CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Dawn came as a surprise to Faith. She'd lost track of time after getting the call from Wyatt about Lisa going missing. Apparently, they'd spent the entire night talking to Robert, learning about the blackmail message to Lisa, finding her body, scouring the place for more traps, and getting emergency services out there to recover the body. Now they were back in the Blackwood house, sipping coffee that Wyatt had made and trying to hold back the despair that threatened to overwhelm them.

This happened in every case. Every damned case. They would work their asses off to find the killer before he got anyone else, but he always got someone else, sometimes two, before the case was over. Faith had seen numerous bodies, numerous people she couldn't save, but it never got easier. One of her old mentors warned her that if she wasn't careful, she'd become desensitized to death. Dead bodies would begin to mean as much to her as paperwork did.

Eleven years and counting with the Bureau, and Faith had yet to look at a victim and not take it personally. It was her job to save Lisa Blackwood's life, and she had failed. Never mind that she had done everything she could. Never mind that by the time they learned Lisa was missing, she was probably already dead.

Turk slept in a corner of the room. Faith felt just as exhausted as he did, but she couldn't rest. Even if she were in their hotel room in bed, she wouldn't have been able to rest. Not with their killer out there reveling in the joy of his most recent victory.

Robert, of course, was inconsolable. He was on his front porch talking with Wyatt. Or rather, Wyatt was talking with him and also making sure that Robert didn't jump into his truck and go off to God knows where to do God knows what. It wasn't unheard of for distraught spouses to break with reality for a while after losing their loved one. Faith had never seen a suicide or an accidental death resulting from such an event, but she'd heard of many.

"She was five feet away from first aid," Michael said.

"Hmm?"

"First aid. She was five feet away. Maybe… I don't know, ten minutes more, and she would have had time to stop her bleeding, disinfect her wound, and maybe even call for help."

The cabin Lisa had died trying to reach was a cache of survival supplies, including medical kits. Lisa had tried to reach it after the spear thrower pierced her liver. Liver punctures were invariably fatal unless they happened right in front of a trauma ward, so it was a miracle she'd made it as far as she did.

And anyway…

"She didn't have a phone, Michael. There was no way for her to call for help."

He sighed. "Right. I just…" He lifted his hands and let them drop.

"Yeah. I feel you."

"A fucking spear thrower? Like…" Michael laughed mirthlessly. "Who is this guy? It's like he's a villain from some slasher movie."

"A lot of the people we chase are like that," Faith said. "That's the downside of being good at finding people like that. They keep asking us to find people like that."

He sighed. "Yeah. It just sucks. I feel like we're the cops in a superhero comic book. Like we're dealing with some guy with powers and gadgets and crap, and we're just the normal beat cops trying to keep our city safe from freaks." He shook his head. "I don't know. I realize that this is no different from any other case we've had. It just sucks."

"It does," she agreed.

The front door opened, and Robert and Wyatt walked inside. Robert looked shellshocked. He tried to smile at the agents, but his mouth couldn't do more than twitch. Faith wondered that he would even make the effort. Maybe that was just a habit ingrained into humans as social creatures.

She wondered if those same habits were ingrained into the killer. Did he smile at people? Did he greet new acquaintances with a handshake? Did he open doors for strangers and offer to help old people cross the street? If so, was it all a ruse to hide the darkness underneath, or was it something he did without thinking, just a part of being human?

And if the latter was true, then why kill people? And why this way? What motivated him to want to kill his victims in this particular fashion?

Robert sat in front of the agents and sighed heavily. Wyatt poured him a mug of coffee, then sat next to him.

Faith broke the silence by following another social convention, perhaps one of the emptiest social conventions there were. "We're so sorry for your loss, Mr. Blackwood."

Robert returned the mandated response. "Yeah. Thank you."

Michael folded his hands in front of him and asked, "When we spoke to your wife earlier today, she talked to us about her old survivalist group: Nature's Guardians. Were you close with any of them?"

Robert shook his head. "Not really. The group was more Lisa's thing. Even within the group, it didn't seem like anyone was close."

"Did they fight a lot?"

"No, not really. They just… This is going to sound mean, but it's like you got all of the shy, awkward kids in school and plopped them in a room with one extrovert. Well, two, I guess. Kelly was pretty outgoing too."

"What can you tell us about the group?" Faith asked. She had heard Lisa's side, but she wanted an outside perspective. Besides, she wasn't sure how much of what Lisa had told them was the truth.

"Um, it was basically a social media group, but they met in person instead of talking online. That's all they really did, though, was talk. I think Lisa organized three trips in the four years the group existed. A couple of them paired up for excursions every now and then, but it was really informal. Mostly, they just shared stories. I showed up to a few meetings, but I was never really a part of it."

"How did people treat Lisa during those meetings?"

