Before Cain Strikes

As it happened, he still had the Taser C2 in the left pocket of his coat. He carried it around with him now wherever he went. It was soothing to hold and squeeze. He’d bought it with his father’s credit card from a website in Hong Kong that Cain42 had recommended. The soldering iron, which he’d used to cauterize Lynette’s stumps, had just been a purchase at the local Home Depot. He’d left it in the Weiner house. The soldering iron hadn’t been nearly as soothing to hold and squeeze as the Taser C2, which actually resembled the electric razor he used to trim his peach fuzz. Timothy had once used Father’s manual razor to shave, and had ended up slicing open his chin. He still remembered the blood droplets plunking into the sink—drip…drip…drip—like from a runny faucet. He had a tiny scar there now, a pale white hash mark, and late at night he sometimes ran his fingertips across it. That was soothing, too. He wondered what restful archaeology would be left by the teeth marks on his wrist.

These were Timothy’s aimless thoughts as he crossed First Street at the light and ambled into the parking lot. He held his breath but it did no good. The nail salon’s pungency attacked him, anyway, nauseated his stomach, sent acid up into his throat. He would be safe once he entered the vet clinic. The animals had a safe smell. He would be safe once he—

And then he saw her. Lying there alone in the backseat of a brown station wagon. The station wagon’s engine was still running. Its owner undoubtedly had some kind of pet emergency; otherwise, why leave the engine running? Why leave such perfection alone in the backseat? She was sleeping there, so peaceful, her oversize head listing a bit to the left. A few tufts of blond hair covered what was otherwise a bare scalp. A soft scalp. Because the human skull took a while to completely harden, and this beauty, this wonder, this perfect pet of his, couldn’t have been older than three weeks.

Timothy swooned. Love at first sight.

He had to be swift and very, very careful. He had two options: try to steal her out of her car seat or simply slip behind the wheel himself and drive off to a more secluded location. Given the complexity of buckles and belts and snaps he beheld crisscrossing his new pet’s little body (most of which was swathed in a blue onesie that depicted a name—Marcy—outlined in red sailboats), he decided to pursue the latter course of action. His gaze danced to the clinic door, and then he moved, swiftly, carefully, to the driver’s door. This he knew would be unlocked; the keys, after all, were still in the ignition. He slid into the front seat. It didn’t need much adjusting. The infant’s mother must have been around his own five foot five. The old Timothy may have scoffed at such pedestrian concepts as coincidence, but this new Timothy offered up a thanks to the Powers That Be for his height and for giving him this perfect pet and for his uncle teaching him how to drive when he was twelve. He shifted the brown station wagon into Reverse.

He drove off to his secret place, his special place. His new pet, Marcy, slept through the entire trip. Every ten seconds Timothy would peek at her face in the rearview. The eyes were closed, but Timothy knew what color they would be. Blue.

He parked near his secret place. By now an inch had accumulated on the ground, and his sneakers crunched powder with every step. That was fine. The time for stealth was almost over. He went around to the side of the car, studied those buckles and belts and straps for a good five minutes and then went to work unfastening them, which took another fifteen.

Behind him, traffic passed. No one paid much attention to what they saw. They were too eager to return home before the snowstorm really hit.

Then Marcy awoke. Her eyes were more green than blue, and they searched Timothy’s face for the semifamiliar features of her mother or father. Her eyesight could discern shapes and colors, but details would be a mystery for another few weeks. This wasn’t her mother, she concluded. So it must be her father.

She wanted her mother.

She cried.

Timothy picked her up out of the car seat. Marcy’s face scrunched up and she cried some more. “Shh,” he told her. She ignored him. He held her at arm’s length. Snowflakes dissolved on her round reddening face. “Please stop,” he said. But she didn’t. They were not far from downtown, and although everyone was hurrying home, a crying baby would still draw attention. Had he chosen poorly? Was she maybe not his perfect pet?

“Please,” he begged her.

Silencing Marcy would actually have been relatively easy. All he had to do was cradle her head with one hand and then smash that head, forehead first, into the roof of the station wagon. Her soft skull probably would explode like a piece of citrus, all pulp and juice and ripped ripe peel.

