He pulled out a thin leather wallet where he kept the essentials, found a modified slim jim, and worked it between the patio doors. Double doors like these, especially when they had so much glass in them, were basically ornamental. They wanted to fall open at the slightest touch; you just had to give them a nudge. A moment later, the door on the right slipped open, and Hazard pushed his way inside.

The kitchen was small, cramped, with an awful octagonal pattern in the linoleum and with heavy wooden furniture that looked like it belonged to another generation. Someone had burned breakfast sausage; the smell hung in the air, and the pan, with charcoal chunks of meat still stuck to it, was submerged in greasy water in the sink. A clock ticked, and then the A/C came on, breathing cold air against Hazard’s face. He listened a moment longer, and then he moved.

As best he could, Hazard moved silently, but the house was old, and the floor creaked every time he took a step. He wanted to find a home office or its equivalent—some place where Rasmussen kept important documents. A phone bill, a bank statement, receipts. Anything that might tell him how Rasmussen was helping Dulac and why. It was no small task to provide a hospital patient with the means of suicide; Rasmussen had made herself an accomplice to murder, Hazard would argue, even if she hadn’t known the full extent of what Dulac was doing. Was Dulac blackmailing her? Had he bribed her? Or—Hazard thought of his theory that two people might be committing the Keeper killings—or was Rasmussen a psychopath too? Were she and Dulac working as partners?

After a quick scan of the kitchen, not finding anything to indicate that Rasmussen handled her bills and paperwork in the kitchen, the way Hazard’s mother had, Hazard moved deeper into the house. The first door on the left led into a bathroom with shelves running around the top of the walls and, on the shelves, fluffy stuffed cats staring down at you while you did your business. The first door on the right was a coat closet. The next door on the left was a guest bedroom; vinyl letters clung to one wall, spelling out the words DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT LEAVING! in what Hazard guessed was supposed to be a fun, playful script. The next door on the right was a sewing room, although the air smelled closed up, and a fine layer of dust said Rasmussen hadn’t been doing any sewing lately. The door at the end of the hall was the master bedroom with an attached bath. Hazard found a safe in the closet, but it was bolted to the floor and its door was secured, so he left it for later.

Retracing his steps to the kitchen, Hazard found the stairs that led to the basement and went down. He fumbled for lights at the bottom, and then he found himself in a long, narrow room with vinyl parquet flooring, a piano, and two mammoth, blocky sofas that looked like they’d come out of a European design catalog. More doors opened off of this space: one to an unfinished storage room, the shelves bowing under the weight of pork ‘n beans and pineapple tidbits; another that was apparently a workout room with a rowing machine and a twelve-inch TV hooked up to a VCR; a third that was a bathroom.