ALEX BARCLAY
Blood Loss

Copyright

This is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2012

Copyright © Alex Barclay 2012

Cover design layout © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © David Chilvers/Alamy (landscape);

Shutterstock.com (girls, sky & birds)

Alex Barclay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

Source ISBN: 9780007383436

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780007420629

Version: 2016-05-04

Praise for Alex Barclay

‘The rising star of the hard-boiled crime fiction world, combining wild characters, surprising plots and massive backdrops with a touch of dry humour’ Mirror

‘Tense, no-punches-pulled thriller that will have you on the edge of your deckchair’ Woman and Home

‘Explosive’ Company

‘Darkhouse is a terrific debut by an exciting new writer’ Independent on Sunday

‘Compelling’ Glamour

‘Excellent summer reading … Barclay has the confidence to move her story along slowly, and deftly explores the relationships between her characters’ Sunday Telegraph

‘The thriller of the summer’ Irish Independent

‘If you haven’t discovered Alex Barclay, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon’ Image Magazine

To Grainne and to Melanie

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Alex Barclay

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Alex Barclay

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

It was an imprisonment, twice over. Minds captured first by insanity were captured a second time by Kennington Asylum for the Insane. Built in 1904, it was a dignified structure on a salvaged tract of Denver city parkland; mental wellness forged from red bricks and green grass. In appearance, it stood for its promises. But until it became the hollow shell it is today, it never truly reflected them.

In contrast, the grounds were overrun, choked by nature untended, as if the twisted roots of madness, ignored for over a century, were finally unbound.

People had been sent to Kennington to be healed, but when they were captured a third time – by a camera’s lens – they stood in doomed herds, their faces blank, their brains looted. It was clear that the asylum was not a pitstop on a journey to wellness, it was the endpoint of a descent. Their clothes were soiled, their limbs atrophied, their bodies swept into corners like dirt, like something to be thrown away.

CONDEMNED. Even the sign was. The boy stared at it. The Kennington photographs had been taken in 1950, but they had resurfaced sixty years on to be laid bare across eight pages of a Sunday supplement. They had made grown men cry. But the not-so-grown, the high-schoolers … well, the photos made them want to go to that fucked-up place and party with ghosts.

The boy climbed onto the perimeter wall and took a thick black marker from his coat pocket. He gripped the sign with a gloved hand, crossed out the C-O-N and drew an A through the E. DAMNED. Just like a century’s parade of lunatic patients … just like the people inside the building that he had come for tonight. He was yet to know that he would leave without seeing them. And his inadvertent victim, laughing and throwing back shots, dancing through the abandoned wards this Hallowe’en night, was yet to know that her bright ethanol eyes would be haunted hollows by the time the music died.

The boy made his way through the woods that bordered the drive. It was a tangled mess of trees and bushes, and he moved blindly until his boots hit stone. He looked down. There they were – the signs painted onto the ground to lead the way: small, yellow lightning strikes. He followed them around to the back entrance where a huge timber door had hung until its hinges had been unscrewed, until it had been thrown to one side.

Somewhere in the dark distant heart of the building, voices and music pulsed. He paused in the empty doorway. Up ahead, more lightning strikes were drawn on the ground and he began to follow them, moving toward the sound and to where the final symbol was drawn outside the door of the old electroshock therapy room.

He stepped inside. The room seemed filled with giant eyes. He blinked. There was a swamp of people in front of him. He blinked again. They were moving like a mass of maggots. He blinked again. This was not his world. He was sober. They were all drunk, or wild or weakened by illegal drugs. He moved through the crowd, and it swelled against him. A door led off into another room. He was about to go in. Then he saw someone. A girl, standing against a wall, talking to a guy. But her eyes were boring into him, he could feel it like heat. She left the other guy, and walked toward him, and when she got past him, she glanced back, and her smile was like the answer yes. He followed her. She was wearing a black top that was slashed all the way down the back. Her skirt was so short, plaid and pleated. She had black leggings underneath, and boots like his, the tongues out, the laces undone. Her hair was black and shiny and cut into a short bob like a doll’s. A small tattoo was growing like a vine up the center of her neck.

She picked up speed down the hallway, down another, disappearing when she reached the last room. He felt his heart surge. She slid on top of the table at the furthest corner of the room, and her knees were apart. She was smiling at him. His whole body was pounding, not just his head anymore. She opened her mouth to speak, but as he pressed himself against her, he could feel that her whole body was exactly the same way, and he knew that no-one should talk.

It was his first time. He had no idea sex could make you so angry. So, so fucking angry. This is insane. He laughed. This is insane.

He lay there when it was over, staring at the ceiling. They had wound up on the floor. Her hair had come off. It must have been a wig. It was in his hand.

He got up and started to fix his clothes. ‘I gotta go,’ he said.

When he put his hands in his pockets, he could feel the paper. He didn’t need the drawing any more. This had made up for it. She could have it. He crouched down beside her and placed it by her head.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That was awesome.’

As his mouth pressed against her cheek, a small bloody bubble of saliva grew between her lips, and burst.

