Before Cain Strikes Read Free

residential block before the kitchen exploded. One of Cain42’s cardinal rules: the cleanest crime scene is a destroyed crime scene. Glass splattered onto the front lawn. Flames licked through the open windows at the house’s placid green exterior. Green became black. Soon everything on that plot of land—the master bedroom, the grass, the remains of Timothy’s pet—would be black.
    Fire always painted in monochrome.
    Timothy inconspicuously joined the gathering crowd come to watch the fireworks. There weren’t many people, really. Most of the suburban neighborhood’s occupants were at work. But there were enough to blend in, at least until the M7 bus arrived and Timothy was whisked far away from the blaze. The bus left the curb as the firstof the fire engines showed up. Timothy hoped none of the firefighters got injured. Good people, firefighters.
    He unrolled his earbuds, plugged them into his iPhone and listened to an album of Brahms lullabies as the Sullivan County bus traveled into the next town over. Once there, he transferred to a Trailways bus, which deposited him a few dozen miles east to New Paltz. By then it was dusk, dusk on his birthday. From the New Paltz terminal, Timothy used some cash from Lynette’s wallet, which he had in his other pocket, to pay for a cab home.
    Another of Cain42’s rules: always hunt far from where you sleep.
    Timothy’s house was not far from historic Huguenot Street, a minivillage of Colonial America located in the heart of New Paltz. When he was much younger, sometime between the cats and the goldfish, Timothy’s parents took him to Huguenot Street to tour rustic Locust Lawn and the nearby spacious Ellis House, with its spooky Queen Anne interior. All the while, folks dressed up in colonial drapery mingled to and fro. Many of them were students at the local university looking to earn a few extra bucks. Even at that young age, Timothy found the whole affair to be delightfully weird. He longed to live in the Ellis House, and often wondered how difficult it would be to break in, and steal a nap on that small, square, starched bed.
    Timothy apparently had a thing for other people’s beds.
    His own bed lay in a two-story American foursquare on a street lined with two-story American foursquares. All were squat, with faces made of brick and stucco. Most had cookie-cutter porticos bookending their front doors, which were various shades of white. Timothy only recognized his by rote. He offered the cabdriver amodest tip and hopped out onto the well-trimmed front lawn. Old, knee-high bushes bracketed the two short steps that led from lawn to landing. Timothy had several pets buried in the soil behind those bushes. He thought of them with fondness every time he opened his front door.
    “There he is!” he heard his mother say, and this kept him from bounding up the stairs to his bedroom. Instead, he made his way into the den. Mother sat in her chair, predictably engrossed in her needlepoint. Today’s project was embroidering the smiley face of Christ Jesus onto a mauve cushion. She donated all of her needlepoint to the local Salvation Army, where she volunteered every Saturday from ten to two.
    He stood in the middle of the den. She didn’t look up from her needlepoint. “Your father and I weren’t sure if you were going to come home. And on your birthday, no less.”
    Timothy noted that she didn’t ask him where he’d been or what he’d been doing. Both she and his father stopped asking him that a long time ago.
    The Ace bandages swathing his left wrist were becoming caked with blood. “I got bit by a dog,” he said.
    At this she raised her eyes from her work. “Oh, Timothy, come here.” There was no concern in her voice, only disappointment.
    He approached. Carefully, Timothy’s mother unwrapped his bandages and examined the wound.
    “Did you disinfect it?” she asked.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    She sniffed the iodine and nodded. “Good boy. Nevertheless, you’re going to