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“There might be something underneath.”
    Novak agreed. “Nice and slow,” he said.
    She gripped the spread with both hands and pulled it away to reveal a white blanket. Two plumes of blood had risen from the body and were oozing through the fabric likelamp oil working its way through a wick toward the flame. As Lamar popped in another roll of film and documented the bloodstains, Lena pointed to Nikki Brant’s neck, which had become more visible now. The plastic bag hadn’t been draped over the woman’s head, but was wrapped around her neck and carefully tied into a bow.
    Lamar zeroed in on the knot from the other side of the bed. Lena looked back at the bag, trying to decipher the print through the spatter with the hope of identifying the grocery store. When she leaned in for a closer look, she flinched. She could see the young woman’s face through the opaque plastic. Every time Lamar’s camera flashed, the image became clearer and more eerie. Nikki Brant’s eyes were open. And it looked as if she were staring back at Lena through the smoky plastic—as if for a split second their eyes met.
    An ice-cold chill ran up Lena’s spine. She took a deep breath.
    Lamar lowered his camera. “Got it, Lena,” he said.
    She nodded, ignoring the horror and struggling to keep it buried. Gripping the blanket, she pulled it away, carefully folding it over without touching the bedspread. The small body was beginning to take shape beneath the covers now, the two bloodstains more pronounced. When she noticed an extra blanket pushed against the foot of the bed, she pointed it out to Lamar. Once the image was recorded, she gripped the top sheet with both hands and peeled the final layer away to reveal Nikki Brant’s dead body.
    A stillness permeated the room. No one moved or said anything for several moments as the weight of the horror nipped and pulled at them.
    Dwarfed by the size of the bed, Nikki Brant looked like a child.
    She was lying on her back with her legs spread open. Her hands had been placed beside her hips and, like her head, bound in plastic and tied around her wrists. Her body was soft and curvy. Her breasts small and round and tattooed with bruises. Semen stains dotted the sheet between her legs and appeared wet but smeared. But it was the two stab woundsthat played with Lena’s soul. The first was just below the collarbone. A through and through that looked clean but unusually wide, almost as if she had been speared. The second wound looked more jagged, the knife ripping upward through her belly. Based on the heavy amount of blood loss and the condition of the room, Lena had no doubt that the young woman was alive through most of the ordeal.
    “We need to think about what we’re seeing,” Rhodes said in a voice that was barely audible. “Whether we’re looking at things the way they really are, or the way someone wants us to think they are.”
    “We’ll talk about that later,” Novak said.
    Lena took a step closer, eyeing the wounds carefully. She had seen them once before, but never in this context.
    “It’s called the juke,” she said. “I saw it working a dope deal with South L.A.”
    “Gangs do it for the effect,” Novak said. “They think the brutality impresses their friends.”
    Lena stepped away from the bed as Lamar moved in with his camera, her mind rattling through possible motives. Nothing she saw so far indicated a robbery. There wasn’t anything in the house worth stealing other than Nikki Brant.
    Parting the curtains, she took another look at the park beyond the fence and wondered what the view would be like on a clear day. The view from a car parked in the lot at night. This was about anger, she thought. A six-pack of anger. Somebody overdosing on rage.
    When she turned back to the room, Gainer had approached the bed and was examining the body. The sheet was still partially covering the young woman’s left foot, and he pulled it away, then jerked his hand up. No one said