1

Taber Grace had a slim file on the passenger seat of his car and a cigarette burning down in the ash tray. He was sitting back against the head rest, his bloodshot eyes staring into the dark. He had often thought about sitting in the same position, in his garage, breathing in exhaust fumes through a hose pipe.

Taber Grace was forty-two years old, short and slight. He liked to dress in straight-leg jeans and plain, washed-out shirts, always buttoned to the neck. His hair, thick and brown, fell across one eye. Someone in a bar once joked that it was his private eye. The Private Eye with the private eye. Taber Grace mostly had the sense not to go into bars to listen to drunk talk. He was not a competent drunk. He would recognize the early signs of his drunkenness – the softness around the edge of his vision, the longer search for words – and it was too hard these days to resist being drawn to the dissolution.

After an hour waiting in the dark, watching the snow fall over Denver, Taber Grace knew that his client was not going to show. November 14, evening: it was to have been their second meeting – to see how the client wanted to proceed, based on Taber Grace’s preliminary findings. These meetings were always the same. The client would sit like a prisoner in the electric chair. But the current came from within – the spark of dueling fears as their suspicions were about to be confirmed or dismissed. There was no comfort in either. And there was no comfort for Taber Grace. He had intimate knowledge of his clients, their lives, the lives of those close to them. He was the stranger-witness to their darkest betrayals. They needed this knowledge, they paid him for it, yet they didn’t want him to have it. Each time he delivered it, he could see in their eyes how quickly he became repellent.

Taber Grace had been the bearer of bad news before. It had been part of his first job. Then, like now, it never touched him. It was a practical delivery of information, uncomplicated by emotion. In that job, he had been bound by propriety. He was on time, he spoke politely, he never swore. When he was fired, it became easy to believe that he was what he had always feared he was – just a small-town boy, shoulder to shoulder with his blue-collar buddies, no taller. The problem was that he had never fit into that small-town world and he had run from it as soon as he could.

Taber Grace had liked the mannerly man he became when he left his home town. He liked his new life in Denver. But what he had loved at the start became what he hated at the end, like a failed relationship. The life that came with his job was like a smart overcoat he had carefully put on, that fit perfectly, but gradually began to slip from his shoulders. And he only realized it was gone when the world got very, very cold. And later, when his home did.

Melissa Grace, his sweetheart wife, had also liked the mannerly man, and couldn’t understand why, despite the early end to one career, her husband appeared to have thrown it all away. But Taber Grace, fired and depressed, slowly convinced himself that his job had been the first thing his wife had seen, the part that impressed her, and promised her so much. It turned out that Taber Grace never believed that his wife loved him for who he was. For his heart … or for how it used to be.

The Graces had one son. He had blond hair to his shoulders and an exceptionally pretty face: his mother’s face, with his father’s long eyelashes. He was christened Taber Grace Jr, but his father, as his own life unraveled, began to call him TJ. He had given him the nickname he swore he never would, because maybe being called Taber Grace would just be bad luck.

Taber Grace knew that he had neglected his marriage to death. Even now, at times, he felt that the life he thought he would have ran parallel to this new, empty one. At times, he felt that back at his house, Taber Grace 1.0, proud, loving husband and father, was having pancakes with his wife and son.

Yet, here he was. He had walked from his marriage not into bars and strip clubs, but down into the sewage pipes that ran under other lives. A client might heft the manhole cover aside; Taber Grace made the descent.

And Taber Grace was the one who came back up covered in shit.

2

Summer was hiker and biker season in Breckenridge, Colorado, but winter was when the pretty little town really came to life. It was then that its true beauty shone – in the glow of the white peaks, in the sparkle of the fairy lights down Main Street, in the headlights of the groomers, in the bright, after-ski faces.

In winter, the population of Breck could go from three-and-a-half thousand to more than ten times that, yet its magic was how it held its ground and its charm. There were plenty of hotels, inns and condos to accommodate Breck’s visitors, and the newest was The Merlin Lodge & Spa. It was a small hotel in a small town with a big heart, and it had a mid-sized problem: it had opened too early.

‘That’s my opinion, anyway,’ said the desk clerk. His name, Jared Labati, was printed on a gold badge on his white shirt. The shirt was a size too small, his black pants a size too big. He was only in his late teens, yet strikingly at odds with the healthy image of the country’s skinniest state. His shaggy brown hair curled out at the ends and was combed forward and sideways across most of his wide face. It was a style for a slimmer kid. A tiny diamond ring shone in a right ear that was prominent enough to poke through his mass of hair.

Erica Whaley was standing at the check-in desk with her husband, Mark. ‘It didn’t say anywhere on the website that the hotel was brand new,’ she said. ‘Lucky us.’ She smiled.

Mark Whaley was holding his credit card paused in mid-air. He glanced at his wife. They laughed. ‘OK – go ahead,’ said Mark.

‘Did you have far to come?’ said Jared.

‘No – Denver,’ said Mark.

‘The rooms are completely finished – don’t get me wrong,’ said Jared, ‘and any extra work that needs to be done won’t happen on weekends, so it will be quiet during your stay. The major work is done … except for the Spa. Sorry.’ He directed this at Erica. But she had turned to see her three-year-old son, Leo, hanging upside down from the back of a brown leather sofa, his face red with the rush of blood.

