"Mr. Taylor, you said you have information for me?"

The man nodded. He appeared middle-aged, somewhere perhaps near sixty, and he didn't much fit the impression she had of the others who must live in such an area. He was no Ed Flanery, overweight and lonely and senile. Nor was he an Annabelle Rouge, aged and scarred by years of hard living. This man (he'd called himself Bill Taylor) exuded a sophistication utterly incongruous with his surroundings.

She'd been trying to find Annabelle, fruitlessly knocking on the door of a house she was sure belonged to the woman, when Bill Taylor called to her, told her not to bother, that Anabelle wasn't home. Vanessa had met him as he'd walked toward her, dressed in rather trendy jeans and tee, pointed boots and a trim goatee. They'd chatted a little before he'd offered her a cup of coffee and a conversation. She'd obliged, if for the caffeine as much as the potential information; after her freaky encounter with Ed Flanery, Vanessa was in need of a hot cup of something. She was prepared this time, though—she made sure to insist they sit outside "since it's such a lovely morning."

Bill Taylor didn't give off weird vibes, beyond those suggesting he was out of place. His home, even on the outside, was meticulously cared-for, looked almost brand-new in comparison to the others.

Bill handed her a mug as he exited his trailer. "Keurig. Sorry it ain't home-brewed. When you live alone as long as I have, you take all the shortcuts you can."

"Oh, you don't have to tell me about that," Vanessa good-naturedly replied. "I'm all about shortcuts." She glanced down into the mug. "I am so sorry. I should've mentioned I don't care for cream—"

"It's not. Splash of milk. Skim."

Vanessa raised her eyebrows. "How'd you know?"

One side of Bill's mouth smiled, but he didn't answer.

The woman was in a surprisingly comfortable folding chair. Her host sat across from her in one of two others. He had a small fire pit in the midst of the ring, but it was at present covered, and the shade he'd pulled from the top of his trailer gave the impression they were camping at an RV park.

"Is this a permanent home for you?" Vanessa found herself asking, though she quickly felt rude for it.

"Didn't intend for it to be," Bill answered, unaware of her sheepish expression. "Just sort of turned out that way." He adjusted his position in his chair. "Long time ago, fifteen years or so, I was in prison. When I got out, I came here to sort of get back on my feet, but that turned itself into a much longer stay."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be nosey." Or she hadn't meant to be so obvious about it, anyway.

"Oh, no. It's all right. Used to be a lot more people here. They all assumed I was some sort of pervert, that it was why I was incarcerated, and I let them think it. Kept them all away."

Vanessa flutter-blinked, sipped her coffee to hide her surprise at his candidness.

"That wasn't why," Bill good-naturedly assured her. "Drug trafficking. Made some poor choices in my younger days, traveling—eh. No matter. You're here to ask about Damien Jensen, so go on and do it."

"You know about what he's doing?"

Bill's lips nearly quivered into a frown. "I know what you think he's doing."

"Anything at all you can tell me—"

"I won't be of much use, I'm afraid. I'll be gone before we can really get talking."

The woman didn't know what to make of that, so she ignored it and kept on. "What does he want? How can we stop him from hurting those kids?"

Sighing, Bill lowered his own mug to his lap. "What Damien wants, you should ask him yourself. What the ones at that high school want, well . . ." He looked askance, scrunched up his mouth. "I've always wondered whether it was some kind of revenge."

"Revenge against whom?"

Bill shrugged. "That's the question, isn't it? Just seems like someone must be angry about something. But I'm afraid that as many times as we've had this conversation, my understanding hasn't really changed."

She laughed lightly. "I don't think we've had this conversation before, Mr. Taylor."

"Bill."

"Bill. I'm sorry, but I can't recall having met you before now."

He leaned over a bit, elbows on knees. "I keep hoping I'll be able to help, Ms. Tan, every time I see you running out of Ed's, banging on Annabelle's door, but that's the damned quirk of it, the reason we can't get out—it never changes, no matter what we do. It finds a way to give us the same outcome."

Vanessa was more confused than ever. Were all these people insane? Was there something in the air, here? "You sound like Arlo."

"Do I? Arlo Kirk? Well that's interesting, as he's been dead for quite a few years." Bill sat back, looked a bit perplexed. "You know, I don't recall having told you that before. That's a new bit, isn't it?"

