Gretchen points toward the door to the bedroom and raises her eyebrows questioningly.

“Are you sure you want to go in there?” Archie asks.

“I’ve seen the photographs,” Gretchen says.

“It’s not like the photographs,” Archie says.

“I want to see it.”

Archie shrugs.

She hesitates before she touches the doorknob.

“It’s okay,” Archie says. “CSU is done.”

Gretchen pushes the door open. He can see the fear in her neck and arms, and he is impressed that she is going forward despite it. She turns back and gives him a pleading, vulnerable look, and he steps beside her, happy to be her protector. He enters the bedroom and turns on the light.

The smell is stronger in here.

The bed frame is dark wood, an antique by the looks of it, maybe something from the family, an heirloom to get her started out on her own. The mattress has been removed since Archie’s last visit to the apartment, but Lidia Hays had bled enough that a faint person-shaped dark red stain is visible on the box spring below. The blood spatter around the bed makes the gray carpet look like it has been scattered with rose petals.

Archie leans against the wall just inside the bedroom door as Gretchen takes a few tentative steps toward the bed. He doesn’t talk to Debbie about his work. He lets her think it’s because reliving his day is too upsetting for him, but the truth is he is rarely upset by what he sees anymore. The crime scenes haven’t bothered him for years. But he doesn’t want Debbie to know that. He worries it will scare her. It scares him sometimes.

“It doesn’t bother you, does it?” Gretchen asks, looking back at him.

He is only mildly startled by the question. He is used to Gretchen’s ability to read his mind. She’s a psychologist, after all. “I’ve seen a lot of this kind of thing,” Archie says. He chooses his words carefully. “The death bothers me. But not the mess.”

It strikes Archie how quiet the apartment is, without the presence of the crime scene techs and cops. He doesn’t hear any sounds of neighbors. There’s no traffic.

Gretchen takes a step toward him, her back to the bed. “I didn’t see you yesterday.”

“I couldn’t get away,” he says.

“You work too much,” she says matter-of-factly.

“That’s what everyone says.”