“Then what seems to be the problem, Agent Tully?” She stood to face him, but again there was nothing challenging in her manner, which only made it worse.

Even the expression on Ganza’s lined and haggard face was one of impatience. They continued to stare at him, waiting as though he was holding up the process unreasonably.

“I thought we decided last night that there was nothing here.”

“No, we decided there was nothing more we could do last night. Although it would have been much better to do this last night. Hopefully, it’ll be dark enough. We lucked out with it being so cloudy.”

Ganza nodded. They both waited. Suddenly all of Tully’s objections—which seemed completely logical minutes ago—now sounded immature and arrogant. There was nothing here. It was a ridiculous waste of time and effort. But rather than telling O’Dell that, perhaps it was better for her to see for herself. Maybe only then would she be satisfied.

“Let’s get this over with,” he finally said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Close the door and stay there next to the light switch.” Ganza motioned to him while he picked up the video camera. “I’ll let you know when to flip it off and on again. Maggie, grab a couple of spray bottles. You spritz. I’ll be right beside you filming.”

Tully got into position, no longer bothering to hide his reluctance or his impatience. However, he could see that anything he did would be wasted on O’Dell and Ganza. They were so involved in the task at hand, they barely noticed him except as a utility.

He watched O’Dell load both her hands with spray bottles, holding them like revolvers, her index fingers ready on the triggers.

“Let’s start at the wall closest to the door and move toward the bathroom,” Ganza instructed in his monotone. He reminded Tully of Icabod Crane. The man’s voice never showed emotion—a perfect match for his tall, slumped appearance and deliberate and precise movements.

“Maggie, you remember the drill. Start on the walls, top to bottom. Then the floor, wall to center,” Ganza went on. “Let’s keep a steady spray going all the way to the bathroom. We’ll stop at the bathroom door. You’ll probably need to reload with luminol by then.”

“Gotcha.”

Tully just then realized that O’Dell and Ganza had done this as a team before. They seemed comfortable with each other, knowing each other’s roles. And O’Dell had managed to get Ganza here at the break of dawn, despite the man’s overloaded schedule.

Tully manned his post, waiting with arms crossed over his chest and his shoulder leaning against the closed door. He caught himself tapping his foot, an unconscious nervous habit that Emma accused him of when he was being “close-minded.” Where the hell did she come up with stuff like that? Nevertheless, he stopped his foot from tapping.

“We’re ready, Agent Tully. Go ahead and hit the lights,” Ganza told him.

Tully flipped the switch and immediately felt swallowed by the pitch black. Not a hint of light squeezed in past the film on the windows. In fact, Tully could no longer tell where the windows were.

“This is excellent,” he heard Ganza say.

Then Tully heard a faint electronic whine and a tiny red dot appeared where he imagined the video camera was in Ganza’s hands.

“Ready when you are, Maggie,” Ganza said as the red dot bobbed up.

Tully heard the spritz of liquid, steady and insistent. It sounded as if she was dousing the entire wall. Tully wondered how many bottles, how many jugs of luminol it would take for her to realize that there was nothing here. Suddenly the wall began to glow. Tully stood up straight, and so did the hairs on the back of his neck and arms.

“Jesus Christ,” he gasped, staring in disbelief at the streaks, the smudges and handprints that smeared the entire wall and now glowed like fluorescent paint.

CHAPTER 41

Maggie stepped back, giving Keith room. It was worse than she expected. The smears stretched, reached, clawed and swiped with the undeniable motion of someone desperate and terrified. The handprints were small, almost child-size. She remembered Jessica Beckwith’s delicate hands holding out the pizza box for her.

“Jesus, I can’t believe this.”

She heard Tully’s voice again come out of the black. She knew he had believed they wouldn’t find a thing, that nothing had taken place here. There was no victory in proving him wrong. Instead, she found herself light-headed and nauseated. Suddenly it was too hot in the room. What the hell was the matter with her? She hadn’t been sick at crime scenes since the early days, those first years of initiation. Now for a second time in less than a week, her stomach attempted to revolt against her.

“Keith, what are the chances of this being a cleaning solution? The house is for sale. It still smells like someone has given it a recent scrubbing.”

“Oh, it’s been scrubbed all right. Someone was trying to get rid of this.”

“But luminol can be sensitive to bleach,” she continued. “Maybe a residential-cleaning company scrubbed down everything including the walls.” After a fitful, sleepless night of anticipating, of knowing what they’d discover, why did she not want to believe it? Why did she find herself wanting to believe the streaks and swipes in front of her were simply an overzealous maid?

“In the linen closet there’s a bunch of cleaning supplies. Mop, bucket, sponges and liquid cleaners. Smells like the same stuff that was used. None of it contains bleach,” Ganza countered. “I checked. Besides, no one cleans and leaves handprints like that.”

She forced herself to stare at the prints before they faded. The small fingers were elongated as they had grabbed and clawed and slid. She closed her eyes against the images her mind was trained to concoct. With little coaxing, she knew she could see it all in slow motion as if visualizing a scene from a movie, a horror movie.

“Ready, Maggie?” Keith’s voice made her jump. He was right beside her again as the room started to return to darkness. “Let’s get the floor from here to the bathroom.”

She felt her fingers shaking as she repositioned them on the spray bottles. Gratefully, neither Keith nor Tully could see them. She steadied herself and tried to remember exactly what direction and how far it was to the bathroom. Once she felt back in control, she began spritzing, keeping the mist away from her feet as she slowly walked sideways. Maggie hadn’t reached the bathroom door when the floor began lighting up like a runway, long skid marks following her.

“Oh my God!” She heard Tully mutter from his dark perch, and she wanted to tell him to shut up. His shock unnerved her and worse, reminded her of her own.

Ganza pointed the red dot to the floor, following the trail that had once been bloody feet dragged across the parquet floor. Maggie pushed back strands of hair and swiped at the perspiration on her forehead. Was Jessica unconscious by the time he got her to the bathroom? The girl would have lost a lot of blood putting up a fight like the one smeared on the wall. Maggie wondered if she was conscious when Stucky lifted her into the whirlpool bath. When he told her all the horrible things he would do to her. Was she dead or alive when he started cutting?

“Let’s take a break here,” Keith said. “Agent Tully, go ahead and switch the lights back on.”

Maggie blinked against the burst of light, relieved at the interruption of her mind’s descent into the depths of hell. If she tried, she would be able to hear Jessica’s screams, her pleas for help. Maggie’s memory bank seemed filled with audio clips of what sheer terror sounded like. It was something she’d never forget, no matter how many years went by.

“Agent O’Dell?”