Wilber Cotton was only ten years old and already he hated his life.

He hated the house he lived in because no one fixed it up and he knew it was going to fall down one night when he was sleeping and kill him. His parents would be not be killed. Their potty-mouthed drinking friends who were always passed out on the sofa or on the floor would not be killed either. Only Wilber would be killed.

He hated school because it was dumb. They made you learn things you didn't care about and punished you for not doing your homework. How can you do homework in a house where people are always playing loud music or yelling at each other? He hated getting free breakfast and lunch at school because that meant he was poor. He hated recess and pe because the games were lame and he wasn't good at them anyway.

He hated his parents' friends because they were always at his house drinking and throwing their crap on the floor. They were loud and drunk and would sometimes fight. Once there was a big fight in his front yard and all the neighbors came out and watched. The cops came and he was embarrassed he lived in a house where cops came. Sometimes when they fought in the house they punched holes in the walls and no one fixed the holes and the friends thought it was funny to put beer cans in them.

He hated his mother because she didn't stand up to his father and she was always drunk and sometimes she let other men kiss her and touch her when his father was at work. A mom shouldn't do that. He hated her because she named him Wilber like the pig and everyone called him "Wilber the pig." No one else in school was named Wilber.

He hated his father most of all. His mother called his father "a worthless bastard drunk." He wasn't sure what bastard meant but it sounded like something his father would be. He hated his father because he never once did anything with him like other kid's dads did with them. He hated his father because he hit his mom and even though she deserved to be hit because she let other men kiss her and touch her dads still shouldn't hit moms.

He hated his father most of all because his father hit him all the time. His father hit him because he didn't mow the lawn or wash the car or fix the roof and because he was a "worthless little shit." Someday maybe he would hit his father back but not now because he was too small and his father would probably hit him until he stopped breathing and Wilber knew no one would help him. Not his mother. Not their friends.

Wilber smoked cigarettes he stole from his parents when they were passed out drunk. He smoked them out back when they were inside drinking or shouting or letting people not your husband touch them.

He liked to smoke the cigarettes by the canal on the other side of the wall because he could throw the butts into the water when the end was still red and hear them sizzle. He liked it by the canal because when his father came to hit him he couldn't because he was too drunk to climb over the wall.

It was almost dark and Wilber was sitting in his backyard. He heard a lot of sirens far away and thought maybe someone's house was burning down. The parents and friends were drunk and laughing but later they would be yelling and fighting.

He felt good because he got his homework done after school when his mother was sleeping and his father wasn't home. He fixed himself corn dogs and tater tots for dinner before his mother woke up because if she wakes up when he's eating she screams at him for not fixing her anything and takes his food for being so selfish.

He has three cigarettes hidden in a Band-Aid can in the backyard in the tree by the wall. He doesn't barf anymore when he smokes. Maybe that was good and maybe it was bad. Wilber didn't care either way.

They discussed what they would tell Baskel on the way to the crime scene. They pushed through the crowd of spectators and media people and found him, running the show from the canal bank.

When Baskel saw them, he scowled and nodded his head at a yellow tarp covering Jenny's body.

Lawless shook his head. "We don't need to see her."

Baskel grabbed Lawless's arm and led him past the body, away from the crowd.

When they were out of earshot, he said, with a threat in his voice, "You want to tell me, Detective, how you knew so much about this crime?" He kept a firm grip on Lawless's arm, as if he thought Lawless would make a run for it.

Lawless looked at Baskel's hand on his arm. "You want to let go of me, Dave?"

Baskel let go, but pushed Lawless's shoulder. "It's Detective Baskel. Now just what the hell is going on? How did you know what this woman looked like?"

Lawless looked at Jensen, then said to Baskel, "We need your help and we need to move fast. We're pretty sure it's going to strike again, soon."

That wasn't what Baskel was looking for. "We're not doing anything or going anywhere until you start talking."

No time for bush-beating. Lawless took a deep breath and started in. "I have some kind of psychic connection with the canal monster. I've had ... visions, or events, in the past few days about it. I just had another one. I saw Jenny get killed, but I saw it through the eyes of her friend, the big one. Where is she?"

Baskel worked his mouth, but nothing came out. He turned away from Lawless and began massaging his forehead. Without turning back, he said, "She's in shock. Ambulance took her to Memorial. I didn't get a chance to talk to her before she left but I hear it wouldn't have mattered. She was unresponsive when the paramedics took her away."

Lawless shook his head. "Wouldn't have mattered. She didn't see the attack."

When no one spoke for a few seconds, Jensen said, "We're in kind of a hurry here."

"All right, let's hear it," Baskel said, turning to face them. "All of it."

