side, holding her. She was shaking.
“Sophie, please, don’t be afraid, and don’t be shaken. It’s common.”
“It’s common?”
“Common among us—the ‘gifted,’” he said. “It’s common, and sometimes, it even helps. Dreams trigger things we’re thinking deep in our subconscious.”
She curled against his chest and she told him about the dream. “Ann Marie didn’t seem to think that anyone else was hanging around the graveyard. I mean, anyone else who was dead.”
“Maybe, somewhere along the line, you will think of something.”
“Bruce, I still think that I’m right. It has to be someone who has something to do with law enforcement. No fingerprints. No skin cells...a million pieces of trash—okay, not a million, not so many, but at the crime scenes, and in the graveyard...between them all, gum wrappers, cigarette butts, soda cups, beer cans...and nothing that helps.”
“Well, something. They have gotten DNA—just nothing that does us any good, that seems to have any affiliation. The forensic team will give a report at the meeting. Maybe there will be something new.”
She was silent.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“You do?”
“We’re not going to get anything useful—because a cop is involved.”
“Did you believe Henry today?”
“I don’t know. I think he was plausible. I also think he’s...”
“He’s what?”
“A bit creepy.”
She almost smiled. “That’s an understatement. But do you think...?”
“We can get someone to follow him.”
“Someone?”
“FBI.”
“That’s good.” Again, she was quiet.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course. I’m a cop.”
“Of course,” he said, smiling.
She rose slightly then, looking at him. He wasn’t sure what her look meant at first. Then, she came closer and kissed him. It wasn’t a tender kiss; it was wild, very hot...very...
Awakening.
Then she broke from him and shrugged. “I mean, we are both up, and already naked...”
He pulled her to him.
And he realized again that it was all a bit crazy.
They hadn’t known one another a full week.
And he was more than a little bit in love.
Saturday morning, 8:00 a.m.
Sophie’s professional manner was excellent, Bruce thought. Captain stood by her side, Dr. Thompson as well, should there be any questions; the local FBI agents were there, as well as members of the forensic team and the forensic psychiatrist. But it was Sophie’s meeting, and she took easy and competent control. She kept each department speaking on their own progress, whether they reported that they were coming up empty-handed or not. And then, in summary, and with a smile and thanks to everyone, she explained that she was talking to them all because Vining was still in the hospital. She acknowledged that everyone had been working on the case—down to working on the trajectory of the shots fired at Vining and the one into the cemetery, questioning business owners and even people on the street. She knew that the forensic teams had worked tirelessly. She appreciated everything.
She went on to make sure that everyone was informed that they needed to keep working on any connections there might be to the Hollywood Hooligans. With another smile, she assured them all that she knew many of them had seen and appreciated the performing troupe. “If you saw anyone suspicious—think back, please—report anything. Anyone who might have been too intrigued by the goings-on. We know that while Brenda Sully wasn’t a member of the troupe, she did go to the offices of the Hollywood Hooligans.”
She went on, going over everything they did—and didn’t—know.
“Tonight, the Hollywood Hooligans are giving a performance in Malibu,” she said, looking around the room. “I’ll be there. We’re working the theory that the killer has chosen his victims—Lili and Brenda, at least—through the Hollywood Hooligans. He’s looking for young actresses who are on the trail to their dreams, but, of course, waiting for their really big shot at fame.”
Jackson then reported on the FBI’s efforts, combing the streets, making sure that they went back and saw the same people, that they’d gone door-to-door around the neighborhood where the bodies had been dumped, that they would continue to be tirelessly involved, as well.
Forensics reported. It was the forensic psychiatrist, Bobby Dougherty, who spoke for the teams. They had gotten DNA and prints from the trash found at various scenes: the alley before the abandoned studio, the church and graveyard, and the body dump sites.
