Devoted(64)

“Yes, of course. If you prefer.”

“Lee Shacket was at our wedding. The album I kept has a few snapshots of him. He still looks much the same—except he’s dyed his hair. He had a beard for a long while, though not back when I knew him, so it’s just the hair that’s changed from the photos.”

“Could you show that album to me?”



“I’m not leaving Woody. Go downstairs to the study. On one of the bookshelves are eight or ten photo albums. It’s the white one with gold trim. Bring it to me, and I’ll find Lee Shacket for you.”

In the sheriff’s absence, she spoke softly to Woody, assuring him that they were safe now, that Shacket would be found and would not be returning. Those assurances, however, were hopes rather than certainties, and perhaps the boy detected the difference, for he did not return from whatever deep place in his psyche he had gone.

The wind howled down on the house, not a nature sound empty of meaning, but a shriek of blackest madness, conjuring in Megan’s mind a painting by the eighteenth-century Spanish master Francisco Goya, Saturn Devouring His Children, a nihilistic image of such insane violence that it was capable of inspiring genuine fear in the viewer and weeks of nightmares.

Shacket had shattered one of the sidelights flanking the front door. Sam Brickit could fill the frame with plywood till a glazier came to replace the glass. The alarm would continue to function in the meantime. She would arrange to have double deadbolts installed on every door. Key locks on the operable sash windows rather than thumb-turn latches. She had a spare magazine for the pistol. From now on she’d keep it loaded and always with the weapon. She would draw shut the draperies at all the windows, day and night, so that activities in the house could not be observed by anyone outside.

And all of that would be for nothing.

She wouldn’t feel safe, wouldn’t be safe, not for a minute, until Shacket was apprehended.



In truth, she wouldn’t feel safe until he was dead.

We all make mistakes though, don’t we, Megan? I made one when I left my pistol in your kitchen earlier, after I ate that hot bitch’s tits. No, that’s not right, it was a steak. In your kitchen, it was a steak, and it wasn’t as good as Justine’s breasts.

The temptation was to take everything he’d said as the ravings of a madman, but he’d indeed left his gun in the kitchen. And Deputy Carrickton had asked about the raw steaks on the kitchen floor.

The sheriff returned with the white-and-gold photo album.

Megan paged through it and found a good snapshot of Shacket in suit and tie, at the reception following the wedding, proposing a toast to the newlyweds.

“Nathan Palmer,” Eckman said. “Everything but the blond hair.”

Rising from the chair, Megan said, “Come with me.”

She put the album on the bed and led Eckman into the upstairs hall.

Easing the door most of the way shut between them and Woody, she spoke hardly louder than a whisper. “Is Lee Shacket wanted for something more than the fire at the Refine facility?”

His eyes were abacus beads of calculation. He followed her example and spoke softly. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Bookman, but I’m not at liberty—”

“A woman named Justine,” she interrupted. “Did he murder a woman named Justine?”



After a silence, Eckman said, “There’s been no media yet.”

“He made a reference to something . . . sick. I wasn’t sure if it was true or not. Did he kill her here or in Utah?”

Eckman relented. “It’ll hit the news tomorrow. This couple had a flat tire on highway 20. Wouldn’t have been much traffic at the time. Palmer . . . Shacket evidently came along. He shot the man four times, killed them both.”

The sheriff was clearly still tabulating the pros and cons of sharing more than he’d already revealed.

Pressing the issue, Megan said, “How did he kill Justine?”

Eckman hesitated as the wind played Saturn, crying progenicide down the ever-darker night, and then he said, “He bit her.”

“To death?”

“Yes. But I must ask you, Ms. Bookman, to please—”

“Did he . . . eat part of her?”

Eckman frowned. “Apparently cannibalism was involved.”

Megan looked away from him. The horror was of such an intimate nature that she could not meet his eyes to discuss it. “Was it her breasts?”

“So he told you.”

“Indirectly.”

“One of her breasts. Part of the other. And most of her face.”

“Oh, my God.” Her once white-hot fear, which lately had been simmering, suddenly flashed bright. She remembered how Shacket had touched Woody’s face, how close his face—his mouth—had been to the boy. “We can’t stay here. We’re getting out tonight. Now.”



“I can assign you protection.”

She met his eyes once more. “You don’t have enough men. There aren’t enough police in the world to keep me here.”

“It would be helpful if you didn’t mention this to anyone. We don’t want to panic the public. We need to manage the release of the information, probably by noon tomorrow, maybe as late as early afternoon. We need time to craft answers to assure—”