Chapter One



In retrospect, announcing himself in the hallway almost seemed funny. Police. I'm opening the door.

The small bedroom in the back of Gwen Mullen's apartment felt like a meat locker. Worth understood when he reached down and felt cold iron: She'd valved off the radiator in here. She'd also opened the windows. Plastic blinds clattered on the chilly breeze.

He raised the Maglite to eye level.

Russell lay naked in a twist of sheets. In the beam of the flashlight, Worth caught glimpses of white amid ragged red pulp. He guessed he was looking at molars. Maybe jawbone. He wasn't sure.

Moving the light around the room, his own breath foggy in the beam, he passed over the nightstand and noticed a dark square centered in a thin layer of dust. He found the lamp on the floor beside the bed, cord trailing, still plugged into the socket near the peeling baseboard.

The lamp came on when he flipped the switch by his elbow, throwing shadows up the cracked plaster wall. By some trick the bulb had remained intact; dark clots of stuff had congealed around the chunky glass base.

Worth automatically reached for the mike on his shoulder. The words sat in his throat, pushing their way up: Three Adam Zero, Three Adam Sixty. His sergeant's car.

He wondered how long the guy had been here like this. He wondered how many times she'd hit him with the lamp.

At some point, he realized he'd released the call button without speaking.



Worth found Gwen sitting on the floor in the living room, staring at nothing, arms around her knees. A dimestore jack-o'-lantern the size of a Weber grill hulked in one corner, bathing the place...