ALSO BY LISA GARDNER

NOVELS

The Perfect Husband

The Other Daughter

The Third Victim

The Next Accident

The Survivors Club

The Killing Hour

Alone

Gone

Hide

Say Goodbye

The Neighbor

Live to Tell

Love You More

Catch Me

Touch & Go

SHORT WORKS

The 7th Month

Prologue

Rockabye, baby, on the treetop . . .

The body was gone, but not the smell. As Boston homicide detective D. D. Warren knew from experience, this kind of scene could hold the stench of blood for weeks, even months to come. The crime scene techs had removed the bedding, but still, blood had a life of its own. Seeping into drywall. Slipping behind wooden trim. Pooling between floorboards. Twenty-eight-year-old Christine Ryan used to have approximately 4.7 liters of blood pumping through her veins. Now most of it saturated the bare mattress occupying center stage of this grim, gray space.

When the wind blows, the cradle will rock . . .

The call had come in shortly after 9:00 A.M. Good friend Midge Roberts had grown concerned when Christine hadn’t answered the knocks on her front door or the texts to her cell phone. Christine was the responsible kind. Didn’t oversleep, didn’t run off with a cute bartender, didn’t come down with the flu without providing a heads-up to her best bud, who picked her up promptly at seven thirty each weekday morning for their joint commute to a local accounting firm.

Midge had contacted a few more friends. All agreed no one had heard from Christine since dinner the night before. Midge gave in to instinct and summoned the landlord, who finally agreed to open the door.

Then vomited all over the upstairs hall upon making the find.

Midge hadn’t come up the stairs. Midge had stood in the foyer of the narrow duplex, and, as she’d reported to D.D.’s squad mate Phil, she’d known. Just known. Probably, even from that distance, she’d caught the first unmistakable whiff of drying blood.

Rockabye, baby . . .

Upon her arrival, the scene had immediately struck D.D. with its marked contrasts. The young female victim, sprawled spread-eagle on her own bed, staring up at the ceiling with sightless blue eyes. Pretty features appearing nearly peaceful as her shoulder-length brown hair pooled softly upon a stark white pillow.

Except then, from the neck down . . .

Skin, peeled off in thin, curling ribbons. D.D. had heard of such things. At eleven this morning, she got to see them firsthand. A young woman, flayed in her own bed. With a bottle of champagne on her nightstand and a single red rose placed across her bloody abdomen.

Next to the bottle of champagne, Phil had discovered a pair of handcuffs. The kind purchased in high-end sex shops and fur lined for comfort. Taking in the cuffs, the sparkling wine, the red rose . . .