“So it was hard for him to know who was on the level?”

“Yes. But he did amass a wealth of information on many cases that he’d shared with police and with the FBI over the years.”

“Any notorious cases, ones we’d recognize?”

“Oh, sure. He had several boxes of material on the Hillcrest Rapist, the Bayside Strangler, and the Six-Year Killer, to name just a few.”

“The Six-Year Killer who was active in Massachusetts, so named because he seemed to surface and kill every six years,” Heather interjected.

“Right.”

“Have you read through your father’s notes on that case?”

“Some of them. I haven’t had time to read through all of it.”

“Any insights?”

“Not yet. I’ve been skimming through merely to see what there is. And again, I haven’t had time to organize things in a way that would make any sense or would give me any feelings about the case-or any of the cases-one way or another.”

“Which case do you think you’d be most likely to pick up first? Assuming, of course, that you decide to go ahead and write a book on your own.”

“I can’t really say.” Regan shrugged. “There are boxes of files I haven’t even opened yet. Who knows what I might find in one of them?”

“Well, I feel certain that one of those files will be calling your name, and maybe by this time next year we’ll be looking at a new Landry true crime bestseller. I know I will be first in line for my copy.”

Heather turned to the camera. “We’ll be right back with Regan Landry to talk about In His Shoes…”

Heather turned back to reassure Regan. “You did just fine. You’re a natural.”

“Thank you. You’re making this a lot easier than I thought it would be.” Regan smiled for the first time that morning. “And if that bottle of water is still available, I think I’d like it now.”

He sat back in the chair and rewound the tape, then pushed Play.

“There are boxes of files I haven’t even opened yet,” the pretty blonde was saying. “Who knows what I might find in one of them?”

Who indeed?

Well, he knew what she would find in at least one of those boxes. Or many boxes, depending on how disorganized the man really had been when it came to record keeping.

And assuming, of course, that Josh Landry had kept the letters he had written so long ago. Letters meant to taunt, letters meant to tease and intrigue, and, yes, to frustrate.

He smiled, recalling how Josh Landry had ignored the first few, perhaps thinking them the work of someone who was merely seeking attention. Of course, that had been before his body of work-he loved that expression-had been discovered, so to speak.

He’d certainly given old Josh something to think about, once upon a time. By the time Landry had figured out he was on the level, it had been too late. Way too late. And by then, of course, he’d moved on, bored with the game and in need of fresh surroundings and new challenges.

Over the years, it had been grand, watching the police here and there trip over themselves, looking for clues, frantically searching for suspects. Their confusion had merely reinforced his belief in the stupidity of the law enforcement community in general. He’d yet to meet his match.

He rewound the tape to the beginning, and watched it again.

Pretty thing, that Landry girl. Smart, too.

Was she smarter than her father had been?

He pondered the thought, stopped the tape, and rewound it and played it again. Watching her had made him think of other pretty things. Pretty things and pretty places, from long ago and far away.

He walked to the expanse of windows that looked out on the desert that lay beyond, and thought back to the town where he’d grown up, where it had all begun. His first mischief. His first willing venture into the dark places where his mind had led.

He turned back from the vista and paced the length of the cavernous living room, scents and sounds and images from the past now alive in his mind. Long stretches of wetlands lush with tall reeds and grasses that whispered softly and beckoned in the breeze. Long arms of beach over which gulls soared and screamed. Summer afternoons spent in a small boat, catching crabs in a net under a rickety two-lane wooden bridge. If he closed his eyes, he could see it. Hear it. Smell it.

Once he had been a child of the sea. What, he asked himself, was he doing here, surrounded by hot sand and blazing sun? Perhaps it was time to think about going home.

Besides, he’d pretty much come to the end of his run here. Sooner or later, the police would start putting two and two and two together and they would get six, sure enough. Within the past two weeks, several bodies had surfaced. Might not the sheriff’s department start to catch on to the fact that those naked bodies that had turned up recently in the desert were not the run-of-the-mill border killings they’d been dealing with over the years, but something of a different nature? It was far from unusual to find the body of a young girl along the border-the count had been growing steadily for years-but his victims had all met their end in the same precise manner. Surely soon someone would notice and would begin to question the possibility of such coincidence.

He alone knew there were many, many more bodies, here and elsewhere, and that there were no coincidences.

All things considered, maybe it was time to go home. Return to the scene of the crime. Literally.

He sat on the plush leather ottoman and rewound the tape, suddenly feeling old. How much longer could he safely keep on, he wondered.

Over the years, he’d been lucky, but how much longer before his luck would run out?

He’d had one close call, about three weeks ago, the memory of which, even now, made him dizzy. He’d just dumped his latest kill in the foothills in the state park outside of town, and was walking back to his car, her clothes in a plastic trash bag slung over his shoulder, when he ran smack into a park guard.

“What’s in the bag?” the guard had asked.

“Oh. Just some trash I picked up at a campsite about a half mile up the trail there,” he’d replied, even as he’d patted his jacket for the small revolver he always carried there and wondered if he’d need it now.

“Don’t it just kill you, the way people will leave their shit around?” The guard had shaken his head in disgust. “You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff we’ve found up there.”

“Oh, I bet I would.” He relaxed and shifted the bag from one hand to the other.

“Well, thanks for being a good citizen and pitching in here. We appreciate the help, you know, not enough staff to keep track of everything.”

“Hey, my pleasure.”

“Want me to take that?” The guard reached for the bag.

“No need. There’s a Dumpster in the parking lot at my apartment building. I’ll drop it in on my way past.”

“Well, hey, thanks again.”

“Glad to help.” He’d nodded and strolled on off to his car, glancing back casually, but the guard had already disappeared. He’d opened the rear door and casually tossed the bag inside.

He’d slid into the driver’s seat of his Mercedes SUV and stole an anxious glance in the rearview mirror to reassure himself that he had not been observed. It was then he’d realized that his hands were shaking and he was sweating. But he hadn’t been caught, and since the body he’d left deep in the hills hadn’t been discovered for another ten days, the guard had remembered only vaguely that someone had been around the park that night. The well-meaning public servant couldn’t remember anything about the stranger except that he’d been kind enough to dispose of some trash left behind by a careless camper.

Still, it had been an unpleasant experience, one necessitating finding a new dumping ground and a new vehicle, just in case the guard had noticed. Both had been easy enough-there were endless places in the desert to hide a body and it had taken him less than a morning to trade in the black Mercedes for a silver one-but things hadn’t been the same.