Axel got back to him right away with a quick text.

Yes, that’s Mike.

Dan smiled at the startled agent. “Thank you. Can’t be too careful these days,” he said cheerfully.

“Ah, right. Well, if that’s all.”

“Thank you.”

The young agent left.

Dan turned back. Carly Britton didn’t look quite as professionally all-together as she had when they walked in.

“I’m scared to leave,” she whispered.

“We can take you somewhere,” Dan offered.

“No, uh, I have my car... I can’t just leave my car. I need it. I work. But I am married. I have a husband. Oh! That didn’t help. The killer...he killed the man and wife and the nurse or maid or whoever she was...”

“Ms. Britton—” Dan began.

“Mrs.!” she exclaimed. “I just told you I had a husband. Oh, I’m sorry. I mean, calling me Carly is just fine. We tend to be on a first-name basis in the industry. I’m just... I knew them! I hired them. I’m scared.”

“Do you have an alarm system?” Dan asked her.

“Yes, but—”

“He’s targeting people who don’t have alarms, we believe.”

“Believe! That’s no guarantee.”

No, he had no way of guaranteeing anything when it came to a psychopathic killer.

“I’ll alert the local police station. They’ll watch your property. They’re on the alert already, and with what you’ve given us—”

“You’ll catch him tonight?” she asked dryly.

“We’re happy to follow you home and see that you get there,” Katie told her.

The woman sighed. “Thank you,” she said and hesitated. “Would you look around the place, too?”

Dan looked at Katie.

“Sure,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound as weary as he felt.

They locked up the offices and headed down to the garage with her.

Carly had an expensive car, in a red that matched her lipstick.

Katie went along with Carly, sliding into the leather passenger seat. Dan followed them in his vehicle, falling in behind once Carly pulled out of the garage.

Carly lived in the Garden District, so it wasn’t far. She had evidently called her husband as she drove, and he was at the gate to their house, a sumptuous Victorian, when they arrived.

“This nice man is on the case,” Carly told her husband, a balding man in his fifties. “He’s going to look around the house.”

“We do have a state-of-the-art alarm system, Officer...”

“Oliver, just Dan Oliver. I’m a consultant on the case.”

“They sent a consultant to see me?” Carly asked, apparently thinking she’d been sent someone second-rate.

He wasn’t in the mood for a fight.

“Yes. It’s been a very long day for us. If you wouldn’t mind...”

“Yes, please!” Carly said.

Her husband led the way in.