“We need his phone records,” Kasselmann said. “Find out where that phone is pinging.”

“I’ve got no cause for a warrant.” He shrugged. “I talked my way into getting as much as the address. He’s got no wants or warrants. I’ve got nothing but some iffy surveillance video. Tinks isn’t convinced it’s him on the tape. I can’t swear to it, but I’ve got that feeling in my gut.”

“I wouldn’t bet against that,” Kasselmann said. “You’ve got good instincts, Sam.”

“Right now, that and a dollar will buy you jack shit,” he said. “’Cause other than my hunch we’ve got nothing to go on here. No witnesses. No fingerprints. No suspects. No leads.”

He walked to the wall where he had taped a copy of the missing persons flier with the photo of Penny Gray and the signature of a killer.

HAPPY HOLIDAY

Smug bastard.

“This guy is sitting out there somewhere laughing and giving us the finger,” he said.

“We’d better hope that’s all he’s doing,” Kasselmann said, getting to his feet.

Kovac said nothing, but he couldn’t help but recall what John Quinn had said that morning. Doc Holiday had taken Dana Nolan for the primary purpose of killing her. He had had her in his control now for seventeen hours.

And there wasn’t a damn thing Sam could do about it.

•   •   •

“HE THREW THE FIRST PUNCH, MOM.”

“I know,” Nikki said, glancing at her son.

He sat at the kitchen island with an ice pack wrapped around his right hand. He looked like less of a little boy to her tonight, more of a young man. Today she had seen him stand up to a bully and protect a young lady. He was growing up. She couldn’t decide if she was sad or proud or scared to death. All of the above, she supposed.

It had been so difficult to stay in the car as she had pulled up to the scene of the fight. But she had stayed put and let Elwood step in, knowing she would only have embarrassed Kyle and given his enemies future ammunition to use against him.

“Are you going to want more of this?” she asked, as she replaced the aluminum foil over the pan of lasagna. She had stopped at their favorite Italian restaurant on her way home and picked up dinner. It wasn’t homemade, but it was better than nothing.

She hated the thought that the best she could do these days for her sons was “better than nothing.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Probably.”

She slid the pan back into the oven and left the temperature on the lowest setting. “Don’t let me forget this and burn the house to the ground.”

“Okay.”

R.J. came into the kitchen to refill his glass with milk. “Can I have a brownie?”

“Yes.”

“Can I watch TV?”

“Is your homework done?”

He nodded, digging a brownie out of the pan Marysue had brought over. Better than nothing . . .

“Can we get a dog?”

“No. Thought you would just slip that one by me, did you?” Nikki said.

He made a goofy face. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

Nikki shook her head, glad for the comic relief. But as soon as her youngest had left the room, her mind went back to the matter at hand.

“What’s the story with the Fogelman kid?” she asked. “Has he always been a problem for you?”

“That guy’s such a jerk.”

“The world is full of them,” Nikki said. “Some are worse than others.”

Some grew up to be criminals. Some grew up to be serial killers. Aaron Fogelman had a temper. He didn’t hesitate to use his fists—even against a girl. Where did he draw the line? Nikki wanted to know everything about him. Did he have empathy for other people? Was he cruel to animals? Did he have a history of destroying property?

“Does he make a habit of hurting people?” she asked.

Kyle shrugged. “He’s mostly talk. He’s a bully. He does what bullies do.”

“You said he struck Gray that night at the Rock and Bowl. Had you ever seen him hit a girl before?”

“No, but he calls girls bitches and whores and stuff like that.”

It was terrible to imagine a kid Kyle’s age doing what had been done to Penny Gray, but Nikki knew it happened. She hoped to God it hadn’t happened this time. Because of the complication of her being Kyle’s mother, she had passed the responsibility of further investigating Aaron Fogelman to Elwood. He had requested a meeting with the boy’s father and had been referred to the Fogelmans’ attorney.

“So what’s the story with you and this girl Brittany?” she asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

He shrugged and blushed and dodged her gaze. “She’s a friend.”

She was the friend whose photograph Nikki had found in the trash some months ago. Her baby’s first girlfriend. “She’s very pretty.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he said, squirming on his stool.

Nikki took the seat beside him. “She seems very sweet. She was friends with Gray?”

“Yeah. We were all in that writing workshop last summer. Gray and Britt and me. We used to hang out.”

“And then?”

“Then Brittany wanted to be with Christina’s crowd, and Christina and Gray don’t get along.”

“She seems to be rethinking that now.”

“She’s so much better than that,” he said with frustration. “I don’t get why girls want to be like Christina.”

“I vaguely remember being a teenage girl,” Nikki said. “It seemed so important to be accepted by the coolest kids.”

“Accepted,” he muttered with a small ironic twist to his mouth. “Accepted by kids who don’t accept anyone different from them.”

“People don’t always make sense.”

“Brittany talked Gray into going to the Rock and Bowl that night,” he said. “Now she feels guilty. We both do. I told her maybe we should go see Gray’s mom. You know, give her condolences or whatever.”

Nikki’s heart swelled with pride. She was somehow managing to raise a responsible young man.

“That’s a really nice idea, Kyle. I’m sure Gray’s mom would be touched by that,” she said. “But I’m going to ask you to wait on that. Brittany should go if she wants to, but things are complicated with me investigating this case and you knowing Gray, and all of that. It’s best if you stay away from all of those people for now—Gray’s mom, Christina, Aaron Fogelman. Can you do that for me? Just lay low for a while until this gets sorted out.”

He frowned down at the ice pack on his hand, thinking for a moment. “Can I still text Britt?”

“I don’t have a problem with that.”

He didn’t like being taken out of his role, but in the end, he nodded. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” Nikki said.

She leaned over and hugged him around his broadening shoulders and kissed his cheek. “Do you know how proud I am of who you’re growing up to be?”

He ducked his head and blushed and slipped away, embarrassed in a good way, Nikki thought. She loved him so much she thought her heart would burst.

The doorbell rang, saving him from further humiliation. Nikki excused him to go to his room as she went to the door to find Kovac standing on her porch.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“No,” he said, his face set in his trademark scowl. “The world is going to hell on a sled and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it.”

“And this is news?”

“No, but I figured if I came over here and said it, you might feed me something that isn’t crawling with salmonella.”

“You didn’t eat that pizza, did you?”

“No!” he said. “Maybe. Just a slice.”

“Get in here,” she ordered, holding the door open.

He came in with an armload of files and toed off his shoes in the foyer. “Do you think I’ll get food poisoning?”

“Oh, for God’s sake. You have a stomach like a billy goat.”

“As it happens, I smell like one too.”

“You can’t scare me. I live with boys.”

They went into the kitchen and he set his stack of paperwork on the island counter beside the stack of paper she had brought home and took the seat at the island that Kyle had vacated. Nikki pulled the lasagna out of the oven and made him a plate.