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rag on the floor. The man reached into his pocket and came back with a small envelope and a plastic bottle.
    He dropped a tiny piece of string or something on the floor, near the kitchen door, and then took the plastic bottle and squirted some cold red liquid onto her fingers. It looks like blood, she thought as he took her hand and used it to smear the red liquid across the hallway wall.
    The man picked up the rag. Carol drew in a breath to scream, sucked in chloroform and heard a crack of thunder rumble and die.

Chapter 7
    Darby McCormick stood on the back porch of the Cranmore home, running the beam of her flashlight over the door, a reinforced steel model with two deadbolts. The thunderstorm had stopped, but the rain hadn’t tapered off, still coming down fast and strong.
    Detective Mathew Banville of the Belham police had to yell over the noise, in a tone that left little doubt he was running thin on patience.
    ‘The mother, Dianne Cranmore, came home around quarter of five because she forgot her checkbook and needed it for when she swung by the bank later today to pay the mortgage. When she pulled in, both doors were open and then she saw this –’ Banville used his penlight to point to the bloody hand print on the hallway wall. The mother didn’t find her daughter, but she found her daughter’s boyfriend, Tony Marceillo, slumped on the stairs and immediately called nine-one-one.’
    ‘Besides the mother, who else has been inside?’
    ‘The first responding officer, Garrett, and the EMTs. They all went in through the front to get to the boyfriend. The mother gave Garrett the keys.’
    ‘Garrett didn’t come in this way?’
    ‘He didn’t want to destroy any evidence so he sealed the place off. We’ve issued an Amber Alert, but so far nothing.’
    Darby glanced at her watch. It was coming up on six a.m. Carol Cranmore had been missing for several hours, enough time for her to be well out of Massachusetts.
    On the gray carpet was a single tan fiber. Darby placed an evidence cone next to it.
    ‘There’s no sign of forced entry. Who else has keys to the house?’
    ‘We’re talking to the ex-husbands,’ Banville said.
    ‘How many she have?’
    ‘Two, and that’s not including the biological father. They were married for about fifteen minutes back in ninety-one.’
    ‘And does this fine gentleman have a name?’ Darby checked the kitchen floor, glad to see it was made of linoleum. It was an ideal surface for picking up footwear impressions.
    ‘Mother called him “the sperm donor.” Said he went back to Ireland right after he found out he was going to be a daddy. She hasn’t heard from him since.’
    ‘And they say all the good ones are taken.’ Darby rummaged through her kit.
    ‘The other two ex-husbands, one lives in Chicago, and the other lives here, in the wonderful city ofLynn,’ Banville said. The dipshit from Lynn is the most interesting of the bunch. Street name is LBC, short for Little Baby Cool – don’t ask me what that means. LBC’s biological name is Trenton Andrews, did a five-year stretch in Walpole for the attempted rape of a minor – a fifteen-year-old girl. The Lynn police are looking for Mr Andrews right now. We’re looking for registered sex offenders who live in the area.’
    ‘I’m sure it will be quite a list.’
    ‘You need anything else or can I go?’
    ‘Hold on a moment.’
    ‘Let’s hurry it up.’
    Darby didn’t take Banville’s clipped tone personally; he spoke to everyone this way. She had worked with him on two previous crime scenes and found him to be a thorough investigator; but his personality was gruff, to say the least, and he generally avoided eye contact. He also made sure people didn’t stand too close to him – like now, he was leaning against the porch railing, a good five feet away.
    She grabbed another flashlight, the heavy-duty Mag-Lite, and laid it down on the kitchen floor, angling the light until she found what she was looking for – a