Before I followed Norton over the threshold, I turned and took one last look at the river. From that height I should have been able to see for miles, but the storm erased the view. It felt like the island wasn’t one of thousands, but the only one, all alone on the wide, wild river. The family I was about to meet might as well have been the last people on earth. For the next twenty-four hours, they would become my everything.

THREE

It wasn’t how things were supposed to be done. If Jasper Sinclair went missing on the mainland, and that bed looked the way it did, the crime scene would have been hopping by the time I walked in. An EMT known for his gentle touch would be wrapping a heat-conducting blanket around Mrs. Sinclair’s shoulders and steering her away from the distressing sight. Folks from CSI would pull disposable booties over their shoes and pinch evidence bags between their gloved fingers as they walked the room. Tim’s job would be to neutralize lingering threats while I zeroed in on the witnesses. In other words, we’d have support.

We had none of that today. The minute I set foot in Jasper’s bedroom I was no longer a plainclothes detective with the Bureau of Criminal Investigation but captain, crime-scene manager, and evidence tech. Until we got some help, it was all on us to secure the scene and interview everyone in the house. All I had to work with was Tim, and a bed that made clear why the Sinclairs called this murder.

A bed that would haunt my dreams.

It was made of reclaimed wood, a rustic yet modern look that must have cost thousands. Silky linens were bunched by the footboard, like someone kicked them off in a hurry. My God, but the blood. There was more than I’d expected—a lot more. On the side closest to the bedroom door, the fitted sheet was saturated with a dark stain that, to my revulsion, assumed the vague shape of a heart. If Jasper was average height for a guy, the stain would map with his abdomen. This was no nick; he’d been the victim of a calculated bloodletting. It looked to me as if someone eviscerated the man while his girlfriend dozed peacefully at his side.

Camilla Sinclair, Jasper’s grandmother, watched from the doorway as I made my way around the room. She had to be in her nineties but she had great hair, white and glossy, cut in a bob. I could tell she’d been tall once, but now Camilla leaned on a cane in a way that made the vertebrae of her spine tepee the back of her shirt. Her free hand trembled as it gripped a framed photograph of her grandson, but her expression was stoic, her eyes watchful and dry.

I’d already asked her about Jasper and how he’d spent the previous night, and while she’d been forthcoming with her answers, her story, like Norton’s, was conspicuously uneventful. Cocktails. Dinner. Bed. When the interview was done, I invited her to join her family on the main floor. Yet here she stood.