The Edge of Sleep Read Online Free

me about it. Let me get a feel for the case without the emotional load of the pictures.”
    Karen blew softly and silently through her lips before starting. “It’s kids,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Some son of a bitch is killing kids.”
    Karen was surprised and embarrassed by the sudden flood of emotion. Her voice cracked and her eyes filled with tears. Becker reached out to comfort her, but she pulled back from him and shot her chin up. When she spoke again she sounded angry, but there was no sound of tears in her voice.
    “Kids—boys—have been missing from New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts. Connecticut. They’re gone for a time, a month or two—the longest was eleven weeks—and then they are found dead.”
    “How many?”
    “Six—that we know about. The first that suits the pattern was a nine-year-old boy named Amell Wicker, who disappeared from a shopping mall in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Eight months later it was a boy from Bethpage, Long Island. Last seen in another shopping mall. His mother let him go for a slice of pizza while she was shopping for shoes. He never came back. They found his body in a garbage bag alongside the highway thirty miles from Bethpage two months later.”
    “When was the next one missing?”
    “Eight months later. Peabody, Massachusetts. Body discovered six weeks later.”
    “How long had he been dead when he was discovered?” Becker asked.
    “Less than forty-eight hours. Again it was in a garbage bag, alongside a highway.”
    “This one taken from a shopping mall, too?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’ve checked all the employees to see if any of them worked in more than one of the malls.” It was not a question; Becker knew the answer.
    “One employee in common. Peter Steinholz was the manager of a cookie franchise in Upper Saddle River and in Stamford, Connecticut, where the fifth boy was snatched. He’s a family man, wife, two kids.”
    “Doesn’t mean anything.”
    “No prior arrest record except one DWI three years ago. Reasonable alibi. He checks out pretty clean.”
    “Sales reps? Suppliers? Service people? Anybody who might have been at all the malls? The guy who fixes the cookie maker’s ovens, for instance.”
    “A few overlaps, six or seven, but the timing is wrong on all of them. You know it wouldn’t be that easy or we would have found him already.”
    “I’m just asking out of habit. I know you’ve done all you could or you wouldn’t be here. Tell me about the fourth one.”
    “Ricky Stine, Newburgh, New York. Disappeared from a schoolyard during recess. Went out to play with the rest of the kids, never came back. They thought maybe he’d just wandered off, had him listed as a runaway for a couple of weeks until they found his body.”
    “Why a runaway?”
    “He was hyperactive, always into trouble of some kind. Not a bad kid, just hard to control. His parents said he’d had a history of running away from home, showing up again in a day or two. This time he didn’t show up again.”
    “How long was that after the kid from Peabody was found?”
    “Ricky went missing six months later.”
    Becker nodded. He kept his eyes fixed on the folder as if reading it through the cover.
    “Significant?” she asked.
    “Not yet. How long till number five?”
    Karen looked at her notes. “Four and a half months.”
    “He’s getting more frequent. There was an interval of eight months after the first two, then six months, then four and a half.”
    “Because he’s getting away with it? More confident?” Becker shot her a glance.
    “He’s not thinking about getting away with it, not when he snatches them. Later, when he has to dispose of the body, he might think about details then.”
    “What is he thinking about when he snatches them?”
    “He’s not thinking at all. He’s feeling.”
    “Feeling what?”
    “I don’t know yet. I don’t know what he does with them.”
    “When I tell you what he does with them, will you