Lawless jammed his hands into his pockets. "I started having dreams and premonitions when I was a kid. Circumstances changed and I stopped getting them. Nothing happened for years, until about two weeks ago when I started having nightmares."

He looked at Jensen for support; she gave him a nod of encouragement.

"There have been several ... extrasensory events since Sanchez was found in the canal back on Tuesday." Lawless chose his words carefully. He wanted the story to sound as sane as possible.

" 'Extrasensory events?' " Baskel repeated.

"Yesterday, after we left Elk Park, something happened, something I've never experienced before."

Lawless turned and looked at the canal, remembering his trip with the creature. He suddenly had the thought: What if it's in the canal right next to us, preparing to strike? Chills ran up his spine as he realized, again, how vulnerable they were standing so close to the water. The monster could come at any time and kill one of them. Hell, it could probably kill several of them before they got a chance to get a shot off. He crossed to the side of the canal bank furthest from the water.

Baskel and Jensen noticed, looked into the water themselves, and followed Lawless.

"Actually, there was something before yesterday afternoon," Lawless continued. "So I've had two of them."

"Two of what?" Baskel said, looking back at the canal.

"I call it 'riding.' It's as if I go 'riding' with the creature, but mentally, or psychically, whatever the right term is. I saw and experienced things through the creature's eyes."

Now that he had released the words into the air to someone other than Jensen, and heard them with his own ears, he realized how crazy they sounded. He was afraid to continue.

After a beat, Baskel said, "You know Detective, if there wasn't a woman lying over there, missing her legs, and a woman yesterday who lost her head when she was just out walking her damn dog, I would think you were crazy as my Aunt Ruth. But with everything we talked about today, and all this shit by the canals, I'm willing to listen to almost anything, even your psychic mumbo-jumbo, if it'll help put an end to all this madness."

Relieved, Lawless said, "The first one was when it killed Sandovich. Then later, after Elk Park, for about an hour. When doesn't matter, what does matter is I learned some things about it. You already know about its teeth. It can bite through anything. But here's the thing, it's driven by its hunger and I think it's losing control."

"Losing control of what?" Baskel said.

"Self-control maybe. Its first three kills were in the country, hit-and-runs mostly, away from the city. It's safer out there. But now it's killing in town. Last night I believe it ate all of your missing thief and from what we saw on the canal it looks like it played with him a little first."

Lawless looked at Jensen: she tapped her wristwatch.

"So then the thing tonight happened and here we are."

"Initially," Jensen added, "we couldn't figure out why he had this vision, the one tonight. He wasn't able to warn them, all he could do was watch - why was he there? So I took him back through the vision and by noticing the surroundings we were able to determine where the attack took place."

Baskel didn't get it. "So? If you couldn't warn them, what good is knowing the location?"

"Because if it happens again, he'll pay more attention to the surroundings and maybe we can figure out what canal it's in before it strikes."

Baskel got it. "Yeah, maybe we could set a trap or something. Kill it somehow."

"Right," Lawless said. "We wouldn't have much of a notice, maybe just minutes, but it's something."

Baskel snapped his fingers and said, pointing at Lawless, "Why don't you just go 'riding' with it again and tell us where it is?"

"I tried to couple of times, but got nothing. I think it knows what happened the first time and threw up some kind of block."

"Shit," Baskel said. "So what do we do next? Stick with the plan we came up with earlier?"

"There's no time. We have to assume it's planning on killing here in town again. We have to get people away from the canals. I spoke to that Bee reporter this evening but the paper doesn't come out until tomorrow morning. We need to do something tonight. I say get all the cars you can and have them cruise the canal banks that run through town. Tell them to use their spot lights; I don't think it likes light. All of its attacks have been at night except for Sandovich, and as I recall the bright noontime sun really bothered it. So lots of light. And tell them to stay in their cars. No one walks around the canals on foot."

"What do we tell them they're looking for?"

"They're looking for people. Just tell them to keep everyone away from the canals."

"What if you do have another one of your ... visions, and we figure out what canal the snake's in? What do we do, then?"

The question troubled Lawless. "I don't have an answer for that. If we have uniforms everywhere, we could have a pretty short response time. But what do they do once they get to the right canal? Shoot blindly into the water?"

Baskel rubbed his chin and thought. "Maybe we need to tell them we suspect something's in the canals, like an alligator. That way they'll look in the water, too."

"That'll work," Jensen said. "It'll be safer for them, too, because they'll be shining the spots at the canal."

"Yeah, let's do that," Lawless said. They felt a little better.

