Eventually I found myself on the outskirts listening to three conversations as the sun moved and a new chill came into the air. The vacuum cleaner was faint, the on-again, off-again sound making me jittery. Finally it quit and didn’t start up. No one seemed to have noticed. My eyes rose to the upper apartments, and I pulled my jacket closer about me. Glenn had come down just moments before to vanish inside the crime scene van. My breath slid in and out of me, as easy as the day I was born. Giving myself a push, I found myself moving to the stairway.

Immediately Jenks was on my shoulder, making me wonder if he had been keeping an eye on me. “Rache,” he warned. “Don’t go in there.”

“I have to see.” I felt unreal, the rough banister under my hand still warm from the sun.

“Don’t,” he protested, his wings clattering. “Glenn is right. Wait your turn.”

I shook my head, the swinging of my braid forcing him off my shoulder. I needed to see before the atrocity was lessened with little bags, white cards with neatly printed words, and the careful collection of data designed to give madness structure so it could be understood. “Get out of my way,” I said flatly, waving at him as he hovered belligerently in front of my face. He darted back, and I jerked to a stop as I felt a fingertip flick one of his wings. I’d hit him?

“Hey!” he shouted. Surprise, alarm, and finally anger washed over him. “Fine!” he snapped. “Go see. I’m not your daddy.” Still swearing, he flew away at head height. Heads turned in his path as a torrent of foul words spilled nonstop from him.

My legs felt heavy as I forced myself to rise up the stairs. A sharp clattering of feet drew my attention up, and I stood sideways as the first of the vacuum guys hustled past me. A rank smell of decayed flesh trailed after him, and my gore rose. Forcing it down, I continued, smiling sickly at the FIB officer standing beside the door.

The smell was worse up there. My thoughts flashed to the pictures I had seen in Glenn’s office, and I almost lost it. Dr. Anders could have only been dead a few hours. How could it have gotten so bad so quickly?

“Name?” the man said, his face stiff as he tried to look unaffected by the cloying stench.