“So far, we have no matches—no one in the system. But, of course, we have a mound of work, and, as you know, even working with this as a priority, science can take time. And, as we all believe, this killer is careful. He knows what he’s doing. I do believe this killer has either worked in law enforcement or in a lab of some kind—or has purchased every book available on the subject of forensic science and possibly seen every show out there hosted by an ME or a forensic worker.” He was quiet for a minute. He cleared his throat. “I don’t believe the killer started with these two victims. Maybe even in a different place—he’s killed before. I think he practiced to get where he did with his last two victims. Bear in mind, this is only my opinion, but it seems most likely. There is an unsolved murder of a prostitute in Pasadena, another in Santa Monica and a homeless woman up in San Francisco. All three victims had slashes across their abdomens, as if someone was testing his—or her—abilities. There may be no relationship. None of them were displayed, but still, the slashes might have been practice. Again, it’s conjecture—educated but opinion only. These murders might be related, and they might not be, and other killings might be, as well.”
Sophie looked at Bruce. She was pleased—Bobby had expressed an opinion she shared.
At the end, Captain spoke. But while he was speaking, the desk sergeant came hurrying in with a paper in his hands.
“Something sent in by the killer?” someone murmured. Based on the old Dahlia case, they’d all been waiting for a note or something similar to arrive at a local newspaper office.
Bruce saw Captain Chagall’s face turn hard.
“All right, who the hell is responsible for this?”
He showed them the paper; it was one of the Hollywood gossip rag magazines.
And there, on the front page, were pictures of the crime scenes.
Pictures of Lili and Brenda, as they had been found. “Henry? What the hell, Henry? How in God’s name did they get hold of these?”
“Not me, oh, God, not from me!” Henry cried. Everyone was staring at him. “I swear, sir. Oh, my God, how could the paper print those?”
“Freedom of the press,” Captain Chagall spat out. “And, of course, they say they’re printing the pictures, asking for help from the public. Henry?”
“Everyone here has access to the image files,” Henry stated.
Tension was thick in the room.
Suspicion of one’s coworkers was a horrible thing.
“This was not my fault, damn it,” Henry swore passionately.
“When I find out who did let these pictures leak...you won’t just be fired,” Chagall said. He looked around the room. “Find this killer. Find this damned killer fast!” He turned to Sophie. “Get to that magazine’s offices—now! I want to know how the hell they got these pictures.”
He walked out of the conference room.
Everyone heard the door to his office slam.
And everyone at the meeting was dead still for a moment.
Then they were all talking at once, denying that they could have done such a thing.
Sophie turned to Bruce. “Let’s get going,” she said.
She was grim as she hurried out of the station.
She was tiny, but he was using long strides to keep up with her. When they were in the car, she blurted out, “I’m right. I’ve been right. It’s someone who was in that meeting. I can’t tiptoe around anymore. Chagall said to go to the paper. Well, you know what? We’re going to get to these offices and the pictures are going to have arrived in an envelope, and there will be no prints on the envelope, and no saliva on the stamp. And it was probably mailed right from a box near this station.”
“Here’s the thing,” Bruce said. “When we’re done with the paper, we’ll get back in touch with Jackson. He’ll have had Angela searching, and really, when it comes to finding what is needed from the past, there is no one better than Angela—not to mention that they have a whole tech department that can find just about anything. Sophie, we’ll keep at it until we find the truth.”
She seemed to calm down a little.
Enough so that when they reached the paper’s publishers, she was brusque but professional when asking for the managing editor.
His name was Jude Conner, and was under thirty. He was, apparently, expecting the police. He explained in no uncertain terms that the United States Constitution gave him every right to post the pictures. The police were getting nowhere; the public could help.
Sophie replied—in no uncertain terms—that what he had done might have hampered an ongoing police investigation, and therefore, was possibly punishable by law. She wanted to know when, where and exactly how the pictures had arrived.
She was good at intimidating.
Bruce liked to think that his towering height and bulk standing behind her might have helped as well—and the fact that the man didn’t seem to realize he wasn’t really FBI, he was a consultant.
At any rate, Sophie wasn’t going to have to get a warrant.
He would turn the manila envelope that had delivered the pictures over to her immediately.
She slipped gloves on before taking the envelope. Still, it had been in the mailroom, it had been delivered to a secretary, it had been on his desk, not to mention the fact that it had gone through the post office.
“He mailed it from the same place he mailed Lili’s license, I’m sure,” Sophie said. “But we’ll get this back, and then...”
“Hopefully, Jackson will have received something from Angela by now. Although, Sabrina Hayes might have what we need, too.”
