Violets Are Blue

trick question. “Even better than that,” I told her. “I’m going to make some big changes soon. I promise you.”

Chapter 110

    I LEFT for Charlotte, North Carolina, on a ten o’clock flight out of D.C. I was heading south to visit Craig family members. Maybe Kyle was there as well. It wouldn’t surprise me.
    His father, William Craig, chose not to be home when I arrived at the estate where Kyle and his brothers had been raised. It was a gentleman’s farm, with a rambling stone-and-wood house set on over forty acres in horse country. Someone on the staff told me it cost over fifteen dollars a yard just to paint all the white fences running around the pastures.
    I spoke with Miriam Craig on a rear porch that overlooked wildflower gardens and a rock-filled brook. She seemed very much in control of her emotions, which surprised me, but maybe shouldn’t have. Mrs. Craig told me a great deal about her family.
    “Kyle’s father and I had no idea, no clue about his darker side, if indeed the terrible allegations are true,” she said. “Kyle was always distant, reserved, introspective, I suppose you could say, but there was nothing to suggest that he might be this troubled. He did well in school, and in athletics. Kyle even plays the piano with a beautiful touch.”
    “I never knew he played,” I said, and yet Kyle had often commented on my playing. “Did you and his father tell him how well he was doing — in school, for example? In athletics? I suspect that boys need to hear that more than we know.”
    Mrs. Craig took offense. “He didn’t want to hear it. He’d say, ‘I know,’ and then walk away from us. Almost as if we had disappointed him by stating the obvious to him.”
    “His brothers did better than Kyle in school?”
    “In terms of grades, yes, but the boys were all high-honor students. Most teachers saw Kyle as being deeper. I believe that he had the highest IQ, one forty-nine, if I remember correctly. He chose not to apply himself to every subject. He had a strong will, even as a young boy.”
    “But there were no obvious signs that he was severely troubled?”
    “No, Detective Cross. Believe me, I’ve thought about it a lot.”
    “Kyle’s father would agree?”
    “We talked about it just last night. He agrees. He’s just too upset to be here. Kyle’s father is a proud man, and a good one. William Craig is a very good man.”
    Next, I went to see Kyle’s brother. I talked to Dr. Craig in a white-on-white conference room at the Charlotte clinic where he was a partner.
    “I found Kyle to be caustic and very cruel. I know that Blake did as well,” he confessed over tea.
    “Cruel in what way?” I asked.
    “Not to small animals or anything obvious like that — to other people. Actually, Kyle liked animals just fine. He was vicious at school, though. Both verbally and physically. A real prick. Nobody liked him much. He had no close friends that I remember. That’s odd, isn’t it? Kyle never had a single close friend. Let me tell you something, Detective. During Kyle’s sophomore and most of his junior year, our father made him sleep in the garage because he was so unpleasant to have around.”
    “That seems a little severe,” I commented. Nothing I’d heard so far was as revealing. Kyle had never mentioned the punishment. Neither had Mrs. Craig. All she’d said was that Kyle’s father was a good man, whatever that meant.
    “I don’t think it was severe, Detective. I think it was fair, and much less than he deserved. Kyle should have been thrown out of our house when he was around thirteen. My brother was a goddamn monster, and apparently he still is.”

Chapter 111

    WHO WOULD Kyle go after next?
It was the question that obsessed me now. I couldn’t let it go. When I got home that night, I began to think about going out to Seattle. I had a bad feeling. Lots of them, actually. Should I go out there? Would Kyle go after Christine Johnson next? He knew how to strike to cause the most hurt. Kyle knew me so well — but apparently I didn’t know Kyle at all.
    Would he go after Christine? Or maybe Jamilla? Was I thinking the way Kyle would?
    One step ahead.
    God damn him to hell.
    Maybe he would just come after me; maybe all I had to do was stay in the house on Fifth Street and wait for him to show up.
    The question was burning inside my head. What was everybody who was looking for Kyle missing? What did he want—more than anything else? What motivated him? Who was on