Dead Hunt

Jin.
‘‘Why is he paying you?’’ said Neva. ‘‘That’s so strange.’’
‘‘I don’t know. Did you find anything else? Fingerprints?’’ she asked David.
‘‘No, and I found that odd. How did he get the paper cut if he had gloves on?’’ David said.
‘‘You know,’’ said Jin, ‘‘not everyone leaves prints. If you have very dry skin, or handle a lot of paper in your job, or—’’
‘‘I know,’’ said David. ‘‘Your prints get sanded off, so to speak. I know that. It’s still strange that there weren’t any prints from anyone.’’
‘‘What about the postmark?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘Rosewood,’’ said David.
‘‘Was there a—’’ began Jin.
‘‘No, there was no return address,’’ said David.
‘‘Just asking,’’ he said.
‘‘What about the note?’’ asked Diane.
David smiled. ‘‘That was a little more helpful. The writing is simple block letters. The pressure was very heavy. I think this is an angry guy.’’
‘‘What did the note say?’’ asked Neva.
‘‘Bitch,’’ said David.
‘‘And you needed to look at the amount of pressure he used to figure out he was angry?’’ said Neva. She grinned at David’s scowl.
David ignored her. ‘‘What was kind of interesting was what was indented in the paper. He wrote the message on a piece of lined school paper that had been underneath a page that had been written on.’’
‘‘I’m assuming you used the electrostatic machine,’’ said Diane.
‘‘I did but really didn’t need to because the pressure was hard there too,’’ said David.
‘‘What was it?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘Words,’’ said David. He jumped up and went to his desk inside one of the glass rooms and came out with a piece of paper. ‘‘Back, red, blue, have, dog, play, and face.’’
‘‘What the heck is that?’’ said Jin.
‘‘Spelling words,’’ said Diane. ‘‘First grade, if I’m not mistaken.’’
David nodded and put the paper down. There in a neat but unmistakably child’s printing was a vertical list of words.
‘‘That’s good,’’ said Neva. ‘‘You can narrow down a community with that information.’’
‘‘I know. Now all I have to do is figure out what I’m going to say—hello, I’m from the Rosewood police and I need to get a list of your first-grade spelling words.’’ David started to laugh before he even finished. Jin and Neva started, so did Diane, and for a moment the four of them sat at the table laughing.
‘‘When I figure out just how to go about it, I’ll find out what school and maybe what classroom this kid is in.’’
Diane was starting to feel like they were making progress after all. She started to ask about Jin’s DNA search when she saw a red glow coming from David’s glassed-in workspace.

Chapter 40
    ‘‘What is that?’’ asked Neva, pointing toward a red glow illuminating the inside of David’s cubicle.
    David grimaced, alarm evident in his dark eyes. He stroked his bald scalp and the fringe of hair circling his head and looked at Diane.
    What? she thought. Then it occurred to her— Arachnid. Arachnid had found something. She started to open her mouth, then shut it.
    ‘‘What’s wrong?’’ said Neva. ‘‘Is the building on fire?’’
Diane could see David’s dilemma. He was actually proud of his program and wanted to show what he’d done. But he also didn’t want anyone to know about it.
‘‘Okay,’’ said Jin looking from David to Diane. ‘‘You two are really freaking us out here. What’s going on? Do we need to evacuate? Has some toxic chemical breeched its containment? Are the dermestid beetles loose? What?’’
Diane didn’t say anything; she just looked at David. He sat down and put his hands flat on the table.
‘‘If I tell you, you have to promise to keep it a secret,’’ he said to Jin and Neva.
Neva glanced at Diane and gave her a what’s-heup-to? smile.
‘‘We promise,’’ said Neva.
‘‘Jin?’’ said David.
‘‘Sure,’’ he said.
‘‘Sure what?’’ said David.
‘‘Okay,’’ said Jin. ‘‘Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye. Is that what you want to hear? You’ve got me curious now. You’ll never get any peace from either of us unless you tell us, I swear.’’
‘‘Okay. I wrote some software. It’s in the basement,’’ said David.
‘‘What?’’ said Jin. ‘‘You wrote some software—it’s in the basement? Those two sentences don’t go together. What