The First Cut Read Online Free PDF Page A

stop anyone within twenty feet and would be easy for Emily to use under duress. She coaxed her ex-husband into buying that one.
    Off-duty, she still carried a tiny, pearl-handled .22 in her purse, but now added a second weapon. She tried wearing a Smith & Wesson .38 in an ankle holster. Her mentor, retired lieutenant Bill Gavigan, had carried one as his sidearm throughout his career in the PPD. She loved the old-school aspect of the .38. Unlike the semiautomatics, it wouldn’t jam or let you down. The short barrel gave less opportunity for someone to grab it away from you. But she found it too heavy and bulky for an ankle holster, so she settled for a .32 caliber Walther PPK.
    Emily accompanied her to the gun range as she had done since she was a small child. Nan’s girl had a proper respect for firearms. While other mothers and daughters went shopping, Vining and Emily shot guns, to the overheated angst of her ex-husband’s newer wife, who had deemed Vining’s entire lifestyle as corrupting to a young lady. These shrill objections only enhanced the fun of those mother-daughter shooting outings for both Vining and Emily.
    Vining’s work in getting herself mentally fit to return to duty hadn’t been as easy to measure. She was here, so she must have done okay with the police-appointed shrink. That had been a challenge, revealing enough to sound credible yet holding back the critical flaw that could do her in. The panic attacks would remain her and Emily’s secret.
    Going inside houses set them off. Not every house, just certain ones. Old. New. Didn’t matter. A certain unknown attribute of the house triggered them. Her chest constricted. Beads of perspiration bloomed on her face and down her spine. Her hands grew clammy. Sometimes she hyperventilated. Sometimes she fainted.
    Being in the open didn’t bother her. There she could see. There, there were no wood blocks filled with cutlery. No refrigerator magnets. No pantries with smeared trails of blood leading inside. Being in her own home didn’t frighten her, or the homes of her mother, sister, or grandmother. She was okay in the home of her ex-husband and his wife. Supermarkets, malls, business offices, and movie theaters were no problem.
    But going into strangers’ homes was part of her job.
    Home. So many warm connotations, turned rancid by T. B. Mann.
    Vining knew there was no way to exorcise the panic attacks with words. She had to face her fears head-on. She and Emily devised a plan.
    She started by accepting invitations from the parents of Emily’s friends to come inside when she’d arrive to retrieve her daughter. At first, she could only walk a few steps down the front path before seeing spots and gasping for air. Eventually, she made it to the front door, then across the threshold, then further inside. Finally, she was able to reach the kitchen—that cozy center of a home. The place where family and guests congregated, where food was prepared and consumed, stories told and traditions passed down. To Vining, a home kitchen had become an opening to an abyss filled with knives and her own blood. An abyss in which he waited. T. B. Mann waited.
    Vining promoted herself to the homes of strangers. She made it through an hour at a cocktail party given by neighbors new to the street, her eyes darting to the hands of a grandfather clock, watching the minutes tick by, the hour chimes sounding like the recess bell at school. Finally, she attended realtor open houses. That “For Sale” placard in the front yard looked so innocuous, so inviting. Anyone and everyone can enter. T. B. Mann had.
    Emily had a theory. “Houses have karma, Mom.”
    She argued that houses retained a residue of the events and emotions that had occurred within their walls. A permanent imprint. A burned-in brand. Invisible, except Vining could sense it. She could sense a house’s karma, more psychic residue left by T. B. Mann. He had changed her.
    “Mom, it’s like your antenna’s been