He entered the kitchen cautiously, glad for the first time in six months that he was armed. The kitchen was a wide room. On the far right was a dinette table and two chairs in front of a window that faced the driveway and the adjoining house. The window brought some light into the room, but not much.

In front of him was a countertop with cabinets under it, a sink, and a refrigerator. Between him and the refrigerator was a small butcher-block island. On the island he saw a meat cleaver. As he stepped around the island, he spotted the blood—a sequence of dark drops on the worn linoleum floor, each about the size of a dime, one every two or three feet, stretching from in front of the refrigerator door over to the rear doorway of the kitchen and out into a shadowy area beyond it.

Without warning he heard the sound of breathing behind him. He spun around in a crouch, pulling the Beretta from his pocket. It was Kim, standing just a few feet away, the cliché deer in the headlights, staring at the muzzle of the little .32, mouth half open.

“Jesus,” he said, taking a breath, lowering the pistol.

“Sorry. I was trying to be quiet. You want me to turn on the light?”

He nodded. The switch was on the wall over the sink. It operated two long fluorescent bulbs mounted on the ceiling. In the brighter light, the blood drops on the floor looked redder. “Is there a light switch for that back hall?”

“On the wall to the right of the fridge.”

He found it, turned it on, and the darkness beyond the doorway was replaced by the buzzing, flickering, cold light of a cheap fluorescent fixture at the end of its life. He moved slowly toward the doorway, the Beretta pointed downward.

Except for a green plastic garbage barrel, the short rear hallway was empty. At its far end, a solid-looking exterior door was secured by a substantial dead-bolt lock. There was a second door in the right wall of this cramped space. It was to this one that the trail of blood drops led.

Gurney glanced quickly at Kim. “What’s behind that door?”

“Stairs. The stairs … to the basement.” Fear was creeping back into her voice.

“When was the last time you were down there?”

“Down … oh, God, I don’t know. Maybe … maybe a year ago? A circuit breaker cut out, and the landlord’s maintenance guy was showing me how to reset it.”

“Is there any other access?”

“No.”

“Any windows?”

“Little ones at ground level, but they have bars on them.”

“Where’s the light switch?”

“Right inside the door, I think.”