He was sincere. Sincerity deserved politeness as well as patience. “Thank you. I appreciate your calling me. I hope you’ll think of me again when something like this comes up.”

“You can bet on it.” They had reached the front door. “Let’s hold up here for a second.” Stokes held up his hand as he looked inside the open front door. “The photographer’s doing his thing.”

“Sure.”

Stokes crossed his arms in front of him. “I think this is going to be one of those cases when you’ll have to concentrate on being pretty sharp about things you see.”

“Whatever.” She was feeling the tension start. She didn’t like standing out here waiting. “I never take things for granted. Things I see aren’t just details to me. They’re gifts. They’re part of the world that was closed off to me for so long. I guess I just want to take in everything.”

“I’m afraid you’ll get more than you bargained for in there.” He shook his head. “It’s not a pretty scene.”

She just wanted to get to it, dammit. Kendra glanced at the driveway next door, where another detective was talking to a distraught-looking bald man in sweatpants and a Padres T-shirt.

“That’s the husband?”

“Yeah. He fell asleep watching TV upstairs in bed. A little before two, he came downstairs and found his wife’s body in the kitchen. It’s a mess.”

“He has no clue who could have done this?”

“No. His wife was an elementary-school teacher, no enemies that he knows of.”

“Maybe he has the enemies. What does he do?”

“Residential mortgage manager at a bank.” Stokes glanced back inside. “All clear.”

Kendra followed him through a small living room, carpeted with a thick burnt-orange rug that probably wasn’t even in style when laid fifteen years before. She scanned the room. Photographs, vacation souvenirs, and two watercolor prints probably purchased from a cruise-ship auction.

Through a doorway on the far wall, she heard at least half a dozen pairs of footsteps. No, she self-corrected, more like eight.

Stokes motioned her through the doorway. Kendra walked through and nodded her greeting at the seven men and one woman working the crime scene. She recognized most of them from other recent investigations. They’d become much more at ease with her now that they knew she wasn’t interested in grabbing credit from them.

That’s never what this was about.

Two forensics men were crouched in front of the open refrigerator. Upon seeing Kendra, they stood and moved away to reveal what had brought them all there: Thirty-five-year-old Marissa Kohler, lying in a pool of her own blood.

Kendra had seen many murder victims over the years, many at much more gruesome scenes than this one, but it still hit her like a kick in the stomach. She hoped she’d never become too callous to not feel that horror. This woman had probably just gone through the motions on her last day on Earth, with nary an idea that it would all soon come to a horrific end.

Detach. Focus.

Time to see if he did this. The monster.

Kendra crouched next to the corpse, trying to avoid the splatter trails on the tile floor. Dressed in sleeper shorts and a long T-shirt, the victim was lying in front of the open refrigerator as if attacked while getting a midnight snack. Her hands were near her face, suggesting a defensive position even after falling. A pair of round spectacles rested on the floor about five feet away. Obviously, the victim’s glasses, confirmed by the distinctive mark on her nose that matched the spectacles’ arched bridge.

Stokes pointed toward the open back door, which was splintered as if kicked open with a fierce kick. “Point of entry over there. No curtains on the back windows, so the killer could have spotted her in here.”

“Maybe.” Kendra leaned over and examined the victim’s wounds. The woman’s throat had been opened in five horizontal gashes, plus over a dozen punctures to the torso.

Who did this to you, Marissa? Could it really have been … him?

Show me. Give me something. Anything …

Her eyes flicked from Marissa’s face to the back door.

Of course.

Kendra stood up and brushed herself off. “Thank you all. I’m sorry for disturbing you.” She turned and walked out of the room.

Stokes ran after her. “Wait. That’s it?”

“Yes.”

He grabbed her arm. “You didn’t find out anything?”

“Yes, I found out what I needed to know.”

He gazed at her in frustration. “Well, are you gonna let me in on it?”

“Of course.” But she might not have notified him until the next day. She just wanted to get out of here right now. She stopped in the living room and looked back through the doorway. “This isn’t the work of a serial killer. Certainly not the one I’m looking for.”

“Then whose work is it?”

“Her husband’s.”

Stokes lowered his voice. “What?”

“That scene in the kitchen was staged. Check upstairs. She was killed there.”

“How do you figure that?”

“The smell of blood is wafting down that staircase. Sickly sweet and more than a bit metallic. Plus a useless attempt to cover it up with a half a can of Lysol Powder Fresh.”

He sniffed the air. “I smell the Lysol…”

“I’m sure you smell the blood, too. You just don’t realize it. Send your forensics team up there with Luminol. The victim also has faint rug burns on the back of her heels. She was dragged down the stairs, posed, and maybe even stabbed a few more times postmortem. It looks like there are punctures without much bleeding.”

“And the door?”

“He knew enough to go outside and kick it in to give the appearance of forced entry. But he obviously didn’t go any farther outside than the patio. The ground in the yard is a muddy mess, but there are no footprints out there.”

“Are you sure? It’s dark.”

“The porch lights give at least fifteen feet of visibility. Trust me, no one approached the house from the yard. And I spotted a tiny shard of orange rubber on the splintered door frame.”

He stared at her. “Orange rubber.”

She nodded. “Surely you noticed the obnoxious orange rubber soles of the athletic shoes her husband is wearing?”

“Holy shit,” Stokes whispered.

“I’m done,” she said wearily. “Good night, Detective. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble taking it from here.”

Stokes didn’t answer as he dashed out the door.

Kendra left the house and walked slowly down the driveway. She was in no hurry to get home. She was disappointed and tired, but there might be only nightmares when she got back to sleep.

She cast a glance back at Stokes as he approached the husband, who was still playing the part of the bereaved widower. The guy was an amateur; he’d undoubtedly left many more clues behind, and the cops would have their case against him sewn up in a matter of hours.

“Finished already?” A familiar voice called out mockingly to her from the street.

She let out an exasperated sigh. “Adam Lynch … Seriously?”

“Hey, I don’t like your tone. You’re hurting my feelings here.”

She turned back and saw Lynch leaning against her car. While everyone else on the scene was middle-of-the-night bedraggled, Lynch’s every dark hair was in place. Probably just the way he rolled out of bed, the bastard. He wore jeans, a pullover sweater, loafers, and a sexy, high-wattage smile that seemed terribly out of place at a grim murder scene. But then, everything about Lynch was high wattage. He was a paid freelance operative who worked for any agency or nation who could afford his services. Those services were both deadly and innovative, as Kendra had found in the past year. But there had been times when she was grateful for both his skill and that cool intelligence when cases had thrown them together. And other times when she had only been wary of how Lynch managed to stir her emotions when she knew how dangerous that could be. It had become a complex relationship that bound them together, and she never knew from one minute to the next how she would feel toward Lynch.