Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(98)

Grim as this job is, it’s the one part of Rocky’s world that’s not foreign to him right now. As soon as they’re done here, he’s going right back to the hospital to see for himself that Ange is well-protected.

Then he’ll go to the precinct to complete endless paperwork.

And eventually, he’ll head home to the strangely empty house to maybe catch some rest . . .

And take a good look around, he reminds himself.

The broken window now seems like an obvious link to the case.

Is it possible that he missed something the first time? Some kind of clue left behind—maybe even on purpose?

That wouldn’t be unheard of with a guy like this—a killer who goes to so much trouble staging murder scenes, taking gruesome souvenirs. He gets off on playing games with the victims and with law enforcement.

“Nice,” Murph says, and Rocky looks up to see him gazing at the Webers’ house. The driveway ends in a loop around a landscaped circle at the front entrance. Redbrick facade, pillars, tall windows—the place looks like the country manor of someone very wealthy.

Reading Rocky’s mind as usual, Murph asks, “Wall Street?”

“Ad sales.”

“We’re in the wrong business, Rock.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Think it’s too late to reinvent ourselves?”

“Hell, yeah. Look at us.”

“What, you think we’re over the hill?”

Rocky shakes his head wryly. “Come on, Gramps, let’s get moving.”

The house is surrounded by neatly pruned hedges and beds that either survived last weekend’s snowstorm or have since been replanted with mums and ornamental grasses. Fall foliage clings here and there to high branches of the towering oaks and maples, and fresh splintered gashes indicate that limbs were lost, but there are no branches or even leaves on the ground—courtesy, most likely, of a hired landscaping team and not the home’s owner with chain saw or even rake in hand. Not in these parts.

The door opens before Rocky and Murph have put a foot on the bottom step, and they look up to see a man standing there. Handsome, clean-shaven, and smelling of cologne, with damp-looking short hair that probably wasn’t cut for ten bucks in a barbershop, he’s wearing chinos, loafers, and an untucked, but perfectly pressed, blue plaid shirt.

“I’m Ben Weber.”

They flash their badges and introduce themselves to Ben and the petite, attractive, auburn-haired woman who comes up behind him: his wife, Randi. With her oversized diamond ring and obviously expensive clothes and perfume wafting through the air, she, like her husband, looks—and smells—as though she belongs here.

“Come in,” she says politely.

Stepping onto the marble floor of the entrance hall, Rocky notes the oil paintings on the walls, the sweeping staircase leading to second and then third floor balconies, and the classical music playing in the background. Nice. Very nice.

“We’d like to speak to Allison Taylor,” he says. “Is she here?”

“MacKenna.” Randi Weber’s closed lips curve into a brief nonsmile.

“Allison MacKenna, right. I . . . met her before. Years ago.”

“When her neighbor was killed.”

Rocky nods, wondering what else Randi knows about that—and everything else that’s gone on.

“She isn’t here right now.” That comes from Ben.

“Aunt Randi?”

At the sound of a child’s voice coming from overhead, all four adults look up to see a pair of small blond girls standing at the second floor railing.

“Do you know when Mommy will be back? We heard the buzzer and we thought that was her.”

“She’ll be here in a little while, sweetie.”

“Do you know where she went?” The taller of the two girls seems to be the spokesperson; the younger sister just bites her lip and eyes the newcomers in bashful silence.

Ben is the one who answers that question, and he shoots a quick glance at Rocky and Murph before he does. “She went out to run a couple of errands, girls. She’ll be back soon. Why don’t you go find Greta and see if she’ll play a game with you?”

Looking unsatisfied with the explanation for their mother’s absence, Allison’s daughters oblige nonetheless. The adults, heads tilted, watch them climb the stairs to the third floor. They can be heard knocking on a door up there and then talking to someone. A moment later, the door closes, swallowing the voices.

“Greta is our au pair,” Randi volunteers.

“And the girls are . . . ?” Rocky asks, though of course he’s already guessed.

“They’re Allison and Mack’s daughters.”

“And Allison is . . . out?”

Randi looks at Ben.

He clears his throat. “She was headed down to the police station to be with Mack. But the girls don’t know anything about—anything. We don’t want to worry them.”

“That’s understandable.”

“Mack isn’t—” Randi breaks off, starts again. “He’s not under arrest, is he?”

“As far as I know, he isn’t,” Rocky tells her.

And unless something else turns up to provide probable cause, he’s not going to be taken into custody in the immediate future. He’ll be free to come back here to his own family and the Webers, free to either try to put the nightmare behind him, or strike again . . .