“Did he confess?”

“No.” She nibbled on the nail of her right index finger. “No. He never did.”

“Maybe we should go speak with him.”

“Tough to do. He died about ten years ago, remember?”

“Right. Maybe Lucy’s attacker had another Jenny in mind.”

“The thing you need to know is, Lucy looks almost exactly like my mother.” She closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest. “Now that I think about it, all of the victims look a bit like my mother. Pretty, with long dark hair…”

“No one ever connected your family’s murder with the Bayside Strangler?”

She shook her head. “Why would they? This was an entire family that was wiped out-almost wiped out. The others-they were all attacks on women only. The MO was entirely different, too. My family…” She swallowed hard. “No one else was attacked in their own home that summer. Looking back, I can see why there was no connection made. And I’m still not sure there is a connection. I don’t want there to be a connection.”

“Where were you?” he asked. “Were you away from home on the day of the attack?”

“I was there,” she said, then turned to stare out the window.

He wanted to ask how she had been spared, but the look that had come over her face warned him off.

“We need to talk to Chief Denver. You need to tell him what Lucy said.”

Cass nodded but did not speak.

Rick started the car and they drove in silence to the police station. They walked straight back to the chief’s office and Cass barely knocked before opening the door and walking in.

“Cass.” Chief Denver looked up from his desk, started to say something, but her expression stopped him. Instead, he asked, “Cassie, what’s happened?”

She told him about her conversation with Lucy.

“He called her Jenny?” Denver asked incredulously. “She was sure?”

“She was sure.”

“But what the hell…?” Denver stared at her blankly. “Why the hell would he…?”

“Chief, I wonder if I could have a look at your police file on the attack on Cass’s family,” Rick said. “I’m assuming you still have it?”

“I guess it’s still in the storage room. When we moved into the new municipal building seven years ago, all our old files were packed up and stored. I can have someone look for it. I don’t recall giving an okay to get rid of any of them, so I’m assuming we still have it. What do you want with it? What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking there’s a connection to the Bayside Strangler that somehow slipped by everyone back then.”

“No way did we miss a goddamn thing. No damn way. What the hell would make you even think such a thing?”

“Let’s start with the attack on Lucy Webb and the fact that her attacker called her Jenny.”

“There are a lot of women named Jenny.”

“With long dark hair, who were strangled to death by a killer who only targets women with long dark hair?”

“I’m telling you, Cisco, I was part of both investigations back then, the Burkes’ and the Strangler’s. I was among the first officers on the scene at the Burke home. I can tell you that not much slipped past anyone. We all knew Bob and Jenny. We went over that house with a fine-tooth comb. We found the killer hiding in the garage, covered in Bob Burke’s blood. There was no doubt who was responsible for those killings.” Denver ’s voice rose with anger and he spoke as if he’d forgotten Cass was in the room. “I carried that child down the steps, bleeding from her neck to her waist, cut up like-”

Cass bolted from the room.

“Jesus, I can’t believe I just did that.” Denver ran a hand over his head. “Holy mother in heaven, I can’t believe I did that.”

Rick started after her, then stopped at the door, and over his shoulder asked, “By ‘that child,’ you mean Cass’s sister?”

“No, I mean Cass. Bastard stabbed her in the chest five, six times, left her for dead. It’s a miracle that she lived. I still don’t know how she survived.”

“I’ll need to see that file as soon as you can get your hands on it. Today if possible.” Rick closed the door and went in search of Cass.

He found her in her office, seated at her desk, the lights off, the window shades drawn. He could think of nothing to say that could possibly comfort her or matter to her, so he said nothing. He merely pulled up the chair at the desk she’d offered to him several days ago, and waited for her to come back from wherever it was her memories had taken her. He was pretty sure it was no place good.

They sat in silence for almost twenty minutes before his cell phone rang. He answered it, listened intently, then said, “We’ll be there. Thanks.”

Cass raised her eyes to meet his.

“That was Mitch. Dr. McCall-the profiler we told you about-has had a change of plans and can’t be here until around two o’clock tomorrow.”

Cass nodded absently.

“I’m going to want to tell her everything that’s come out today. Including the fact that you were on the scene when your mother was murdered.”

“I wasn’t there,” she told him, her face still white, her eyes huge and round and haunted.

“But Denver said you’d been attacked…”

“I came into the house after it was over.”

“But you saw him.”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember. It happened so fast. He was just a blur.”

“All the same, Annie is going to want to talk to you about it.” And probably more than that, he knew, but he’d leave all that for Annie to go into.

“In the meantime, what would you like to do?”

“Do?” She frowned, as if not understanding the word.

“How would you like to spend the rest of the day? Is there someplace you might like to go?”

She thought about it for a moment, then held out her hand. “Give me the car keys. I’ll take you.”

Rick had no idea where they were headed. All he knew was that right now, Cass appeared to be in a somewhat fragile state of mind, and he’d go wherever she wanted to go if that would help keep her together until Annie arrived. As a psychologist, Annie was much better able to handle this, she’d know what to say and what not to say. For the most part, Rick just wanted Cass to hang on for another day. He leaned back in the passenger seat and waited until they arrived at their destination, wherever that might be.

They were several minutes out of town, on a road that was edged on both sides by marsh. Tall cattails crept to the shoulder of the road on the right side. A mile or two down the road, the cattails began to recede and they came to a clearing. In the center of the clearing sat a house with cedar shingles weathered to a rich brown. Cass turned into the drive and turned off the ignition. She got out of the car without a word and Rick followed.

The house had obviously been abandoned long ago, as had the boat that sat dry-rotting on cinder blocks near a dilapidated garage. A rusted child’s swing set stood at the far end of the yard, the swings long gone, and around the foundation of the house, stubborn flowers bloomed in spite of years of neglect.

Cass went directly to the back steps and sat down on the second step from the bottom. Rick sat next to her, and she moved slightly to the left to accommodate him. They sat in the same way, he noticed. Feet on the step below, arms resting on their thighs.

“Where are we?” he asked, knowing that whatever this place was, it was important to her.

“My house.”

“Your house? This is where…?”

She nodded.

“No one lives here?”

“Not since then.”

“Who owns it now?”

“I do.”

“You do the outside work?” The grass had obviously been cut recently.

“I have someone do that every week.”

He looked over his shoulder and studied the structure.

“I guess you’d have to do a lot of work to sell it.”

“I wouldn’t sell it. I’d never sell it,” she said quickly. “It’s all I have left.”

“You think you’ll move in someday?”