Mark spoke to Jared. ‘Our son tests all surfaces and objects for suitability to climb or swing from.’ He paused. ‘Then climbs or swings from them, regardless of his findings.’

Erica sprinted for Leo, grabbing him under his arm and swinging him into the air.

Mark raised his eyebrows at Jared. ‘That was close. His Spidey sense is weak.’

Jared smiled.

‘OK, be honest,’ said Mark, leaning in to him, speaking quietly. ‘Will this be a comfortable stay? My little girl isn’t feeling too good.’ Mark’s eleven-year-old daughter from his first marriage, Laurie, was on the sofa reading a book, oblivious to her Spiderbrother.

‘You bet,’ said Jared. ‘They’re just doing some things like wiring, and putting fancy room numbers on the doors, etc.’

‘Hmm …’ said Mark. ‘No room numbers? That could be interesting.’

‘The doors are numbered with laser print-outs for now, don’t worry,’ said Jared.

‘OK,’ said Mark. ‘I just wanted to make sure that if the Parkers are coming back to reclaim Leo that they know which room to go to.’

Jared paused for a moment, then smiled. ‘Peter Parker is Spiderman, right?’

‘Yes, he is,’ said Mark, ‘just so we’re clear …’ He smiled, and turned around to see his wife struggling back to the reception desk with her bucking son jammed onto her hip and shouting at her to let him go.

‘Take him,’ said Erica to Mark. She almost dropped Leo at Mark’s feet. The little boy sprang up.

Erica shook her head. ‘He’s like those indestructible, I don’t know, zombies that you can’t kill – they keep coming back to life.’

Mark looked at Jared. ‘We don’t want to kill him,’ he said. ‘Honestly. Or return him to the Parkers.’

Erica had clearly heard the Parker reference before. She called, ‘Laurie, sweetie?’

Laurie closed her book and came over.

‘Just like that,’ said Erica, squeezing Laurie against her, and kissing the top of her head. ‘How are you feeling, sweetheart?’

‘I’m fine now,’ said Laurie. ‘I don’t know what happened, but the pain’s gone.’

Erica held the back of her hand to Laurie’s forehead. ‘No fever. And you’ve got good color in your cheeks. I pronounce you fit and well.’

Laurie smiled. ‘Why, thank you.’

Leo was swinging out from the reception desk, his feet working hard to climb to the top. He dropped to the floor and ran away.

‘Your turn,’ said Erica.

Laurie ran after him.

Jared went into the back office.

‘Loving the loose cannon desk clerk,’ said Mark.

‘I know,’ said Erica. She wrapped her arms around Mark, and kissed his neck. Then she moved up to his ear.

‘Is this about hotel sex?’ said Mark, leaning back.

Erica smiled. ‘That goes without saying,’ she said. ‘This is about dinner.’

‘What about Laurie … is she feeling better?’ said Mark. ‘Is she OK to be left with a sitter?’

‘Oh, she’s fine,’ said Erica. ‘I think it might have been a little attention seeking?’

‘Or she wanted to make sure we wouldn’t leave her to go to dinner,’ said Mark.

‘No,’ said Erica. ‘I was just talking to her, she said she was absolutely fine. So?’

Mark hooked his arm around Erica’s waist, and pulled her close. ‘I promised the kids I’d watch Toy Story 3.’

‘Well, I promised myself I wouldn’t lose my mind,’ said Erica. ‘So, you watch the movie, I’ll go down to the bar and pick up a snowboarder.’

‘Mrs Whaley,’ said Mark, ‘the kids and I can watch the movie while you take a bath, slip into something less comfortable, and by the time you have done the makeup I don’t think you need to wear, yet apply so beautifully, I’ll be ready to accompany you to the bar to oversee your choice of snowboarder.’

‘Deal,’ said Erica.

Jared came back to the desk. ‘Alrighty,’ he said, setting two keys on the desk.

‘Old-fashioned keys,’ said Erica. ‘Nice touch.’

‘You’ll be in Room 304,’ said Jared. ‘That’s on the third floor. Elevator is that way. You’ll be staying in a family suite – two inter-connecting rooms. Do you need help with your bags?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Mark.

‘Well, OK then. Enjoy your stay.’

‘Oh, we will,’ said Erica.

‘We’d like to arrange for a sitter to look after the kids for a couple hours, while we go down to dinner,’ said Mark.

‘Not a problem,’ said Jared. ‘For what time?’

‘Eight thirty for the sitter?’ said Mark. ‘Nine for dinner?’ He turned to Erica. ‘That’ll leave us some time to check her out before we entrust our prized possessions to her.’

