when I woke up, I felt guilty for having them, but I couldn’t make them stop.” She opened her eyes, still looking inward. “And then he comes home . . . Kevin comes back to me, and it happens here . . . it happens here . . . for his money . . . his cash . . .”

Her voice died off. Matt didn’t say anything. He couldn’t find the words. He couldn’t get past the image of his friend buried in the dark hole of that body bag. He couldn’t turn off the memory or wrestle it to the ground. The blood. The shattered glass. A bag of human flesh with no form.

He felt his cell phone in his pocket. He wasn’t sure how long it had been vibrating. After a while he pulled it out, glanced at the name on the display without really seeing it, but took the call.

“What is it?” he said quietly.

“What’s wrong with your voice, Jones?”

It was his supervisor, Lieutenant Bob Grace. Matt sat up and tried to pull himself together, but together still seemed a long way off tonight.

“I’m in the middle of something,” he said. “I didn’t know it was you.”

Grace hesitated for a moment. “Where are you?”

“At the house with his wife.”

“Why is it taking so long?”

Matt walked over to the sink and gazed out the window at the gardens and pool. “What is it? Why did you call me?”

“You need to wrap it up, Matt. You need to come back in as soon as you can.”

He turned to check on Laura. She was still inside herself and didn’t appear to notice that he was even on the phone. Her lips were quivering. She was talking to herself again, only this time in utter silence. He thought she might need a doctor.

Matt turned back to the window and lowered his voice. “Did something happen, Lieutenant?”

“We’ll talk about it when you get here. I’m waiting with Cabrera in my office. Do your best for her, but get back here as soon as you can.”

Matt started to say something, then stopped when he heard the phone click and realized that Grace had hung up.

CHAPTER 5

He’d left her in ruin . . . but with the promise that he would come back as soon as he could. He had been straight with her—in all likelihood he wouldn’t return for a while. He could remember her giving him the nod, like she’d heard him.