"They were fine. No one was especially loving or anything, but they were polite to her like they were to everyone else. Why? Do you think someone from the group is killing the former members?"

"It's a possibility we're considering," Faith admitted.

He nodded. "Makes sense. The three victims are from the group. I don't know who, though. They seemed awkward, but no one seemed violent."

"How many people were in the group?"

"No more than six at any time."

"But there were others who were only in the group part of the time?" Faith asked.

"A few. I can get you a list of members. Lisa has their contact info on her phone. I can send it to you if you want."

"Please do," Faith said.

"The thing is, most of them moved away. Or they weren't from here, and they joined thinking it was an online thing that organized annual trips. Sorry." He rubbed his forehead. "I'm all over the place."

"That's all right," Faith said. "Get the list, and we'll go through the names together and see if there's anyone who could be involved."

"I just don't get it," Robert said. "Why would any of them hurt her? Why would anyone do this kind of shit? Like… you guys see this a lot, right? This kind of fucked up shit?"

"More than we would like," Faith replied.

"So why? Why do people do this?"

She looked at Michael. The two agents shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. "I think you should let us handle that part," Michael said. "The honest answer is that reasons differ in each case. None of them are good enough to justify the murders. You focus on mourning your wife and honoring her memory. We'll find whoever took her from you."

"I know you will, but damn it, why?" Tears streamed from Robert's face. "Just…"

He fell silent and buried his head in his hands. Faith's heart ached for him. These were the worst conversations she ever had to have. It was impossible for normal people to put themselves in the headspace of murderers, and these murderers were far beyond the ordinary spectrum of killers. The sad, brutal truth was that whatever reason the killer had would seem ludicrous to anyone who wasn't as sick and violent as the killer was.

"You're going through a lot right now," Faith said. "Why don't you send us the list when you've had a moment to process everything?"

"No," he said, shaking his head and standing. "No, I'll get it now. It's…" he chuckled bitterly. "Well, it's not all right, but it's life."

He left the kitchen, and the agents shared a glum look with Wyatt. The police officer looked ten years older than he had when they first met him.

"Did you get anything from the murder weapon?" Faith asked.

Wyatt shook his head. "We sent it to the crime lab in case they could find something, but we didn't notice anything on the spear or the thrower. Same thing as before, the killer's being very careful not to leave anything behind."

"Any thoughts on why he used a spear thrower this time?"

Michael answered that one. "I could be off base, but it seems like the killer might be going from easiest to kill to hardest to kill. Valerie was a snare from right up close. He had multiple traps at Ethan Holloway's place. Here he rigged a trap from a distance. Maybe it's not that Lisa was harder to kill, but she might have been better at noticing things up close or…" he sighed. "So basically, the same thing we already know. He's adjusting his method for each victim. Christ, I hate this."

He sipped his coffee and frowned across the table. Robert returned a moment later with the list.

"Looks like nine names," he told them. "I forget how many I said earlier. Anyway, there was Lisa, Ethan and Valerie. Graham Nash, Kelly Connor and Justin Thornton. Those six were the permanent members. Then we have George Von Karman, uh, Henry Duchamp and Uma Parker. They were the out-of-towners who showed up to a meeting or two but figured out that this wasn't like a social media adventure site."

"We can probably rule out those three," Faith said. "Wyatt, go ahead and call the numbers anyway and get alibis for the nights of the murders."

She kept her tone professional, but inwardly she was disappointed. This revealed no new information to them, and the three permanent members were all unavailable right now. Could they be working together?

She was tired. Her mind was all over the place. She needed to get some rest and then attack this with fresh eyes. She stood and called for Turk. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Blackwood."

"Sure. Don't mention it. Just do me a favor." His face set grimly. "If you find the asshole who did this, I want to talk to him. I want to know why he did what he did."

Faith and Michael shared another look. Obviously, they couldn't grant this request, but Faith didn't want to argue with Robert right now. So she deflected. "Get some rest, Robert."

The three of them left the house and started back toward their hotel. Part of Faith's depression was due to exhaustion, but there was no doubt that seeing the impact of Lisa Blackwood's murder made the pain of their failure to capture the killer harder to handle.

She might save other lives. She might even find this killer. But nothing she did would ever bring Lisa Blackwood back. Now and forever, Robert had lost the woman he loved.

Somewhere in the wilderness, her killer was still roaming free. He could already be stalking his next victim.

But then, so could the hunter in Philadelphia, the one who had killed Eleanor. Faith should be able to put that aside and focus on the hunter she was tracking, but it was hard to do when she had to worry about her friends and loved ones being targeted by another violent murderer.

Only a few months ago, Faith thought that she had finally found stability in her life. Now her world was crumbling around her, and all she could do was watch it happen.

She looked out of her window at the pristine Alaskan forest and wondered which part of her life would collapse next.