3

Agent Ren Bryce sat at her desk in The Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force, a violent-crime squad of eleven based in Denver. It was Saturday night, and everyone had gone to the bar, except the boss, Special Supervisory Agent Gary Dettling, and Cliff James, Ren’s big-bear buddy. Cliff was ex-Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department. At fifty-three, he was the eldest of the team, and at two-hundred pounds, the most huggable. Cliff and Ren, along with blond, kind, grandma-friendly Robbie Truax and arrogant, short-ass numbers-guy Colin Grabien, had become a mini-squad of movable parts. The arrangement of their desks and the maneuvering of two filing cabinets could create a subtle break in the squad’s bullpen that was more psychological than visible. Otherwise, their boss would have done something about it. If he could have only thrown Colin Grabien out into the general population, that would have worked for Ren. The book was The Three Musketeers. Not The Three Musketeers and the Dickhead.

Ren’s cell phone rang, and the screen flashed with a photo of her older brother Matt – her best friend, therapist, and moral conscience rolled into one. He was thirty-nine – two years older than Ren – and lived in Manhattan with his wife, Lauren, and their three-month-old son, Ethan.

‘Finally,’ said Matt when Ren answered.

Silence.

‘You’re alive,’ said Matt.

‘Yes, I am,’ said Ren.

‘Just, you didn’t text back,’ said Matt. ‘And … did you get my voicemails?’

‘Sorry, yes,’ said Ren.

‘Are you OK?’ said Matt.

‘Yes!’ said Ren. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

Pause. ‘Um … maybe because last month, you could barely make it from the bed to the sofa? And you phoned me several times bawling your eyes out. In the middle of the night—’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Ren. ‘I know that’s hard with Ethan and everything …’

‘You can call me any time, you know that,’ said Matt. ‘I’m always here, but … that’s not the point. You dropped off the face of the earth.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Ren. ‘I didn’t mean to worry you.’

‘You never do,’ said Matt.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Ren.

‘Exactly that. You never mean to. Next time, keep me posted, that’s all.’

‘Fine.’ Jesus.

‘So … what have you been doing?’ said Matt. ‘Are you OK? What changed? I was so worried. Ever since Helen …’

Ren was bipolar, unmedicated, and shrink-free. Her beloved psychiatrist of two years, Helen Wheeler, had been murdered four months earlier, and Ren and her FBI undercover past had been painfully entangled in her death.

‘Positive thinking!’ said Ren. ‘Talking to you really helped that last time, Matt. You cheered me up. And when I got off the phone, I just said, OK, what can I do? So I went online, looked at positive thinking websites, ordered some positive thinking books on Amazon. I looked up psychiatrists in Denver, printed off a few names … and I just told myself, get a grip.’

‘And did you find a psychiatrist?’ said Matt.

‘No …’

‘Ren … you’ve been very down for … months.’

‘I’m OK now,’ said Ren. ‘I’m feeling much better.’

‘Well, I’m glad to hear that,’ said Matt. ‘I really am.’

‘And,’ said Ren. ‘I met this amazing guy.’

Silence.

‘Matt?’ said Ren. ‘Are you there?’

‘Yes,’ said Matt. ‘When did this happen?’

‘Two weeks ago—’

‘Which might explain the radio silence …’

Ugh. ‘Anyway, I went out with work, then the guys all went home, I stayed on with Colin Grabien’s girlfriend, Naomi. The woman is nuts. Anyway, next thing, I met this really cute guy—’

‘And off the radar you go.’ His tone was flat.

‘I wasn’t off the radar,’ said Ren. ‘I was in work.’

‘I got one text from you weeks ago, then nothing,’ said Matt.

‘You sound like mom …’

‘Your worst nightmare. We’ve been through this before, Ren. This is not an on/off thing: you can’t call me all upset, then drop off the face of the earth when everything is OK. I didn’t know everything was OK.’

‘Well, I would have called you if I was going to jump off a cliff …’ Ren laughed.

Silence.

‘So … how’re things with you?’ said Ren.

‘Exhausting,’ said Matt.

‘You don’t sound yourself,’ said Ren. She could hear him sigh.

‘So,’ said Matt, ‘are you going to call one of the psychiatrists?’

‘Yes …’ said Ren.

‘Once more with feeling.’

‘I will. It’s Saturday night …’

‘Ren … Monday morning, please do.’

‘Yes, OK. Jesus.’

‘Enjoy the rest of your weekend.’

‘You too.’

Ren put down the phone.

Well, that was depressing.

Ren turned to Cliff.

‘I’m taking advantage of Colin’s absence,’ she said. ‘To ask you this question – is he serious about crazy Naomi?’

‘I think he has found The One,’ said Cliff, smiling.

‘Hmm,’ said Ren. ‘I’m not sure she feels the same way. I really like the woman. I do. But … remember I ended up staying out with her a couple of weeks back? We had a lot to drink, but she was … behaving like a single lady. All the single ladies.’

‘All the single ladies,’ said Cliff. He put his hand up.

‘She zoned in on this guy at the bar, like it was her mission to bag him,’ said Ren.

‘And did she?’ said Cliff.

‘No, but … I was right there – she was hardly going to disappear with him.’

‘Maybe she’s just insecure,’ said Cliff, ‘or competitive, or …’

‘Hmm,’ said Ren. ‘She’s like those women who other women love … until they see them around their man. She’s a girl’s girl, and a man’s girl, but … you get the feeling she’s distracting you with her high-larity, while she’s got her hand on your boyfriend’s ass.’ Ren paused. ‘I’m safe for girlfriends and wives. I’ll laugh or joke with yo’ man, but I don’t want him, he’s all yours. I think I make that clear. I’ve never taken someone’s man. Naomi … I think … she does want to take other men.’

