I stepped into my closet, seeking pajamas. I didn’t realize it until after I opened and then closed the top drawer of the bureau. Then it nagged at me. The closet wasn’t right. Something was off. Something . . .

The movable cherrywood bureau. It wasn’t where it should be, safely positioned over my hidey-hole. Instead, it was forward at least a couple of inches. As if someone had moved it and not gotten it back in place.

My heart, starting to accelerate.

I could’ve done it. Last night, removing vials, my frantic bid to dispose of evidence. Except I always returned it precisely to position, a paranoid habit developed from years of trying to hide the worst of myself.

He’d been here. In my closet. He’d . . .

Then I knew.

I moved the dresser myself, exposing the desired floorboards. On my hands and knees, prying up the first, then the second.

My recently emptied hiding place wasn’t empty anymore. Instead, it contained a shoe box. A perfectly ordinary shoe box, just like one I used to have. Or the one I’d seen in my father’s crime scene photos.

I knew. Even as I lifted it out. Even as I placed it on the floor.

I knew what I would find inside. The true horrors that could lurk in the most ordinary of boxes, tucked beneath a closet floor.

The Rose Killer inside my home. The Rose Killer bearing gifts. The Rose Killer bringing me the one thing he or she knew I would want most, hidden in a place no one, not even my sister, knew existed.

I removed the lid. Set it aside.

Then gazed down in horrified fascination at three brand-new mason jars filled with fresh ribbons of human skin, the replacement for my collection.

I screamed. But there was no one around to hear.

Chapter 31

WE’RE BEING STUPID,” D.D. said.

“We as in you and me, or we as in your case team?” Alex asked.

“All of the above.”

“Okay, what have we been stupid about?” They were sitting on the sofa in the living room. D.D. had returned home in time to put Jack to bed, a ritual she’d needed after all the intensity of her day. Now she had her feet on Alex’s lap and a large ice pack on her left shoulder.

“For starters, we don’t have a killer. I was hoping by now we would.”

“Well, you can’t just conjure up these things.”

“Oh, I was prepared to use deductive reasoning. No conjuring required.”

“Wanna catch me up?”

“Okay.” D.D. repositioned the ice pack on her shoulder while composing her thoughts. “First question we had: Could Shana be communicating with an outside friend/ally/killer, and if so, how?”

“Survey says?”