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motivations.
    â€œYou’re quite creative when it comes to making things up, aren’t you?”
    â€œSandra!” a woman’s voice calls from where the throng of people is thickest, laced with a mother’s worry and panic. “Sandra! Where are you?”
    This produces a most unusual change in the Smiling Man. Where his body had been tense and coiled, as if he was biding his time to spring, he now relaxes and slides back against the bench. His hand slackens, and he slips the handkerchief he is toying with back into his pocket, out of sight.
    â€œIt appears your mother is looking for you, Sandra.”
    The girl pops the bud back into her ear and skips across to where her mother stands, a tall woman with cropped hair and a dark blue police uniform, a tall woman struggling between a job that takes up too much of her life and a child who needs too much of her time. The anxiety in her face shifts into a cross between welcome relief and anger as she spots her daughter.
    â€œWhat did I tell you about leaving the car? I told you to stay inside!” she scolds, as she brings the girl to where a police car is parked half a block away, the windows rolled down and the doors unlocked.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mommy,” the girl says sincerely. “But it was really hot inside.”
    â€œWhat am I supposed to do with you, Sandra?” The woman is exasperated. This is not the first time her daughter has wandered off on her own.
    â€œThe guy from Massachusetts and all those kids with him kept me company.”
    â€œWhat guy from Massachusetts?” The woman’s maternal instincts have been triggered, knowing there is something odd about her daughter’s words without knowing why. She scans the crowd, hunting for a face that may strike her as strange or unusual.
    But when her eyes come to rest on the bench, no one is sitting there. Making his escape while the cameras flash and the sirens turn on, while the door slams shut behind what is left of Blake Mosses and the ambulance speeds away, the Smiling Man has disappeared, and with him, all the dead children he has killed.

CHAPTER SEVEN
Bread Crumbs
    Four days after the murder hits the front-page news, the manner and reasons for the stranger’s death remain a mystery to the people of Applegate. The police have no suspects, and the bizarreness of the crime ensures that reporters are still quick to trot it out on evenings when the news is slow, though few updates warrant reporting.
    People have taken to locking their doors or moving about their houses to check for open windows or stray curtains at night. They take the time to warn their children to come home before it grows too dark, cautioning them about the perils of nightfall, and they frequently look over their shoulders, waiting to hear the tread of steps behind them, expecting to observe and question every shadow that moves across the street.
    Teenagers find death easier to deal with than adults do, and the news passes easily enough from their minds. Classes give way to lunchtime, and the cafeteria seats are occupied. There are the sounds of boys and girls laughing and gossiping as they congregate in groups and friendship.
    The tattooed boy shares in none of the revelries, instead retiring to a corner of the cafeteria alone. Chewing on a sandwich, he stares at the wall across from his seat. He wears another long sweater and has resumed his habit of tugging his sleeves down until they reach well below his knuckles. The sun is shining outside and the air-conditioning is marginal at best inside, but he is huddled, quivering, and with every breath, tendrils of cold air billow out of his mouth. His eyes are dull.
    â€œHey there, stranger,” a voice says. It comes from a pretty brunette his age who has a fresh face with a slight abundance of freckles and a penchant for friendliness. Her manner suggests that she is one of the more popular girls at Perry Hills High, and this means she is