But that was the old Timothy. He was fourteen now. He was a man. He was more patient. The new Timothy held Marcy against his shoulder and bounced at the knee. He’d seen people do this in the mall. It seemed to work.

It had to work.

It worked. Marcy’s face and body relaxed. Her cries stopped. Her eyes recommenced their exploration of the world around her. The sky seemed to be falling. How pretty.

Timothy didn’t waste any time. He hurried her, still on his shoulder, to his secret place. Nobody would find her here. Nobody would hear her. She would be safe and warm and his. He settled her into her new home, made sure she was secure and then rushed back to the brown station wagon. Its engine was still running. He thought about Marcy’s mother. By now she must have returned to the parking lot. By now she must have realized her child was no longer hers. He drove up to the university campus and parked in one of the more populated lots. He unrolled all of the car’s windows, tossed the keys into a sewer drain and caught the next bus back to town.

He bought his new pet some supplies: formula, a pink blanket, diapers, a plush smiling antelope. The stores were beginning to shutter their doors for the day. People in line were talking accumulation. They were talking one to two feet. They paid no mind to a fourteen-year-old boy running an errand for his baby sister.

Once he had returned to his secret place, once he fed his new pet and played with her little hands and watched her close her green eyes—how big they were!—he knew he’d best get on his way. Blizzards inconvenienced the best of intentions, even for the new Timothy.

That night, Mother made lamb. The three of them ate quietly. No mention was made of the baby-napping that had occurred right outside her clinic. Their household was as soundless as the falling snow. Once he was finished, Timothy excused himself and went to his room. It was time to share his great good news with Cain42.

Later that night, around 3:00 a.m., he borrowed his parents’ car, drove out through the snow to his secret place and spent some more time with Marcy. He wasn’t surprised to find her crying, so he fed her some formula and changed her diaper and rocked her in his arms. He was genuinely surprised how much that seemed to quiet her down and deeply regretted having to leave, but he needed to return home before sunup, if only because of the borrowed car.

Timothy awoke late the next morning with rare verve. His thoughts immediately went to Marcy. He couldn’t wait to see her again and play with her. Both of his parents had already gone to work. Mother had left him a note, reminding him to stop by the clinic, since he hadn’t done so yesterday. That would have to be his first destination.

The outside air was crisp. Timothy tucked his hands into his heavy coat. His left hand closed around his Taser C2. He walked slower than usual along the road, cognizant of slippery patches. Such was the price he paid for always wearing sneakers. It was almost noon by the time he first spotted the strip mall and—

There was a squad car parked in front of the travel agency.

Timothy’s mind whirred. Along the side of the squad car were the words Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department. This wasn’t about Marcy. This was about Lynette. Somehow they had made the connection between the house and the free trip. What had he done wrong? He had been meticulous! He had followed all of Cain42’s rules to the letter, hadn’t he? What would Father tell them? What was Father already telling them? If they had come this far, surely they would be able to piece together the missing child. After all, he had taken her from right in front of his mother’s own clinic. Stupid! The old Timothy had been right all along.

He needed to contact Cain42. Cain42 would know how to proceed. Timothy headed back to the house, quickly, his breath sending smoke signals into the sky.

On the walls of Hammond Travel Agency were posters, dozens and dozens of posters, all depicting a Wonder of the World or a Work of Art or Great Sight to See Before You Die. They weren’t arranged by country or even continent. Here was the Parthenon next to the Sydney Opera House next to an ad for a safari in Zaire.

It reminded Esme of a bedroom and a jewelry box and her heart sank a bit. How Lynette Robinson would have loved this place.

The proprietor of the travel agency was a pleasant-faced fellow named Patrick Hammond. “Call me P.J.,” he told them. “Everyone does.”

Esme and Sheriff Fallon sat down by P.J. at his geography lesson of a desk. Two globes occupied opposite corners of the desk. Esme spun one. She couldn’t resist. Her finger landed on the Canary Islands.

“We actually have a package,” said P.J., “that includes the Canary Islands and Casablanca, all expenses paid, for well under three thousand.”

