between her legs to verify her shame.
The lights came back on and Nana began to scream.
30
NOT TONIGHT
New Orleans, Louisiana
Early morning, Monday, August 29, 2005
Amaia came awake slowly and listened carefully. She made out rhythmic breathing. Johnson and Charbou were sound asleep despite the roar of the storm and the constant ringing of telephones in the command center next door, which was only slightly muted by the walls. She assumed Dupree and Bull were still busy somewhere else in the fire station. Checking her watch, she found it was almost five in the morning. Dawn would arrive soon, though as yet the covered window admitted no light.
From the cot she could see some of the crime scene photos they’d sorted spread out across the conference table. Disorder, destruction, and chaos ruled each scene. Her impressions were jumbled. She was absolutely certain crucial clues were to be found at the crime scenes, and she hadn’t been able to get them out of her head. The answer lay in the killer’s staging, again and again, a desired outcome. Was it some sort of macabre therapy in which he took out his bitterness upon others? Or were these just rehearsals for an upcoming final act? If so, what was he waiting for, what permission did he need before murdering his entire family a second time? How many more times would he be driven to rehearse his final solution?
She closed her eyes and called up images—Lenx, alone, smiling at the photographer; Brad Nelson in a group of policemen at a party; the Lenx daughter and Nelson’s, both redheads; Lenx’s wife with her prudish, fearful expression; Nelson’s Sarah, confident and smiling. The two women were so different! Amaia wondered if this was the sort of adjustment a psychopath would be capable of making. Would he seek out a good-looking, independent wife? That didn’t fit Lenx as Amaia understood him. Captain Reed had tried to convince them the Nelsons’ domestic disturbance hadn’t been terribly serious, yet he’d acknowledged it wasn’t the first time Nelson had gotten carried away. Brad Nelson had tried to force his wife to accept his way of thinking and return to the fold.
Sarah Nelson’s smile on her driver’s license looked carefree, but Amaia knew that meant little. Could she have been enduring abuse? Violence, even? And then there was the business about Nelson sneaking into a church. It would have been interesting to have photos of the Nelson home before and after the domestic dispute that brought the police into the picture. Nelson’s wife left him after that and took the children almost a thousand miles away. What would Lenx do in that situation? Resolve it the way he had eighteen years earlier? He’d go after them, certainly. But if he was a policeman now, he couldn’t just go running off to kill them all.
Someone opened the door at the end of the hall. The clamor of dozens of telephones ringing simultaneously burst across her like an ocean wave, then lowered abruptly when the door swung shut. She had the impression that the incoming calls in the operations center had intensified over the last hour. She needed to think, but as her mind grappled with the information she’d received over the last twenty-four hours, she realized she was going in circles, a sure sign that sleep was about to overpower her. She could choose to resist it or give in. Falling asleep wasn’t deliberate, and sleep wasn’t something she willingly yielded to. It stole up on her like a thief in the night. It kidnapped her consciousness while she struggled and resisted. She’d always been that way.
And . . .
She’s very tired, but she knows she mustn’t sleep, so she forces herself to open her eyes, sit up, and leave the bed. She feels the warmth of the waxed floorboards beneath her. She looks down at her little feet, tiny and pale, shuffling across the dark floor to stand between her sisters’ beds. Ros’s eyes are closed, and she looks like she’s sleeping, her long, dark hair in an intricate braid stark against her pillow. Flora, also with her hair in a braid, is reading by the light of the little bronze lamp with the mermaid base. Flora becomes aware of her sister’s presence and puts down the book with an annoyed expression. “You again? Now what’s wrong?”
Amaia takes a deep breath and exhales before answering. “I’m scared, Flora. Let me sleep with you.”
“I already said no. You better go back to bed