Into the Dark

“No, we had a moving company collect most things and move them into storage,” Corbett said. “We wouldn’t have even looked at what was on that board, we were too traumatized.”

No one at the time had noticed anything different about the bulletin board.

Corbett volunteered to let Tanner and Zurn accompany him as he retrieved the artwork from the bulletin board. The drawings were stored in a file folder and were in good condition.

Jimmy Bradford, who was now thirteen, shook his head when Tanner and Zurn had asked him if he had made the handprint.

“Nope, I didn’t make it. I would’ve remembered.”

Jimmy’s eleven-year-old sister, Jessie, hadn’t made it.

“I drew the cat and the flowers. Jimmy made the dolphin picture,” she said. “I never saw that hand thing before.”

Tanner and Zurn had sent the handprint to the crime lab for analysis days ago. Charlene Podden, a forensic technician, alerted Tanner that morning that she’d have a preliminary report to him by five today.

The waiting started gnawing at him because it underscored that this potential evidence should’ve been analyzed at the time of the murder but wasn’t. At 5:41 his landline rang at his desk.

“It’s Charlene at the lab. I’m sorry for the delay, Joe.”

“You find anything on that handprint?”

“This is just a preliminary, okay? We need to do more work.”

“More work? Charlene this case has been cold for six years. Tell me how come this stuff was not processed six years ago.”

“Maybe it was overlooked. Maybe somebody made an assumption, or lost a report. Look, I honestly don’t know. It was before my time.”

“Okay, forget it. Let’s get to work. What can you tell me?”

“The drawing was produced with blood, human blood.”

“The victim’s blood?”

“Some of it.”

“Some?”

“And there are latents,” Podden added, “but they have to be processed, Joe, so give us time to get to that.”

“Are they good?”

“Yes, and there’s more.”

Tanner pressed his phone harder to his ear.

“There’s something under the largest, darkest smudge, something the artist intentionally covered or concealed on purpose—a message in tiny letters, likely scratched using the tip of a pencil.”

“What does it say?”

“‘I’m just getting started.’”

3

Alhambra, California

He’d been patient.

Hiding so long in the house where he’d been watching her, studying her.

His heart thundered against the bones of his rib cage. He inched toward her without making a sound until he stood over her bed as she slept

Skin tingling with excitement he fought the urge to look at himself in her mirror.

He’d taken such loving care preparing for tonight.

His face was coated in thick white makeup so bright it glowed, like some evil Kabuki force. A swath of red smeared in a downward curve across his mouth. His cheeks were a maelstrom of theatrical cuts and scars, while large smudge pools of black accentuated his hollow eyes, his left one wept a trail of painted teardrops.

He was naked.

Now, here he was, standing over her.

Watching her.

He owned her.

Amber Pratt: She was a lonely secretary, an abused, heartbroken woman.

She was prey.

He knelt beside her, drawing his face near enough to drink in her breath, his aching to touch her as silent as the flicking of a snake’s tongue.

Do it now.

As he stood to take action, an inexplicable spear of doubt pierced him.

It felt so painful he wavered.

Suddenly Amber stirred, moaning and rolling over.

No, it was not right. Not yet.

He sank back into the darkness and disappeared into the night.

4

Los Angeles, California

As Claire Bowen sat at the wheel of her car on Wilshire Boulevard waiting for the light to change, she met the sweetest pair of eyes.