Gurney sat back in his chair and gave Hardwick a speculative look. “Maybe it’s my imagination, but you seem to be getting an inch or two closer to my way of thinking about this case.”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“Your interest in it seems to be expanding a bit beyond the technical appeal issues.”

At first Hardwick looked like he wanted to argue the point. Then he just shook his head slowly. “Those fucking nails …” He stared down at the floor. “I don’t know … makes you wonder just how God-awful a human being can be. How. Downright. Completely. Evil.” He paused, still shaking his head, like someone with a kind of slow-motion palsy. “You ever come upon something that just … just made you wonder … what the fuck … I mean … if there are any limits on what a human being can do?”

Gurney didn’t have to think very long about it. Images of severed heads, torn throats, bodies chopped apart. Children burned alive by their parents. The “Satanic Santa” case that involved a serial killer gift-wrapping pieces of his victims’ bodies and mailing them to the local cops’ homes at Christmas.

“Lots of images come to mind, Jack, but the new one that keeps disturbing my sleep is Carl Spalter’s face—the photo taken of him while he was still barely alive at Kay’s trial. There’s something terrible about it. Maybe the look of despair in Carl’s eyes affects me the way those nails in Gus’s eyes affect you.”

Neither of them said anything more until Esti came back with a small sheet of notepaper and handed it to Gurney. “You probably don’t even need this address,” she said. “I could’ve just told you to look for the biggest house on Lakeshore Drive.”

“It’ll be easier with this. Thanks.”

She sat in her chair, looked back and forth curiously at the two men. “What’s up? You’re both looking very … down.”

Hardwick uttered a sharp, humorless bark of a laugh.

Gurney shrugged. “Every once in a while, we get a glimpse of the reality we’re dealing with. You know what I’m talking about?”

Her voice changed. “Yes, of course I do.”

There was a silence.

Gurney said, “We need to focus on the fact that we’re making progress. We’re taking the appropriate actions. Accurate data and solid logic will—”

His comment was cut short by the sound of a sudden, sharp impact against the clapboard siding of the house.

Esti tensed, looked alarmed.

Hardwick blinked. “The fuck was that?”

The sound was repeated—like the crack of the hard tip of a whip against the house—and all the lights went out.

Chapter 29

Game Changers

Reflexively, Gurney dropped from his chair to the floor. Hardwick and Esti followed immediately, in a flurry of expletives.

“I’m not carrying,” said Gurney quickly. “What do you have in the house?”