“Here you go, ma’am,” a voice said at my elbow, and I jerked. Heart pounding, I stared at a young FIB officer. “Sorry,” he said as he extended a sheaf of papers. “Detective Glenn asked me to bring these up when they finished. Didn’t mean to startle you.” His eyes dropped to the report in my hand. “Nasty, isn’t it?”

“Thank you,” I said, accepting the reports. My fingers were trembling as I dialed the number for the victim’s boss when there was no next of kin.

“Jim’s,” a tired voice said after the third ring.

My greeting froze in my throat. I recognized his voice. It was the announcer at Cincinnati’s illegal rat fights. Heart pounding, I hung up, missing the button the first time. I stared at the wall. The room had gone silent.

“Glenn?” I said, my throat tight. I turned to see him surrounded by three officers, all looking at me.

“Yeah?”

My hands shook as I extended the report across the small space. “Will you look at the crime scene photos for me?”

His face blank, he took it. I turned to his wall of sticky notes, listening to the pages turn. Feet shuffled. “What am I looking for?” he asked.

I swallowed hard. “Rat cages?” I asked.

“Oh my God,” someone whispered. “How did she know?”

I swallowed again. I couldn’t seem to stop. “Thanks.”

With motions slow and deliberate, I took the report and stuck it to the bulletin board. My handwriting was shaky as I wrote “T availability” and stuck it on the pages. The report said he had been a bouncer at a dance club, but if he was one of Dr. Anders’s students, he had been skilled with ley lines and was more likely the head of security at Jim’s rat fights.

I reached for the fifth packet with a grim feeling. It was Trent—I knew it was Trent—but the horror of what he had done was killing any joy I might find in it.

I felt the men behind me watching as I leafed through the report, recalling that the fifth victim, found three weeks ago, had died the same way as the first. A call to her tearful mother told me she had met Trent in a specialty bookstore last month. She remembered because her daughter had been surprised that such a young, important man was interested in collectable, pre-Turn fairy-tale anthologies. After confirming that her daughter had been employed in a security subscription firm, I gave her my condolences and hung up.

The background murmurs of the excited men added to my numb state. I carefully wrote my big T, making sure the lines were clear and straight. I stuck it beside the copy of the woman’s work ID picture. She had been young, with straight blond hair to her shoulders and a pretty, oval face. Just out of college. The memory of the picture I had seen of the first woman on the gurney flashed into my mind. I felt the blood drain from me. Cold and light-headed, I stood.