“As long as you have a key.” I’m describing this to Marino. “You could get in through the bulkhead doors and at the very least be in the basement I’m assuming.”

“Well if you have a damn key wouldn’t you also have the alarm code and not need to enter the house that way?”

“Not necessarily.”

He unclips his holstered Glock from the waistband of his soaked shorts and says, “I wonder if there was some way the housekeeper could have come back in here to poke around. Maybe she knows a way to do that without touching the alarm system. So she snuck in and while she was at it she wound the clocks.”

“Why bother?”

“Habit. People do weird things when they’re upset. Or maybe she’s crazy.” His eyes are wide, his holstered pistol pointed down by his side. “You look at all this stuff everywhere and I’m thinking somebody’s a mental case or into bad juju.”

None of it caught my attention when I was here this morning. I left too abruptly, and I can’t stop thinking about the Depraved Heart videos and how they’ve made me feel and act. Stunned. Threatened. Angry. Sad. Most of all I was overwhelmed by a sense of urgency. I was too quick to race out of here.

If I’d had a chance to look around I would have wondered if Chanel Gilbert had psychiatric problems or was involved in pagan religions. Either could have made her vulnerable to a predator like Carrie, and I listen for the response team clearing the house. I hear nothing. Then Marino’s phone rings, a birdsong ringtone that for an instant confuses both of us.

“What the hell is going on, Lapin?” he angrily blurts out the instant he realizes who it is. “Yeah well sorry to hear that but I don’t give a shit if you’re really sick or not. I sound like I’m in a tomb? Well guess why. It’s because I am. I’m back in the foyer where a lady was found dead this morning, remember? And the Doc and I just got back here to finish up the scene of what’s turned out to be a homicide and guess what? The perimeter hadn’t been secured and my backup was nowhere in sight. And guess what else? Chanel Gilbert’s Range Rover isn’t at the house anymore. You heard me. Nope, I’m not being funny. It’s not in the driveway where we saw it three hours ago. It appears someone went inside the house while we were gone. Maybe the same person who took her car … Hell no that couldn’t be Hyde. He has no way to get in.”