Hazard pecked him on the cheek and turned him toward the garage. Wrangling Evie, he swept her up and over his shoulder, and her shrieks dissolved into laughter. “I would have woken you up if you were going to be late.”

“I wanted to get in early—”

“You needed sleep.”

“I have a million things—”

“You needed sleep.” Hazard pretended to squeeze Evie until she screamed in delight, and then the squeezing turned into tickling. “Especially,” Hazard added in a stage whisper, “after thirds.”

“I hate you.”

“Don’t say hate!” Evie screamed.

“Say goodbye to daddy,” Hazard instructed.

“Bye,” Evie shouted, waving both hands as Hazard flew her in for a kiss.

“Goodbye,” Somers said, laughing as he accepted a kiss first from Evie and then from Hazard.

“Eat lunch,” Hazard said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m serious. Something with protein. Not the shi—not the junk in the lunchroom.”

“Yeah,” Somers said, grinning as he went out to the garage.

And then Hazard flew Evie around the house, two loops, while she kicked and laughed. He was feeling better, much better. What could have been another epic fight with Somers the day before had turned into something else—a chance for both of them to support each other. And then, of course, after putting Evie to bed they had made it to round three, which didn’t hurt.

After breakfast, Hazard took Evie to preschool. Then he went to his office. The July day was overcast, already threatening rain, and the clouds moved fast; the shadows racing down the street made the world look like an old film that had been sped up. Hazard passed the Magic Dragon Bakery—ignoring the wave from the owner, a septuagenarian pothead who was perpetually trying to lull him into a false sense of security with sweets—and took the stairs to the second-floor landing. He unlocked the door to his office, and then he went through the process of getting ready for the day: turning on the lights, starting the coffee, doing a quick once over of the waiting area to make sure everything was presentable. Warm, humid air leaked through the cracked front window; with the thunderstorm moving in, it was as thick as wool.

Coffee in hand, files in the other, Hazard settled at his desk. He flipped through everything on the Keeper—now painfully outdated, everything months old, since he didn’t have access to the reports and information from yesterday’s attacks—and found his good mood evaporating. He couldn’t solve a crime when he didn’t have access to any information. He couldn’t stop the Keeper when he was cut off from the investigation.

A horn blatted on Market Street, and Hazard stiffened in his seat, his heart accelerating. He shoved the paperwork to the side. What he was doing, combing through these pages again, was pointless. He grabbed a blank sheet of paper, grabbed a pen, and then he sat still.

At the top, he wrote: MURDER OF SUSAN MORRISON.

Below, he bulleted all the information he could remember. He started with what he believed had stayed the same: the Keeper had killed the victim with a gunshot to the face; he had incorporated the element of bees; and he had posed the body in a way that was supposed to suggest an element of the Orpheus and Eurydice story. Then, to the side, Hazard listed the new elements of the Keeper’s ritual, which included posing the body outdoors, staging it with lights, and using the murder as a distraction.