The driveway was a path of dirt and crushed rock with grass and weeds sprouted up the middle like the mane of a wild pony. Falling-down fences the color of driftwood created the lane between two overgrown pastures that had once been home to cattle and horses.

A vintage Woody station wagon well past its glory days was parked at a casual angle near an open shed full of rusted farm equipment. An old Radio Flyer red wagon had been abandoned near the front porch with an orange tabby cat sitting in it, waiting for a ride. On the porch two kittens played peekaboo among overgrown pots of parched geraniums and kitchen herbs. One propped herself up on the screen door and peered into the house, then squeaked and leapt and dashed away, tail straight up in the air.

Inside the house nothing moved but flies.

A horrible still life had been staged on the Saltillo tile kitchen floor.

A woman lay dead, her hair spreading out around her head like a dark cloud. Her skin was the color of milk. Her lips had been painted as red as a rose—as red as her blood must have been as it drained from the wounds carved into her flesh.

She lay discarded like a life-size broken doll—made up, torn up, and cast aside, her brown eyes cloudy and lifeless.

Beside her lay a smaller doll—her child—head resting on her shoulder, face streaked with the last of her mother’s life’s blood.

The flies buzzed. The wall clock ticked above the sink.

The telephone receiver dangled near the floor, stenciled with small bloody fingerprints. The last words spoken into it were a whisper still hanging in the air: “My daddy hurt my mommy ...”

Chapter 2

2

“The victim is Marissa Fordham, twenty-eight, single mom. An artist.”

Sheriff’s detective Tony Mendez rattled off the facts as if unaffected by what he had seen inside the house. Nothing could have been further from the truth. In fact, shortly after he arrived at the scene, he had had to excuse himself from the kitchen to vomit under a tree in the backyard.

He had been second on the scene, the property being on his side of town. The first responder—a young deputy—had puked under the same tree. Mendez had never seen so much blood. The smell of it was still like a fist lodged at the back of his throat. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the victims in freeze-frame shots from a horror movie.

His stomach rolled.

“You said there were two vics.”