“He must have caught her off-guard,” Ruby said. Of course he had. It was a party. She had no reason to see this coming. It was supposed to be a happy day. Their killer had turned it into this.

The body was curled on its side. Even partly obscured, her dress soaked in her blood, Ruby's eyes followed the familiar puncture points.

The woman's eyes were frozen open, her lips parted. Out of dozens of people she called friends, the last person she saw was her killer. Ruby’s chest tightened at the tragic thought.

Her blood had soaked into the bathmat. This time, the killer had left distinct footprints, but even at a glance, Ruby could see how generic the tread was.

“Maybe he wears a size thirteen,” Gabe said wryly, studying the footprints himself.

Ruby flicked him a warning glance, but her main focus remained on the red-head. Someone killed her in the middle of the day, at a party, and walked out of it, blood on his shoes.

“A friend found her when she went to wash her hands,” a weary local police officer said, poking his head into the cramped room.

“She didn't hear anything?” Ruby asked him, a little incredulous.

“She was out in the yard by the barbeque. She got mustard on herself and came in to wash up. The body was in there. She didn't see anyone else.”

Ruby almost asked why she didn't hear her friend dying, but she bit back the question. She knew why.

“She couldn't hear over the music,” Gabe theorized. “Stabbed to death and no one heard it.”

In the flurry of the police and ambulance arriving, of guests scattering, music playing, it would have been easy for the killer to slip away amid the chaos.

Ruby found herself rubbing the tips of her fingers together, and forced her hand to her side.

“Let forensics do their thing,” Ruby said, taking a step back. There was more in the house to see.

She went back downstairs, into the kitchen.

A cake had already been pieced apart by partygoers, nothing left but the HA BIR and a swirl of frosting flowers.

“Whose birthday?” Ruby asked out loud.

“The dead girl,” answered a uniformed officer, staying far away from the main crime scene. “The 911 caller said so, at least.”

Ruby looked grimly at the cake. What a birthday present. Did their victim even get a slice?

“She didn't look 26 to me,” Gabe said, “not in a house like this.”

“That's not what I was thinking,” Ruby replied, turning to a magnet calendar stuck to the fridge.

“It's the weekend. People have their parties over the weekend, but that doesn't mean her birthday was today,” Ruby said.

Gabe's brow furrowed, following Ruby's eye to the calendar. The 13th fell in the middle of the week.

Ruby turned to the officer.

“You have an ID on the victim?”

The officer nodded. “Pearl Helman.”

“Date of birth?”