She smiled at him. This man wasn’t one for the soft sell. He exuded confidence and calmness. It was only when she sat back in her seat that she wondered how much of it was an act. If Tom were here, Esme was certain that he would have been able to figure out Patrick “Call Me P.J.” Hammond in half a second…if there were anything to figure out. But that’s why she and Sheriff Fallon were here.

“So tell us about this contest,” the sheriff said.

“Well, that’s our pride and joy!” P.J. flashed them a grin that spanned from wall to wall. “It’s a sales promotion, really, but you’d never know it. Once a year we offer a raffle. All you’ve got to do to enter is fill out a form on our website. That adds you to our emailing list, but it also makes you eligible for the annual contest. In the past, we’ve sent families on cruises to, oh, Bermuda, Cancún, Nova Scotia, the western Mediterranean. We have over a thousand subscribers to our weekly newsletter from all across the state and even a few in Massachusetts and Vermont. Sheriff Fallon, have you ever been to Tahiti?”

“Sir, as I said on the phone, this is a murder investigation.”

“Yes. You’re absolutely right, and trust me, Sheriff, when I read about what happened in the newspaper, I was horrified. What is this world coming to, right? I can’t imagine some of the truly terrible things you must encounter on a daily basis. Our jobs couldn’t be more different. I have tremendous respect for law enforcement. I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t that be funny, though, if instead of offering vacations to exotic places, we could take trips into other people’s lives? Now that would be some travel agency.”

Sheriff Fallon shifted in his seat. He was not charmed.

Esme, on the other hand, was enjoying P. J. Hammond very much. He was either a genuinely nice, optimistic human being or he was a fantastic performer putting out all the stops to conceal a bottomless darkness. Either way, it made for a great show.

However, Rafe was still stuck at the house, undoubtedly going stir crazy. “P.J.,” she said. “Could you walk us through exactly how you came to choose the Weiners to win the contest?”

“You bet, although it really wasn’t me who chose them.”

“Then who did?” asked Sheriff Fallon.

Because whoever had selected them was their prime suspect.

P.J. pointed a finger at his laptop computer, which was plugged into a cable modem. “It did.”

Sheriff Fallon blinked. “Excuse me?”

“It would take me too much time to sift through everyone who’s a subscriber. Like I said, we’re talking over a thousand people. They don’t make a hat that big, do they? Can you imagine a hat that big? Can you imagine a head big enough to wear a hat that big?”

“So you use a computer program,” said Esme.

“Computers run the world these days,” P.J. replied. “We just turn them on and off.”

“Can you demonstrate this program for us?”

P.J. shrugged and double-clicked an icon. A small window appeared. It listed a number—1,024—and next to that number was a radio button that read Select.

“All I do is press this button,” he said. “Except the name and contact information it’s going to select now won’t be the Weiners. It chooses at random from the 1,024 names in the system. I mean, the odds of it choosing the Weiners again—ever—would be…”

“One in 1,024?”

P.J. nodded. “Not astronomical, but high.”

“Click the button,” said Esme.

He did.

Another window popped up with a name and contact information.

Todd Weiner, 18 Value Street.

“Huh,” murmured P.J. “Well, like I said, the odds weren’t astronomical. That’s kind of cool, actually. Todd Weiner must be one lucky guy. Except for, you know, that whole house-burning-down thing.”

“Click it again, P.J.,” Esme said, so P.J. did.

Todd Weiner, 18 Value Street.

This time, P.J.’s sunny composure dimmed a bit. He stared in confusion at his laptop screen. Then he clicked the radio button again, and again, and again.

“Where did you get this software from, sir?”

“I downloaded it from this business website. Lots of people use it.” His confidence was mushing into a stammer. “I’ve been using it for years and have never had a problem!”

Which left, as Esme saw it, two options: someone had tampered with his software or P. J. Hammond was a lying sack of shit.

Sheriff Fallon rose to his feet. “Sir, I think you’re going to need to come with us.”

The shop door jangled open. All heads turned and saw two men and one woman, all in police browns, saunter in. The woman had a sheriff’s badge and a name tag that read Shuster.

“Afternoon, Mike,” she said.

“Hey, there, Betsy. I know I had one of my guys call your office to give you the heads-up that we were going to be in your neck of the woods. I hope they didn’t tell you we needed an escort.”

