February 7, 10:15 p.m.

Key Peninsula

Even in the fog of her fear, Carol Godding’s first thought was about Dolly. Had she let the dog out? Why had she barked so loudly? Had it been all night? Dogs weren’t against the rules at McCormick Woods, although the Welcome to the HOA newsletter highlighted how Basenjis were “ideal, quiet companions” and “the dogs of choice” for a quiet neighborhood. Carol hadn’t heard of Basenjis before coming to McCormick Woods, and she asked her husband about them.

“Barkless dogs,” Dan had said, rolling his eyes upward as he signed the homeowners association contract, which held the Goddings to the strictest standards of yard maintenance, house color, and noise level-even stipulating that the driveway “must be free of all vehicles excepted for visitors.”

As her consciousness stirred, Carol thought that she’d overslept and that if she didn’t haul herself out of bed right away, then she’d screw up her entire day.

Got to wake up. Got to get out of bed. Now!

She couldn’t move. It was as if she were being held immobile in a straitjacket. She opened her eyes, but she could see nothing.

Where am I?

She tried to wriggle; she tried to speak. Nothing worked.

Have I had a stroke? Am I paralyzed?

She twisted once more, moving her frame an inch or two. She wasn’t paralyzed; She was bound. Her mouth was sealed shut.

She spun through the events of the day moment by moment. The skirt. The beads from Peru. The recollection that Connie had been a double-crossing, man-stealing whore. A conversation about cutting through the slate waters of Sinclair Inlet in her canoe.

Nothing after that.

She turned her head slightly, her face pressed against cold plastic. As awareness came, so did a deep shudder. It rolled through her constricted body like a wave trying to break over an earthen dam. A slight crack. She shivered. Tears came to her eyes.

The little boy. The man who’d come for the canoe. And nothing after that.

Her eyes, blurry with tears, adjusted to the darkness. She was not outside. She hadn’t fallen in her garage in some freak accident. She hadn’t been rushed to the hospital. She’d been taken. She could feel the chill of a draft pour over her body, and for the first time she noticed that she was no longer wearing her blue jeans and sweater. Her panties and bra were missing too. The bands around her wrists and ankles and the tape over her mouth were all she had on. She knew what that meant, and if she could have screamed just then, she would have let out the kind of bloodcurdling shriek that would wake the dead in a cemetery a county away. But she couldn’t. All she could do was squirm, wait, and pray.

Carol saw a fleck of light, but she didn’t know if it was coming from the floor or the ceiling…from heaven or hell.

The slit of light widened, then narrowed. She could feel hot, damp hands on her. She was on her back, and the hands swung her legs up into the air. She could say nothing, although in her mind she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Keep your legs loose, okay?” he said.

For the first time she could feel the air against her naked vagina. She tensed.

“That’s it. Fight me. I like it when one of my girls fights me.”

One of your girls?

She noticed then that her eyes were partially taped shut too.

“You belong to me,” he said. “I’ll do whatever I want to you and then toss you away like a used Kleenex.”

Unable to scream or cry out, Carol tightened her body once more. She felt him push himself inside her, and her revulsion was so great, she nearly vomited.

“Tighten, bitch.”

He was growling at her, commanding her to be his bitch. He was saying something about her being put on this earth to serve him. With each word, each grinding thrust of his pelvis against hers, she cried. Through the slightest opening under her taped eyes, she could see the light widen again.

Then she heard another voice. “How’s our bitch doing today?”

It was the voice of a woman.

She felt someone touch her on the inner thigh.

“Nice skin. Soft, creamy. The way you like it, babe. The way I like it too. I want to play too. Let me play with our new toy.”

The words coming from the woman confused Carol.

New toy.

March 1, 3 p.m.

Seattle

The lights went up, and the affable host of Seattle Now, Jerry Porter, forty and holding, peered into the camera. He had a kind of manufactured intensity: dark eyes and tawny powdered skin that in the age of high def looked more coated than the naturally smooth, youthful glow he and his makeup artist had tried so hard to project. His jacket was Nordstrom navy and his tie a red and yellow argyle. It was a preppy look that had been his trademark since he first landed in Seattle on his way to a top-ten market.

A trip that never found its final destination.

“We have a shocking story today.” He paused, pretending to correct himself on the script that he’d written-“a horrifying story today. If you’ve been watching this station or reading the paper, then you know across Puget Sound from here in sleepy Kitsap County at least three women have been brutally murdered by a man who has come to be nicknamed the ‘Cutter.’”

In rapid succession a series of photographs filled the TV screen. First the now-familiar image of Celesta Delgado at her high school graduation; next, a photograph of Skye Hornbeck taken a few months before she went missing-judging by her quilted attire, during a ski trip; finally, a photograph of an almost unrecognizable Marissa Cassava looking oddly demure, long before heavy eyeliner and piercings masked a sweet charm that probably no one apart from her mother had known.

The host continued as the camera panned away to reveal two men and two women sitting in a row of swivel-based dinette chairs that had been welded by the stage crew to keep from turning.

“At least three women have been brutally murdered in Kitsap County, and family members want to know why the killer is still at large. I’m Jerry Porter, and this is Seattle Now.”

Cullen Hornbeck, Tulio Pena, Donna Solomon, and Serenity Hutchins blinked away the lights.

In her office, Kendall reached for her phone and dialed Josh’s number. She hadn’t seen him all day.

“Are you watching this?” she asked.

“Yeah, if you mean Seattle Now, never miss it.” His tone was deadpan. He didn’t tell Kendall that he was in the show’s green room waiting for Serenity.

“Did you know Serenity was going to be on it?” she asked.

“She might have mentioned it.”

Annoyed to be the last to know, Kendall snapped her phone shut and turned her attention back to the TV screen.

“I don’t like to speak ill of the investigators,” Cullen Hornbeck said, the focus solely on him. Although the camera purportedly added ten pounds, Kendall thought that Skye’s father actually looked as if he’d shrunk since the last time she saw him. “I know they are doing the best they can,” he went on, a bit of the Canadian accent filtering through, “but it isn’t good enough.”

Next, the camera turned to Donna Solomon, who was nodding in obvious agreement. Almost aggressively so.

“Look,” she said, “my daughter was no saint, but what that maniac did to her shouldn’t go unpunished.”

Jerry Porter got out of his chair and walked behind the four guests, resting his hand on Tulio Pena’s slightly trembling shoulder.

“Your fiancée was the first victim,” the host said, “and the Sheriff’s Office just dismissed her case out of hand, correct?”

Tulio could not speak right then. The lights caught his glistening tears. In the awkward silence, the producers-in a surprisingly kind move-aired a second photo of Celesta. Under her name: VICTIM ONE. For the next couple of minutes, the host talked to each of the family members on the stage, reciting the details of the victims’ lives and what was known of their gruesome deaths.