“Jesus Christ,” I muttered as I walked over to the pile of bodies. The maid was shaking, wrapped in a blanket.

“They just walked in?” my uncle asked her.

She nodded. “Walked in like they were invited. The woman—no, more a girl—sat down there”—she pointed to a chair in the center of the table—“and started pouring tea and eating cakes.” She shook her head. “They were insane. They were both insane.”

My uncle rested his hand on her shoulder, and then allowed the sketch artist to sit beside her and draw the killers from her descriptions. My uncle came over to me. “Male and female. Seem to be in their early twenties.”

I nodded and moved away from the bodies as forensics began their work. The same tag had been written on the wall in the same pink lipstick.

My uncle put his hands in his pockets and shook his head. “They’re escalating. Each kill more deadly than the last.” He leaned his head closer to mine. “I have a lead I want you to follow up on.”

I raised my eyebrow in question.

“What we found with Clive, the third body . . . the children he’d abused. I decided to dig deeper.” He looked around to make sure no one was listening. “I found out that the former chief of the Rangers was a close friend of Earnshaw.” Shivers ran down my spine. Something just didn’t feel right. “Turns out, several years ago a complaint was brought to him. A young man who claimed he had been abused when he was a kid. A kid in foster care. Claimed he was taken to the Earnshaw estate, along with others, and raped. That his social worker got money from Earnshaw and his associates to fuck him, and others in the same situation.” I felt the blood trickle from my face, drop by drop.

My eyes widened and I shook my head. “Not possible,” I said, imagining Mr. Earnshaw in my head. He wasn’t that kind of man.

My uncle shrugged. “The case, for whatever reason, was squashed. Classed as a false report and filed away so deep you would never know it had ever been made, unless you were looking . . . hard.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “When I get it through here, I’ll have you look it over. Could be nothing, but the guy could be worth talking to.”

“Smith?” The sketch artist’s voice cut through our silence. I followed my uncle back to the maid and the artist. He held out a piece of paper. My focus had drifted again to the tag on the white wall. The lines were getting neater. It suggested their confidence was growing. By the acceleration of their kills, and the manner in which the murders were carried out, that much was obvious.

“What the hell?” my uncle remarked as he studied the picture. He turned to the maid. “They were dressed like this?”

She nodded slowly.

I took the picture from my uncle and looked down at it . . . If my blood had trickled from my face on hearing about the false report of Earnshaw’s abuse, it positively drained in slews on seeing the faces staring back at me. And not just their faces. Their style of dress.

Outfits and faces I knew very well.

“Eddie?” My uncle’s voice burrowed into my ears. His hand hit my shoulder and squeezed. “What is it, son?”

Swallowing to lubricate my dry throat, I whispered, “Ellis.”

The paper shook. I realized my hand was trembling. My finger ran over her face. Her painted face, a hand-drawn clock circling her left eye. Then my gaze fell on the man beside her. The one who caused my blood to ignite. The one who took my best friend from me.

The one obsessed with death and corrupting Ellis’s goodness.

“Heathan James,” I said, my voice betraying my dislike. Shock soon replaced dislike. Heathan was alive? After all of these years he had surfaced. From where? And how?

“Son? You care to explain?” my uncle probed.

Slowly lowering the paper, I faced him. “Heathan James.”

Recognition sparked in my uncle’s face. “The kid you knew when you were young? The runaway? The one never found, presumed dead?”

I nodded and glanced down to see those eyes looking straight back at me, taunting me. Mocking me . . . laughing at me. They were gray and cold. Like steel bullets. No life in their depths. No soul.

And he had my Ellis.

He had corrupted her. Forced her to do evil things.

“He took Ellis. He is forcing her against her will.” Anger took hold of me. “He is making her watch him kill.”

My uncle ran his hand over his forehead. He was about to say something when the maid got to her feet. “No,” she said, head shaking profusely.

“What, dear?” my uncle asked.

She pointed at the picture of Ellis. “You’re wrong.”

“About what?” I asked.

“The girl.” The maid pulled her blanket tighter over her shoulders. She visibly shivered, although the night was hot and sticky. She was shivering at the memory of what she witnessed . . . at the killers.

The killers, who I knew personally.

The maid cleared her throat. “The girl is not innocent.” My breath became trapped in my lungs. Her blue eyes met mine. “She was the one who led them.” Her face drained of color. “The things she did . . .” She tapped her head. “She is insane. They both are. He is dark.” She choked on a sob. “He wanted to kill me. She spared me . . .” She shook her head, eyes closed. When they reopened, she said, “He does not control her. She is as much to blame for these murders as he is. More, in fact.”

“Ellis wouldn’t do this,” I argued, imploring my uncle to understand. “It will be Heathan. He will have brainwashed her, somehow.”