Sophie shook her head. “I don’t think she does. Unless she’s in on it, somehow. She wanted the police there—for trespassers and vandals, yes, but... Bruce, maybe—”
“We’ll check on unsolved murders in the past few years.” He was quiet. “Bobby Dougherty says that the man may have killed in other places. He didn’t. We know through Ann Marie that he has been using the church and burial ground. Whether the bodies were found or not, he started murdering at the graveyard. Maybe, if we can find his other victims...”
“Can we get Angela started on that? Or should we try here? Here’s where we would have the reports.”
“Don’t worry. Angela can access anything.”
“In that case, can you reach Jackson?”
“Of course. We can just—”
“Stop by the hospital.”
“After I drop the envelope.”
“After you drop the envelope.”
She hesitated. “Bruce, what do you think? Does this point toward—toward Henry again? He is the one who took the pictures.”
“He’s right, though—a hell of a lot of people had access to them.”
“But he is...a bit off.”
“Doesn’t make him a murderer. But, yes, I say he remains on the list.”
“A list of one,” Sophie muttered.
They dropped the envelope at the police lab and headed to the hospital.
Vining was being a difficult patient; he wanted to be discharged.
When they arrived, Jackson Crow was there—and he was patiently listening as Vining grumbled.
He so wanted out.
The captain, however, wasn’t clearing him for duty; the doctors had said that he needed another day or two.
“Ridiculous!” Vining announced. “And I’ve heard about the rag mag posting the pictures. Deplorable! What is the matter with people? You’ve been to the paper, right?”
“Yes,” Sophie said.
“And?”
“Came in an envelope. I already have it back with our forensic team.”
Vining nodded.
“I wish to hell I could get out of here!”
“Grant, you will. I swear to God, we’re working as hard as we can,” Sophie told him.
“I know, I know... Special Agent Crow keeps me up-to-date...wait, you are sleeping, right?”
“I’m sleeping,” Sophie assured him.
Jackson spoke up. “You’ll receive plans from the church and the burial ground within the hour. Angela has managed to get them through the years—up to the last interment.”
“A massive crew has already been through the church and the burial ground,” Vining said.
“There was a quake that caused some damage—and some changes—in the 1920s,” Jackson said. He glanced at Vining. “It may mean nothing, it may mean something,” he said evenly. “Brodie is taking over from me again in a few hours. McFadden, I’ll meet you at Sophie’s place.”
Bruce nodded. “Can you get Angela working on something else?” he asked.
“You’ve got something?” Vining asked.
Bruce was glad that Bobby Dougherty had spoken about other victims at the meeting. He could say what he needed—and keep Vining in on what they were doing.
“Bobby Dougherty—the forensic psychiatrist—doesn’t believe that the killer started with our present two victims. I want to see what other unsolved murders might be on the books, or, maybe, missing persons.”
“This is LA. Dreamers come out here...and give up, go home, move onward... We do wind up with a lot of missing person reports,” Vining said.
“And we’ll do what we can.”
“We have a hell of a database,” Jackson assured him.
Vining was quiet for a minute. “Of course,” he said, “I know that Bobby Dougherty announced this to the whole force, but...keep your inquiries FBI for the moment.”
“All right,” Bruce said.
Vining, too, was apparently growing more and more suspicious.
It wasn’t making him happy. But he was a good cop. And good cops had to face the truth, whether they liked it or not.
* * *
“People are buried on top of people, and more people are buried on top of them,” Sophie murmured.
She’d printed out all the plans that Angela had sent them, spreading the pages across the surface of her desk in her home office. It was amazing to see what had been—and what was now. Over time, gravestones had been moved. People lay in the ground—but nowhere near the place where their markers stood.
A quake had hit the LA basin on June 21, 1920. It had been a 4.9, but caused some major damage in several places.
While the church had stood well enough, the foundation had been shaken. It had been shored up, partially filled in.
A number of the priests had been interred in the foundation area; their remains had been removed and reinterred beneath the altar.
Another interesting fact that Sophie hadn’t realized came clear in the old plans. Many of the little mausoleums and family vaults had more extensive catacomb areas beneath. The tomb where she’d been seated, for one. Another that belonged to a Wisdom family, and several others, though they weren’t quite as large.
