She tucked the envelope into her purse and punched the elevator button for her floor. The entire building was subdued by the lingering sorrow over the death of Maggie Fordham, the victim of a brutal, senseless murder. It had been nearly a week since Maggie’s body had been discovered. Her gruesome end shocked the quiet Esplanade neighborhood where she lived with a noisy, adored dog. It forced her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Hardy, to her bed for three days, comforted only by orange pekoe tea and generous shots of Jim Beam. On the first floor, Davis and Shanie Dupree purchased an extra dead bolt to augment their home security system and began searching the papers for condominiums out in Metairie.

She wished she could grieve more, Erin thought as she set her purse down on the trestle table near the entryway. Ignoring the light switch, she held on to the letter and headed out to the balcony to watch the sunset.

Maggie had lived a floor below, and often they’d shared the last minutes of daylight. In silent tribute, Erin watched the sun dip below the edges of the magenta sky. Though the women hadn’t been close friends, Maggie had been a good neighbor. In the months Erin had lived in the building, Maggie had been unfailingly kind. She’d shown Erin around the Quarter, helped her haggle over prices in the market. Maggie had told her about the vacant position at Burkeen University.

But while Erin was saddened, death did not affect her as it did others. For one thing, she’d trained herself not to become too attached. Friendly, sure, but never truly a friend. For another, Erin made her living studying death and the dealers in it. A criminal psychologist, she’d seen the worst of the human psyche played out in horrifying detail. She’d learned not to dwell on the passage of human life. She knew all too well how fragile life could be, how easily taken, on purpose or by accident.

Life was best lived in solitude, she believed. No connections, no recriminations. No one to take notice. No one to tell you who you should be.

It was the only way to survive.

As dusk settled, she turned around slowly, ran critical eyes over the one-bedroom apartment. Potted plants occupied every corner of the postage-stamp balcony. Like the magazine photo she’d patterned it on, inside, buttercup walls held framed prints of Paris and the markets in Senegal. Her furniture was arranged to mirror the glossy pictures from the catalogs. Tacky tchotchkes jumbled onto shelves, more by design than desire. Real homes had the useless things, she’d learned, and she would have them, too. If the sight of them made her wince, it was a small price to pay.