“I’ll take care of it ri^ht now.”

“Thank you. Hey, what’s your first name?”

“Barclay. Barclay lies.”

“Okay, Barclay. I’m Taylor Jackson. This is Supervisory Special Agent John Baldwin.”

“I know,” he said, his voice tinged with the kind of awe that made her cringe. Ah, well. Better awe than derision.

“‘Get on it,” she said. The ‘gator scooted from the room. Taylor heard him breathing deeply in the hall. This was bound to be rough on all of them, heck, half the investigative staff were fresh out of college themselves.

She stared into the room one more time, at the touching, the carving, the silent agony Xander and Amanda had experienced. She wished she could rewind their day and prevent this. It was a fruitless wish.

“What do you think happened here, Baldwin? Is there something I’m missing?”

He was stalking around the room carefully, taking everything in. She knew that look-he was there, but completely abstracted, thinking about the incidents that would have led to the murders.

“I’m just wondering about the timing.”

“Halloween?”

“No, the time of death. All of the victims died around the same time. If the killer was in everv house…”

“We have to wait for Sam to determine time and cause of death, but I think you’re right. Too many dead for just one person-is that where you’re going?”

He looked at her with a smile of appreciation. “I am.”

“How many killers, do you think?”

“I don’t know.” He turned away from her, ran his gloved finger along the spine of a book. Taylor saw it was one of her favorites, Wu the ring Heights, and felt a pang. Amanda Vanderwood would never read again.

She heard a commotion from downstairs, voices raised.

“Now what?” she asked, resisting the urge to pull her hair down and run her fingers through it to help her think. The gesture was so compulsive, so ingrained that she had to stick her hands in her pockets, the nitrile catching on the edge of her jeans. Baldwin leaned his head toward the open door, where the voices were growing louder.

“We better go find out what’s going on.”

“I know.” Taylor sighed. Please, God, not more bodies.

They made their way downstairs to see Lincoln arguing with an older couple. Taylor was surprised, she thought the Vanderwoods were out of town. When Lincoln made the introductions, she understood and immediately went on guard.

“Lieutenant, this is Laura and Aaron Norwood, Xander’s parents.”

Taylor took off her gloves and shook hands with them. The Norwoods were an older couple, the husband still dressed for work in a blue suit and light blue tie, his wife in a brown velour jogging suit that stretched tight across her ample chest. She’d been weeping and her eyes were swollen and red, but dry of tears at the moment.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Taylor said automatically, knowing the words were hardly a comfort.

Mr. Norwood nodded brusquely. “We came when we heard. We wanted to be close. We want to see our son. Who did this?”

“We’re trying to figure that out, sir. Can you excuse us for a moment?” She stepped into the hallway with Lincoln and Baldwin, speaking to Lincoln in a low undertone.

“We need Father Victor and some more chaplains. Can you get him over here?” The department chaplain was required to be a part of notifications to family members, and Taylor was so used to having a member of the clergy along that she was uncomfortable speaking to the Norwoods without him.

Lincoln whispered, “He’s at another scene. We’ve asked for backup, and we’ll get it for tomorrow, but right now, we’re it. Just FYI, Norwood’s being awfully pushy. I had to restrain him when he first got here. He’s calm now, but I’m not sure how long that’s going to last.”

Taylor indulged at last, took her hair down, rubbed her fingers across her scalp, then put her hair back in its bun. It wasn’t like she could go back to the Norwoods and say, sorry, I can’t talk, my favorite priest isn’t here to shelter me from your distress.

Baldwin’s cell phone started to ring. He put up an apologetic hand, murmured, “I need to get this,” and disappeared outside.

Taylor watched him go. “Can’t blame him. I hate this part, too. All right Let’s do this.”

She reentered the living room with Lincoln, met the pain in their eyes full on. They’d retreated into that helpless state, unbelieving, unresisting, the reality of their son’s death still trying to seep into their souls. She didn’t have much time- they’d either slip away entirely into a grief so profound nothing would rouse them, or fly off the handle, become belligerent and difficult. Better to keep them focused on the here and now, if at all possible.

“Mr. and Mrs. Norwood, can you tell me more about Xander and Amanda?”

Mr. Norwood shook his head, reiterated his request. “We want to see Xander. It’s only right. We deserve a chance to say goodbye to our son.”

Just in case they decided to ignore her, Taylor crossed her arms on her chest and leaned against the doorjamb, effectively blocking their access to the stairs.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do that. We have to work on the scene, and I’ll be completely honest with you, it’s not pretty. You don’t want this vision of Xander as the last you’ll ever have. You’re going to have to trust me. I give you my word that I’ll take £ood care of him.”

Mr. Norwood stared into her eyes for a long moment. She took his gaze, unflinching.I will treat him with respect. I will see his killer punished. After a long minute, he dropped his eyes to the floor and nodded. She seized the opportunity to try again.

‘It would be a big help if you could answer some questions for me. Can you talk about Xander for a few minutes? Tell me about him? About Amanda?”

Laura Norwood breathed out a ragged sigh, a small smile of remembrance playing on her lips.

“What do you want to know? They were inseparable. Been going together for two years, were probably going to be together forever. You know how there’s always that couple, the ones who met early and that was it? That’s Xander and Amanda. The big joke was they were going to change their name to Woods, since our last names are so similar. That’s what their friends called them, the Woods. Amanda’s nickname was Woodie before she met Xander, so her friend’s teased her, called her Woodie Woodpecker. Xander and Amanda loved it. She was on the cheerleading squad, and it was just announced that she’d be captain next year. My God, I can’t believe this is happening.” Her hands started to shake and her husband took them, held them hard between his palms, “Now, Laura, that’s not the kind of thing the police want to know. They need to know about enemies, and last moves, what kind of drugs and alcohol they were into. They only want to know the bad things. I’ve seen it all on TV. Just the bad things….” He broke off with a sob.

Taylor put her hand on his arm, spoke gently.

“No, sir. We want to know it all. Everything you tell us is relevant. Everything matters, the good and the bad. The more information we can gather today, the quicker we can catch the person who hurt your son. But if he did have any enemies or problems, we need to know.”

As she said it, she realized she was going to have this conversation with seven families, and the thought nearly made her legs buckle. Who could do such a thing? Who could annihilate seven children? Focus, Taylor.

She looked around the room. “You know what, why don’t we sit down? We’ll be more comfortable. And you tell me anything that comes to mind about your son. It sounds like he had a lot of friends. Was that the case?”

They settled on opposite sides of a walnut coffee table, on facing barn-red twill couches, the perfect conversational grouping in the living room. The Vanderwoods obviously entertained-the whole house was set with various nooks and spots for small gatherings to linger.