The woman hadn't quite heard past the part about Arlo being dead. Somewhere beyond them, a cricket began to chirp. Or maybe it'd been chirping the whole time, and Vanessa only now heard it because of the quiet. Her gaze was on the empty woven chair across from her, and as she stared at it, its lines began to blur, to duplicate, to triplicate, to vibrate in time with the buzzing in her head. She lost control of her hands but realized too late when the mug fell and spilled hot coffee across her lap, pulling her back to reality.

"Oh goodness." Bill rose as she jumped up. His monotone indicated no sense of surprise. "What can I do?"

"I—dammit. God dammit! Just, I don't know. Do you—"

"Bathroom's right inside, towels and everything. You go have some privacy. I'll stay here." He sat back down, crossed one leg over the other, looked off toward the skyline. "It's been nice again," he added emotionlessly, "our conversation."

Entirely flustered, Vanessa went ahead and crossed the gravel toward the trailer steps, proceeded up them and through the spring-loaded screen door. The interior of Bill's modular was immaculate, one large open space with all the amenities for an older single man. But when she turned away from the kitchen and toward the right where she assumed the bathroom would be, she caught sight of the ugliest painting she'd ever seen staring at her from the wall. It was terribly dated, one of those sad-faced harlequin clowns, white makeup with black diamonds around its eyes and stretching down onto its cheeks. A ruffle of gray circled its chin so that its smooth, shiny head resembled a cue ball atop a pillow, and in one of its delicate hands, it held the string of a red balloon.

It was absolutely hideous. Depressing, actually. Why it hung in this man's trailer was beyond her. Obviously, she'd been wrong about Bill. What had he said? They'd thought him a pervert? Well, who else would have such a painting? She was a profiler after all, wasn't she? She was supposed to know about these things, to be a pro at this. So why did she feel so . . . so off?

She tore her eyes from the sad clown and moved toward a half-open door which thankfully led into a simple but clean bathroom. Several minutes of attempting to soak up the hot liquid from her jeans did little more than make her wish she'd worn a skirt.

Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the sink, Vanessa groaned. She looked a mess, tired and bedraggled, her hair coming undone from the twist she'd attempted to style it into before leaving the motel. Probably it'd been the interaction with Ed Flanery. That'd freaked her out for sure. And now this man, Bill—he'd seemed normal, and yet he'd begun saying strange things, too.

Oh, what was she even doing here? Eli and that hostage situation seemed like a strange dream that wasn't even her own. Was all that really happening? She'd driven out here thinking she could help a couple of old friends and a bunch of teenagers, but she'd gotten zero helpful information. Instead, she'd begun to feel as if she were in a nightmare. Everybody spoke in riddles, and she was beginning to doubt her own senses. Waking up in a tub without knowing how she'd gotten there, misremembering her own memories, seeing multiples of objects right in front of her face. Maybe it was something to do with the desert air. Or a gas leak, or chemicals in the water, or military tests messing with airwaves . . . there'd been stranger things. Maybe it was time she admitted it to Eli that she wasn't feeling up to the task. It was an illness of some kind; surely he'd understand. Surely he wouldn't want her to be wrapped up in all this if it were affecting her health, if she were doing no good anyway.

She met her black eyes in the mirror. No. You coward. We've been through worse than this, haven't we? Hadn't she? When she'd been with her Daddy, and she'd looked up at the stars that one night . . .

Her father. He'd been very different from her, hadn't he? And yet they'd gotten along so well. She'd been so young when he'd taken her from her foster parents. Sheltered her. Protected her. Vanessa closed her eyes. An image of the man shimmered into the darkness of her mind, hovered there like an apparition. Yes, he'd cared very much about her. Always wanted her to be herself, to express who she was. Her foster parents had been kind, but they'd kept her inside, isolated. Her father had offered her freedom. Had encouraged her. She watched the image of him smile, his black curls falling around his face, his heavy brow. She'd never quite reflected on how little they resembled one another. He'd just been Daddy—or, he'd said he was . . .

A pungent aroma met Vanessa's nostrils, a sour, vinegary smell. She snapped open her eyes, and the moment she did so, she caught a fleeting glimpse of a black figure behind her, but before she could grasp what exactly it was, it made a grab for her, and she darted from the bathroom.

