The Gift of the Darkness Read Online Free PDF

pricking up as the man mentally calculated the relative price of real estate there. The sirens cut through the steady hum of I-5, and Madison felt the initial rush of adrenaline.
    “I don’t know what we’re going to find when we get there,” Brown said, “but it’s going to get a lot of coverage.”
    You can take that to the bank , Madison thought.
    A white helicopter from a news channel hovered like a beacon of tragedy above the wooded hills. A small crowd of onlookers was alreadyforming at the end of the driveway; four patrol cars were parked on the side of the road, lights off and radios crackling. Brown slowed down and showed his badge to one of the three uniforms manning the driveway.
    He was waved in and got out of the car, stepping into the rain. The ambulances arrived at the same time.
    Brown approached a couple of young cops standing by the main door and flashed his badge. “Brown, Homicide. Who’s the first officer?”
    Madison took out her notepad and glanced at the crowd. It would get much bigger—you could bet on that. Nothing like free entertainment. Without a raincoat, she was wearing a blazer over her shirt and pants, her badge hooked over the breast pocket. As she pulled on latex gloves, one of the two uniforms eyed her up and down. She looked straight back, and he looked away.
    Officer Giordano walked them all upstairs. “It’s pretty bad,” he said.
    Yes , Madison thought as they filed into the bedroom, it is .
    “Spencer, can you go talk to Mrs. Davis?” Brown asked. “See if she needs a doctor.”
    Spencer walked off, and Madison knew that he would talk to the cleaning lady with that quiet voice of his, and she’d calm down and tell him what she knew.
    “Did she give you the vics’ names?” Brown asked Giordano.
    “Yes. This here is the father. James Sinclair—late thirties, she thinks. That’s the wife, Anne. Same age. These are their kids, John and David, nine and seven years old. Someone took out the whole family.” Giordano slapped his notebook shut. “No sign of forced entry anywhere. All the lights were off except for the tree downstairs.”
    “Thank you, Officer.”
    Brown switched the overhead light on with the end of a pencil. Giordano shifted on his feet; he wanted to do something for those poor folks and didn’t know what. “I’ll make sure you guys can work in peace.”
    Somebody had gone to great lengths to set the scene for them. Somebody had prepared tools and positioned bodies and thought the matter through very, very carefully. Though Madison did not know much about the crime yet, she knew this: whatever passion hadsparked such a horror, the hand that had brought it to completion was controlled, accurate, and dead-cold steady, the evil stillness in the eye of the hurricane.
    She took it all in, her gaze cataloguing everything.
    “All right, tell me what you see,” Brown instructed her. “Let’s start with the father.”
    Madison crouched, balancing herself on her heels. Her sense of smell protested her getting closer to the mattress, but she ignored it.
    “Looks like at least twenty-four hours.”
    “Yes. Why?”
    “Lividity. I can’t tell about rigor without moving him, and we ought to wait for the ME’s people.”
    “Go on.”
    “He’s blindfolded with a piece of . . . black velvet. Not torn, cut. On the forehead, there is a sign like a cross. Drawn in blood. He’s bound with . . . looks like leather. Thin strip. Around his neck, hands, and feet. Hands are tied behind his back. Makes it really difficult to move if you’re lying down on them.”
    Madison paused and breathed. It was not easy, but she let the facts keep coming to her.
    “Deep red ligature marks around where he’s tied. Some bruising. He put up a fight. I’m not going to take the blindfold off yet. No other obvious wounds. It doesn’t look like it’s his blood there on the pillow. Cause of death, probably asphyxia. We’ll have to check the eyes for