After the big hill out of Manitou, Danny stopped at the gates of CJHCS. He looked at his watch. It was 5:15. He couldn’t believe that they’d have to come back here in less than two hours. He felt drawn by the school and looked at it through the wire mesh fence for a moment. Mr. Lebkuchen’s car was in the parking lot. An old beat-up tan Sierra four-door sedan.

  Danny checked his watch again. It said 5:20. Time to move or he might as well just stay there.

  He skated up Alameda, and on the level mesa that made up the upper part of the town of Cobalt, he found himself skating the map that Olivia had shown them.

  The map of Cobalt with the cat killings on it.

  The first house he came to was 16 Beechfield Road. A lady named Mrs. Craven. Beechfield was the oldest street in the town. Small ranch-style houses with gables and steep roofs and chain fences. Number 16 was no different from the others. Painted white, empty flowerpots, leaves in the yard. Single-story and, yes, it backed onto the woods. An eight-year-old Persian called Tigerfeet had been taken from here.

  The second point of the pentagram was on Mott Street. Number 11. Mrs. Pigeon’s tabby called Spartacus. Danny skated there, and that was also a single-story ranch-style house. A newer house with an ornamental fountain in the front yard. It didn’t appear to have a backyard at all; the house just stopped and the forest began.

  The last house on the pentagram so far was 9 Douglas Street, Sarah Kolpek’s house.

  He skated there.

  A two-story wooden cabin-style home, kids’ toys in a small yard, and that cat-hanging chestnut tree. Part of the clothesline the cat had apparently been hanged with was still there. Danny shivered. Why hadn’t someone cut it down?

  He stood there. He was starting to feel a little weirded out. Who hangs a cat from a tree? It was gruesome and cruel.

  “What do you want?” a voice said. A girl was walking toward him. Older girl, college age, wearing a black sweater and furry boots. Her orange hair was tied up in a black bandanna. She looked pissed.

  “What do you want?” she repeated.

  “I don’t know,” Danny said truthfully.

  “Get lost,” the girl said.

  “I was just looking,” Danny said.

  The girl crossed her arms. “Taking pictures for your blog or for YouTube, I suppose. You kids are sick. If my dad sees you, he’ll come out with the baseball bat. Now scram!”

  “Other kids have been here?” Danny asked.

  “Yeah, now beat it!”

  “Wait a second, how many kids?”

  “Three altogether. Now, listen to me, kid, you better—”

  “Boys? Tall blond one, a kind of darker one, and a pale one with glasses?” Danny asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Hector, Charlie, and Todd.

  “Are they with you?” the girl asked angrily.

  “No. They’re not with me. They were taking photographs?”

  “Yes, they oughtta be ashamed of themselves. Same with you; you’re all little creeps,” the girl said.

  Danny shook his head, kicked up his skateboard, and held it vertically in the tips of his fingers. “I’m here because I was worried,” he said.

  The girl’s face softened. “Sarah’s fine. She’s doing better anyway. Better than yesterday.”

  “I wasn’t worried about her. What I mean is, I am worried about her; she goes to my school and I’m glad she’s doing better, but the thing is … My name is Danny Lopez, by the way. She knows me a little bit … The thing is, I have a cat and I’m worried that whoever did this is going to come for my cat next.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. “Whoever did it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sheriff Rossi says it was a freak accident,” she said, but he could tell in her eyes that she didn’t believe that for a second.

  “It wasn’t an accident, was it?” she said. She bit her lip, unfolded her arms, and offered her hand. “I’m Claire, Sarah’s sister.”

  Danny shook her hand.

  “You have a cat, too?” she asked skeptically.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “It’s a he. Jeffrey.”

  “Hmm.”

  She looked at him for a second and then nodded to herself. “OK. Dad’s home, so we’ll have to go quietly. Follow me.”

  She led him around the side of the house, past an old lawn mower and stacks of chopped wood for the stove.

