“Call girl?” Garcia volunteered.

“This is Minnesota. Even our hookers dress sensibly.”

The woman started attacking the door with both fists. Bernadette sat up to get a better look. She was young enough and slight enough to fit the physical profile of the fragile drowning victims. Her state of undress, combined with the hysterical way she was beating the door, fit the emotional profile of the unstable girls.

Garcia pulled Bernadette back down. “Sit tight. She’s fine. Let this thing play itself out.”

The cab was still in the driveway, the motor running. The woman turned as she stood on the stoop and looked at the driver.

“There’s stuff all over her coat,” noted Garcia. “What is that?”

After more banging and ringing, the Tudor’s downstairs lights flicked on and the storm door popped open. Wakefielder stood on one side of the screen door. He’d pulled on some sweats, but his chest was bare. For a guy in his early forties, he was pumped.

He opened the screen door, put a hand on the young woman’s shoulder, and pulled her inside, slamming the screen door but leaving the storm door wide open. Bernadette and Garcia sat up and peered into the house. The prof and the woman were standing nose to nose. The woman fell against him, and he put his arms around her.

“This is juicy,” whispered Bernadette.

“You think she’s a girlfriend? A student? His ex?”

“His wives are older than that. I’m laying money it’s a combination of those first two.”

The professor eased the girl off him, took his wallet off a foyer table, and went outside. Garcia and Bernadette sank down again while Wakefielder padded over to the driver’s side of the taxi. He and the cabbie talked through the driver’s window. The prof looked in the backseat of the sedan, shook his head, and reached inside. Extracted a skirt, holding it by two fingers, and slammed the passenger door.

“There’s her bottom half,” said Garcia. “Covered in puke.”

“Drunk or stoned or acting out some sort of bulimic behavior,” said Bernadette.

The prof handed the cabbie a couple of bills. The taxi pulled away, and Wakefielder padded up the steps, went inside, and shut both doors. The agents sat straight.

“Show’s over,” said Bernadette.

“Not necessarily,” said Garcia.

Through the half-open blinds lining the home’s front-room windows, they could see the leopard print creeping up on the sweat pants. Close. Closer. The next instant, Wakefielder peeled away from his guest and approached the windows. The blinds dropped down all the way.

“Crap,” said Garcia.

Ten minutes later all the lights in the house went dark.

The two agents stared at the black windows. “I’m not liking this,” Bernadette said.

“Neither am I.” Garcia reached into his jacket, pulled out a stocking cap, and yanked it on over his head. Then he turned around and snatched the pizza box off the backseat.

“Tony …”

He opened the glove compartment and rummaged around. Pulled out a pen.

“This is a neighborhood of rocket scientists. Literally. This isn’t going to work,” she said.

He checked the Tudor’s address and scribbled a number on the box that was ten higher. “It’s never failed me before.”

“You’re not serious.”

He popped open the driver’s side. “Watch me.”

“I intend to.” She opened the passenger door.

“Meet you at the end of the alley,” he whispered.

They quietly closed their doors, looked up and down the street, and dashed across the road to the house. While he went up the steps, she slipped between two evergreen bushes growing under the front-room windows. When she heard the doorbell, she unsnapped her holster, took out her gun, and crouched down. Garcia shot her a quick glance from his post on the stoop.

Another ring, followed by Garcia’s “Pizza.”

The lights in the front-room windows flashed back on, and the storm door cracked open. A young woman’s voice through the screen: “One sec … I don’t have any money on me.”

The girl disappeared for a minute. Garcia shuffled his feet and angled his head, trying to see inside through the screen door. Bernadette could hear the heavy thump of a man coming down the stairs. Wakefielder had apparently gone up for the night while his guest had stayed on the first floor.

Their man was at the door. “Jesus Christ! It’s two in the morning!”

“You didn’t order this?” asked Garcia, raising the box.

Scrutinizing the carton’s address through the screen, Wakefielder grumbled: “That’s at the end of the block.”

Playing dumb, Garcia scratched his head through the stocking cap. “Shit. I’m an idiot. Hope I didn’t—”

The door slammed in his face, and Bernadette could hear the deadbolt turn.

Casting a look over his shoulder as he went, Garcia took his time returning to the car. By the time he got behind the wheel, the lights on both floors were out. He started the engine, piloted the heap out of the parking spot, and rolled toward the end of the block.

Bernadette scooted around to the back of the house, crossed the prof’s backyard, and stepped into the alley. She looked up at the Tudor’s back windows. All dark. She jogged to the end of the alley, where Garcia picked her up. He steered to the next block.

“He’s got her camped out on the couch,” Garcia said as he hung a left and steered down the road that ran parallel with Wakefielder’s street. “She came to the door wrapped in an afghan.”

“Surprises the shit out of me,” said Bernadette.

“You thought he’d take advantage. Go for a roll in the sack.”

“And then kill her. Yeah. Why didn’t he take her upstairs?”

“Maybe he isn’t such a bad guy.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want Animal Print Girl throwing up on his bed.”

“She did stink like vomit. I could smell it through the screen.”

Bernadette wrinkled her nose. “What else did you notice about her?”

“Wrists like twigs. Eyes the color of a strawberry margarita.”

“From bawling or puking or a hangover?”

“All of the above, I would say.”

“Should we go back and park?” she asked.

“He might have seen me get in the car,” Garcia said. “Besides, they’re both tucked in for the night.”

“This whole thing … semihysterical, half-naked girl banging on his door in the middle of the night … the fact that he let her in and let her stay … how the chick fits the profile of the dead girls … I don’t like any of it,” she said. “Plus, when I used my sight, the woman I saw with the killer had long brown hair like Animal Print Girl. This could be that woman and that maniac.”

“You’re saying—”

“I’m saying I want the house watched all weekend.”

“You’re not going to be very popular around the office,” Garcia said as he navigated the car out of the neighborhood and headed for the highway.

She smiled tightly. “Tell me something new.”

Chapter 22

HELL ISN’T RED; it’s blue.

The first thing she saw after coming to wasn’t a person or an object but a color. Blue. Blue everywhere. Blue on the walls. Blue on the bed. Blue hovering over her and around her. Blanketing her. She blinked twice and tried to bend her legs but couldn’t. They were tied spread-eagled and anchored to the posts at the foot of the bed. Her head was heavy and hot and sore, but her body was so light and detached she wondered why it didn’t float away to freedom, leaving only her skull behind on the pillow. When she opened her mouth to ask the blue void why her head hurt, she felt something constricting her mouth. She tried to move her hand to her face and couldn’t. Her wrists were tethered to the posts at the head of the bed.

The questions washed over her, blue words roaring into her mind one after the other like waves crashing against rocks: Where am I? Why am I tied up? Who did this to me? Am I dead? Is this hell? Why was I sent to hell? What did I do that was so wrong? Why do I deserve this?