French frowned as a pit opened deep inside. Burklow’s opinion mattered more than most, but rules existed for a reason. There should be other personnel on-site: detectives, technicians, chain of command. Ken had behaved like this only once before, and that crime scene had been so disturbing, they’d kept most of it from the papers, even from the victim’s family. “All right, partner. I’ll take your lead for now. Give me a second with the kid.”

French crossed to where the boy sat. Even standing, he could smell the child’s sweat; see dust in the creases of his skin. “How’re you doing, kid?” He knelt beside him. “Can you tell me your name?”

Nothing.

Silence.

“That’s fine. I run quiet, too. How about what happened? Can we talk about that? Or maybe why you were here?”

Still nothing.

Burklow was watching, shaking his head.

“Would you like to sit in my car? Air-conditioning. Cop stuff. It’s pretty cool.”

The boy shrugged.

Progress.

French got the boy up and into the car. He showed him the radio, the spare cuffs, the shotgun locked to the dash. “Listen, son. I need to go inside…” The boy shook his head, terrified. “You’re safe here. Promise. All that…” He gestured at the building. “Whatever you saw, whatever is in there—it’s my problem, now. Okay? Not yours. Not ever again.” The boy looked away, trying not to cry. “You wait here.” French patted him on the knee. “We’ll talk more when I come back.”

The boy watched him go. Burklow was waiting at the superstructure, and French followed him into the shadows.

“Watch the vomit.”

French stepped over it. “The boy’s?”

“Mine.”

That one-word response spoke volumes. Ken was a twenty-year murder cop. He’d fought in Korea. Moving more deeply into the structure, he angled left at an elevator shaft. “That’s where we’re going. North stairwell.”

The stairwell shaft rose the full seven stories. Beyond it, red earth and scrub stretched to a distant tree line. Rounding a final corner, French saw blood on the floor, reddish black, mostly dry. Above it, the woman hung from chains tossed over a steel beam. His gaze went to the torn wrists first, and then the cloudy eyes. After that, he soaked it up like a sponge: the way she’d been tortured and ruined and cut. He tried to stay level, but Burklow was right.

It was bad.

French had to walk away. When he had himself under control, he returned to the scene and studied the body from top to bottom, shying from none of it, not the blood or the excisions, not the organs and bones, the bits of marbled flesh.

Burklow kept his distance. “Can you imagine the kid? Finding her like this?”