A loud voice erupted from the crowd; Baskel looked up. "Uh-oh. Probably the husband of the deceased. Gotta go. Where're you guys going?"

"We'll stay here and wait until you're done. We need to talk some more."

Baskel left to take care of unpleasant things.

The creature was in the Main Canal, swimming toward Holmes Road.

Wilber Cotton sat in the tree by the brick wall in his backyard and smoked the first of his three cigarettes. He didn't take deep drags because he didn't like to cough because sometimes when he started coughing he wouldn't stop until he barfed and he didn't like to barf.

The smoke made him dizzy so he wedged his butt between two limbs so he wouldn't fall and break something or kill himself. His parents would be mad if he broke something or killed himself because it would cost them money they would rather spend on beer and weed. His mom maybe might cry if he ever got killed but his dad would just be mad. Probably his mom wouldn't cry. Probably no one would.

He smoked the cigarette down to the butt and jumped off the wall so he could throw it in the canal while it was still glowed. He flicked it into the canal and heard it sizzle and watched the dark water carry it away. He sat and listened to the sounds of laughing and drinking coming out of his house. He bet no one wanted to live by him because they were always so loud. He would move if he lived by him.

Wilber Cotton hated his life.

Baskel, Lawless, and Jensen huddled over the canal map Busmur had given Lawless earlier in the week.

Baskel made notes and swore. "I didn't know there were so many damn canals running through town. I don't have enough patrol cars to cover them all."

"How many do you have?" Lawless asked.

"I can put ten cars out on the streets, but there are more than twenty sections of canals that need to be covered."

"Give everyone two canals, then," Lawless offered, "and give us a couple, or three. If I have a vision, as long as someone's close, we'll have a decent response time. And remember the spotlights, lots of light."

"Yeah, yeah," Baskel growled. "And keep your eyes peeled for an alligator." He left to make the calls.

"Do you think we have a chance of killing it?" Jensen asked, after Baskel left.

"Only if we're lucky. Very lucky."

"I'll feel like shit if some cops get hurt, or killed," Jensen said, hugging herself. "We'd have a permanent enemy in Baskel, too."

"What else can we do? This was your idea. Let me know if you think of something different."

"What's this bullshit?" Billy said to Vijay after getting the orders from Baskel, bitching like he always did when they got a call, any call. "We're supposed to look for an alligator in the canal? Who does he think we are, that Australian crocodile dude on TV? You seen that show, Vijay? What's his name?" Billy turned east on Briggsmore.

"I can't remember his name, either. I think he got killed, though. Shark or something." As much as Vijay hated to admit, Billy was right this time. This had to be one of the strangest calls they'd ever received: an alligator in the canal? Had to be a prank.

"Which canal did they say?" Billy asked, already forgetting what they'd been told thirty seconds earlier.

"We're responsible for the canal that runs alongside Briggsmore, from Claus to 99. If you turn left on Oakdale, it'll be easy to get on the canal bank and-"

"I know where to go," Billy snapped. "I've lived here all my life. You don't need to tell me how to get there."

Vijay made a mental note to talk to the sergeant, again, about being reassigned. The problem was, nobody wanted to ride with Billy so everyone had to take a turn, and a turn lasted a year. He still had seven months to go on his sentence. Maybe he would get lucky and Billy would go out on medical leave: bunions, or something. A slipped disc, maybe.

They turned off Oakdale onto the canal bank, which ran on the south side of the canal, which meant Billy had to operate the spotlight and drive. Vijay unbuckled his seat belt and made sure his door was unlocked.

They took Lawless's car: Jensen behind the wheel and Baskel next to her. Lawless sat in back in case he "tripped out," as Jensen put it.

Baskel needed some aspirin, said he felt a whopper coming on, so they stopped at a Raleys. Baskel returned with his headache medicine and Jensen drove south on Tully, heading for their assigned canal, Lateral No. 4, the one that ran by Elk Park.

They had just passed Bowen when Lawless said, "Ah man..."

Baskel turned around and said, "What?"

Lawless was sprawled across the backseat and staring at the roof. He said, "It's dark."

"What's happening?" Baskel shouted at Jensen.

"He must be having another vision." She pulled into the parking lot of an old shopping center.

"What?" Baskel shouted. "Is he having a seizure? Call 9 1 1!" He fumbled for his phone.

Jensen was cool. "Put your phone away. He's not having a seizure so calm down." She left the car running but turned in her seat.

"What do you see?" she asked Lawless.

"Canal," Lawless answered. "Ragged pair of kid's tennis shoes, cheap knockoffs."

Baskel moaned and rubbed his forehead. The whopper had landed and the aspirin was in full retreat.

Chapter 12.