‘And I thought you didn’t care about Colin …’ said Cliff.

Ren smiled. ‘And don’t mention this to him, by the way.’

‘No,’ said Cliff.

‘It would be quite the irony,’ said Ren, ‘a manwhore hanging up his riding boots for a womanwhore.’

‘Ren, that sentence is wrong “on so many levels”,’ said Cliff.

‘I’ll get you coffee for that,’ said Ren.

Cliff’s phone rang. He picked up. ‘Glenn? Shoot,’ he said. Glenn Buddy was a Denver PD detective, and Cliff’s closest friend.

‘Really?’ said Cliff. ‘No. Nothing. I’m here with Ms Ren. Let me put you on speaker.’

‘Hey, Ren,’ said Glenn. ‘We’ve got a second rape. Victim’s parents found her in her bedroom when they got back from the movie theater. She is hanging by a thread. We think it’s the Kennington guy …’

‘Shit,’ said Ren.

‘That’s bad news,’ said Cliff.

‘How old is she?’ said Ren.

Glenn let out a breath. ‘She’s fourteen.’

4

From the windows of The Merlin Lodge & Spa, the peaks of the Tenmile Range over Breckenridge glowed against the black sky. Snow was falling, more than was forecast, a white powdery gift for the next day’s competitors. The town was hosting a snowboarding championship two weeks ahead of the world-famous Winter Dew Festival, when up to one hundred thousand visitors would hit Breck.

Mark and Erica Whaley sat at a table against the wall half way down the restaurant.

‘OK,’ said Mark, looking at his watch. ‘It’s eleven thirty. I told the sitter I’d go check on the kids half an hour ago.’

Erica pulled the bottle of champagne from the ice bucket beside the table and held it over her glass.

‘I think you’ll find that’s empty,’ said Mark, smiling.

Erica leaned back in her chair. ‘Oh, well …’

There was a moment of silence between them.

‘Honey, are you OK?’ said Erica, reaching out for Mark’s hand.

‘Yes,’ he said. His jaw clenched. ‘Why? I’m fine. You’d be the first to know if I wasn’t.’

‘Exactly,’ said Erica. ‘I am the first to know …’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Mark.

‘It means that most of the time I know before you do that something is up,’ said Erica.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Mark. ‘Nothing is up.’

‘Calm down,’ said Erica.

‘I’m just tired of being asked,’ said Mark.

‘So, I won’t ask, then,’ said Erica.

‘Thank you,’ said Mark.

‘I won’t care any more if you’re OK,’ said Erica.

‘Honey …’

‘I’ll be one of those wives who lets her husband come and go, tends to her children, sleeps with the pool guy and plays bridge with her lady friends.’

‘We’re never getting a pool,’ said Mark.

Erica smiled.

‘I only ask because I care,’ she said.

‘Yeah, I get that,’ said Mark.

‘Don’t be like that.’

‘Honey, we’re on vacation,’ said Mark.

‘Away from things,’ said Erica. ‘Isn’t that a good time to talk?’

‘Sure it is,’ said Mark. ‘But let’s not get into the “are you OK” thing.’

Erica gestured to the waiter walking past.

‘Could we get another bottle of champagne, please?’ she said.

‘You bet,’ said the waiter.

‘Thank you,’ said Erica. She looked at Mark’s face. ‘Oh, come on. I’m fine.’

‘I didn’t say a word,’ said Mark.

Erica made an expression to mimic his.

‘But two bottles – really?’ said Mark. ‘We’ve got snowboarding tomorrow, the championships, the kids …’

‘You don’t have to worry about me,’ said Erica.

‘Emphasis on the “me”,’ said Mark.

Erica rolled her eyes.

‘From the lady with the horror of eye-rolling,’ said Mark. ‘There was an emphasis,’ he said. ‘Subconscious or not …’

‘That is not fair,’ said Erica. ‘You know I’m not like that.’

‘Do you know something?’ said Mark. ‘Being mean when you’re drunk is a drink problem too …’

‘Wow,’ said Erica. Mark wasn’t looking at her. ‘What has gotten into you?’ She waited. ‘Mark, look at me.’

He did.

‘Are you OK?’ she said.

‘You’re seriously asking me that,’ said Mark, ‘after everything I just said …’

Erica’s eyes were alight. ‘Oh my God, I have put up with so much shit from you. For months! Have you any clue? You work late, or you’re locked away in the den—’

‘It’s been really busy. You know that—’

‘We have sex once a month—’ said Erica.

Mark looked at her like she was nuts.

‘Trust me,’ said Erica. She paused. ‘Once a month … I feel hideous.’

‘Hideous?’ said Mark. ‘What the …?’ His face was stricken.

‘I’m thirty-nine years old and I feel like a hag,’ she said. ‘My husband barely comes near me. So forgive me for asking if everything is all right. And it’s not just about sex. It’s about you being distant. From all of us. Sure, here we are in a beautiful hotel, but what’s the point? I’ve tried tonight, and no, I’m still getting nothing from you. So, forgive me for trying to get something from a bottle of champagne.’

