If Klein really was dead, going to the police was not an option. I’d suspected Ellen wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut about the Lady, the operation, and she was confirming that belief more and more each second. Especially since they were still missing their bribe money. And now, with Klein dead, no chance to get it back. No chance to get any of it back.

And what would the Lady say when I brought her this conundrum? No money and one of my girls turned murderess, the body of a highly public figure, one who would be missed for the very same reasons we’d picked him as a mark, decomposing in her bed.

I couldn’t see that playing well, either.

I started to rattle questions off fast and hard at Ellen, wanting to shock her into giving me the truth, wanting to keep both of us from fixating on the corpse in her bed. This time, her answers were less practiced. No, she didn’t think she’d touched the body. Well, maybe she had—she couldn’t remember; she couldn’t be sure. He had screamed, a little, although no one had come to check—the shot had been so fast, muffled by the pillows, it hadn’t been any louder than a television sound effect. The gun was a present, from her uncle. (I’d stared hard at her at that one, trying to tell if she was lying.) No, she was pretty sure he hadn’t told anyone he was coming over.

It wasn’t great, but we would make it work—we had to. I told her to grab all the cleaning supplies she could find. Ellen sprang into action, flopping to her knees and putting sponge to carpet. She’d always been good with directions. But I already knew that: I’d profiled her myself. Make him pay. Oh yes, she could follow directions all right. My ears began to ring, and for a moment I felt light-headed, almost like I was going to pass out, but I gritted my teeth and braced my arms against the door frame of the bedroom. My gaze leveled, and I gulped down a few more breaths, bending over until I was steady, until I could think again.

Ellen started scrubbing down anything she could get her hands on, places I was sure Klein had never touched—the TV, the doorway, her kitchen tile. Anything to avoid the body in her bed. But some part of me had already guessed that would fall to me.