Michaela stepped back, still unable to process what she was seeing. Bill Martin’s clothes had been sliced up the front, laid flat like some macabre sheet before whoever or whatever had cut him open. The whole scene was so bizarre, so unbelievable, she was having trouble finding her thoughts. Part of her insisted this was some creepy joke, perhaps a dummy placed there for shock value.

This couldn’t be Bill Martin. Kind, suffering Bill Martin, who’d loved Shinwua, dealt with his lover’s peccadillos, and always took him back.

Yosh burst through the kitchen door, pulling to a stop as he got his first look at the gruesome corpse behind the island.

“What the fuck?”

“This is . . .” Michaela fought for words. “What the hell happened here, Yosh? Who did this?”

People were calling, steps pounding outside in the cafeteria.

Michaela turned, ordering, “Stay back! Everyone. Stay back! Keep your asses out of the kitchen.”

At the door, Anna, Kevina, Odinga, and Ruto all crowded together, expressions anxious.

“Yosh. This is insane,” Michaela managed as she forced her brain to work. “Who’d do this?”

“No one!” Yosh cried. “This is Bill, for God’s sake!”

Yosh started forward, Michaela grabbing the fabric on his shoulder. “Wait. Think. We’ve got to use our heads. Look around. What do you see?”

“Blood. Bill’s body. It’s like it was dissected. The organs are jumbled. Not put back in anatomical order. I mean, the skin’s like it was flayed open. The way his clothes were cut up the front . . . autopsy style”

“Vibraknife there,” Michaela pointed. “That’s what cut through his pubis and sternum, then up through the jaw and laid the skull open.”

“Yeah, well, it’s covered with blood.” Yosh bent down, staring at the floor. “Shit on a shoe, Michaela, these tracks? Look! Barefoot. It’s a fucking kid. One of the children was here.”

Michaela vaguely heard the uttered speculation running from lip to lip among the people clogging the doorway. Iso was telling them exactly what was hidden by the kitchen island.

“A kid?” Michaela stumbled over the notion. When she really fixed on the tracks—and there were a lot of them—it sank in. “This can’t be happening.”

Yosh carefully picked his way around the body, trying unsuccessfully to stay out of the mostly dried blood. He used two fingers to pick up the vibraknife. Squinted as he studied the handle. “I’m no expert, but these prints in the blood. It’s a child’s hand.”

Yosh laid the vibraknife on the counter, fixed on Martin’s right leg. “This is the only cut that isn’t surgical and precise. Here, on the back of Bill’s knee. Like it sliced right through the back of the joint. See? Severed the tendons and ligaments, transected the femoral arteries and veins. Bill couldn’t have stayed on his feet. Would have fallen. Bled out within minutes.”