“You know, Heather, I hate that term, it stirs up so much…” The chief shifted in his chair.

“Will you confirm that there has in fact been a third victim?”

“Yes, there has been a third victim.”

“And that all three victims have been young women in their early thirties…” Heather addressed the camera directly so that the man she was interviewing by remote would feel she was speaking directly to him.

“Yes, all three victims have been young women, all local women. The first two lived in Bowers Inlet. The young woman whose body we found last night lived in nearby Tilden, but she was left on one of our beaches.”

“Now, the information that we have indicates that all the women were dark-haired and similarly built…” Heather paused and looked up from her notes. “Is there a significance to this similarity, do you think?”

“Right now we have no way of knowing. Yes, so far, there has been a resemblance between the victims, but whether or not we should read something into this, we just don’t know.”

“The most disturbing bit of information we’ve received is that you have correspondence from the killer…”

“Well, let’s just hold up here.” The chief was clearly agitated. “What we have are letters that were received after the bodies were found. I want to make that clear. They could have been sent by someone other than the killer, someone thinking to have a bit of fun with us. Right now, I don’t know for a fact who is sending the letters.”

“But they could be from the killer…”

“Of course they could be,” he snapped.

“And the letters are sort of a taunt, aren’t they?” Heather glanced down at her notes. “’Hey, Denver, did you find her yet?’ I understand was the first note. And the second was, ’Hey, Denver! Remember me?’ Both notes were comprised of letters or words cut from newspapers or magazines?”

“That’s right.”

“And was a note found after this latest victim?”

“There was.”

“May we ask what it said?”

“It said, ’Hey, Denver, have you figured it out yet?’”

“Any ideas on what you’re supposed to be figuring out?”

“A few.”

“Any you’re willing to share?”

“It would be premature.” The chief of police of Bowers Inlet stared stonily into the camera.

“So what would you tell people who are planning to spend a week or more in your community this summer? I understand Bowers Inlet has many rental properties and enjoys a population boom in the summer.”

“I’m telling the vacationers the same thing I’m telling our year-round residents. Be aware of your surroundings. Don’t go off alone. If you’re going out at night, go in a group. But you know, those are things you should probably be doing anyway, no matter where you are. You need to watch out for yourself. Have a cell phone with you or a can of pepper spray. If you think someone is following you, report it.”

“So, in other words, stick to the basic safety precautions…”

Regan tapped a finger on the tabletop, then rose and left the room as the interview concluded. She went down the hall to her father’s office and turned on the overhead light. Something that had just been said had caused a little bell to go off in her head.

Hey, Denver, did you find her yet?

Hey, Denver, remember me?

Where had she seen it…?

She pulled several files from a drawer and leafed through them. Not this one… not this one.

Then maybe here… Nope.

She returned the files to their places and opened the next drawer.

Here. Here it is.

Hey, Landry, remember me?

The note, on plain white paper, spelled out the message in letters of different sizes and colors-letters cut from magazines-giving a jumbled, schizophrenic appearance to the sheet of paper.

At the top of the page was a small circle with the number seven inside. Regan’s father had written that, she was positive. That was the way he numbered pages when he was setting up the earliest drafts of his work. He might take notes from several files and integrate them for a single chapter or project. The fact that this note was numbered-and the message indicated that there had been previous contact-made Regan think there were more notes from the same author. She pulled several files from the next drawer, and in the fourth one she went through, she found a manila file holding one more message, along with several pages of notes written in her father’s hand.

Hey, Landry, did you miss me? was numbered eleven.

Regan sat at her father’s desk and began to read through the pages he had written. She paused to flip the file over to read the notation he’d made across the top.

The Bayside Strangler.

She read the rest of the file, then picked up the phone and called information for the listing of the Bowers Inlet Police Department.

“I’d like to speak with Chief Denver,” Regan told the person who answered the phone.

“He’s not in. I can take a message.”

“My name is Regan Landry. I’m a writer-I write true crime… I have some information he might be interested in, in connection with the current homicides there.”

“You have information about the homicides?”

“I have information about some old cases… some notes that were written to my father…”

“I’m not following you.”

“Look, please leave my name and number for Chief Denver and ask him to give me a call. It could be important.” Regan hung up after reciting both the number at the farmhouse and her mobile number.

She went into the kitchen and made herself a pot of coffee, poured a cup, and took it back to the office. She sat and stared at the file she’d left open on her desk.

What did she really have here?

A couple of notes that someone had sent to her father some years ago. A few pages of preliminary investigation Josh had started. Was there more?

She sighed. Damn his lousy record keeping. If, in fact, he’d started numbering the notes as he received them, where were the others? Perhaps he’d handed them over to the police. To the FBI.

Maybe there was another file-or two, or eight, or a dozen. Knowing her father, there could be many more, or none. He could have passed them on. Or not. He could have lost them, thrown them out, or put them in a box and simply forgotten about them as another more interesting project presented itself.

She looked across the room to the long row of wooden file cabinets that she knew were stuffed with files and boxes of notes. In the basement, there were boxes of files she’d helped him move several years ago when he’d run out of room up here for his current works and asked her to empty several drawers and pack them up for storage.

Regan ran a hand through her hair and told herself to slow down. Just because the notes received by her father and the Bowers Inlet chief of police were similar-okay, they were exactly the same-but what did that mean?

Hey, Denver, remember me?

Hey, Landry, remember me?

Not exactly original thoughts. Someone from anyone’s past might say the same thing. And anyone being coy or cautious might structure the notes in the same manner, cutting out letters and gluing them to the paper. What did that prove, anyway?

She opened the file and took out the two sheets of yellow legal paper. At the top of the first sheet, Josh had written, Victims attributed to the Bayside Strangler, June 1979-August 1979. There followed a list of thirteen names. After each name was a date, and the name of a town:

Alicia Coors-June ’79-Bowers Inlet

Carol Jo Hughes-June ’79-Bowers Inlet

Cindy Shelkirk-June ’79-Tilden

Terry List-July ’79-Dewey

Mary Pat Engles-July ’79-Tilden

Heather Snyder-July ’79-Hasboro

Jill Grabowski-July ’79-Killion Point

Mindy Taylor-July ’79-Hasboro

Cathy Cleary-August ’79-Tilden