Into the Dark. Rick Mofina

about the bulletin board.

      Corbett volunteered to let Tanner and Zurn accompany him as he retrieved the artwork from the bulletin board. The drawings were stored in a file folder and were in good condition.

      Jimmy Bradford, who was now thirteen, shook his head when Tanner and Zurn had asked him if he had made the handprint.

      “Nope, I didn’t make it. I would’ve remembered.”

      Jimmy’s eleven-year-old sister, Jessie, hadn’t made it.

      “I drew the cat and the flowers. Jimmy made the dolphin picture,” she said. “I never saw that hand thing before.”

      Tanner and Zurn had sent the handprint to the crime lab for analysis days ago. Charlene Podden, a forensic technician, alerted Tanner that morning that she’d have a preliminary report to him by five today.

      The waiting started gnawing at him because it underscored that this potential evidence should’ve been analyzed at the time of the murder but wasn’t. At 5:41 his landline rang at his desk.

      “It’s Charlene at the lab. I’m sorry for the delay, Joe.”

      “You find anything on that handprint?”

      “This is just a preliminary, okay? We need to do more work.”

      “More work? Charlene this case has been cold for six years. Tell me how come this stuff was not processed six years ago.”

      “Maybe it was overlooked. Maybe somebody made an assumption, or lost a report. Look, I honestly don’t know. It was before my time.”

      “Okay, forget it. Let’s get to work. What can you tell me?”

      “The drawing was produced with blood, human blood.”

      “The victim’s blood?”

      “Some of it.”

      “Some?”

      “And there are latents,” Podden added, “but they have to be processed, Joe, so give us time to get to that.”

      “Are they good?”

      “Yes, and there’s more.”

      Tanner pressed his phone harder to his ear.

      “There’s something under the largest, darkest smudge, something the artist intentionally covered or concealed on purpose—a message in tiny letters, likely scratched using the tip of a pencil.”

      “What does it say?”

      “‘I’m just getting started.’”

       3

      Alhambra, California

      He’d been patient.

      Hiding so long in the house where he’d been watching her, studying her.

      His heart thundered against the bones of his rib cage. He inched toward her without making a sound until he stood over her bed as she slept

      Skin tingling with excitement he fought the urge to look at himself in her mirror.

      He’d taken such loving care preparing for tonight.

      His face was coated in thick white makeup so bright it glowed, like some evil Kabuki force. A swath of red smeared in a downward curve across his mouth. His cheeks were a maelstrom of theatrical cuts and scars, while large smudge pools of black accentuated his hollow eyes, his left one wept a trail of painted teardrops.

      He was naked.

      Now, here he was, standing over her.

      Watching her.

      He owned her.

      Amber Pratt: She was a lonely secretary, an abused, heartbroken woman.

      She was prey.

      He knelt beside her, drawing his face near enough to drink in her breath, his aching to touch her as silent as the flicking of a snake’s tongue.

      Do it now.

      As he stood to take action, an inexplicable spear of doubt pierced him.

      It felt so painful he wavered.

      Suddenly Amber stirred, moaning and rolling over.

      No, it was not right. Not yet.

      He sank back into the darkness and disappeared into the night.

       4

      Los Angeles, California

      As Claire Bowen sat at the wheel of her car on Wilshire Boulevard waiting for the light to change, she met the sweetest pair of eyes.

      They belonged to the pigtailed little girl crossing the street with a woman who was pushing a stroller holding a sleeping baby. The woman must be the girl’s mother, Claire judged by the resemblance.

      As the trio moved across the intersection in front of Claire, she guessed the girl to be about three. One of her tiny hands gripped the stroller. The other was clamped on the stuffed bunny tucked under her arm. Her pretty eyes were locked on Claire’s.

      Claire gave her a small wave and a smile. The girl’s little fingers holding the bunny wiggle-waved back. The mother, who’d noticed, gazed down at her daughter with wearied joy.

      Will I ever know that kind of love? Claire asked herself.

      It was a bittersweet moment that hammered home the fact that time was running out for her.

      All Dr. LaRoy’s office said was that he needed to see me this morning.

      Claire knew that her chances of having a child decreased with each passing day. She was thirty-five and happily married to Robert Bowen, a pilot. She was a psychologist with a successful practice and a lot to be thankful for. But ever since she was confronted years ago with the probability that she would never have children, she felt something was slipping away. She had to hang on to the hope that things would work out.

      She’d never give up.

      Claire was a survivor.

      A horn sounded behind her.

      The light had turned green. As she continued driving, towering condo buildings rose before her. She had accepted that some things in this world were absolutes. We’re born, we die, and there is only so much in between that we can control. But she was unwilling to accept that she would never be a mother.

      She had gotten pregnant three times, but in each instance she’d suffered a miscarriage. She had seen many doctors and had faced countless tests, examinations, procedures and treatments.

      Nothing worked.

      The specialists found complications linked to her failed pregnancies. But throughout her anguish she would not give up, even when the odds mounted against her.

      Even when they’d nearly destroyed her.

      Claire’s memory flashed to the frightening incident that had ended her first marriage a few years ago. She did not want to think about it now. One thing was certain: there was no telling what could’ve happened had Robert not been there that day, which had marked the beginning of her life with him. Unlike Cliff, her first husband, Robert never made her feel as if she was less of a woman or that her infertility was her fault.

      “I’ll do whatever it takes,” Robert said when she told him about it. “We’re in this together, Claire.”

      Robert went through everything with her in their three years together—tests for him, new workups for her. Robert’s count and motility were fine. And while they sought new doctors, new experts for Claire, the reality was sobering. Aside from Claire’s problems, she knew the chances of miscarrying increased for women thirty-five and older; along with the risk of late-pregnancy complications.

      As a psychologist Claire counseled herself to prepare to