Excited, Sophie called over to Bruce, who was working on missing person cases and unsolved murders. He walked over to where she sat at her desk, and looked over her shoulder. “Underground!” she said. “He has these plans...he’s had these plans. He’s using the burial ground, we know that! And if we go by the earthquake of 1920 and all the work that went on after... Bruce! We can find where he’s working. We can find his torture chamber or whatever it is he uses. He doesn’t care if there’s blood there, he knows that not even the people who run the church know about all this!”
“We’ve another problem, though.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s washing the bodies. Where is he getting the water?”
Sophie looked at him. “Um, most graveyards have a water source. They have spigots for people for the flowers they bring their loved ones.”
“Did you see any?”
“No, but I wasn’t looking. And there’s so much foliage around—there’s probably a hose, and—”
“Sophie, if he dragged a corpse out into the burial ground and washed it there, he’d be...if not seen by the living, he would have been seen by the dead.”
“Then he has a way of bringing the water down. That’s the only answer, Bruce. Okay, from what we know from Ann Marie, he murdered before. Up to three other women. I think they were practice victims; I think this guy has lived with the dream of repeating the Dahlia murder for a long time—and that he’s ecstatic because he’s managed it twice. We have all these leads, all these things that we can do, clues to follow...but they send us reeling in circles. That’s what he’s wanted. At first, he practiced getting women to the burial ground. Auditions! And sure, explain that it’s going to be a project like an old Greek tragedy—or whatever—and an actress must be able to emote behind a mask. She has to be able to play off him while he’s wearing a mask. Bruce, I’ve spent my life out here—I have so many friends who are actors... I know a lot about what’s legitimate, what’s just odd, and what kind of thing can be used to snare the unwary—and those who are ambitious and naive.”
“I believe you. I have no problem following your theory, your methods—and the killer’s madness. Jackson will get us in. We can arrange for it tomorrow. Tonight, I think we should follow through with the Hollywood Hooligan performance. Perhaps another discussion with Kenneth—and his players. We’re the only ones who know about the masks at the moment, but if what Ann Marie was seeing were theatrical masks...”
“I think we should see Kenneth before the show,” Sophie said. “Kenneth Trent really should know who had the masks—and if any went missing.”
“I’ll tell him we’re coming out to the performance,” Bruce said. “And that I need a minute with him. All right?”
“All right,” Sophie agreed. She’d become so excited over the churchyard plans, she’d forgotten to ask how he was doing.
He walked back to his laptop, picked it up and showed Sophie a picture. It was of a pretty young woman with shoulder-length, curling dark hair.
An actress’s head shot.
She looked a lot like Brenda Sully.
And a lot like Lili Montana.
And the Black Dahlia.
“Who is she?”
“Judith Lawry. She came to LA ten years ago. And disappeared into thin air.”
Sophie asked him, “No body?”
“Her body was never found. She was never found. She just disappeared. Her family lives in Kansas City, Missouri—or did. Her mother passed away about eight years ago, and her father followed a year later. According to detective notes, her mother was passionate, calling constantly. But she had been in a hotel and checked out the day she disappeared. The detectives on the case had nowhere to go. She hadn’t told anyone she was doing anything specific. She left the hotel, and she was seen by the counter clerk—and then never again. Her picture was posted everywhere. No one ever came forward with any information on her whatsoever.”
“She might have been the first victim,” Sophie said.
“Or she might have hitchhiked or hopped a bus out of town, and anything might have happened. But yes...” He hesitated. “Sadly, the LA morgue gets all kind of John and Jane Does. You have a population like this, and...” He shrugged.
“Bruce, if this guy did start ten years ago, he’d be...well, probably older now. I’m not a behavioral scientist by any mean, and yet I read a lot, and I know that such killers tend to be in their twenties or early thirties, and they’re often loner types, and some with menial jobs... And yet, if he killed ten years ago, he wouldn’t be twenties or early thirties now.”
“He still could be fairly young. Many serial killers start at early ages. We’ve all heard that you have to watch out for kids who cut off lizards’ tails, throw rocks at fenced dogs, and maybe graduate to killing cats. But there have also been cases of kids killing kids—and killing adults, as well.”