Mark said nothing.

‘I’m your wife,’ said Erica. ‘I know you. I’m not asking if you’re OK for the hell of it. I’m asking because I know that everything is not OK. I’m asking a question I know the answer to, whether you do or not, whether you’re lying to me or not. I’m giving you an out, Mark. I’m giving you a chance to tell me the truth. Because I know you. And, therefore, I know that something is not right.’ Her chest was heaving. ‘Do you even know the significance of this weekend?’

‘What?’ said Mark. ‘Of course I do. I’m the one who’s spent years trying to get a judge to let me have my daughter overnight—’

‘You’re not the only one,’ said Erica. ‘I was there too. I was the one who helped to change that judge’s mind, who gave you the stability to—’

‘I gave myself the stability,’ said Mark. ‘I’m the one who went for treatment, I’m the—’

‘Anyway, I’m not talking about Laurie,’ said Erica. ‘I’m talking about us.’

Mark paused. ‘Our anniversary is Tuesday. Not tonight. Not this weekend. Seriously, Erica. Did you think I’d forgotten?’

Erica looked away. ‘I … yes. I did. I’m sorry.’

Mark shook his head. ‘Why would you think I’d forget that?’

‘Because of everything I just said to you. And because …’

‘Because what?’ said Mark.

Erica looked him in the eye. ‘Mark, are you seeing someone else?’

He stared at her. He took a deep breath. Then he threw his napkin onto the table. ‘I’m going to check on the kids.’

Ren and Cliff waited as Glenn Buddy held his hand over the phone to talk to a nurse.

He came back on the line. ‘The vic won’t be ready to talk any time soon.’

‘Were there any signs of forced entry at the house?’ said Cliff.

‘Yup,’ said Glenn. ‘He broke in the back door. She was alone; her parents were at the movies.’

‘And you think it’s the same guy …?’ said Cliff.

Even though it’s forced entry in the victim’s own home.

Ren glanced at Cliff, but he missed it.

‘Yes,’ said Glenn. ‘Similar build, frenzied, same unwashed smell, terrible breath, stab wounds in all the same places.’

Ren knew where those places were and it was horrific.

‘Anything left at the scene this time?’ said Cliff.

‘Nothing that hopped out,’ said Glenn. ‘Our Evidence Response Team’s going through it. And we’re still trying to round up kids from the Kennington party. It’s The Silent Order of the Teenage Freaks …’

‘What do you need from us?’ said Cliff. ‘Shoot.’

Mark Whaley rode the elevator to the third floor of The Merlin Lodge and Spa. He jogged down the dark hallway. He turned the key in the door of Room 304. The sitter – blonde, curvy, sixteen years old – was standing in front of him … naked.

5

The restaurant at The Merlin had emptied, apart from Erica Whaley. She sat scrolling through her cell phone, glancing up when her husband appeared in the restaurant doorway, then turning her eyes back to the screen. Mark sat down. His heart was pounding. Sweat dampened the hair at his temples.

For minutes, they sat in silence. Erica had put away her phone and was staring at the floor.

She spoke quietly. ‘I don’t want to be this couple,’ she said.

‘What couple?’ said Mark.

‘I don’t want to be two people staring across a table trying to find the person they fell in love with.’ Tears slid down her face.

For a long time, Mark Whaley said nothing. Then he reached out and squeezed her hand. Pulling her with him, he stood up and took her in his arms. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I … you’re right. I’ve been … I am so sorry. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in my whole life. I am not seeing anyone else. I am so hurt that you asked. You are my world, Erica Whaley. And anything I have ever said or done that may have made you think otherwise is wrong. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear any of this.’

Erica pulled back. ‘Any of what?’ she said, squeezing his arms.

‘Just … conflict,’ he said. ‘Life.’

‘Life?’ said Erica. ‘Life is wonderful.’

He hugged her tight. ‘Life is wonderful,’ he said over her shoulder, out to the world.

‘How are the kids?’ said Erica.

‘Asleep,’ said Mark. ‘Let’s stay a while longer – the sitter was in the middle of watching something on the television. I’m sure she won’t mind.’

Ren Bryce pulled out the top drawer of her desk to get some gum. The list of new psychiatrists she had so enthusiastically printed out at five a.m. the previous month was folded there, as likely to be used as the throat lozenges, the broken watch, and the birthday candles. After all, she was fine.

Shit – Gary’s email.

Ren grabbed her mouse and went to her flagged emails. Gary Dettling had sent her one two weeks earlier that had a vague resonance.

She clicked on it.

Ren,

I’ve set this up:

Monday, November 16, 1 p.m. Dr Leonard Lone.

Recommendation from a friend …

This Monday.

Ren sat back in her chair, and stared up at the ceiling.

I’m fucking fine, people.

