the road, best gifts for your valentine.
“He won’t make it a week under the pressure of covering the sheep-shearing, and the local toolshed break-ins,” said Rain.
“Yeah,” Greg agreed. “Hard news is going to crush him.”
By the time Lily was down, Greg was planted in front of the television—zoning out to some college game. She tried to make herself look put together, professional.
“Are you taking the car?” he said when she came downstairs. She had her tote, her laptop. She looked the part—lipstick, hair blown out. She felt the part, the way she’d always felt at work—smart, powerful, in control. She didn’t always feel that way at home. Often, she felt incompetent, lost, floundering. Why was work easier than life?
“Yes,” she said, dangling the keys from her finger.
“Drive carefully,” he said, getting up, kissing her. He bowed his head, then looked up at her, an eye lock, hands to her cheeks. “And knock ’em dead. I’m proud of you, you know. You’re brave to do this. You’re smart. And you’re a great mom. You got this. All of it.”
There it was—one of those moments again. She almost put her stuff down, went upstairs and changed into her pajamas. She didn’t have to go, did she? Not really. She could just curl up on the couch beside her husband, and that would be that. They’d head upstairs after a while, probably make love, fall asleep together.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She smiled. “I love you.”
Then she was outside, down the steps, climbing into the SUV. She checked her phone, made sure that Find My Friends was disabled and pulled out of the driveway.
She didn’t have a meeting in the city tonight, no appointment with Gillian and Andrew. The words were barely out of her mouth, and she was breaking all her promises to her husband. But there was something she needed to do, and it was past time.
THIRTY-FIVE
Don’t they haunt you? Those pictures he drew. Believe it or not, I still dream about them. Crayon Rain—your stick hair and bright pink mouth, that blue he used for your eyes, the red he used for your insides. The gore. The childish horror show of it. When I saw them the first time on the dark web, the rage—it woke him right up.
Is it a violation to hold someone in your mind? What right did he have to imprison your image that way in his fantasies? I just couldn’t let that stand. It was one thing when his body was locked up. But to have him free in the world and imagining you that way? No. No.
Honestly, I was sure you would call Harper. What would you say? I talked to Hank, you’d confess. I think he might do something.
What would Harper say? He’d say something like: Don’t worry, we’re on Kreskey every minute. We’ll handle whatever comes up. Live your life, Miss Winter. (He’d call you “miss,” of course.)
Harper. He’s one of those men. A man who knows what’s right. A man who understands people. A veteran like my grandfather who knows how dark is the world, how base the human heart. He knows what men will do. And what must be done to stop them. Or to right the miserably unbalanced scales of justice. Sometimes. Just sometimes.
“What are you doing here, son?”
He surprised me that first night. I thought I was sly, that I was hidden. But he was slyer. And he had been hiding first.
“Detective Harper?”
In the woods behind the place where Kreskey was working his janitorial night shift, I’d been waiting, watching him arrive. I’d follow his progress through the low concrete buildings as the lights came on and went off. I watched as he shuffled out with the trash, tossed it into the Dumpster. He was slow, a lumbering giant. I noticed that he walked with a limp, that he dragged his right leg a little. Great hanging jowls, tent-sized clothing. His black hair hung in greasy slicks, thick glasses obscuring his eyes.
I could see that Kreskey was a medicated zombie. If I was totally honest, in the nights I sat watching, some of my rage drained. I wasn’t quite there; he—the other one inside—wasn’t quite ready either. I was bound in a tangle of thoughts and nightmares, the blank spaces where I knew he resided. I knew what I wanted to do, what he wanted to do. But I wasn’t sure how you crossed the distance from intention to action. He came out when I was angry, or afraid. Looking at the