The site office door was open and the light inside was on. Holding her gun behind her, she stood up rapidly and climbed the three steps to the door of the trailer. Then she looked inside.

“Fuck!”

The stench was far worse in here, and the watchman seemed to be smiling at her. Smiling? She turned away blindly, sticking her head out of the door, and took deep breaths, desperately trying to get her stomach back under control. Cultivate your professional detachment, she told herself, echoing a half-forgotten professor’s admonition from med school. Reflexes left over from anatomy classes kicked in. She turned back to the thing that had surprised her and began to make observations, rattled to her core but still able to function. She’d seen worse in emergency rooms, after all.

It was the old guy she’d met with the clipboard, and he was past any resuscitation attempt. Someone had used an extremely sharp knife to sever his carotid artery and trachea, and continued to slice halfway through his spine from behind. There was dried blood everywhere, huge black puddles of it splashed over walls and floor and the paper-strewn desk, curdling in great thick viscous lumps—the source of only some of the smell, for he’d voided his bowels at the same time. He was still lying on top of his tumbled chair, his skin waxy and—she reached out to touch—cold. At least twelve hours, she thought, gingerly trying to lift an arm still locked in rigor mortis, but probably no longer. Would the intense cold retard the processes of decay? Yes, a little bit. That would put it before my last trip over here, but after I saw Paulette.

“Goodfellas,” she whispered under her breath: It came out as an angry curse. During her night with Roland, someone had entered the warehouse, casually murdered the old man, climbed the stairs—breaking the hair—and then, what? Brought the attacker who’d gone up on the roof and tried to attack Olga? Then he came back later, crossed over to the other side, and emptied a pistol into the dummy made of pillows lying in her bed? Gone away? Correlation does not imply causality, she reminded herself and giggled, shocked at herself and increasingly angry.

“What to do?” Well, the obvious thing was to use her most dangerous weapon. So she pulled out her phone and speed-dialed Roland.

“Yeah?” He picked up at the fourth ring.

“Roland, there’s a problem.” She realized that she was panting, breathing way too fast. “Let me catch my breath.” She slowed down. “I’m in the warehouse on the doppelgänger side of my rooms. The night watchman’s had his throat cut. He’s been dead for between twelve and thirty-six hours. And someone—did you send me a note by way of the reception on the other side, saying to meet you in the orangery at Palace Thorold?”