“But he would have pretended to be a director or a producer. Could someone young have pulled that off?” Sophie wondered.
“I think he would have had to have been seventeen or so at the time. I’ve seen plenty of seventeen-year-olds—male and female—who can pull off appearing to be pretty mature.” He paused. “Jesse Pomeroy.”
“Pardon?”
“Way back—Boston 1870s. Jesse Pomeroy was twelve years old when he was first apprehended. He started out torturing a number of children, stripping them naked, binding then, cutting them—broke one’s jaw. He went to a reform school. He was let out. And then he killed. Age doesn’t necessarily make a kid sweet and cuddly.”
“We’re back to the fact that we just don’t know yet.”
Sophie was frustrated.
There was a knock on Sophie’s front door—and a quick little buzz from the bell.
She was embarrassed that she jumped at the sudden sound.
Bruce pretended not to notice. “Jackson, I’m sure,” he said. “I’ll go get him.”
When Bruce came back, he took up a perch on Sophie’s desk. Jackson took the one other chair in the office.
“I have something for you—it will be in those files, but Vining brought it to my attention.”
“What?”
“Six years ago. Stella Greenwood. She was found in the tar pits. Her throat had been slashed. She was from Montgomery, Alabama, just out here a week—she wanted to be a star. She was a foster child, so she went missing without anyone paying attention. A hotel manager called the cops when she didn’t pay up. Her body was found before the poor girl even became a missing person case.”
“So, we may have victim one—and victim two. And if so, and if that’s all...he went four years between crimes,” Bruce said.
“Vining had the case. You were still in patrol, Sophie,” Jackson told her.
“I do remember it, though. So sad. No one cared. We took up a collection—I remember that, because I contributed,” Sophie said. She gasped. “Oh! Her body was...well, she’d been in the tar. But when they got her cleaned up, death was by a hit on the head—some kind of blunt object. But...she’d also been mutilated.”
“Her face had been ripped up,” Jackson said. “I think our killer was practicing.”
“Do we have a third?”
“I believe our third is also going to be a missing person,” Bruce said, studying an email Angela had sent that was up on his phone screen. “There are a lot of maybes—but I think we have more than a maybe here. Maggie McAvoy. She was out here a year—she told everyone she was going to be in the movies. She’d call home now and then, and then she just stopped. Her roommate called the police, concerned, when she’d disappeared for a week. She’d had a fight with Maggie—over drugs. Maggie wasn’t paying her share of the rent or the bills—and she was, according to the roommate—paying for drugs. She was working—she’d been able to get extra work and be paid as an audience member for a number of pilots and game shows. But according to her roommate, she’d also gotten into drugs. So police hunted down dealers and anyone else. No one could find anything at all on Maggie.” He looked up at them. “She was last seen at the bar across the street from the church and the burial ground. Crusty’s. And,” he added, “she disappeared—according to her roommate—exactly a year ago, last Monday.”
“How could anyone get away with so much?” Sophie asked. “I mean, if we’re thinking it might be a cop, working every day with other cops...”
“It’s possible. Bundy worked for a crisis center,” Bruce reminded her.
She glanced at Jackson. “He does know his serial killers.”
“Frightening, yes, but sadly, so do we all,” Jackson said. “So, we think we may have found where our guy started. Do you feel that we’re any closer?”
“Yes—and no,” Bruce said.
“Want to see a show?” Sophie asked.
“The Hollywood Hooligans?” Jackson asked.
“We have to see Kenneth Trent again,” Bruce explained. “We got a tip about masks, that the killer might wear one, but...well, the forensic psychiatrist didn’t come up with that one.”
“I see,” Jackson murmured. “A ghost?”
Bruce nodded. “I told you about Ann Marie.”
Sophie added, “I announced the performance today. I want to see exactly who does show up. I’m willing to bet that we will see Henry Atkins. And others, perhaps. Others I work with every day.” She trembled slightly, not afraid, but definitely disturbed. She looked at Bruce and Jackson. “Friends,” she added softly. “Friends—who may be savage psychopaths.”