At this point, there were simply too many questions and not enough information to bring me closure, not enough “routes to the truth, paved with the facts,” as my mentor, Dr. Calvin Werjonic, sometimes said.

Once again I was reminded of my lunch with him tomorrow.

Well, it would be good to see him. Maybe I could even kick some ideas around with him on how to approach this investigation.

Back home, I found one officer waiting outside the building and the other upstairs in the hallway leading to our door.

I asked him if he’d seen anything.

“Nope. After we cleared your apartment, there hasn’t been a peep from inside. No one else has been up here except for an elderly couple heading down to their place at the end of the hall.”

“Alright. Thanks.”

“That’s a feisty girl you’ve got in there.”

“Yeah.”

I dismissed him, took a deep breath, and entered our apartment.

“Tessa?”

She was standing beside the couch, hands on her hips.

“You alright?” I asked.

“I’m fine. You told me not to open the door for anyone.”

“I know.”

“What the hell—and I almost said something a lot worse than hell—is going on?”

“I’m just trying to do all I can to keep you safe.”

“And why would I be in any danger?”

“You’re not. I mean . . . Maybe I’m just being a little paranoid.”

“A little? You sent two cops in here to check on me! One of ’em went in my room, looked in my closet, under my bed. That is a complete invasion of my privacy. You do understand that, right?”

“It’s been a long day, Tessa. Why don’t you head to bed. We can talk about this more tomorrow.”

She shook her head in exasperation and stomped off to her room.

Man, it was going to be good to have Christie home again tomorrow night.

I processed what was happening as I iced the side of my head and then tried to get some sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw that mannequin head staring at me and then winking. Then her lips curved into a sly smile and she mouthed words to me, but despite how hard I tried to concentrate on my dream, I couldn’t decipher what the decapitated head was trying to tell me.

34

Julianne Springman felt consciousness returning to her slowly.

At first, she thought she was at home in her own bed, but it was cold, and she was going to pull the covers up but found that she couldn’t move her one good arm. It seemed strange and part of a dream, unable to move.