“If,” Maggie said, mocking him.

“Yeah, yeah.” Stride rubbed his hands over his face and felt a bone-deep tiredness throughout his body. “Think they’ve cleaned up the hallway yet?”

Maggie reached over and pushed the door open. “Nope.”

“Shit,” Stride said. “I have to wash my face.”

“Is that what guys say when they have to take a leak?”

“No, we say we have to take a leak.”

“Do most guys wash their hands after?” Maggie asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yuck.”

Stride laughed. He left the interrogation room and covered his nose against the pungent aroma of puke. The hallways were empty. It was evening, and City Hall was mostly deserted. He found the frosted glass door that led to the men’s room, opened it with his shoulder, and started a stream of cold water running in the nearest sink on the long countertop. He bent over, splashed water on his face, and rubbed his skin hard. His fingers ran through his hair, leaving it wet and disheveled.

He smelled it before he saw it.

Blood.

His eyes were closed, and when he opened them, blinking, he saw the first toilet stall reflected in the mirror, its door ajar. Twin trails of fresh blood outlined the grout in the white floor tiles in ruby red squares. Stride ran for the stall and shoved the door open, where it bounced against the wall of the stall. Finn Mathisen was sprawled on the seat, his head lolling back, his mouth open and slack. His arms dangled uselessly at his sides, and a Swiss army knife lay on the floor where it had spilled from his hand.

The blood on the tiles dripped from two jagged, vertical gashes Finn had carved into the veins on both wrists.

PART FOUR
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Act of Mercy

28
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Serena spotted Peter Stanhope in the corner of the main room at Black Woods. His table overlooked the calm lake waters through floor-to-ceiling windows. It was one o’clock, and the restaurant was crowded with the lunch rush. Peter drank a glass of red wine and checked e-mail on his BlackBerry with his other hand as she took a seat opposite him. She stared at his lower lip, which was swollen and purple.

He followed her gaze and shrugged. “Tish.”

“I heard.”

“It was my own fault,” Peter said. He used his fork to separate a flaky piece of white fish, which he chewed gingerly. “Even so, I never expected her to do something so crazy.”

“Not necessarily crazy,” Serena said.

Peter cocked his head with suspicion. “What do you mean by that?”

Serena said nothing. Peter thought about it, and then he glanced around the restaurant and lowered his voice. “This is about DNA? What the hell would Tish Verdure want with a sample of my DNA?”

“What do you think?”

Peter shook his head, as if scolding himself. “That was stupid of me. I didn’t know that Stride had any forensic evidence in Laura’s murder.”