Gary Dettling was the only one in the office who knew Ren was bipolar. Before he had hired her for Safe Streets, he had trained her as an undercover agent, and then became her case agent on one of the most well-known undercover assignments in the Bureau – it had proved Ren’s talents, and almost destroyed her. Not long afterwards, she had been diagnosed. The arrangement with Gary was that she always had to be under a psychiatrist’s care, but he allowed her to use an outside psychiatrist, because she had never clicked with an Agency one.

She read the reply she had sent him.

Thanks so much, Gary. I’ll be there.

In the meantime, please, someone, give me a plausible reason not to be.

Gary walked into the bullpen as Ren was closing his mail. He was hard to miss – tall, dark and athletic, he was the perfect front man for Safe Streets, and a boss that no-one could or would argue with.

‘Guys, this is SA Ben Rader,’ said Gary.

A short guy stepped forward from behind Gary and gave a small nod. He was five foot eight, with tanned skin and black hair. He had green, smiling eyes. He was dressed in black jeans, with a military shirt hanging open over a black t-shirt. He had a wide silver band on the middle finger of his right hand. He was shifting from one foot to the other, and had jammed his hands into his pockets. He looked about eighteen.

The Young and the Restless.

‘Ben is one of our finest UC graduates,’ said Gary.

‘Yup,’ said Ben. ‘Strictly deep cover in retirement homes …’

Ren laughed. He flashed a big smile her way.

‘I’m just passing through,’ said Ben. ‘I thought I’d catch up with Gary, say hi.’

‘Please, excuse me,’ said Ren, standing up, and moving around her desk. She pointed out the door. ‘I was on my way to the ladies room.’ She moved to walk past Ben and Gary.

‘This is SA Ren Bryce,’ said Gary.

Ren shook Ben’s hand. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said.

Ben beamed. ‘You too,’ he said, keeping her hand in his grip.

Oh my God. Stop.

Ren glanced, panicked, toward Gary, but he had turned toward the hallway. Ren pulled Ben a little closer, and as she moved by his left ear, whispered. ‘I found your skull ring … it was in the shower tray.’ She slid her hand out of his. She walked to the ladies room.

Ben texted, All that soap …

She texted back:

Slippery …

He texted back:

When Wet …

6

Ren stood in the ladies room, sliding her belt out of her work pants. She stepped out of them and pulled on her jeans, tight and low-riding, cutting into the hip bones that had newly resurfaced.

She was aware that her brother, Matt, had fired something at her, and that it was trying to pierce some part of her. But she was too far away.

Go away, Matt. Go away.

She pulled off her white work shirt and skin-toned bra, and pushed them onto the pile in her locker. She grabbed the pink bra that matched her low-cut boy shorts, hooked it at the front, adjusted the contents, adjusted the straps. She pulled on a scoop-necked gray tank with black leather strips and small silver buckles on each shoulder. Her arms were leaner, the long muscles defined again. She could see veins. She applied more makeup: light base on sallow skin, extra liner, extra mascara, tan blush on cheeks that had hollowed under the bone.

Bones and veins, coming through. The surface.

Ren thought of the men who had gotten to know more. Paul Louderback, her former physical training instructor at Quantico. Her only unfinished business. It had been seventeen years since he first got inside her head. She was twenty years old, standing in boxing gloves in the gym at the Academy, knees bent, punching the focus pads he was holding up. His eyes were extraordinarily blue, sharp, intense. She missed a beat. He struck her hard on the side of the head.

‘Focus pads!’ he roared, ‘are for guess what?’

‘For focusing on,’ Ren had shouted back.

‘Then focus!’

‘Yes, sir.’ She punched. One, two.

‘And when you punch, you need to follow through! Punch like you’re aiming to go through the focus pads, or through the punchbag, or through the dirtbag!’

His eyes.

‘Follow through,’ he had roared. ‘You need to follow through!’

‘Yes, sir.’ One, two.

His eyes. Shit.

‘Focus pads!’ he roared again, ‘are for guess what?’

‘For focusing on,’ Ren had shouted back.

‘Then focus!’

‘Hard to do,’ Ren had told him months later. ‘When the instructor looks like—’

‘He wants to kiss you?’ said Paul.

But she had found out that Paul Louderback was married, and she wanted to grab those boxing gloves and use them on him again for not wearing a wedding band. So she had treated the ‘wants to kiss you’ like it had never been said. It was the first time, in words, he had made his feelings clear. For the seventeen years since it was hinted at in emails, and gifts, and rare phone calls that she knew were a secret from his wife. This simple contact meant that no matter who Ren was with, at times she would imagine what it would be like to walk down a beach or an aisle with Paul Louderback. But he had already done both with someone else, and Ren was no homewrecker, and no-one’s second best.

Just once they had dared to say more about what might have been, eighteen months earlier, in the shadow of Quandary Peak outside Breckenridge, in the aftermath of a murder investigation. Since then, there had been no contact. Paul Louderback had a life in D.C. with his wife and two daughters, and she had a life in Denver.

