Killing Season: A Thriller
Faye Kellerman
Rainstorm
As the casket of a young girl, aged sixteen, was lowered into the ground, her sister, through tearful eyes and a choked voice,
sang “Amazing Grace.” Her brother stood awkwardly in a suit and tie, dry-eyed and stoic. Her parents sobbed and wept and clutched
the loose earth, desperately trying to hang on to something physical. All four knew that there was no longer a silver lining
to dark clouds, that life had unalterably changed and there was nothing anyone could do to ever make it whole again.
Prologue
No wonder the South lost the war.
No one could tolerate this kind of sweltering heat, with afternoon temperatures rising above the hundred mark and humidity off the scale—blistering and relentless. It was the kind of heat that charred the lungs and seared the skin. It burned his eyes and cracked his lips.
In the city, the people around him kept apologizing: telling him that it was a heat spell, that usually the humidity wasn’t this bad, and that it usually cooled down at night. But the night was just as hot, with radiant heat coming from the asphalt in shimmering waves. The road had been periodically illuminated as he drove to the woodlands, but once inside the miles of untamed terrain, it was black as tar. And sticky. From where he stood, drenched in sweat, he was miserable and tired and dealing with a multitude of bugs.
Mosquitoes, the palmetto bugs known to most as cockroaches, and the clouds of gnats. The forest hummed with bugs especially since he was near water. The insects were merciless: buzzing his ears, dive-bombing his nose and mouth. And the chiggers, clinging to his socks and trousers, smelling the salt and sweat, waiting for the hem of his pants to ride up or the tops of his socks to fall down to sink their teeth into his flesh.
Because of his heavy dress, his tools, and his knapsack, he was overloaded. He was having trouble breathing. He was having trouble moving. He had always been steady and meticulous. He had always been painstaking. This time, he was just plain sluggish.
Too bad because he wanted to relish the final phase of his handiwork. Tonight, if he was smart—and of course he was very smart—would be the last time he went digging.
Tonight should be the last time. Tonight needed to be the last time.
Except for the tedious niggling fact that despite his best efforts, things hadn’t worked out perfectly. And that preyed upon him more than the heat, humidity, or any of the carnivorous insects.
Sweat in his eyes, dripping off his nose. He was clothed head to toe, from shoe covers to his hat: a living sauna.
He plodded on.
Hunting for the right spot that was clear enough, close enough, and soft enough. Lugging the shovel over his shoulder, he had to squint hard to see the flashlight beam, giving him barely enough illumination in the smothering darkness. Using his ears, the sound of the river as his guide.
He was getting too old for this. After this, he would stop. He had to stop.
He paused, took a deep breath in and out. Put down his knapsack and opened the front pocket. He took out his measuring tape and cordoned off the spot—a perfect three-by-five. He’d go four feet deep, maybe more if the ground was soft enough. It would take him hours to get it right. It would take him all night. He would finish before daybreak.
Always finish before the sun came up.
He plunged the shovel into the ground. The crypt had to be precise.
He’d be back to fill it up.
For the last time.
Maybe.
Chapter 1
They were whispering about him, this time to the new girl.
She had arrived at River Remez along with the New Mexican monsoons of summer. He had been out driving—running an errand for his mom—when he had noticed her with Chelsea and Shannon and Lisa Holloway walking down Arroyo Way. It had been four in the afternoon, the typical time for the mountain skies to open up, but the storm that day had been particularly strong. Blustery winds and blinding lightning strikes were followed by ear-shattering thunder, the distance between sight and sound growing shorter as millions of volts of electricity loomed dangerously close. The rains were flooding the sinewy roads and hillsides, red clay soil oozing from the mountains. It was coming down so fast that he had almost pulled over as pea-sized hailstones bounced off the windshield of the SUV. But the wipers were batting the hail away with rhythmic efficiency.
The girls were soaked to the skin, dodging ice pellets, running with their T-shirts pulled over the tops of their heads, showing inches of tanned bare skin along the belt line. He was about to offer them a lift, but at the last moment they beelined under the portal of JD’s house.
Their hushed voices in the school’s lunchroom howled like a tempest. Not that he could hear them—they were too far away—but he knew what they were saying because it’s what everyone said. Shannon and Chelsea were talking in tandem.
“That’s Vicks over there sitting by himself.”
“He’s kinda weird. A lone wolf. Especially after his sister died.”
“Raped and murdered.”
“Strangled.”
“She was only sixteen.”
“Almost seventeen.”
As if her age mattered. But it was always the addendum because Ellen had almost been seventeen. The new girl would be shocked and scared. “Who did it?”
“Unsolved for over two years.”
“Lots of suspects, no one ever arrested.”
“Some people, at first, even thought that Vicks did it.”
The new girl’s eyes would get big. “Did he?”
“Nah, Vicks is just Vicks. Weird but harmless.”
“He rides his bike everywhere even though he can drive. It could be pouring outside and there’s Vicks pedaling his bike up the mountain.”
“You know how it is. Those nerdy math types.”
“He’s a genius in math.”
“Yeah, if you need help for your SATs, just put on a smile and he’s a sucker.”
Giggles all around.
Then suddenly the whispering would stop and they’d move on to gossiping about someone else.
His eyes moved back to his book, some ludicrous sci-fi thriller, but his concentration wasn’t there and his mind shifted into default mode: thinking about his sister . . . both sisters, but mainly Ellen. Ben was now older than his sister had been when she passed.
That day when his mom got the phone call, they’d been driving back from Albuquerque. At fourteen, he had maxed out in high school math and was taking college calculus at UNM in Albuquerque. The school year was days away from over. He was tired, grumpy, and hungry, and traffic was a bitch on I-25. Between rush hour and construction, the highway had become a parking lot. He’d been arguing with his mom when Dad’s call cut through the Bluetooth. The day: Wednesday. The time: ten after five.
“Do you know where Ellen is?” he asked.
“She isn’t home?” Mom waited a second. “She should have been home two hours ago.”