Slowly, he nodded, face aflame.

‘Thank you for telling me the truth. That’s a start. Did you give her any of the drugs?”

He nodded again. Taylor felt the breath leave her body. She glanced at Rob, saw him staring at the boy with interest.

“Thorn, I know you’ve been read your rights already, but I’m going to do it again, okay? Because I have to place you under arrest for murder.”

“I didn’t murder her! It was Ember’s idea-she hated her. Hated her. I was just going along with it because she wanted me to.” He started struggling in the bed, this time managed to pull an IV loose and detach his heartbeat monitor. The machine began its c lax on call and Taylor knew they were done. Two nurses burst into the room, shoving Taylor out of the way. She stepped back, watched them reattach the line, fix the feeds, get the boy settled.

When they were finished, she read him his rights again, made Rob handcuff the little bastard to the bed and walked slowly down the hall to the elevator. She glanced at her watch-7:00 p.m. Brittany Carson’s harvest would have started. She choked on the sorrow, pressed the button on the elevator.

One down. So why did she feel like this was just the beginning?

Twenty-Eight

Northern Virginia

June 16, 2004

Baldwin

Baldwin drove, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel while Sparrow worked frantically on her laptop. It only took an hour door-to-do or-lucky, considering the time of day and the usual traffic congestion in suburban D.C. They’d sailed up 95, got on the George Washington Parkway, skirted through the western edge of D.C, up the Potomac River and out to McLean, then took Georgetown Pike straight into Great Falls. Baldwin couldn’t help but notice when he passed Spring Hill Road; he’d dated a woman who lived in a neighborhood down there. It was beautiful in this part of the suburbs, ancient trees and horse farms and glens led to stunning houses situated far off the beaten path. Not the usual tableau when one considered murder, unless you counted the infamous story of the headmistress of the Madeira School, Jean Harris, who’d murdered her ex-lover, Scarsdale Diet pioneer Herman Tarnower. That had caused a bit of a scandal. Or the twisted Edward Chen, who’d murdered his family, then left them in their house to rot for four years before he and a friend cut them up and dumped their body parts in the Chesapeake Bay. Baldwin remembered that case vividly-he’d been working with the detectives who broke the case at the time.

And now the Clockwork Killer was adding his name to the mix. He would most likely overshadow any and all previous murder stories, and those to come in the future.

The Kilmeades, and Harold Arlen, lived off Walker Road, before the turn for River Bend Country Club. The houses were generous, both in structure and land, but the neighborhood they lived in was a cloister, allowing the houses to lie closer to one another, with garages below the living spaces. The architect had been going for a style similar to a British mew, and the environs reminded Baldwin of Notting Hill.

The sun drilled into Baldwin’s eyes as they got out of the car in front of the faux Tudor-style nouses. He couldn’t help but steal a glance at Arlen’s front door, closed and locked, seemingly unaware of the storm that was about to batten its hatches.

They mounted the stairs to the Kilmeades’ neat, clean porch. Baldwin rang the bell, and a few moments later, Mrs. Kilmeade answered the door in a flour-covered apron a la June Cleaver. The delicious, yeasty scent of baking bread spilled out onto the porch.

“Oh, hello there. Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Kilmeade, I don’t know if you remember…I’m Supervisory Special Agent John Baldwin, and this is Special Agent Jessamine Sparrow. We spoke briefly two days ago-“

“Yes, yes, I remember. How could I forget? Such a terrible time for those poor families.”

“It is, ma’am. We were hoping to steal a few more moments of your time, if you’re available. We need to ask you a couple of questions about your daughter, Evie.”

Her face fell, then she pulled herself together. “Certainly. If you don’t mind me working while we talk, Pm in the middle of a project with my boys. We make our own bread weekly-we’ve got three loaves done right now.”

She allowed Baldwin and Sparrow into the house, her natural graciousness only barely hiding her perplexed look.

As promised, the boys were in the kitchen, quietly kneading dough. In the attached eating area, Mr. Kilmeade was reading a book so thick Baldwin’s first thought was encyclopedia. Mrs. Kilmeade leaned down and whispered in his ear; he turned and met Baldwin’s eye before standing.

Baldwin’s guess was close. When Kilmeade came into the kitchen, he brought the book with him-it was a world atlas.

“Some light reading?” Baldwin asked, trying to break the ice.

“Something like that.” He set the book on the counter. “We home school, you see, I was planning tomorrow’s geography lesson.”

The boys groaned in unison, but smiled at their dad.

Baldwin had a moment’s flashback of his own father helping him with his school work. His dad always seemed to have time to help him: now he understood that he made time. Of course, that was before. Before Baldwin’s life got shaken into a million pieces.

His parents were killed in a car accident when he was just sixteen. His mother’s sister, Agatha, was his only living relative, and she was much older. He’d gone to live with her, on the west side of Nashville, attended a school of her choosing, Father Ryan. He’d hated most every moment of it. Though nominally a Catholic, even now Baldwin considered himself one of the fallen.

Memories started to flood in, but he wiped them from his mind. He had work to do, and revisiting the painful parts of his past wasn’t on the agenda.

He cleared his throat. “I understand completely. Would you mind if Special Agent Sparrow and I talk to you and Mrs. Kilmeade alone?”

Kilmeade looked startled for a moment, then nodded. “Boys, why don’t you go look through that geometry lesson we abandoned earlier. I’ll come quiz you in a few minutes.”

Polite and respectful, the Kilmeade boys rose from the kitchen counter as one and disappeared from the room. Kilmeade listened with a practiced ear until the soft noise of a door closing reached them, then turned to Baldwin with a smile.

“So, what’s happening? Julie said you needed to talk about Evie?”

“Are you up for a few questions?”

“Of course. Evie’s been gone for months. We’ve battled through as best we can with God on our side. He’s helped us stick to the path. She was a special little girl-we weren’t surprised that He decided to take her from us. She always was an angel on earth.”

The words sounded good, but Baldwin could hear the note of despair that lingered beneath them, saw the brief flash of pain in the man’s eyes. Kilmeade was a man, a provider, a father, and he obviously took those responsibilities very seriously.

“Besides,” chimed in Julie Kilmeade, “we’re working on adding to the family.” She touched her belly reverentially; Baldwin could see the slight swelling there, covered by the apron. Replacing their dead child with a living, breathing proxy?

The Kilmeades struck him as a happy family, solid and close, but with little brown edges like spoiled roses. Hardly surprising, considering the devastating loss they’d sustained so recently. Interesting that they hadn’t mentioned it when they talked before.