It sounded as if she were next to him. Behind him. Above him. Her odd, strangled cry got louder until it drowned out the music, and then, with a gasp, it fell silent. He didn’t recognize the distorted voice; he didn’t know if it was Lucy.

Frost drew his gun. He bolted to the double front doors and pounded on them with his fist. “Police! Open the door!”

No one answered.

He twisted the knob with his hand, and it turned. The door was open. He shoved it with his shoulder and spilled inside. Cool, clifftop air whipped through the house from the rear windows. Fresh orchids scented the foyer. Down the dark hallway, a dog barked wildly at the unexpected intruder, scratching to claw its way through a closed door. He shouted again.

“Police!”

Carole King stopped singing. A door at the end of the hallway opened, letting out a triangle of light. Frost aimed his gun at the doorway and balanced his wrist with his other hand. “Come out slowly, and put your hands in the air.”

He saw a bare foot nudge the door wider. A man stood in the doorway, his hands up, his body lost in shadows. He wore only loose-fitting boxers. “Come closer,” Frost demanded. “Slowly.”

The man approached him step by step. The light of the foyer splashed over his face, and Frost recognized Darren Newman. Newman’s mouth was creased into a smile. He didn’t show fear or surprise at a confrontation with an armed policeman inside his house. The dog kept barking from the other bedroom, but Newman silenced it with a snap of his fingers.

“Is there a problem?” Newman asked.

Frost didn’t lower his gun. “Who else is in this house?”

“My secretary.”

“I heard a woman scream,” Frost said.

“What can I say? Simona is loud when we’re having sex.”

“Get her out here,” Frost snapped.

Newman rolled his eyes and called over his shoulder. “Simona, there’s someone who wants to meet you. The cops want to make sure I’m not strangling you or something.”

Frost kept an eye on the doorway. The bedroom door opened all the way, revealing the rumpled end of a king-sized bed and walls covered in a metallic wallpaper made up of different stripes of blue. A young woman wandered toward him, unconcerned by his gun. She had severely short blond hair, and she wore a peach-colored man’s dress shirt, unbuttoned down the front to reveal her stomach and the half-moons of her breasts. A black towel was wrapped around her waist.

“Is this one of your jokes, Darren?” she asked. “Is this guy a stripper or something?”

“No, he’s really a cop.”

Frost reholstered his gun. “Are you all right, miss?”

“Other than being interrupted in the middle of a good banging, I’m fine,” she told him.

“Are you here voluntarily? Were you coerced in any way to have sex this evening?”