Silent victim by C. E. Lawrence

Author:C. E. Lawrence [C. E. Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Policier
ISBN: 9780786021499
Published: 2010-12-01T10:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

As he drove through the gently sloping farm fields, Lee thought about each victim, and what they had in common. On the surface, they had very little in common, but there was some thread connecting them. There had to be—there always was. Once you saw the pattern, and how the pieces connected, you had a clearer insight into the killer’s personality.

But this murderer might as well be a ghost. He was hiding his pattern, his victimology, so well … but what if the lack of a pattern was in itself a pattern? What if they could somehow connect the seeming randomness of the crimes to a particular type of person?

As he pulled into the driveway of his mother’s house, Lee saw purple and white balloons festooned on the lamppost at the end of the drive. He smiled—purple was Kylie’s new favorite color. She had given up pink as “too girlie” a few months ago. As he pulled up onto the patch of lawn that served as a parking space, the front door of the house was flung open and his niece came rushing out, trailed by two other little girls.

“Uncle Leeeee!” she cried as he opened the car door, throwing herself at him.

Her two friends followed suit. “Uncle Leeee!” they yelled gleefully, wrapping their arms around his legs. He pretended not to notice and tried to walk, a girl clinging to each leg, as Kylie peeled off and hopped up and down alongside him.

“You look so funny!” she hooted as he pretended to be unaware of the clinging girls, struggling to move his legs forward. After a couple of minutes of this, all three of the children dissolved into laughter, and the two hanging onto him were forced to let go.

“You’re funny!” the smaller one said. She was a pixie with olive skin and straight jet black hair cut short with long bangs over large dark eyes.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Lee asked Kylie as they all headed toward the house.

“This is Angelica,” said Kylie, stroking the pixie’s shiny black hair, “and this is Meredith.”

Meredith was not a pretty child—much taller than Angelica and Kylie, she was very pale with bushy red hair, deep-set blue eyes, and a long, serious face. “Hello,” she said, studying Lee as though he were a laboratory specimen or object d’art. “You’re the criminal profiler, right?

Lee thought Meredith was entirely too precocious for her age.

“I’m in law enforcement, that’s right.”

Meredith walked backward so she could look up at him, as Kylie and Angelica skipped hand in hand alongside them, humming.

“I’ve read about the kind of work you do. It’s very interesting,” Meredith said, trying to skip backward. It was an awkward gait, and she was an ungainly child. “Is that how you hurt your arm?”

“Kind of.”

“I think I want to do what you do when I grow up.”

Lee smiled. “Well, you’re young—there’s plenty of time to change your mind.”

Meredith shook her head. “No, I’m very focused—I know that’s what I want to do.” She looked at him, her face serious.

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