Page 45 of Bad Blood

Malcolm—Nightshade’s grandfather—was the one who had called 911. By the time medical assistance had arrived, he had been holding on to his life by a thread. The old man survived. His daughter and son-in-law had not. In the aftermath of the attack, Malcolm Lowell had been unable to provide a physical description of his attacker, but suspicion had fallen almost immediately on the occupants of Serenity Ranch.

“I’ve been working on a time line.” Sloane had made use of the hotel’s complimentary notepad, ripping out page after page and laying them along the floor, scrawling a note on each. She pointed to the leftmost one. “Thirty-three years ago, Holland Darby establishes his commune on the outskirts of town. Less than a year after that, Anna and Todd Kyle are murdered. Twenty-seven years ago, the poison Master who would eventually go on to choose Nightshade as his apprentice killed nine people, completing his initiation into the Masters’ ranks.”

I followed the logic of Sloane’s calculation: Nightshade had completed his initiation kills six years earlier. The cult operated on a twenty-one-year cycle. Ergo, the poison Master before Nightshade had been initiated two to three yearsafterAnna and Todd Kyle had been murdered.

What’s the connection?

“Scenario one,” I said. “The Master who eventually trained Nightshade as his apprentice lived in Gaither during the time of the murders. We know the Masters favor Pythias who have violence and abuse in their past—it’s possible a similar criteria is used in the selection of killers.” I closed my eyes for a moment and let the logic take hold. “The previous Master knew what Mason had seen and survived, and marked him for recruitment.”

Dean met my gaze. “Scenario two: I’m the Master who recruited Nightshade. I’m also the person who killed Anna and Todd Kyle. I was never caught, and the case got just enough local press to attract the attention of the Masters, who offered to channel my potential intoso much more.” He ran the tips of the fingers on his right hand over my left. “I accepted the offer and learned to kill without a trace, without mercy.”

Beside me, Sloane shivered.

“Years later,” Dean continued quietly, “when it was time for me to choose an apprentice of my own, I remembered Mason Kyle. Maybe I didn’t realize he was in the house when I killed his family. Or maybe,” he continued, his voice nothing like his own, “I chose to let him live. Either way, he’s mine.”

Silence fell over the room. If Nightshade’s parents had been murdered by one of the Masters, solving the Kyle murders might lead us straight to the person who’d recruited Nightshade.

Find one Master, follow the trail.

“Scenario three.” Agent Sterling, who had been remarkably quiet as Dean and I had sorted through our thoughts, added her voice to the mix. “The UNSUB in the Kyle murders killed Nightshade’s parentsso thatlittle Mason Kyle would be more suited to becoming a killer himself someday.” She stood up and began pacing the room. I’d never seen her so intent. “I know the Nightshade case inside and out. The killer we were looking for was brilliant, narcissistic, with a need to win and to one-up all competitors. And yet, during his last interrogation, Nightshade accepted that the Pythia was going to have him killed. He didn’t fight it. He didn’t turn on the other Masters to save himself.”

“He was loyal,” I translated.

“You think that loyalty might date back to childhood.” Dean lifted his gaze to Sterling’s. “You think our UNSUB started grooming Nightshade to join the Masters when he was just a boy.”

Sloane frowned. “Nightshade’s parents were killed one thousand, eight hundred, and eighty-seven daysbeforeNightshade’s Master completed his own initiation kills,” she pointed out. “Barring anomalies in the space-time continuum, it seems unlikely that someone could have begun grooming an apprentice to take their place before that someonehada place.”

Sloane’s hands fluttered, a sure sign of anxiety. She calmed herself, turning to the remainder of the time line. “Nine years after Mason Kyle’s parents were murdered, Mason left Gaither and never came back. That puts his exodus at roughly twenty-four years ago. About twelve years after that, Cassie and her mother moved to town.” Sloane’s blue eyes darted toward mine. I could see her trying to calculate the odds that continuing would hurt me.

I saved her the trouble. “Six years after my mom and I left Gaither, Nightshade killed nine people, taking his seat at the Masters’ table. Less than two months after that, my mother was taken.”

My mom and Nightshade had lived in this town more than a decade apart. But one or more of the Masters must have kept tabs on them thereafter.You have a long memory. You have an eye for potential. And you can be very, very patient.

“Assuming the attack on the Kyle family was perpetrated by someone aged sixteen or over,” Sloane said, “we’re looking for an UNSUB no younger than his late forties—and possibly substantially older.”

I thought of the senior citizens back at the diner, the old man who’d invited us into the apothecary museum.

“We need to know what the police didn’t put in the official file,” Dean said. “Gossip. Theories.”

“Luckily for you,” Lia commented, strolling back into the room, “gossip is one of my specialties.” She was wearing a long black skirt and a multilayered top that hung off her shoulders. She’d rimmed her eyes in thick, dark liner, and wore two-inch-wide copper bangles on her wrists. “On a scale of one to ten,” she said, “how psychic do I look?”

“Six-point-four,” Sloane replied without hesitation.

“Psychic?” I asked. I was fairly certain I did not want to know where this was going.

“Lia and I were talking about our little chat with Ree at the Not-A-Diner,” Michael said, coming up behind Lia with a look on his face that made me think they’d been doing a lot more than talking. “And we both seemed to recall Ree saying something about a widow with a big mouth and a penchant for psychics.”

Lia arched an eyebrow at me. I knew that eyebrow arch. It did not bode well.

“No way,” I said. “I spent most of my childhood helping my mom con people into thinking she was psychic. I’m not going to help you do the same.”

Sloane looked at me, looked at Lia, then looked at me again. “There is a very high probability,” she whispered, “that Lia’s about to tell you that you’re lying.”

It could be worse, I told myself as I adjusted the camera pin on my lapel and Lia leaned forward to ring the town gossip’s doorbell.Lia could have chosen a more destructive outlet for her issues.

“Can I help you?” The woman who answered the door was in her early fifties, with vivid red hair that wouldn’t have looked natural even if she were two decades younger. Her sense of fashion tended toward skintight and shiny.

You wear bright pink lipstick, even in your own home. The house is classic, understated—everything you’re not.