“Those weren’t their names,” the maid cut in. I stared at her. “They were called Dolly and Rabbit. I heard that loud and clear.” She pointed at the twin men on the floor. Men I had also known when growing up. “They called them Tweedledum and Tweedledee. You know, the characters from—”

“Alice in Wonderland,” I finished and closed my eyes, inhaling deeply through my nose. When I opened them again, my uncle was watching me. He wore a questioning expression on his face. “When we were kids . . . Ellis loved that book. She . . .” I imagined her blue dress. Glancing down at the drawing, I saw she wore one similar to the one she’d had as a child. But this one was more provocative. Much more revealing. I breathed deeply. “She used to pretend she lived in Wonderland.” A memory from our youth came back to me. “She christened Heathan James ‘Rabbit.’ She claimed he was the White Rabbit from Wonderland, come to take her on an adventure.”

“And?” my uncle said.

I fixed my Stetson. “She said I wasn’t one of them. That I was too clean-cut. Not ‘insane enough.’ That was when I lost her to him.”

I could still remember every part of that day . . .

“You can’t be the Mad Hatter, Eddie. It just doesn’t suit. You don’t belong in Wonderland . . .”

I looked over at the table. “A tea party.” I shook my head. “Ellis always loved tea parties.” I realized everyone was looking at me strangely. I hit the sketch. “This is all Heathan. He’ll be the mastermind behind this. He always was too smart for his own good. Manipulative. A true Machiavellian. Ellis was bewitched from the minute she met him. He had the ability to bend her to his every whim. She hung on his every word.” I clenched my jaw. “This is him. He came to get her, to rope her into this murder spree.”

“Son. I know you’ve always had a soft spot for this girl, but maybe you didn’t know her so well after all.”

“I did!” I argued. “She isn’t capable of this—”

“She’s evil,” the maid asserted, interrupting me. Her face was stone. “That girl is evil. Pretty, disgusting, a demon.” She shuddered. “She laughed as she killed. She welcomed their blood on her flesh.” The maid sat down, overcome by the memory. “That girl is made by the devil . . . they both are.”

My uncle pulled me away. “What do we know about this Heathan James?”

“All I know is that his mama dropped him off to live with his papa at the Earnshaw estate when he was nine.” I cupped the nape of my neck. I was getting a headache. “She said he scared her. She couldn’t be tracked down after that. When his papa died in an accident on the estate, Ellis’s papa took him in.”

My uncle’s face was impassive. “Then maybe we need to find Mrs. James and ask her a few questions.”

I nodded. Just as my uncle went to move away, I said, “There are two more left.” I picked up the playing card that had been put in an evidence bag. “There’s her ‘Uncle John’ and her papa.” I blew out a breath. “And we have no idea where either of them are. But they have to be going for them next. They are systematically eliminating anyone who lived on the estate.” I added a fact I didn’t want to face. “And the kills are getting more gruesome. Emotion is playing a part. And by the way their killing is escalating in its intensity, the worst is yet to come.”

“We have everyone we can muster tracking them down. But one thing intrigues me,” my uncle said. “Why would such formidable businessmen seemingly go into hiding?” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Right about the time they were accused of abusing a child.” His eyebrow rose. “We must not rule out any possibility.”

When he walked off, I stared at the card in my hand. The drawing of the twins was so accurate I got chills. Then I remembered Heathan’s drawings as he sat with Ellis on the lawn. Sick and twisted pictures. Pictures of them killing.

I closed my eyes. Ellis . . . what the fuck has he made you do?

* * *

“Heathan?”

Mrs. James—now Mrs. Lockwood—paled as she uttered her son’s name.

“We just want to know more about him.”

Mrs. Lockwood’s gray eyes—Heathan’s eyes—fell on my uncle, and her hands twisted in her lap. Her husband took her hand. She cast him a grateful smile.

Mrs. Lockwood was a petite woman. Seemingly timid and weak. I couldn’t imagine Heathan being her son. But then, I was sure Heathan’s evil was innate, not learned.

Her husband rubbed her back and encouraged her to speak. Mrs. Lockwood brushed a piece of black hair from her face and said, “Heathan, from being very young, always displayed some . . . tendencies.” Her eyes grew distant. “He was always a quiet child. Lived in his head most of the time. Didn’t like to be touched.” She took a drink of water. Placing it down, she said, “To cut a long story short, I couldn’t cope with him anymore.” She inhaled deeply. “He . . . he scared me. Heathan was always a tall child. Well-built for his age. By the time he was nine, he was the same height as me.” She worried her lip. “There . . . there was an incident, and I knew I couldn’t have him around anymore.” Her head fell to her hands, and a sob ripped from her throat. “I feared that he would kill me.” She wiped at her tearful eyes, and said, “He told me he would. Told me that if I ever crossed him, he would kill me.” She sniffed. “My own son. My nine-year-old son. I was alone. A single mother, with a son I believed would do as he threatened. I feared for my life.”

