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pool of blood approximately two feet in length and a foot wide surrounded her head and her torso, and a small plush toy was tucked into the crook of her arm. Footprints led around the body, away from the body, back to the body. Along Corinne’s side, the blood had been disturbed.
    Taylor and Sam stepped closer. “Oh, man,” Sam whispered. “That poor thing.”
    â€œCorinne or Hayden?”
    â€œBoth.”
    Taylor wasn’t sure what bothered her more, the teddy bear tucked into Corinne’s arms, the blanket draped across her seminakedness, or the plush, stuffed Gund My Doctor kit that sat by her head. Her daughter, unable to understand what was happening, had tried to help. She’d managed to get a large pretend Band-Aid stuck to the top of her mother’s hand. Hayden had tried to fix her. And then she’d lain down next to her mother, covering herself in blood.
    They got the necessary pictures and videotape, then Sam set to work. She pulled back the blanket and saw the pregnancy.
    â€œOh, jeez. I hate this.” She felt the body. “She’s cold and malleable. The blood pool has soaked into the carpet and is tacky to the touch. I won’t know an exact time of death until I run the temp during autopsy, but this should give you a time frame to start looking at. Rigor is completely gone. Livor mortis is set, the discoloration consistent with a body lying in one position since death. She’s been dead at least thirty-six hours. I’d say she was killed right here, fell in this position and didn’t move. How far along is she, do you know? This looks like a four, maybe five-month bump.”
    â€œI don’t know. Parks said she was pregnant, but he didn’t say when she was due. Thirty-six hours minimum? God, that little girl was here in this house with her dead mother all that time. Poor baby.”
    Sam continued her examination. “With a mother who’d been violently bludgeoned to death. Blunt force trauma to the extremities, the head. Her jaw is certainly broken, she’s missing some teeth.” Sam was finishing her initial assessment, making notes in a small black reporter’s notebook. “This is a mess, T.”
    â€œTell me about it. I don’t see any weapon conveniently lying around, do you?”
    â€œNo. And this is too much damage to just have been someone’s fists. Tim, you hear that? You need to keep an eye out for a weapon.”
    â€œYes, Dr. Loughley.”
    â€œOkay, folks. Let’s rock and roll.” Sam and Tim continued their duties, with Keri filming everything for posterity. Taylor went to the window. The cream-colored roman shades, covered with blood spatter, were at half-mast. She glanced out at the street below. The neighbors were still grouped on the opposite lawn, talking quietly amongst themselves. She didn’t see anything out of place, no one who stood out as having a more than neighborly fascination with the goings-on.
    Sam stood, leaning over the body, then turned to Taylor. “It’s going to be a long day. I need to run out to the van for a couple things. Are you ready for some air?”
    â€œYeah.”
    With a last glance at the victim, Taylor led the way out of the master and down the stairs.
    When they got back to the front door, Taylor asked the question that had been burning in her mind from the moment she laid eyes on the body of Corinne Wolff.
    â€œJust where is this husband?”

Four
    T he Harris family had taken refuge with the Wolffs’ next-door neighbor.
    Fitz nodded to her as she came in. There were five people in the room, sitting, staring, crying. Father Ross, the department chaplain, was holding a woman who looked to be in her early fifties, with reddish hair. The woman was sobbing, nestled into the chaplain’s shoulder. The mother. The room was deadly quiet outside of the woman’s choked tears.
    A dark-haired young woman met Taylor’s eye. A