Then there were the men Ren had been with in the past ten years, since her mind was stamped with crazy: Vincent, everloving until she broke under the weight of his knowledge of her; Billy Waites, confidential informant, bright and brave, deep and tattooed, quietly concerned, secret. Then from the sawdust of the National Stock Show, came the extreme rider, riding fast toward her manic high, and roping her. Then a few more, scattered and grim, drawn to the same empty flame. Come to crazy: when Ren, fresh from sorrow, could feel her eyes dancing like fire, and her chest bursting with roving love, her glass and her wallet overflowing, her flesh showing, her smiles killing her jaw. Come to crazy. I’ll keep you up all night.

It would last for days, or weeks, or longer. If she was lucky – she thought – it would last for months. Her trickster mind would tell her that the high would never end: this time I promise, this time I promise. And then came the certain, slow, quicksand low: the knockdown, turnaround low. It would sidle up to her like a street-corner mime with an upright middle finger, rocking with silent laughter at the ridiculousness that it could still surprise. It would bring terrible things, silently. It carried thoughts with claws and teeth – thoughts that she may have fought before, and beaten. But her trickster mind would tell her that this low would never end: this time I promise, this time I promise.

‘Surpri-ise!’ it would mouth. ‘You fucking sucker.’ Rocking shoulders, silent laugh. ‘I. Always. Win.’

Ren leaned into the mirror, sliding red gloss across her lips with an upright middle finger.

Not this time, motherfucker. Not this time.

Erica Whaley leaned in and kissed her husband hard on the mouth, knocking his head back against the mirrored wall of the elevator. When it stopped on the third floor, she made a dash for the room. She went the wrong way, then spun around and, laughing, went back the right way. Mark moved slowly after her. He could not bear to be in the room with the sitter. As he came closer, he heard a terrible, agonizing scream. He ran through the open door.

‘Laurie,’ Erica was screaming. ‘Laurie!’

Little Leo was standing in the middle of the bedroom floor. He had wet his Spiderman pajamas.

‘What do you mean, Laurie?’ said Mark. ‘Where is she?’ He dashed past Erica into the kids’ bedroom. She followed him in. Her face was white.

‘She’s not here!’ screamed Erica. ‘Laurie’s gone.’

Mark Whaley shouted out his daughter’s name, pulling back the wardrobe doors, throwing himself onto the floor to check under the bed, running to the curtains, swinging them back and forth, as if his daughter would play a hiding game as her stepmother screamed. Maybe this is for attention, he thought. He ran back into Erica.

‘Where’s the sitter?’ he said.

Leo was now wailing, copying his parents. He plunged toward his father’s leg, and clung to it. In a trance, Mark bent down and picked him up, started patting his back, not even aware that Leo’s wet pajamas were soaking into his shirt. And still, Leo bawled.

‘I’m trying to think,’ Mark shouted. ‘Stop crying, Leo. For crying out loud!’

Leo cried harder, alarmed by the scene he had woken up to. ‘Laurie,’ he sobbed. ‘Laurie.’

‘Give him to me,’ said Erica.

Mark grabbed for the phone. He called reception. As he waited for them to pick up, he turned to Erica. ‘Call 911 from your cell phone,’ he shouted. ‘Call 911. And call Laurie’s cell.’

Jared Labati picked up the phone in reception. ‘Hey,’ he said, long and slow, as if he was talking to one of his best friends.

‘This is Mark Whaley, Room 304. My daughter is missing. My daughter’s gone. Call 911. Call the police. Where’s the sitter? Did you see the sitter leave?’

Jared stammered, ‘Uh … your daughter’s gone? Where?’

‘Yes!’ shouted Mark. ‘She’s gone! She’s taken my daughter. I don’t know where.’

‘Who?’ said Jared. ‘Who’s taken your daughter?’

‘Jesus Christ, I don’t care, my daughter’s gone. Shut down the hotel. Now. And get the police here. Now.’ He slammed the phone down. ‘What a fucking idiot.’

Erica was still on the phone to 911. Mark started answering the dispatcher’s questions along with her. She held her hand over the receiver. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘Stop! You’re confusing me.’

‘You’re too slow!’ he said.

He got his cell phone and dialed Laurie’s number.

‘It’s ringing,’ he said. ‘It’s ringing. OK. It’s ringing. That’s good. Come on, Laurie, pick up, pick up.’

He became aware of a song playing in the room next door, a song he vaguely knew, one that Laurie had loaded onto Erica’s iPod, but he knew it wasn’t the iPod, it was the phone, and as he walked into the bedroom, there it was, flashing on the floor of the bedroom: Laurie’s little pink cell phone. He ended his call, picked up her phone and brought it into Erica.

‘I’m going to check the other rooms, I’ll check the other rooms, stay here, in case she …’ He ran from the room and down the hallway, hammering on every door, shouting for Laurie.

‘My daughter’s missing!’ he shouted. ‘My daughter’s gone! She’s eleven years old, blonde hair, blue eyes, seventy pounds, wearing … wearing … pajamas! Pajamas with … pink pajamas … with Jesus … just pink!’

Doors started to open along the hallway.

‘Anyone!’ said Mark. ‘Anyone! Has anyone seen her? Everyone, my daughter’s missing! She was here just a half hour ago. I just checked on her. On the sitter. There was a sitter. Blonde hair. Five two … sixteen years old.’

Jesus, she was sixteen years old, he thought.

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