I start back toward the front door and pull it open. Giving the foyer one last survey, I decide that if Connor Sullivan had in fact hurt the woman – who might or might not be the owner of the house –then she wasn't here. So, he'd either come back to clean up his mess or there had never been a mess to start with, ergo, the woman wasn't hurt. Regardless if it was A, B, C, or otherwise, she wasn't here.

A shadow.

I flick my head around, which sends a bolt of lightning through my neck. The two Advil and the Icy Hot I applied had markedly alleviated the pain, but the wrenching of my neck has overpowered the drugs.

I groan at the cat.

He is tan and black, and his eyes are orange against the light from my cell phone. He comes forward and rubs against my leg.

“Hey, cat.”

He doesn't respond.

I reach down to pet him, but before I touch him, he darts away and slinks down the hallway. I shine my light after him. He meows at a door. I walk toward him and pull the door open.

The smell is overpowering.

I can smell it in my eyes.

I can hear the smell.

The woman is on the hood of the car. She's wearing a blue tank top and plaid pajama bottoms. The woman's neck is swollen and is a tie-dye of red, purple, and blue. Icy Hot and Advil will not help this woman.

The cat bounces up and begins meowing at the woman. Below the neck, the woman's body is drained of color, a pastel white. The cat curls up on the woman's chest and lies down.

I take a couple steps forward. By my best guess the woman is in her early twenties. Blond hair and petite. Eyes that were once electric blue are dull and rimmed in blood. She’s still attractive in death and I wonder how many necks she’d turned in life.

There is a chiming and I look down at my phone. I've been standing over the woman's body for seven minutes.

Shit.

As I turn to leave, I realize the sound isn't coming from my phone. It is coming from another phone. Possibly the woman's. The phone rings a third time. It is under the car. I get down on my hands and knees. I drop to my belly. I army crawl until my torso is halfway beneath the low hanging Audi. My fingers touch the outside of the phone's pink casing. I groan, edge forward, try and flip the phone back over on itself. It takes me seven tries. I grab the phone, push myself painfully from beneath the car, and get to my feet.

I am huffing and puffing.

I look down at the phone. It is a white Samsung Galaxy S4 in a pink case. The call has expired. The time is 3:59.