their way to John Cameron’s house.
They drove north on Fourth Avenue and east on University Street, got stuck like everybody else at the Convention Center, and finally joined I-5. They sped past Lake Union and Capitol Hill, through Eastlake’s new commercial developments, and into the university district.
Madison saw nothing they passed. She was back on Blue Ridge, trying to fathom the mind of a man who had thought it necessary to change the ligature on a dead human being, who had dipped his finger into his victim’s blood to draw a cross with it.
There was a straight line that connected the victims to the motive and the evidence to the suspect. It was simple enough. However, walking into their bedroom and seeing the slain children between their parents—that was beyond description.
This wasn’t just payback; it was vengeance of inhuman proportions. The sins of the fathers visited upon the children, an example to fear and remember for all those who would ever deal with the man.
Madison knew that the address they were going to visit in Laurelhurst was on John Cameron’s driver’s license and his tax returns. It was the house where his family had moved after he had been kidnapped as a boy and that, years later, he had inherited from his parents.
It was his only legal address. Madison had no doubt in her mind that he did not live there, any more than he actually drove the black pickup truck that was registered to him. But it was his house nevertheless, the place where they might pick up the scent. Of course, they didn’t have a warrant to enter the premises as yet.
When she was in uniform, Madison had apprehended many suspects climbing out a back window while her partner was knocking on the front door. This was not going to be one of those times.
Laurelhurst was a wealthy neighborhood with well-kept houses and lawns. The Parent-Teacher Association meetings were as wild as it ever got in the community, and that’s just how the residents there liked it.
They turned into one of the smaller streets, trees lining both sides. The houses there were not as big or as far from one another. Christmas decorations were discreet, and there were a fair number of cars in the driveways. Not everybody was at work.
Cameron’s house stood halfway down the street: wood and brick, a sloped roof that probably concealed an attic with a skylight in the back. There was no car parked in the driveway; Brown pulled up to the curb.
The curtains were drawn, and there was no light from behind the glass panel in the front door. Brown turned off the engine, and for a minute they both sat there, still and quiet. It wasn’t that different from her grandparents’ house, Madison thought, and in spite of herself she was glad of the weight of the holster on her right hip.
“If we sit here any longer, someone’s bound to call the cops on us,” Brown joked, and he got out of the car.
Madison stepped onto the lawn and felt the frosted earth crack slightly under her feet. She inhaled deeply—the air was cold and clean. Thin smoke from some of the neighboring chimneys twisted up into the pale sky. Pretty as a picture. Her fingers brushed the speed-loader on her belt.
They walked up the concrete driveway. The garage was wide enough to accommodate a pickup truck and one other vehicle, if necessary.
They got to the front door and looked at each other—for one crazy second Madison expected it to open. Brown rang the bell, just as if he had been dropping in on any old friend. They waited. No sound or movement at all from inside. After about one minute, Brown rang the bell again. Nothing.
“I’m going to look around,” Madison said. She stepped back and examined the front of the house. There were three windows on the second floor and not a flicker from the cream-colored curtains. On the right side of the house the garage extended out, flanked by red maples. On the left was a six-foot wooden fence with a gate. She took the right side.
Hours
Catherine Peace
Richard Foreman
Lisa Schroeder
John Skelton
Leigh Ann Lunsford
C S Forester
Nicola Upson
David James Smith
Frank Tuttle
Savannah Blevins