“Did you hear him? He knows the girls were strangled with a cord.”

Mahler shrugged. “His lawyer’ll say he guessed. The important thing is, he’s worried about Lorin, and maybe that Kundalini thing. Whatever you’re doing, it’s getting to him.” Mahler put his gun away.

Eden looked at him. “How long were you there?”

“A while.”

“You knew he wasn’t going to strangle me?”

“I wasn’t certain, but an academically trained investigator on my team told me Irwin Partridge’s preference for killing is in a public park.”

Eden managed a weak smile. “Why’d you come here in the first place?”

“Looking after you, Detective Somers. From now on, none of us goes out alone.”

Mahler’s cell went off. He fumbled for the phone, swiped his thumb across the screen, and stared at the image. Then he looked up. “Someone’s just broken into my house.” He was already running toward his car.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

(i)

(THURSDAY, 8:04 p.m.)

“Tell me again what your phone message said.” Eden braced herself as Mahler’s car accelerated around a corner. They were tacking across town, on the quickest route to his house.

“Alarm trip. Time-stamped 7:21.”

“Shouldn’t it go straight to the alarm company?”

“Yeah. Usually goes to the Florida office. Automatically called in to the PD here. This time it didn’t.”

“Why?” Eden asked. “Why would it do that?”

“I don’t know. But after what happened to Steve, I want to look myself.”

As they approached his address, Mahler pulled to the curb three houses away and shut off the engine.

Eden looked down the street. “No car out front.”

Mahler shrugged. “They could’ve parked behind and come down the hill on the back side.”

“You see anything out of the ordinary? I could call it in and have patrol up on the street behind your house.”

“No, let’s just go. We’ll call it in once we get inside, if we have to. Leave your gun in your belt until we get to the house. I don’t want to scare the neighbors.”

They walked quickly down the street and into the drive at Mahler’s house. Along the far wall of the garage, they took out their guns.

“Go around the front,” Mahler whispered. “Look for signs of a break-in. I’ll do the back side, and we’ll meet here.”

Without waiting for an answer, Mahler crouched below the window line. He ran to the left of the house, while Eden moved to the right. A minute later they met again at the garage. “Doors locked,” Mahler said quietly. “No broken windows.”

“Same for me.”

They stood together, each holding a gun, catching their breath.

Mahler leaned toward Eden. “I’m going in the back door. Stay here and watch the front. Stop anyone coming out and call patrol.”