Violets Are Blue

the killer might be hiding. This was Bonnie and Clyde stuff. By the time we got to the thick woods surrounding the house it was past five o’clock. It would be dark soon enough.
    The house was a two-story wood-framed structure obscured by an overgrowth of wisteria and myrtle. Pinecones, hickory nuts, and what are known locally as sweet gum monkey balls covered the ground where we hid and watched. Everything about the place brought back memories of where I had grown up in the South. Not too many happy moments, unfortunately. My mother and father had both died in their thirties, well before their time. My therapist has a theory that I see myself dying young because both my parents did. The Mastermind seems to hold a similar theory, and perhaps wants to put it into action soon.
    The roof of the old house was sharply pitched; a narrow attic window was broken in two places. The peeling white-painted clapboards were mostly intact, but the asbestos-shingled roof was bare in spots, revealing tar paper. Creepy, creepy, creepy.
    The FBI was supersensitive to the fact that most of those inside the house were probably under twenty years old. They didn’t know exactly who they were or if any had police records. There was no proof they were involved with the murders. It was decided that as long as we remained undetected, we’d wait until night to see if anyone left or entered. Then we would move on the house. The situation was getting sticky, maybe political, and there would be consequences if a minor got hurt or killed.
    In sharp contrast, everything seemed peaceful in the woods; the ramshackle house was strangely quiet considering all the young people who were supposed to be in there. No loud laughter or rock music, no smells of cooking. Dim lights were flickering.
    My growing fear was that the killer was already gone, that we were too late.

Chapter 49

    SOMEONE WAS whispering close to my ear—it was Kyle.
    “Let’s go, Alex. It’s time to move on them.”
    At four in the morning, he gave the signal to breach the house. Kyle was calling all the shots. He had authority over the locals too.
    I accompanied a dozen agents outfitted in blue windbreakers. Nobody was feeling too secure about the raid. We moved cautiously to within seventy-five yards of the house, the edge of the pine forest. Two snipers, who had dug in about thirty yards from the house, radioed that it was still quiet inside. Too quiet?
    “These are mostly young kids,” Kyle reminded us before we went in. “But protect yourselves first.”
    We crawled on our hands and knees until we were as close as the snipers. Then we rushed the house, using three entrances to get inside.
    Kyle and I went through the front, the others through the side and back. A couple of flash-bang grenades went off. There was screaming on the ground floor. High-pitched. Kids. No gunshots yet.
    It was a weird, chaotic scene. Stoned kids — lots of them, most in their underwear or nude. At least twenty teenagers had been sleeping on the ground floor. No electricity, just candles. The place smelled of urine, weed, mildew, cheap wine, and wax. Insane Clown Posse and Killah Priest posters were hung on the walls.
    The tiny front hall and the living room merged into an open area. The kids had been asleep on blankets or just the wooden floor. Now they were awake, and angry, shouting, “Pigs! Cops! Get the fuck out!”
    Agents were rousting more of them on the second floor. There were fistfights but still no gunshots. No one seriously hurt yet. A sense of anticlimax.
    A skinny boy screamed at the top of his voice and rushed at me. He seemed to have no fear. His eyes were bloodred. Color contacts. He was growling and drooling frothy saliva. I took him down in a headlock, cuffed him, told him to chill before he got himself hurt. I doubt that he weighed much more than a hundred and forty pounds, but he was wiry and stronger than he looked.
    An agent near me wasn’t so lucky—a heavyset redheaded girl bit him in the cheek as he was attempting to restrain her. Then the girl bit into his chest. The agent howled and struggled to get her off. She held on like a dog with a bone.
    I yanked the girl away and cuffed her arms behind her back. She wore a black T-shirt with “Merry Fuckin’ Xmas Bitch” printed on it. She had tattoos of snakes and skulls everywhere. She was screaming in my face, “You are unworthy! You suck!”
    “The one we want is in the cellar! The killer,” Kyle called to me.