Ava knocked on the door and it was instantly opened by a sweet-looking, smiling older woman with white hair. “Are you the FBI agent?” she asked. She looked like a movie-perfect grandmother. Curly hair, translucent skin, kind blue eyes.

Ava held out her identification. “Special Agent Ava McLane. How is Jeanine doing this morning?”

Sorrow transformed the woman’s face, and Ava wanted to hug her.

“You can call me Hildie. Jeanine is doing as well as can be expected after finding out her husband of fifteen years has been murdered.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Ava said as she stepped into the home. The phrase was automatic, but her heart was truly behind it.

“Thank you. Lucien was a dear and very good to our Jeanine. We’ll miss him terribly.” She blotted her eyes with a handkerchief from her robe pocket.

“Good morning.”

A tall woman spoke as she stepped into the formal living room. Jeanine Fujioka was incredibly thin, with her mother’s fair skin. Ava knew she’d been a fashion model twenty years ago. Her eyes were bloodshot.

Ava introduced herself and shook Jeanine’s hand. It felt like ice.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said again. The woman briefly closed her eyes and nodded.

“Let’s sit in the kitchen,” Hildie suggested. “Would you like some coffee, Agent McLane?”

An image of her dropped latte crossed her mind. “Yes, please. And call me Ava.” The three of them filed into the kitchen, and Ava gawked at the pale-pink stove and matching fridge. Antiques! The room was homey and warm and smelled strongly of fresh-brewed coffee. She sat at a dinette set of metal and pink vinyl as Hildie poured her a cup of coffee in a tiny floral china cup with a matching saucer.

“Cream or sugar?”

“Black. And thank you so much.” She took a sip of the coffee and could barely taste it. She’d been drinking brew made from burned beans for too long. Hildie poured coffee in an identical cup for Jeanine and set a small matching pitcher of cream next to it. She excused herself and vanished down the hallway.

The women sat in silence for a moment, sipping their coffee.

“Do they know who killed Lucien?” Jeanine asked. Her gaze said she had no expectations. Exhaustion flowed out of her, and she seemed wrung out and eerily calm. The past hours must have been a tidal wave of emotion and now she was drained. Ava understood.

“Not yet. I assume you know we believe he’s connected to three other deaths of law enforcement officers?”

“Yes, Detective Hawes updated me on the phone yesterday. She said Lucien fought back . . . and that you hadn’t seen that with the other officers.”

“That’s correct,” said Ava. “We believe the other officers were incapacitated with the blow of a baseball bat or something similar. It appears the blow to your husband wasn’t as strong. I suspect he spotted or heard the killer and managed to deflect the full impact.”

“Which is why he was shot and the others weren’t.”

“Correct.”

“I don’t understand why he was holding a Halloween mask,” Jeanine said. “We didn’t have anything like that . . . unless he’d just bought it while I was gone.”

“We’re confused on that, too,” Ava lied, hating to mislead the woman, but the masks needed to be kept out of the media. She knew only the real killer could explain them.

“Why these men?” Jeanine whispered, her eyes filling. “What did they do?”

“We’re still searching for the link between them,” Ava told her. “We have noticed that they all worked with Cops 4 Kidz.”

“All the guys Lucien worked with volunteered in some way.”

“Right. Even I have. But most of the murdered men were part of the mentoring program. How long had Lucien been doing that?”

Jeanine leaned back in her chair and gazed to the side as she thought. “He was doing that before we married. We’ve been married for fifteen years. He loved it. He said he felt like he was making a difference in kids’ lives.”

“You don’t have children.” It wasn’t a question; Ava knew they did not.

“No. We decided long ago it wasn’t for us, but Lucien still enjoyed helping other kids. He said volunteering once a week was enough kid time for him.”

“Do you know if he ever mentored a boy named Micah Zuch?”

Jeanine tipped her head in thought. “I don’t remember that name, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t. He’s probably worked with a dozen kids over the years. I can’t recall names . . . I know his latest was Brennan—I never knew the last name. And I remember a Nathan, Rory, Jason . . . um . . . Kyle. I’m sorry, but I rarely bothered to learn the last names. Lucien didn’t bring them to the house. He believed in keeping them separate from his home life. He took them to sporting events, movies, shopping, or just hung out with them.”

“Why didn’t he bring them by his home?” Ava asked. She believed she knew, but wanted to hear Jeanine’s explanation.

The woman looked slightly embarrassed. “It makes sense. We didn’t know these kids, and we didn’t know the types of homes they came from. Lucien saw the best in everyone, but that didn’t mean he wanted these kids to know his home address. Every now and then he would work with a kid who really attached himself to Lucien and wanted to see his house. It broke his heart to not invite them into his home, but he knew it was the right thing to do.”