I pocketed our search warrant, crossed the small, dark living room, clasping my weapon in front of me. I smelled it a second before Jacobi muttered, “Swamp magnolia.”

Behind us, Conklin switched on the lights.

The bedroom was at the end of a short hallway. I gripped the old-fashioned pressed-glass doorknob. It turned, rattling in my hand.

I opened the door, gave it a gentle shove, letting it swing slowly inside.

My eyes flicked across the clothes-strewn, rumpled bed to the open window.

I did a double take—that’s how hard it was to absorb what I saw.

A beautiful Asian woman of indeterminate age was crouched inside the window frame.

Her flimsy white peignoir was backlit by dim sunlight. Her sleeves and the fringed layers of her short black hair fluttered in the breeze.

I was entranced by her open, childlike expression, especially given the dingy surroundings of the room.

“I’m Lieutenant Boxer,” I said softly, lowering my gun, feeling Jacobi and Conklin at my back, praying that they’d take my lead.

“What’s your name?” I said. “Come inside so we can talk.”

The woman’s eyes glittered, some inner thought making her smile. I was looking at her bright, lipsticked mouth when she pursed her lips, almost as if she were blowing kisses.

“Vroom, vroom,” she said.

It happened so fast.

I sprung forward—but I was too late. She went out the window.

For a long second afterward, I still saw that glowing figure inside the window frame. Then the figure seemed to fly. Her image was burned into the back of my brain.

Jacobi and Conklin were standing beside me at the window when her body hit the street below.

Chapter 90

Chapter 90

LOUIE BERGIN HADN’T weathered his twenty-four hours in jail well. His clothes were rumpled, and his scabby, unshaven face made him look like he’d slept in an alley.

But there was rage in his eyes.

And now he had a lawyer.

Oscar Montana was a sharp-faced young turk from the public defender’s office. I’d met Montana before, liked him, and thought Bergin could do far worse.

“What’ve you got on my client?” Montana said, banging his bronze Halliburton briefcase on the table, then cracking open the locks.

“We searched Mr. Bergin’s apartment this morning,” Conklin said. “There was a beautiful young woman there. Your girlfriend, right, Louie? Name of Cherry Chu.”

“She had nothing to do with anything,” Louie muttered.

Louie’s voice was like the rumbling of a volcano, dangerous, barely containing his fury. Conklin only moved closer, pulling out a chair, sitting two feet from the suspect.

“No, huh?” Conklin said. “Well, we’re holding her anyway. I think she’s going to flip on you. In fact, she already has.”

Louie clenched his fists and shook his head defiantly.

“She’d never say anything against me.”