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“Get you some breakfast?” sheasks.
“My usual,” Isay.
“Um,” Jeffrey says, looking around like he hasn’t bothered to look at the menu and doesn’t know where he has it hidden by the newspaper. “Just whatever she’shaving.”
He’s not going to be pleased. I already know. But I don’t say anything. He ordered it. He can deal with it.
“Be right back,” she says, turns on her heel, andleaves.
“They still haven’t made any arrests for those hammer attacks,” Jeffrey grumbles, still reading. “How many people are going to have to get their brains bashed in before those cops get their shit together and figure out who’s doing it?”
It’s not the most sensitive of approaches for what has proven to be one of the more gruesome spree killings in recent memory, but I can understand the bristled way he talks about it. As special agents in the FBI, our lives are about coming face-to-face with the worst criminals in existence and doing whatever it takes to stop them and bring them to justice. Or at the very least remove them from society so they are no longer arisk.
This particular series of crimes is getting under the skin of every agent I know. Though it’s happening in Colorado, clear across the country from where we’re sitting in a diner in peaceful little Sherwood, Virginia, for those of us in the Bureau, distance means nothing. If it’s happening anywhere, it’s happening right beside us. Our fellow agents are embroiled in it. We feel like we could reach out and touch the victims. When we see the pictures of the horrific scenes, we can feel the heaviness in the air, we can smell the blood.
The investigation into these crimes has stretched out all year, since four brutal hammer attacks across the span of twelve bloody days in January claimed lives and left others tattered and traumatized. A killer who sneaks into peoples’ homes through their open garage doors and bludgeons them to death. It’s been seven months. Seven months of people terrified to sleep in their own homes, going to bed wearing helmets to protect themselves. Seven months of men who had never thought of having a gun near their families arming themselves and sitting in their garages throughout the night, waiting with the door open to lure in akiller.
“They’ll find him,” I tell him. “They’ll figure it out. It can’t happen fast enough, though. I know I took a second look at my neighbors’ garage doors last night before bed. Sam has done his fair share of complaining about our cars sitting out in the driveway, especially when they get dripped on by that big maple, but right about now I’m glad we don’t haveone.”
It’s one of those unfathomable situations to think these people missed just two simple steps in their nighttime routine. Two things that likely would have saved their lives. They didn’t make sure to close their garage door at the end of the day, and they didn’t lock the door leading into their home. One victim didn’t even need to leave the door unlocked. She was viciously attacked as soon as she stepped out of her car when she got home.
But as much as I think about the simplicity of locking the door, I know that likely wasn’t even truly a skipped step. A lot of people don’t think about locking their doors, especially not the one that leads to the garage. It just doesn’t seem worth the thought or the effort. No one comes that close. No one invades their space like that. Doors are left unlocked, windows left wide open.
Years ago, I’d been known to do the same thing. When the weather starts to cool off in the fall and I can finally breathe without all the heavy summer humidity, I love to open up the windows and prop open the back door to let the house fill up with the spicy, crisp autumn air. I love it, but I rarely do it anymore. Sam hated it. But it wasn’t until the first time he said I needed to stop being so trusting that I realized I was putting myself indanger.
That sounds ridiculous. My life is about danger. I’ve seen human beings at their absolute most cruel and watched murders unfold that show how truly horrible people can be to each other. Sometimes for nothing more than the fun of it.
But I kept that separated from myself. I ignored that I could just as easily fall victim to someone looking for the next person to attack. That my badge and my husband’s shield didn’t somehow create a forcefield of immunity around us in our home.
I have always been the kind to look in the backseat before closing the car door. I am constantly aware of my surroundings. My gun stays on my hip wherever I go.
And yet, it wasn’t until Sam said it that the risk narrowed in right to my living room. He was right. Opening those windows and doors was me being too trusting. It was allowing people into my personal bubble in a way I didn’t want them to be.
I had screens installed on the windows. I stopped propping thedoor.
Just a few months later, someone still got inside.
It puts me more on edge. It makes me fiercely protective of the neighbors who share my quiet street, some of whom still look at my house and think of it as belonging to my grandparents.
“I can’t believe she actually sent her kids.” A woman’s voice catches my attention as she walks past toward a table a few feet from us. “My boy asked, but there’s no way. No way I’d let him go to thatplace.”
“I’m with you. Jessica started talking about it when they first advertised reopening and I told her, absolutely not. There are plenty of other camps. I sent her to one near Williamsburg. She’s been writing letters home and is having a great time. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to say the same for these kids,” another responds as they take their seats.
Jeffrey looks across the table at me with a raised eyebrow. “What’s that allabout?”
I shrug. “I’m notsure.”
“Camp Hollow,” Sarah says as she suddenly appears by the side of the table again with a tray of our food.
She has a look on her face that seems like she’s giving us a juicy piece of gossip, but there’s fear behind her eyes.
“Camp Hollow?” Jeffrey frowns.
“The camp,” she says with emphasis on the words that indicates she thinks this is a bit of information everyone knows.
“I’m sorry, I don’tunderstand.”
“You must not be from around here,” she says.
