The bathroom is small. No closet. No place for anyone to hide. I step inside. My beam reveals blood. On the floor. On the sink. The wall ahead. I’m reaching for my mike when a sound spins me around. The burn of adrenaline in my gut. Then I notice movement in the bathtub. Stumbling back, I thrust my light toward it. The shower curtain has been torn from the rod. I see the shocking red of blood. Blond hair against porcelain. Staring eyes within the pale oval of a face.

“Ms. Rutledge!” I hit my lapel mike. “Ten seven eight!” I hear fear in my voice, make an effort to crank it down. “Ten thirty-one C.”

“You want me to send County?”

“I need an ambulance!” I rush to the tub and drop to my knees.

“Stand by.” A quick scratch of static and then. “What’s your twenty?”

I relay the address from memory. Quickly, I set my flashlight on the floor with the beam pointing toward the tub. Jules Rutledge is lying on her back with one hand pressed against her chest, blood flowing between her fingers. The other hand is slung over the side of the tub, fingers twitching. She’s wearing a white nightgown, the front of which is blood soaked. Her eyes are open and on me, blinking. In their depths I see terror and I hate it that she’s afraid, because I don’t think she’s going to survive this.

“There’s an ambulance on the way,” I tell her. “Who did this to you?”

A clawlike hand reaches for me. Fingers grasping air. Eyes beseeching me to help. Panic on a face that already knows it’s too late. Her bloody mouth opens and whispers, “We didn’t … mean for it to … happen.”

I try to pull away, but she clenches my jacket lapel with surprising strength. “Didn’t mean for what to happen?” I ask.

Her lips move. A bubble of red-tinged saliva between them. “Kill … her.”

I stare at her, not sure if I heard correctly, not sure if she’s cognizant of what she just said. I hear gurgling in her chest and throat. Part of me wants to tell her not to speak, to save her strength. But the part of me that is a cop wants her to name the son of a bitch responsible.

“Tell me who did this,” I press.

“… ghost…”

The hand at my lapel falls away. Her body sinks more deeply into the tub. Her head lolls.

“Julia,” I say. “Julia. Stay with me.” But I know it’s too late.

“Goddammit.” I tug a latex glove from a compartment on my belt, slip my right hand into it, and reach over to check her carotid artery for a pulse, but she’s gone. “Shit. Shit.”

“Chief?” Mona’s voice scratches over the radio.