“They looked at the husband?”

She nodded, thinking they sat talking of murder while the grill smoked, while butterflies danced around her flowers and the dogs raced around the yard.

“Business trip, out of town, solid alibi. They looked to see if he’d hired someone to do it. The determination there, after a lot of looking? He didn’t even know about the affair. Anyway, the two killings were years apart, a few thousand miles apart, with different methods. There wasn’t any reason to connect them.”

“Until now. So that’s four out of—what was it?—thirty-four. Eight-point-five percent.”

She let out a half laugh. “You’re one of Teesha’s breed. A math-o-phile.”

“Math is truth. That’s serial killer territory. Isn’t three the dividing line?”

“I don’t know. But Rachael thinks it’s likely she’ll find more. Oh Christ.” She shuddered once, drank some wine. “The oldest murder she’s found was over twelve years ago—within a year after my first poem.”

“So he went from three years to two. That’s what she’s found. Odds are he didn’t back off for five years. I’m sorry.” He took her hand. “That sounds cold, but—”

“No, no, that’s exactly what I want right now. Straight, logical, no bullshit. Nikki Bennett is on the road, driving back from her last job, so Rachael has to wait to speak with her. A few days anyway, as Nikki tends to drop by other jobs, check progress, give a booster shot or whatever. It’s part of her system. Meanwhile, Rachael’s going through the list.”

“I hate when people try to tell me how to do my job, but shouldn’t she take this to the FBI or the local cops?”

“She’s going to. She thinks a week to put enough together to take to them, to make a solid case they’ll pursue. She’s made the connection—all of them were on Catherine’s list—but they lived, worked in different areas, didn’t know each other, were killed by different methods. None of them, as far as the investigations concluded, had received any threats. No poems.”

“She needs to convince them. I get it. She’s convinced me.”

Picking up the bottle, she topped off his glass, then hers. Smoking grills, butterflies, dogs, wine. Some normal to balance out the awful.

“What she didn’t say, and you’re not, is they didn’t get any poems because they weren’t the real focus. They aren’t the reason their father was exposed, why he’s dead, why their mother killed herself. Maybe they’re a horrible kind of practice, or a way of releasing stress so the final act’s prolonged.”

He said nothing for a moment, just took her hand in his. “I know you don’t feel any connection to them, and why would you? But I think whoever’s writing those poems feels one to you. You’re blood, you’re a sibling. You matter more. They wanted or needed your attention, your awareness of them.”

“But I didn’t know who sent the poems.”

“That’s for the big reveal. Writing, especially about good against evil—and the spaces between—you have to dig into motivations, actions, reactions. Why would this character make this choice at this time? Yeah, they’re just comic books, but—”

“Don’t say ‘just’. You write strong stories with multidimensional, complex characters.”

“Well, thanks for that. It doesn’t make me Freud or Jung or whoever, but it does, or should, make you think about not only what makes a hero, but what makes a villain. What are they after, what do they need? Here, it’s pretty clear from where I’m sitting, the woman’s to blame. Women.”

She frowned, lifted her wine as she considered. “Women as a species?”

“I think, yeah. Take the woman at the motel. They wait in her car, kill her. But they don’t go after the guy she was cheating with. Where was he?”

“Rachael’s report says he was still in the room when it happened. His statement said he took a shower, got dressed, and came out to see her car still there. He walked over, saw her. He called it in. They looked at him, too.”

“So the killer could have, if he’d wanted, gone to the room, knocked, then shot the guy. If it was about cheating, why wouldn’t he? But it’s about women, they’re to blame. Not the father for cheating, over and over, but the women he cheated with.”

“Homicidal misogyny. You think it’s the son.”

“Not necessarily. Plenty of women hate women.”

“True,” Adrian admitted. “Sad but true.”

“And she’s the one with a job requiring travel so she can toss a poem in the mail at various locations. Either one, or both. But I think your PI is well on her way to putting it all together, and this is going to be behind you.”

She sat quietly, sipped her wine, watched the grill smoke.

“Here’s what I think,” she said at length. “I think having someone willing to talk this through with me instead of trying to nudge it aside to protect me helps me nudge it aside. And I think having someone who believes I’m going to be able to put this behind me helps me believe it.”

Then she shrugged. “And, hell, women have been getting the blame since Eve. I wonder if they knew their mother started this ball rolling.”

“If they did, it wasn’t suicide.”

She jerked back. “What?”

“Sorry, too far.”

“No, wait. God.” She sat back, found her bearings. “That makes horrible sense. She—the mother, the woman—betrayed the father. If we stick with not blaming him for cheating, but the women he cheated with. She betrayed him. If she’d just kept looking away, they’d have the father, the life, everything would be just fine. And how easy would it be to slip pills to someone already addicted to them? Just give her more, and more, until she’s gone.”

“She goes to sleep, forever. A quieter death. No violence because she’s still the mother. She’s blood.”

“It starts with a blood tie, and ends with one. With me. It doesn’t change anything, but it’s oddly helpful to see how it might have all started, all formed.”

“I could be completely off base.”

“Right now, it gives me something solid to stand on. When someone wants to kill you, you want to know why. I’m going to talk to Rachael about all this. Tomorrow. Right now, it’s a lot to ask, but let’s put it away.”

“It’s away until you want to open it again. You can’t raise kids, own a business, and find a space for life without compartmentalizing. So how about I tell you about a beach house on Buck Island, North Carolina?”

It took her another minute to switch gears. “You actually found something this late in the season?”

“Connections. Do you remember my friend Spencer?”

“Sort of.”

“I’m going to lie and tell him you remember him well and fondly. Anyway, he lives in Connecticut, with his wife. They have a very slick vacation home on Buck Island, and generally spend the bulk of the summer there, but it happens Mrs. Spencer is expecting their first kid in July. They’re down there now, and plan to come back in a couple weeks. Hope to go back, if all’s well, maybe in August, rotate some of the family in and out. But we can have it for two weeks starting July fifth. Dog friendly, by the way, as they have two pugs. Game?”