Page 119 of Cold, Cold Bones

“Maybe.” Sounding unconvinced.

Before going our separate ways, Slidell and I agreed on a plan. While he submitted the girl’s clothing and personal effects for trace analysis, I’d review old cases, looking for parallels to this hit-and-run.

Slidell said he’d have Henry do a missing persons search. I said she should begin with an age range of eighteen to twenty-five. Based on hair and skin color, and on the locket, I suggested she enter an ethnic association of Hispanic.

Throughout the meeting with Nguyen and our subsequent conversation, it never occurred to me to ask Slidell why he’d been at the MCME. In retrospect, I think Skinny was pursuing a theory. A theory supported by the upside-down lividity.

Like me, Slidell suspected that the girl’s death was another in the grisly chain of copycat murders.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening assisting Nguyen. Soft tissue dissection confirmed the trauma pattern we’d seen on the X-rays.

Birdie was asleep when I arrived home. As I entered the bedroom, he looked up from his spot between the pillows, blinked, then lowered his head back onto his paws.

“Hey, Bird. Sorry. It was another long day.”

I scratched behind his ears. The cat stretched his neck and front limbs, either enjoying or ignoring the feel of my touch.

I dumped my clothes in a pile on the floor, let my hair down, and took a quick shower. Then, exhausted, I threw back the covers and dropped into bed.

I fell instantly into a dark void. No ghostly apparitions, no melodramatic reenactments. Just dense, deep nothing.

Then my heart was pounding and my eyes were wide open. Adrenaline was demanding action and I didn’t know why. The transition was dizzying.

The digits on my phone glowed one twenty-four. I lay in the dark, breath frozen, straining to know why my sleeping brain had gone to high alert.

Birdie wasn’t with me. Why? He was not a night prowler. Had his ears detected something abnormal? Had mine?

Body still rigid, I listened harder. Caught only my heart hammering against my ribs. The annex was eerily silent.

Then I heard it. A softcrickfollowed by a muted tapping. I waited, not moving, not breathing. The glowing digits soundlessly ticked off time. Ten seconds, twenty, a full minute. When I thought I might have imagined it, the sound came again.

Crick. Tap tap tap.

Had someone broken into the annex? I knew all the ordinary squeaks and hums and groans of the place. This was a stranger, an acoustic misfit.

Turn on the lights? No. I was familiar with the layout. Darkness would provide an advantage.

Easing back the covers, I slid from the bed and, thanking last night’s laziness, snatched up and slipped on yesterday’s clothes.Avoiding any boards I knew would give me away, I crept across the bedroom.

The hallway was pitch black. Inching to the top of the stairs, I paused, questioning my conviction not to keep a gun in the house.

I heard nothing.

I started down, eyes wide, stopping every other tread to test the silence.

I was crossing the dining room when I heard it again.

Crick. Tap tap tap.

The noise was coming from the kitchen. Inhaling in ragged little gulps, I stole forward and inched the swinging door further open. Palm sweaty on the wood, I peered through the crack. The night was moonless, the kitchen as dim as the upstairs hall.

No boogie man leapt from the shadows.

Crick. Tap tap tap.

Birdie is white. The kitchen was black. I picked him out of the gloom, body coiled, tail twitching in nervous little flicks. His eyes were fixed on the door.

Anothercrick tap tapcame from outside. The cat’s ears went flat, and a snarl rose from his throat, low and primal. He held a heartbeat or two, then pivoted and shot from the room.