“ViCAP got a hit? Seriously?” The detective was talking excitedly from the waiting area. “Multiple victims, postmortem skin harvesting . . . In his own closet? Jesus, that’s sick. Wait, hang on. What do you mean the guy’s not even alive anymore?”

I felt the first shiver. My gaze falling to my desk, where the daily paper still awaited my attention. Two murders, shouted the front page, skinned in their beds. Never seen anything like it, claimed an anonymous detective. Except I had. In old crime scene photos, where the carnage had been inflicted by someone even better. Someone even badder.

Someone whose need for human skin had been passed along to both of his daughters.

I drifted to the inner doorway. I couldn’t help myself. I stood there, meeting Detective D. D. Warren’s narrow blue gaze as I whispered, a heartbeat before her, the name of the one and only person who could disturb a hardened detective so much: “Harry Day.”

Chapter 12

D.D. ENDED THE CALL. She kept her gaze locked on her doctor as she slid her cell back into her coat pocket.

“How do you know that name?” D.D. asked, already suspicious.

“He was my birth father.”

“Harry Day? The serial killer?”

“I was a year old when he died. Can’t say I ever knew the man, more like over the years I’ve come to know of him. I saw today’s paper, Detective Warren, including the article on Monday night’s murder. I couldn’t help but wonder.”

D.D. continued studying her pain specialist. Adeline stood in the doorway between the two rooms, looking as cool and composed as ever. Muted brown slacks, cranberry-colored cashmere turtleneck. Her shoulder-length brown hair was worn down today, brushed to a high gloss that nearly matched her obviously expensive leather boots. Even at forty, fit, accomplished and with a string of initials after her name, the woman appeared more likely to be an Ann Taylor model than a notorious serial killer’s daughter.

“We’re going to talk,” D.D. said, and crossed back to the office.

The doctor glanced at her watch. “You have ten minutes left.”

“Not on my time. On yours.”

Adeline merely shrugged. “Honestly, Detective, other than his name, there’s very little I can tell you about Harry Day.”

“Now, now, Doc. You have your expertise, I have mine. Shall we?”