  She put her finger to her lips as she went past one window.

  “Sarah’s room,” she whispered.

  Danny trod carefully.

  When they got to the backyard, Claire led him to the fence at the rear of the house. “Look at this,” she said, pointing to where two of the fence slats had been broken at the top. “That’s where they climbed over. I think they tried the gate first. Normally the gate’s unlocked, but I came back from CU for a few days to get my laundry done and I always lock the gate because of bears.”

  Danny looked at the broken fence and nodded.

  “Why ‘they’?”

  “I don’t know, I just have a feeling that this was more than a two-man operation,” Claire said. “At least one of them was a kid, to get through the dog flap, and they knew they couldn’t get back over the fence with Coco. Then someone saw them or they panicked and they grabbed the clothesline and hung poor Coco from the tree.”

  “Did you tell the sheriff this?”

  “I told my mom and she told him. He didn’t seem interested. Sheriff Rossi’s a bit out of it. Have you ever met him? He’s been sheriff of Cobalt County since the sixties or something. God knows what he’d be like in a real emergency, like a mass breakout from any one of the dozen penitentiaries in his jurisdiction.”

  “Thanks for showing me this.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  Danny promised to make sure his own backyard fence was in good working order.

  As he was about to get on his board he said, “And tell Sarah that I’m really sorry and tell her that there are some of us who are trying to figure out a way to catch this guy.”

  When he got home it was nearly 6:15.

  He started to get changed out of his school uniform, but Juanita told him that he might as well just leave it on because they were leaving for the school open house in half an hour.

  He had oxtail soup for dinner and his mom gave him the bone, which was his favorite bit. After dinner he went outside to the cul-de-sac to goof around on his board.

  He did a few simple verts and a 360.

  “Look at you!” Tony said from across the street.

  “Hey,” he said shyly.

  “I texted you.”

  “Did you? I didn’t check. I actually thought you weren’t speaking to me,” Danny said.

  Tony laughed. “I wasn’t speaking to you for a bit. I thought you were spying on me.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Yeah, I know you weren’t.”

  Danny put his hands in the pockets of his school blazer.

  “You didn’t try and kill yourself because of me, did you?” Tony asked.

  “Are you mental? That was … I got this … That was an accident,” Danny muttered.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re alive.”

  “Me too. You didn’t come to the meeting.”

  Tony shrugged. “I might be getting too old for that stuff,” she said.

  “I saw you with Hector.”

  “So what? He’s a friend from church. My dad likes him. We’re all going to The Lion King together for church. Hey, you like The Lion King?”

  Danny shook his head. “Not particularly.”

  Tony smiled. “So what did you crazy kids in the Watchers talk about?”

  “I don’t know, I wasn’t really listening to much of it, but the stuff about the cats seems spot-on. We’re the nexus. It’s all happening in Cobalt. Olivia drew a map. And I went over to Sarah’s house and I met her sister.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She thinks someone came over the back fence. Your pal Hector was lurking around there too and she told him to buzz off. And I think I have a theory about what he’s going to do next. I was thinking about it before I even talked to her.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I think the cat killer is using the woods to move around town.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Well, I think he’s been prowling around the backs of the houses on our street. If your dad really did see someone—”

  “What do you mean ‘if’? He saw someone, I just don’t think it was you.”

  “I saw someone too, but I don’t know who. It could have been your father, actually, if he was lurking out there at the same time …”

  “What are you talking about? Why would my dad be lurking around our own house?” Tony asked sharply.

  “Well, you know he says he ‘hates cats.’ He told me that.”

  “You think my dad’s the cat killer? Are you crazy? Are you trying to be funny? Bob said it was a kid.”

  “Bob said it was probably a kid.”

  Tony shook her head and glared at him. “You really know how to blow it, Lopez, don’t you? You know what, I’ll see you later,” she said, and marched back to her own house.

  She did see him later. Thirty-five minutes later, in the science classroom of CJHCS.