“Mike, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure.”

He stepped away from the desk and followed Betsy Shuster outside. Her two deputies remained inside, appearing uncomfortable. Something was very wrong. Esme glanced over at P.J., who had become even grayer.

Sheriff Fallon returned.

“Let’s go,” he said to Esme.

“What’s going on?”

He looked past her at P.J. “Thank you for your time.”

By the looks of it, P.J. was as befuddled as Esme. She wanted to shout out, Wait, wait, but Fallon was reaching for her. He was eager to leave right now. And since she was only here at all as a courtesy, she really didn’t have a choice.

That said, once they returned to his car…

“What the fuck was that!”

He exhaled a weighty sigh and stared out the windshield at Betsy Shuster and her deputies, who were making their way to the vet clinic several doors down.

“Yesterday a child was abducted here. About ten minutes ago, the police received an anonymous email from the abductor. He said that if the Lynette Robinson investigation didn’t stop immediately, he was going to kill the child. To prove his veracity, he attached a very, very recent photograph of the baby’s face. So get comfortable. We’re heading home.”

7

When Esme relayed the news to Rafe, she was certain he was going to slam another pot against a wall. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. She felt like smashing a few pieces of cookware herself.

Sheriff Fallon had notified the state police in Albany of the situation. They were conferring about the matter. But Esme wasn’t sure what they felt they could do. She wasn’t sure what anyone could do. In one move, this psychopath had checkmated them.

If they’d had a stronger case, if they’d had more information, they might have been able to flank him, avenging Lynette Robinson’s murder while simultaneously keeping him from harming little Marcy Harper. But they’d failed. She had failed. Rafe had imbued all this trust in her—for the first time—and she had monumentally fallen on her face. If only she’d had more time…

P. J. Hammond obviously remained the prime suspect. In truth, he remained the only suspect. Had P.J. sent the anonymous email to the Ulster County police? It was possible. Sheriff Betsy Shuster was attempting to get a warrant to sift through his computer. Since the abduction had taken place so close to his place of business, and since time was so essential…

But Esme knew that no judge, not even a provincial saint, would sign such a warrant, not even in antiprivacy post-9/11 America. The FBI possibly could have pushed the warrant through, and she was tempted to call the local office, but until the crime crossed state lines, this remained out of their jurisdiction. She could plant a tip that Baby Marcy had been seen in Vermont…

No.

Tomorrow, Sheriff Fallon would have to break the news to Lynette’s family. Better they find out from him than from a leak in the department. She felt sorry for him. This was his land and an invader had murdered one of the citizens he’d sworn to protect and now that bastard was going to get away with it. There would never be justice. There would never be closure.

Now it was Saturday night. Rafe lay beside her in his parents’ bed. Even though his back was to her, she could tell he was awake. She wanted to say something. She wanted to make him feel better. But how could she, when she was in part to blame for his restlessness? And so she stared at the shape of her husband’s back, barely visible in the darkness of the room, barely more than the shadow of a shadow.

She dreamed about Galileo.

She was in her house back in Oyster Bay, on the second floor, in the hallway. All of the doors—to her bedroom, to Sophie’s bedroom, to the bathroom—were shut. Esme tried her daughter’s door first, but there was no knob. The door was really just an indented part of the wall. Even the flowery wallpaper was beginning to seep across the doors, as if its decorated ivy were real. She raised a hand to touch the design and could feel the veiny texture of the ivy. The width of the curly green stalks was oscillating, almost as if…almost as if the ivy were breathing. Almost as if it were alive. And hungry. Then the green veins bent toward her face and slowly extended, wrapping around her wrists, her forearms, her biceps. She called out for Rafe. She called out for Sophie. She called out for Tom. Her bedroom door at the end of the hallway opened. Henry Booth—Galileo—stood there. He was naked. In the center of his hairless, muscular chest was a peephole. Esme could see through it to the other side. Rafe and Sophie were on that other side, cowering, so small. Panicking now, Esme looked back at the door to her daughter’s room and her arms were no longer being held by veins of ivy but by a pair of hands, and Esme knew they were Lynette’s hands and Esme knew they were angry and would never let her go, and Galileo took a step toward her now and his hands weren’t hands at all but eels, eels with jaws and teeth, snapping jaws, and he held them out to her and the jaws snapped as they approached, snapped, snapped, and soon they would be at her left ear, snap, and soon they would be at her left eyeball, snap, and then her—

