Before Cain Strikes. Joshua Corin
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from the window. “We can’t help ourselves there, either.”
“He didn’t burn her, though. He torched the whole house. That’s significant.”
“Everything has meaning.”
“You know the answer, don’t you?”
He had a notion. It was rudimentary, of course, and without seeing the report and visiting the crime scene it was purely speculative, but yes, he had a notion. He often did.
“I think you need to trust yourself,” he told her.
“I’m off the books up here, Tom. I could use your help.”
The ceiling boards above him creaked. That would be Mama, stubbornly fighting off Penelope Sue’s attempts to deliver her nightly shot. Talk about rituals…
“I have faith in you,” he said to Esme. He stood. His knees were a bit stiff from the cold. “You can do this.”
“Don’t make me beg, Tom.”
He could tell by the tone of her voice that she was teasing him. She knew he’d fly up there. He was reliable. He was ever her instructor. He was Tom Piper. Together they’d solve this case, and another in a long line of deranged scumbags would be in custody.
But that wasn’t him anymore, right?
He looked out again at the barn, bathed in cold moonlight.
“Come on,” she replied, still playful. “What’ll it take? A tantalizing email?”
That was how, last winter, he’d coaxed her out of her early retirement. She’d already been intrigued by the Galileo case, still in its infancy, and he’d sent her a note that Henry Booth had left at a crime scene, and soon she was saying goodbye to her family and boarding a plane for Texas to meet up with Tom’s task force. He’d pushed her buttons and she’d allowed them to be pushed and how was this, now, any different? Surely he owed it to her, if not to that poor girl Lynette. The Galileo case had nearly gotten Esme killed, and he knew the effect it had had on her marriage.
But what about the effect it had had on him?
Penelope Sue padded into the room, a look of curiosity on her brow. He held out his hand to her and she clasped it.
“I’m sorry,” he told Esme. “I’m already home. Best of luck, Esmeralda. I know you’ll do just fine.”
Click.
Esme wasn’t angry.
She expected to be angry. She expected to feel wounded and betrayed. But she didn’t. She wasn’t relieved or happy. She wasn’t quite sure what she felt about Tom’s refusal.
So she compartmentalized it, stepped into the shower to wash off the chili and rice and ruminated about other matters.
More specifically: why did the unsub burn down the whole house?
By all accounts, the fire started with a bang. Electrical fires often did. Some appliance shorts out, goes kablooey, and it’s time to call your insurance provider. The unsub undoubtedly set the fire on purpose, which meant he rigged an appliance to blow, which meant he knew there was going to be a bang, which meant he knew it was going to draw attention to the house—and to him, making a rapid and hopefully burn-free getaway. So he wanted the body to be found. And given that there were no signs of accelerant on or near the remains, he wasn’t particular about the body being identified or not.
Esme moved on from body wash to shampoo, and thought about the victim herself. Maybe Rafe and the sheriff and most everyone else working the case were right. Maybe Lynette was the gateway. It made sense. It was the obvious choice. She rarely favored the obvious choice, true, but that didn’t make it any less valid.
So: Who would want to cause Lynette harm?
No. Better question: What was significant enough about Lynette for someone to go through all this trouble?
Esme didn’t mean to imply that it was difficult to believe that someone found Lynette significant. Her tattooed boyfriend was obviously enamored. And then there was the matter of Rafe’s overcomplicated emotional relationship to her….
Rafe!
Christ, how long had she been in the shower while he waited, soggy foodstuffs still splattered over his hair and cheeks and neck? Granted, he’d done the splattering, but still. Esme hastened her ablutions and hustled out of the shower. She opened the door for Rafe while she was drying her hair. The door wasn’t locked, and he could have come in at any time, and he would have come in during the first year of their marriage, joined her in the shower even, but that was a long time ago.
As her husband soaped and soaked, Esme climbed into a nightgown, rolled her iPod to Roxy Music and snuggled under the covers. Her mind drifted back to the case, back to Lynette Robinson and those teal earrings and her unfortunate fate. How differently people would live their lives if they knew how and when their lives would end. Esme wondered what she would do differently, if she knew, and by the time Rafe had toweled himself off, those musings had carried her off to sleep, at least until the pounding began at 6:16 a.m.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
Esme bolted awake. So did Rafe. A minute passed. Silence. They looked at each other. Had they dreamed that thunderous—
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
Apparently not.
“Is it the pipes?” she asked. He’d grown up in this house.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
“No,” he replied. “That’s not the pipes.”
Their eyes scanned the room for something to use as a weapon. But how did one defend against a sound?
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
“Maybe it’s the front door,” said Rafe.
“At six in the morning?”
Rafe shrugged. Did she have a better idea?
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
“Goddamn it,” she mumbled, and swung her legs out of bed and onto the thin mauve carpet. Her robes were at home. Her slippers were at home. So she slid her bare feet into her sneakers, tugged a navy blue sweater over her nightgown and headed downstairs to probe out the invasive racket.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
As she neared the front door, she knew Rafe’s conclusion had been accurate. Someone was on the other side, knocking. The door shook with each pound. Whoever it was at their door at 6:21 a.m. on this cold, cold Saturday morning, they were both large and insistent.
Maybe it was that dickhead pseudo-journalist Grover Kirk. He had the size and the lack of common decency to track them down to a funeral and pay them a visit. Either way, Esme vowed to use her resources at the Bureau to learn more about Mr. Kirk, maybe pull his IRS records.
She poked her head to one of the windows. Two sheriff’s deputies, each the size of a Dumpster, stood there on the front stoop. They appeared cold and they appeared antsy.
She opened the front door.
“Morning, officers. What seems to be the trouble?”
“The sheriff told us to come get you, ma’am.”
Of course he did.
“Give me a few minutes. Would you like to come in?”
The deputies exchanged glances. “No, ma’am. We’re just fine out here.”
Sure they were.
She closed the door in their frost-tipped faces and made her way back to the bedroom.
“Was it the front door?” Rafe asked.
Ten minutes later, both she and Rafe were back downstairs, fully dressed. She half