  Snow was falling outside.

  Big downy flakes, drifting down out of the dark.

  “To my students, welcome, welcome, welcome,” Mr. Lebkuchen said to the thirty kids of the joint ninth-grade class sitting there in their brushed wool blazers, crisp black pants or skirts, and washed white gloves.

  “And to their parents, an even more emphatic welcome,” he said to the fifty or so parents jammed on the sides and around the back of the classrom. “I apologize for the lack of space. Once that monstrosity is removed, we will have more room in here,” Mr. Lebkuchen said, pointing to the massive Tesla coil still covered with gray tarp. “Of course, this cramming is only a temporary arrangement until we find two new teachers to replace those we unfortunately lost.”

  “Yeah, why did you lose them?” one of the parents asked.

  “We will have a question-and-answer session later. I hope you will keep all your questions until then, but let me just say that unfortunately our two dismissees were not up to the high standards I expect from teachers under my employ. However, the hiring process has commenced and it will be terminated in the coming weeks with, I hope, two brilliant new teachers joining our school.”

  Mr. Lebkuchen adjusted his glasses and continued.

  “Now, what I’d like to show you all first is how a typical lesson operates in the Direct Instruction system, and then we will have some refreshments that our student Tom Sloane has prepared in the teachers’ lounge. And that will be the opportunity for you to ask about any aspect of the school or your student’s progress or the school’s progress. Just no questions about the Oprah Network, please. We’re still in talks with Oprah’s producers and I don’t know if an interview is going to come off or not,” Mr. Lebkuchen said with a little laugh.

  He was dressed in a light cream suit with a checked waistcoat and blue tie. He looked cheerful and happy. It was the first time Danny had heard about the Oprah business, but if billionaire casino mogul Steve Glynn was one of the school’s trustees, then why not have another billionaire involved, too?

  Mr. Lebkuchen sat. “OK, everyone, open your geography books to page fourteen, South America,” he said.

  They spent the next forty-five minutes going over the countries, capitals, principal rivers, and mountain ranges of South America.

  Occasionally Danny glanced back at his mom. She was wearing a brown Sunday Mass dress and looked really nice with her hair done up in a bun. And of course Walt was there beside her, ten years older if he was a day, and dressed in a gray suit and tie just like a real person or something. All the parents were there. Hector’s mom and dad, Charlie’s folks, Tom’s mother, and there was no mistaking Todd’s father—the giant guy in the corner whose head was nearly touching the ceiling.

  Danny caught the eye of Tony’s father and quickly returned to his book.

  The lesson continued.

  Danny wondered if anyone would see through all of this Direct Instruction stuff. Mr. Lebkuchen reading out loud, the kids reading out loud, everyone following along with the lesson that had been laid out in the book and repeating it all several times: “Bogotá is the capital of Colombia, Caracas is the capital of Venezuela, Quito is the capital …”

  To Danny it was a bit like learning lines in a play. You memorized the stuff for the weekly test and it hung around in your short-term memory until the test was over, but then, surely, you quickly forgot it.

  I wonder what everyone else is making of this crap? he asked himself and allowed himself another quick glance around the room.

  But of course Danny couldn’t know anyone else’s thoughts, which was a shame because one mind in particular would have interested him.

  A mind that was consumed by images of blood and violence and that was thinking right then that the room had an electric smell.

  An electric smell he did not like.

  Electricity had robbed the world of darkness, of stars, of constellations.

  How much more beautiful the world, lit only by fire. How pleasant it would have been to have lived then. To go there. That world of pilgrims and penitents arrayed with garlands and crowns of violets. How different from this place.

  A world of fewer people.

  Not everyone jammed together like sardines. So close, so near, all of them breathing my air, breathing my air …

  Breathing.

  Breathing.

  Breathing.

  Calm down. It’s OK. It’s OK. Close your eyes. Close your eyes and when you open them they will be gone. It will be all right.