She awoke in her own sweat. The bedroom was ablaze with early-morning sunlight. She checked her iPod. It was 6:58 a.m. Apparently, this weekend she was destined to undersleep. Great. At least Rafe, from the sound of it, had finally achieved some semblance of shut-eye. She curled her body around his, careful not to disturb his rhythmic snoring, and forced herself back into dreamland, all the while fearful of what might come.

They woke up together around 10:00 a.m., all warm and toasty under the wool blanket. The mesh of their body-to-body heat didn’t hurt, either. They snuggled.

At that moment both Esme and Rafe were thinking about the same thing, and both wondering what the other was thinking about. It hadn’t always been this awkward, surely, but they hadn’t had sex in more than half a year. They knew each other’s bodies as well as any two people could but at that moment, in that bed, they might as well have been desperate strangers.

The first, obvious step was that they needed to face each other, and since Esme currently had her face nuzzled against Rafe’s nape, that meant the pressure was on him. And he knew it. His eyes were open but he wasn’t looking at anything but what the next few minutes could become. And all the while he heard the tick-tick-tick of Dr. Rosen’s two weeks.

Her hands were near his paunch. How easy it would be to simply guide them a few inches south. He would enjoy that. She would enjoy that. She always said she enjoyed that. She had always been honest with him. She was a good person. He’d married a good person. Why did he always let all of this extraneous bullshit get in the way? Hell, why was he ruminating about his wife, who was lying there right beside him, instead of making love to her? Why not just—

“I’m going to put on some coffee,” she said, and he heard her walk away.

Way to go, Hamlet, he mused. Overanalyzing has won you yet again. He rolled over and buried his face in her pillow. He was his own cold shower. Shortly thereafter, he roused himself out of bed and joined Esme in the kitchen for some Sunday morning joe. Had Lester subscribed to the newspaper, they could have at least spent those few minutes perusing the headlines, trading entertainment section for sports section, but the old man had, of course, since relocating to Oyster Bay, let his subscription lapse, and so the only news Rafe and Esme had to occupy them was their own.

So they sipped in silence.

When they were through, Esme called home. She spoke to Sophie for a few minutes, assured her they would be back soon, and yes, she would be there tomorrow to chaperone the trip to the science museum. Then she handed the phone to Rafe.

“Hi, cupcake.”

“Hi, Daddy!”

Esme started packing.

“So what did you and Grandpa Les do yesterday?”

“We built a snowman and it was tall except he added two pieces of snow to the front so it became a snow-woman.” Sophie giggled. Her father didn’t. “I miss you, Daddy.”

“I miss you, too, cupcake. Very much. Do you have any homework to do for tomorrow?”

“Just some math. But I’m waiting until you come home because I know you like to help me with my math.”

He smiled. “I think you waited because you don’t want to do it.”

“I hate math. It’s boring.”

“I know. But sometimes we have to do things we don’t like so we can do the things we like to do.”

“Like watch TV after my bedtime?”

“Maybe,” he replied. “We’ll see. Put your grandpa on the phone, okay? I love you ten times infinity.”

“I love you ten times one hundred plus infinity and twelve!”

Once Lester got on the phone, Rafe informed him when they expected to be home. Lester chided him about the condition of his old house and warned him to make sure everything was left in good working order and that the faucets were still dripping and the windows were all shut, etc. Finally, Rafe was able to get to the goodbyes.

It was shortly after eleven.

Both Rafe and Esme were hungry for brunch, so they stopped at a twenty-four-hour diner that was on the way to downtown. Rafe didn’t need to look at a menu. As a teenager, he must have eaten at this place, well, ten times one hundred plus infinity and twelve. The food was cheap and the service was quick. This was a no-nonsense establishment and, even as a teen, Rafe had been a no-nonsense type of guy. The kind who’s too indecisive to get laid by his own wife, he noted, and paid for the check with a credit card.