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Then he went back and clicked on the underlined Lex Talionis, and the link took him to the page at LexTalionis.com announcing the ten-thousand-dollar-reward program for information leading to the arrest and conviction of an evildoer. He knew about the program, but he read the page anyway to see if there was anything new.

There wasn’t, and Curtis again clicked back to O’Hara’s article on “Three Dead in Old City.”

Where the hell did the third body come from?

A coincidence? Oh, sure. Someone just happened to have one lying around, and dropped it off on Halloween!

Is some asshole copying me?

Except they’re not dumping bad guys at the police stations. Not that I know of, anyway. There haven’t been any stories about those, mine or anyone else’s.

In deep thought, he drained his coffee cup. Then he slammed the cup on the desk.

Some asshole has to be copying me!

What does that mean?

Well, for starters, it means more dead perverts.

Not that I have a problem with that.

But there’s gonna be cops on every corner looking for me and whoever else is dumping bodies.

And that means, if I’m going to enforce the law of talion in whatever time I have left, I’m going to need to do something different.

[TWO]

Will Curtis had his balled fist inside the iron burglar bars and was again banging on the filthy metal door.

“FedEx delivery!”

Now he could hear footsteps inside. They were moving toward the door.

Then came the sound of a chain rattling against the back side of the door, then a deadbolt unlocking, then the doorknob turning.

The door cracked open, just barely.

Judging by the sliver of a gaunt face that Curtis saw through the crack, it was a woman old enough to be Kendrik Mays’s mother. She stared at him with only her left eye, and she looked absolutely awful.

Well, what the hell did you expect to find here? Miss America?

Curtis held up the envelope so she could see the bill of lading.

“Got an express delivery for a Kendrik Mays.”

The lone visible eyeball darted between Curtis and the envelope.

“Ain’t today Sunday?” she asked.

“Look, I don’t like working weekends any more than the next guy.”

She nodded as she considered his answer.

After a moment, the woman said with a shaky voice, “He down at his cousin’s. Don’t know when he come back. You leave it with me.”

She pulled the door open wider to where the chain became taut and stuck out a badly bruised hand, fingers clawing for the envelope.

Now Curtis could see more of the woman. The entire right side of her face, including all around the right eye, was deeply bruised. She stood, her feet bare, at maybe five-two. She was clearly malnourished, and couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds. Torn and dirty black jeans and a ratty T-shirt hung on her.