  Soon you will be standing under the moon.

  Watching the blood drip from your hands.

  If I were the cat and the cat were me, he’d do the same thing.

  Look at you, Danny Lopez, look at you trying to trap me.

  What are you? You’re nothing. You are too naive and too slow and too clumsy.

  You’re like a cat. Soon to be dying. Soon to be dead.

  And yes I know that you have been walking the route.

  And yes I know that the net is closing.

  How can you hope to compete with me?

  All it means is that things will have to be accelerated. Two more cats to complete the pentagram, and then a child.

  Sit tight, Danny. Do you feel that breeze on the back of your neck? That’s me. Whispering my songs of death. Will you be the first one, Danny boy? You’re shivering. Why are you doing that? Are you reading thoughts? Or are you merely cold?

  Can you read malice?

  Well, read this: Embrace thy father, kiss thy mother, drink thy fill of the cool night air. Thy days on this world have been reduced by the thousand and the ten thousand.

  For I am coming.

  I am coming.

  “How come you don’t walk to school with Tony anymore?” Juanita asked Danny at the breakfast table.

  He sipped his orange juice and thought about his answer. There were a lot of lies and untold truths to navigate before he could reply. He didn’t want to tell his mom that he and Tony had fallen out or that her father still thought he was a pervert or that he thought her father might be the cat killer or that he had to leave early for school because he had morning and evening detention for a few more days.

  “I’d just rather skate,” he said.

  “That’s a pity. You two haven’t had a fight or anything, have you?” Juanita asked.

  “No. Nothing like that. It’s been so cold, she’d rather have her dad give her a ride and, to tell the truth, I prefer to skate,” Danny said.

  “Your mother’s going the wrong way, but I can give you a ride in the T if you’d like,” Walt said. “You’ve barely been in it, and we only get it for another few weeks.”

  “Nah, I don’t think so,” Danny said.

  “Manners, please, Danny,” said Juanita.

  “No. Thank. You,” Danny said.

  “Bob and I were talking, and he was wondering if you had cracked that disappearing-cat case yet,” Walt said, turning the pages of the Denver Post.

  Danny sighed heavily. “The cats didn’t disappear. We know where the cats are. They’re all dead,” he said with withering sarcasm.

  “Daniel, watch yourself,” Juanita said.

  “Hmm,” Danny muttered.

  “The cats are all dead?” Walt asked, irritating Danny with his lack of attention.

  “Yup.”

  “Ooh, sorry to hear that.” Walt grimaced, then finished the last of his cornflakes. Unlike Danny and Juanita he tilted the bowl away from him to get the last of the sugary milk into his spoon. Danny watched him with fascination. Is that how you learned to eat cereal back East? Is that how old-money New England types ate cereal? He suddenly wondered what the hell this guy was doing in their house. Living with them, eating with them. There were back doors to Walt, back doors and secrets. If the first two cats hadn’t been killed long before they’d moved to Colorado, he’d have put Walt close to the top of his list of suspects.

  “I like that Bob person,” Juanita said. “It’s a real shame he’s in prison. What’s he in for again?”

  “Check fraud. White-collar stuff. He’s a model prisoner. I’m pretty sure he’s going to make his parole in March. Certainly I’ll give him a great report. There but for the grace of God and all that stuff. Although …,” Walt said, but his voice trailed off into silence.

  Danny’s eye caught the blank TV screen gathering dust on its IKEA TV stand. “Hey, when are we supposed to get cable? It’s going to be two weeks on Saturday and we still don’t have cable or wireless Internet. And where’s our stuff? Have they lost our stuff?”

  “I checked up on that,” Juanita said. “Our boxes are in Denver; we should get them in a couple of days. Cable guy’s coming on Sunday.”

  “When I was growing up, we didn’t have TV or computers; we read books, you know?” Walt said.

  “Yeah, that was like a hundred years ago. Things are different now,” Danny muttered.