The painting—the ugly harlqeuin—the minute she saw it, the thing slid off the wall and thunked to the floor, only to reveal another behind it. The second fell, and behind that was a slipping third, and a fourth and a fifth. As Vanessa stood there, she counted the cascade of hideous clowns until the seventh fell off to join the others but left nothing in its wake. Vertigo overtook the woman. Her vision began splitting everything in two so that it felt as if she'd been drinking too much, like that one time she really shouldn't have been driving and all the street lamps and signs were produced in double. Vanessa stumbled out the door and down the steps, the bright sunlight solidifying the lines of the chairs and homes and trailers beyond. She regained her equilibrium only to see that Bill was no longer there.

Somewhere far off, a dog barked, but beyond her own breath, Vanessa heard nothing, so she was caught entirely off guard when hands gripped her from behind.

They pulled her back up the stairs, back into the trailer, and back to the bathroom. Vanessa could do nothing but scrabble along, trying to pull at the black-clad forearms tight against her chest and up under her chin. Her screams came out as no more than grunts; she could hardly breathe. The shower was running, now, and the arms backed up with her into it. She tried to fight, yanked the mirror off the wall, kicked against a cabinet hard enough to break its handle, but she couldn't escape her assailant, and within a moment, she was drenched in a frigid, foul-smelling liquid. The very space around her flickered into blackness, as if reality itself were attempting to keep hold but losing the battle, and with the freezing shower and the strangulating arms and the vacillation of dark and light, in and out, Vanessa began to lose consciousness.

And then, quite suddenly, a small glittering thing moved within the shadows clouding her eyes, a flash of emerald green right in front of her, and the part of her hanging on wanted to reach out to it, to clutch it within the cage of her fingers.

The chokehold slackened. Air rushed into her chest, expanding her lungs. Vanessa gasped, and the butterfly crystallized. It was there, really there, somehow, in that horribly small bathroom with its smelly arctic waters pouring down on her. She put out an arm toward the silent insect and pulled herself from the icy shower. Fingers clawed at her back, her shoulders and neck, but they'd lost their purchase, and Vanessa left the bathroom and found her way back out into the sunshine, following the butterfly until it disappeared into the spinning blue sky and her legs gave way beneath her.

The woman fell to the ground, spluttering and clutching dusty earth and gravel between her fingers, working it into mud as clear liquid ran off her hair and chin. She wretched up the little coffee she'd managed to drink before spilling it on herself.

"All right, there?"

Vanessa's stomach twisted, but she didn't look up from the wet hair curtaining her face. The voice wasn't Bill's.

Arlo crouched down beside her, placed a tentative hand on her back. "Can I . . . can I get you anything?"

As her stomach settled and she began to shiver uncontrollably, Vanessa remembered what Bill had told her. She shook the man's hand from her shoulder and wiped her muddy palms against her shirt, then pushed back onto her haunches. "What the hell is wrong with everybody in this place?" she managed through chattering teeth. "Get away from me."

But Arlo knelt on the ground across from her, planting himself firmly within her vision. "I made it this time, didn't I? I managed to stop it?"

"What are you even talking about?" She wiped her mouth with her sleeve before removing her jacket altogether and tossing the befouled garment aside.

"I can smell it on you, and you're here, so it must not have—"

"Oh shut up!" With a surge of energy coursing through her, Vanessa got to her feet. Trembling didn't keep her from holding out and firmly gripping the gun she'd withdrawn from her jacket. Across from her, Arlo stood as well, but he didn't look as phased as Vanessa had expected him to. "What is going on? Why are you here? What happened to Bill? Was it you that was in there tr-trying to strangle me?"

"Nobody was trying to strangle you."

"Don't fucking lie! I've come here to try to help a bunch of poor kids, but you're all psychopaths! How can you not want to help? What is wrong with you people?"

"I haven't lied to you."

"Bullshit!"

Arlo frowned.

"Arlo Kirk's been dead for years!" Vanessa waggled the gun in her fury; the man stepped back. "Bill Taylor told me."

Rubbing the back of his neck, Arlo replied, "Yeah, so? Everybody knows that."

Vanessa stared at him incredulously. "You said you were Arlo!"

He shook his head. "No, no I never did. You just assumed it was my name, and I didn't feel like correcting you."

"What?" She lowered the gun, laughed frenetically. "Then who the hell are you?"

The man ran a hand through his dark hair, resignedly shrugged. Then as casually as if the name would mean nothing at all to her, he answered almost apologetically, "Damien. Damien Jensen."