“Why was he like that?” my uncle asked. “Was there a particular moment you can pinpoint?”

Mrs. Lockwood drained her glass of water, and her husband handed her a tissue. She nodded. “I was very young when I had Heathan. I foolishly believed his father loved me. He didn’t. Soon after Heathan was born, he left us.” She looked out of the window, eyes unfocused. “With no money, I had no choice but to move back in with my father. My mother had died years before from cancer.” Her husband gripped her hand more tightly.

“My father was a hard man. A taskmaster. With Heathan, he was particularly strict. Heathan never said anything, but I knew he hated him.”

I was tense as I listened to the story.

“One day, I came back from work to find my father on the floor of our kitchen.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Heathan was sitting beside him, soaked in blood.” She hiccupped. “There had been a break-in. The men were caught. But those men had come in and tried to take money from my father. All he had was a pocket watch, a family heirloom that he refused to give up. They later confessed everything to the police. My father was stabbed, ten times, right in front of my little boy, for not handing over that damn pocket watch.”

My blood cooled when I remembered that watch. Tick tock . . . tick tock . . . tick tock . . .

Mrs. Lockwood became lost to her tears. “I knew Heathan would be affected by the murder. What six-year-old child wouldn’t? Only he wasn’t affected like I expected. No”—she shook her head—“Heathan wasn’t scarred by the memory. He seemed . . . inspired.” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “The pocket watch vanished after the murder. We all thought the murderers had taken it or thrown it away. It turned out Heathan had it. It had been damaged, ruined beyond repair. I found him with it when I caught him sitting beside next door’s dog on the side of the road. It had been run over by a car. Heathan was braced over that poor dog, his eyes wide with wonder as he studied its dead body, holding that watch, repeating ‘Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock.’ The boy believed the watch was working. Seemed to associate that watch with anything death-related. Always uttering ‘Tick tock’. I realized in that moment that seeing the murder of my father had altered him permanently. All he did after that was read about death, murders, serial killers and ways to kill.

“I couldn’t afford any specialists to look at him. And then things only seemed to get worse. His obsession spiraled. He burned insects. Destroyed butterflies. He was fascinated by their demise, by their deaths caused by his own hands.

“One day, when he was nine, I came home to find him sitting on the kitchen floor. Heathan was covered in blood. There was a knife on the floor beside him and he had cuts all over his body, wounds he had clearly inflicted upon himself. He was rubbing his blood into the skin on his arms and face, only to stop and write ‘Tick tock’ on the kitchen floor with his finger, using his own blood as the ink. I snapped, and I tried to take that cursed watch from his hands.” Her cheeks paled. “That boy of mine. He . . . he shot to his feet, put his hand on my throat, and forced me back against the wall. He threatened that if I came near him again, that if I dared take the watch, he would kill me in my sleep.” She stared at my uncle. “And he would have.” She straightened her back. “That was the day I drove him to the Earnshaw estate and gave him to his father. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

My uncle shook Mrs. and Mr. Lockwood’s hands and got to his feet when the interview had finished. I followed. As we left, Mrs. Lockwood put her hand on my uncle’s arm and said, “I don’t know what he’s done, but that boy is trouble. Nothing or no one will ever get through to him. He will never let anyone in to try.”

That was where she was wrong. Because the girl he let in once belonged to me. An extroverted blond, five foot one and weighing no more than one hundred pounds, now had the full attention of one Heathan James. She returned the favor.

The most fucked-up pairing I’d ever seen.

We drove back to the Ranger base in silence. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Heathan’s mother had said. How even as a child he would kill. Hours passed as I worked at my desk. Just as I had signed off on my last report concerning the tea-party massacre, another file landed on my desk. I groaned and looked up at the junior officer.

“Don’t blame me. Your uncle told me to get this to you as soon as it came through.”

Turning my lamp back on, I picked up the file. “Earnshaw,” the label said. I ran my hand over the file. It was old.

The false report.

I turned the page and began to read . . . and I didn’t stop until I reached the last page. I sat back in my seat and ran my hand through my hair, feeling sick to my bones. The clock on the wall struck three, the loud chimes reverberating around the deserted office.

Yet I remained, eyes closed, knowing that what I had just read was real. And it had mentioned Ellis. Little Ellis. Innocent, fragile, little Ellis.

And Heathan.

It had mentioned Heathan James too.

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, fighting the bile that had risen to my throat. And to no one and everyone, I opened my mouth and whispered, “Jesus Christ.”