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her ground in the middle of the road as she waited for the Cadillac to make the turn, taking her out of sight of the guy’s rearview mirrors.
    Once the car was gone, she went around to the passenger’s side of the Celica and found the six-inch folding knife she kept under the seat. She slipped this into her back pocket, then got her Glock out of the glove compartment. She checked the safety on the gun and clipped the holster to her belt. Lena did not want to meet the man again, especially unarmed.
    Walking toward the house, she wouldn’t let her mind consider the reasons why such a person would be at her uncle’s house. You didn’t drive a car like that in a town like Reece by working at the tire factory. You sure as shit didn’t leave somebody’s house flashing a wad of money unless you knew that no one was going to try to take it off you.
    Her hands were shaking as she walked toward the house. The door jamb had splintered from being slammed so hard, or maybe from being kicked open. Pieces of rotting wood and rusting metal jutted into the air near the knob, and Lena used the toe of her shoe to push open the door.
    ‘Hank?’ she called, fighting the urge to draw her weapon. The man in the Escalade was gone, but his presence still lingered. Something bad had happened here. Maybe something bad was still going on.
    Being a cop had given Lena a healthy respect for her instinct. You learned to listen to your gut when you were a rookie. It wasn’t something that could be taught at the academy. Either you paid attention to the hairs sticking up on the back of your neck or you got shot in the chest on your first call by some whacked-out drug addict who thought the aliens were trying to get him.
    Lena pulled the Glock, pointed it at the floor. ‘Hank?’
    No answer.
    She stepped carefully through the house, unable to tell if the place had been tossed or if Hank just hadn’t bothered to straighten up in a while. There was an unpleasant odor in the air, something chemical, like burned plastic, mixed with the usual reek of cigarettes from Hank’s chain-smoking and chicken grease from the takeout he got every night. Newspapers were scattered on the living room couch. Lena leaned down, checked the dates. Most were over a month old.
    Cautiously, she walked down the hallway, weapon still drawn. Lena and Sibyl’s bedroom door stood open, the beds neatly made. Hank’s room was another matter. The sheets were bunched up at the bottom like someone had suffered a fever dream and an unpleasant brown stain radiated from the center of the bare mattress. The bathroom was filthy. Mold blackened the grout, pieces of wet plaster hung from the ceiling.
    She stood outside the closed kitchen door, Glock at the ready. ‘Hank?’
    No answer.
    The hinges creaked as she pushed open the swinging door.
    Hank was slumped in a chair at the kitchen table. AA pamphlets were stacked hundreds deep in front of him, right beside a closed metal lockbox that Lena instantly recognized from her childhood.
    His kit.
    Junkies loved their routines almost as much as they loved their drugs. A certain type of needle, a particular vein… they had a habit for their habits, an M.O. they followed that was almost as hard to break as the addiction. Thump the bag, tap out the powder, flick the lighter, lick your lips, wait for the powder to turn to liquid, the liquid to boil. And then came the needle. Sometimes thinking about the rush was enough to get them halfway there.
    Hank’s drug kit was a metal lockbox, dark blue with chipped paint that showed the gray primer underneath. He kept the key in his sock drawer, something even a seven-year-old girl could figure out. Though the box was shut now, Lena could see the contents as clearly as if the lid was open: hypodermics, tin foil, torch lighter, filters broken off from cigarettes. She knew the spoon he used to heat the powder as well as she knew the back of her hand. Tarnished silver, the ornate handle bent into a loop