Then he started down the tiny hall to the rear room. Three door bolts. On the outside.

Pistol drawn, Evan stood perfectly still outside the room for a full ten minutes. No sounds of breathing within, no creaking of the floorboards.

Finally he threw one bolt. The muted clank of metal against metal might as well have been a clap of thunder.

Standing to the side of the door, he waited.

Nothing happened, and then more nothing.

The next two locks he unbolted in rapid succession. He bladed his body. Let the door creak inward. Leading with the 1911, he nosed around the jamb. A nicely made bed, lavender comforter, brand-new TV on a stand.

A lovely room, aside from the plate of sheet metal drilled over the window. When Evan shouldered the door to step inside, he felt it to be heavier than the others. Solid core.

The holding pen.

No one inside. The room—bare, pristine, equipped with only the basics—seemed like a diorama. In fact, the whole place had a dollhouse feel.

It had been designed with one purpose in mind: comfortable functionality.

Hector Contrell had to ensure that the merchandise wasn’t damaged before delivery.

The bathroom door remained closed. Evan tried the doorknob, but it didn’t budge. Seating the pistol in his holster, he took out his tension wrench again. The cheaper lock required only a hook pick and a few jiggles.

As the door swung inward, the smell hit him first.

A smooth leg, mottled blue-purple, hooked over the brim of the bathtub. A mass of tangled black hair covered the face, leaving only a delicate ivory chin exposed. He put the body as older than most of Contrell’s “eligibles.” Late teens, early twenties. Probably designated for a buyer looking for variety.

Until Contrell’s operation had been blown and his middlemen decided to liquidate the inventory.

She’d been alive when he killed Contrell. She’d been alive when he went home and poured himself a glass of vodka and drank to a job well done.

Evan lowered the pick set.

That was when he heard the footsteps behind him.

Two men, no doubt the inhabitants of the roomy clothes in the wardrobe of the master bedroom. The one nearest Evan gripped a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Chief’s Special and gripped it well. Firmed wrists, locked elbows. A second pistol hung in a cheap nylon holster under his left armpit, semiauto backup in case five bullets weren’t sufficient.