She met him at the door, still wearing her scrubs, and a delicious smell wafted through the apartment. “What was that about a garage? Did you drive up here?”

“Yes. Didn’t you have time to change after work?”

“I’m only wearing the top half of the scrubs; makes a great apron. There’s something a little more alluring underneath.”

“I can’t wait to see it. Something smells great, besides you.”

“That’s dinner. Why did you drive instead of taking a cab?”

“I wanted to be sure I wasn’t followed.”

“Don’t worry; I don’t have an angry ex-boyfriend.”

“Why do you mention that?”

“What I meant was, nobody will be following you because you’re seeing me.”

“I’m glad to hear it, because I have a client who has an angry ex-boyfriend, and that’s who I thought might be following me.”

“I’ve never understood this stalker thing,” she said, “though it seems to be common enough.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Come into the kitchen, and I’ll get you a drink.”

He followed her through a handsomely furnished apartment to a surprisingly large kitchen, where several pots were bubbling away on a big stove. She seated him at a counter and handed him a bottle of Knob Creek to open. “From what I’ve seen, you don’t drink anything else. I can’t seem to get it open.”

Stone set down the two bottles of the Masi Amarone, then pulled the string that cut the wax seal and opened the bourbon bottle. “One for you, too?”

“I’ve already made myself a martini,” she said, pouring one from a silver shaker into a frosted glass.

They touched glasses and sipped.

“I’m impressed that you’d tackle such a big meal after a hard day at the hospital.”

“I had the day off,” she said. “I work twelve-hour shifts four days a week.”

“That’s still a forty-eight-hour week.”

“Don’t worry, I get paid for it.”

“How long have you worked the ER?” he asked.

“Always. My specialty is emergency medicine. I’m deputy head of emergency services now.”

“You must like the work.”

“I love it. It’s different every day, and I like its decisiveness. You either save a patient or lose him; it all happens fast. I don’t have to watch patients die a lingering death, and we save most of them.”

“I see your point.”

“We’ll be ready to eat in just a few minutes,” she said. She busied herself with setting a table on the other side of the kitchen, while Stone opened the first bottle of wine and tasted it.

“You approve?”

“I certainly do,” he said, offering her a sip.

“Mmmmmm. Big wine!”

“I like wines you can’t see through.” Stone’s cell phone vibrated on his belt. He let it go to voice mail.

She untied a string and slipped out of the scrubs, revealing a red dress with considerable cleavage.

“You look gorgeous,” he said, taking her by the waist and kissing her lightly. The cell phone vibrated again.

“Answer that,” she said. “I can’t stand an unanswered phone.”

Stone flipped open the phone. “Hello?”

“Is this Stone Barrington?”

“Yes. Who’s this?”

“Did you once work homicide at the one-nine with Dino Bacchetti?”

“Yes, I did.”

“This is Charley Sample. I worked robbery out of the one-nine for two years.”

“I remember you, Charley. What’s up?”

“I run the detective squad out in Morristown, New Jersey, now, been out here for six years. We got a situation here.”

“Tell me.” Stone had a very bad feeling.

Stone closed the phone and put his notebook away. “Eliza, I’m sorry, but I have to leave.”

“What’s wrong?”

“An emergency-the client I told you about.”

“I do emergencies for a living,” she said, turning off the stove. “This will keep. I’m coming with you.”

“All right,” he said, glad of the company.

In the car, he entered the Morristown address into the dashboard

GPS navigator and left the garage. “Turn right,” the navigator said in a soft female voice. Stone turned right. He was instructed to turn left on Eleventh Avenue, and he followed the voice’s orders to the Lincoln Tunnel.

“I’ve never seen one of these things work,” she said.

“It’s really quite amazing. It’s especially good when there’s a hard-to-find address in a place you’ve never been.”

Forty minutes later, Stone stopped across the street from a neat white bungalow, a few steps up from street level. He showed his badge to a questioning cop. “Where’s Charley Sample?” he asked the man.

The cop nodded toward the house. “In the living room,” he said.

Stone and Eliza walked up the front walk and up the steps to the porch. As they got to the front door, he gave a passing glance to something in a porch chair, covered with a sheet of plastic. They stepped into the front hall, and Stone spotted Sample standing to his right, in the living room. He also spotted a pair of bare female feet, protruding from behind a chair.

“Stone,” Sample said, walking toward him, extending his hand, which was clad in a latex glove.

“Charley, it’s good to see you again. This is Dr. Eliza Larkin. She might be helpful with preliminary forensics, if you need her.”

Sample shook Eliza’s hand. “We may,” he said. “I’m sorry to get you all the way out here, and I’m sorry for the circumstances.”

Stone stepped past the chair, expecting to see Celia’s body on the floor. The woman was a stranger to him; her throat had been cut. “Who is she?”

“Helen Gable, the woman who owns the house.”

“This has got to be the guy I told you about,” Stone said, “and he’s probably still in the neighborhood. He’d get a thrill out of watching all the activity.”

“Description?”

“Five-nine; a hundred and sixty pounds; longish dark hair; artsy looking. He drives a white BMW M6 coupe. It’s possible he had this done, though.”

“Come out on the porch,” Sample said.

Stone and Eliza followed the detective onto the porch, where Sample paused by the sheet-covered object. “This isn’t going to be pretty,” he said, reaching for the sheet. He took it in both hands and lifted it away.

Stone took a quick breath. She sat, naked, in the porch chair; her head was gone. Given the size of the headless corpse, it could only be Celia.

Eliza stepped forward and examined the corpse without touching it. “Very tall female, twenty-five to thirty-five. Her assailant used a sharp knife, probably a hunting knife with a partly serrated blade; he wasn’t delicate about it. The condition of the neck indicates that he was very angry, probably in a killing frenzy.” She looked around. “She was probably killed inside, then undressed and brought out here.”

Sample nodded. “We found a lot of blood upstairs and a trail descending the stairs. We think he encountered the other woman first, killed her immediately, before she had time to cry out, then went upstairs after Celia.”

“Did you find the head?” Stone asked.

“No. It’s not in the house or on the grounds.”

“He took it as a trophy,” Eliza said. “I’d be willing to bet he brought the means for preserving it with him, maybe a container of ice or dry ice.”

Sample produced two plastic bags: one held a sheet of notepaper with Stone’s cell number written on it, the other a semiautomatic pistol. “We found these in her hands,” he said.

“The gun is mine, Charley,” Stone said. “I loaned it to her for protection, when she was at my house in Connecticut. I didn’t know she brought it with her. I know she has my cell number.”

“I’ll see that you get the gun back in due course,” Sample said. “Let’s go sit down in the dining room.” He pulled the plastic sheet back over the corpse and led the way inside, where they took chairs at the table.

“Tell me everything you know about her, from the beginning,” Sample said.