Gurney thought about this, thought about the instinctive triage process every busy urban cop goes through when a new incident is tossed on his plate. It’s all relative—relative to whatever else is on his plate—relative to the other urgencies of that month, that week, that day. He remembered a partner he’d had many years ago in NYPD Homicide, a guy who lived in a sleepy little town in western New Jersey, on the far edge of commutability. One day the guy brought in his local newspaper. The big front-page story was about a bird bath that had gone missing from someone’s backyard. This was at a time when there were an average of twenty murders a week in New York City—most of which barely rated a one-line mention in the city papers. The fact was that everything depended on context. And, although he didn’t say it to Kim, Gurney understood how the discovery of her own knife on her own bathroom floor might not have seemed like the end of the world to a cop dealing with rapes and homicides.

But he also understood how disturbed she was. More than that, there was an obviously sinister quality to the intruder’s actions that he himself found disturbing. He suggested that it might be a good idea for her to get out of Syracuse, maybe stay for a while at her mother’s house.

The suggestion converted her fear into fury. “That fucking son of a bitch!” she hissed. “If he thinks he’s going to win this battle, he doesn’t know me very well.”

Gurney waited until she was calmer, then asked if she remembered the names of the detectives who’d responded to her previous calls.

“I told you, I’m not calling them again.”

“I understand. But I’d like to talk to them myself. See if they know anything they’re not telling you.”

“About what?”

“Maybe about Robby Meese? Who knows? I won’t know till I talk to them.”

Kim’s dark eyes searched his, her lips tightening. “Elwood Gates and James Schiff. Gates is the short one, Schiff is the tall one. Same jerk, two bodies.”

Detective James Schiff had taken Gurney into a spare interrogation room a couple of corridors away from the reception area. He’d left the door open, hadn’t brought a chair, and hadn’t offered Gurney one either. The man covered his face with his hands, struggled to stifle a yawn and lost the battle.

“Long day?”

“You could say that. Been on for eighteen hours straight, six more to go.”

“Paperwork?”