Duncan waved them over. “Stay with Ms. Ward, will you? The fire department will be here in a minute. Tell ’em to sit tight.”

Eve and Duncan walked into the backyard. Some rusting lawn furniture, a deflated soccer ball, and a torn standing umbrella were strewn amid the dead grass and weeds.

“My mom was an extra,” Eve said, surprising herself by volunteering the information to Duncan. “They’re human set dressing, decoration like a couch or a potted plant. The thing is, they’re hoping to be discovered by somebody when their job is not to attract any attention at all.”

“Was your mother discovered?”

“Nope,” Eve said as they approached the door and the kitchen window. “But she still hasn’t given up hope.”

Eve and Duncan peeked in the window, which was over the sink, and saw a pool of blood in the center of the yellowed linoleum floor. Bloody drag marks ran out into the hallway.

“Shit,” Duncan said.

She looked at him. “Exigent circumstances?”

In the absence of a search warrant, in order to enter the house they needed credible grounds to believe that immediate action was necessary to save a person’s life, prevent evidence from being destroyed, or stop a suspect from escaping.

“Exigent as it gets,” Duncan said.

Both of the detectives drew their guns. He gestured to her to take the lead. She tested the doorknob. It was locked. She took a step back and kicked the door open.

The first thing Eve noticed was the strange smell. She’d been expecting the oddly metallic scent of blood. Instead, the odor evoked the ridiculous image in her mind of an overchlorinated swimming pool in a mechanic’s garage. It didn’t make sense. But she couldn’t think about that now.

She cleared her mind and moved into the kitchen, careful not to step in any of the bloody smears. Duncan moved off to one side, his eyes on the hallway, and gestured her forward with a nod of his head.

“Police,” Eve shouted. “Is anybody here?”

The house was quiet, the air still, in sharp contrast to the story of violence illustrated in blood on the floor and in the spatter she saw on the cupboards. But the dark energy generated by the violence was gone. Now all she felt was the emptiness, the vacancy of anything living besides her and Duncan.

Duncan took a covering position as Eve edged around the doorway into the hall. The shag carpet was soaked with blood and there were crimson streaks on the wall. The story was getting more horrific with each step they took.

“This is the police,” Eve said loudly and firmly. “If there’s anybody in this house, you need to come out now, hands in the air.”

Nobody appeared. The only sound Eve heard was her own breathing.

Eve and Duncan shared grim looks and moved slowly into the living room. The front door was spattered with blood and two children’s backpacks were lying in dried puddles of blood on the floor. Eve felt a pang of fear in her chest for the children. She hoped that they were in school or at a friend’s house. Anywhere but here.