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series of wet latent footwear impressions.
    ‘Sole pattern looks like a men’s boot, around a size eleven,’ Darby said. ‘Looks like our man came in through here and left through here. You might want to check and see what LBC favors for footwear.’
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘You’re free to go.’
    Banville bolted down the stairs. Darby went to work bracketing off the boot impressions with tape. When she finished, she placed evidence cones next to the best impressions, then grabbed her kit and umbrella and stepped into the rain.
    Across the driveway, seated at a table behind the kitchen window at the next-door neighbor’s house, was Carol’s mother. Dianne Cranmore pressed a wadded-up tissue against her eyes as she talked to a detective writing in a notepad. Darby looked away from the mother’s broken expression and hustled to the front door.
    The busy street was lit up by flashing blue and white lights. Police were standing out in the rain, directing traffic and keeping the crowds of reporters behind the sawhorses blocking off the street. The entire neighborhood was awake. People were standing out on their porches and watching from behind windows, wanting to know what was going on.
    Darby slipped a pair of disposable booties over her shoes and stepped inside the foyer. Her partner, Jackson Cooper, who was known to everyone simply as Coop, was hunched over a well-muscled young male dressed in a tight pair of black bikini briefs. The body was slumped at an awkward angle against the wall on the carpeted landing between the two sets of stairs. Blood had pooled under him, soaking intothe carpet. Darby counted three shots – one in the forehead, two in a tight pattern on the cougar tattooed above the heart.
    Coop pointed to the tight shot pattern on the teenager’s chest. ‘Double tap.’
    ‘I’d say our guy’s a trained marksman,’ Darby said.
    ‘If I had to guess, I’d say the boyfriend heard something and decided to come downstairs to investigate. He comes down these steps to check the front door, finds it locked, and on the way back up gets shot twice in the chest. Then he falls, lands here and gets one planted in the forehead to make sure he doesn’t get back up.’
    ‘Which means our guy is used to shooting in the dark.’
    Coop nodded. ‘No scratches on his hands or arms. He didn’t get a chance to fight.’
    ‘But his girlfriend did,’ Darby said, and told him about the bloody handprint.
    ‘What’s Banville’s take on this?’
    ‘He’s starting with the ex-husband angle.’
    ‘Why add murder to kidnapping?’
    ‘Who knows?’
    ‘That doctorate in criminal psychology is really paying off for you,’ Coop said. ‘ID here?’
    ‘Not yet.’ Darby told him about the footwear evidence in the kitchen. ‘I’m going to take a look around, and then we can do the preliminary walkthrough.’
    Light gray carpeting covered the stairs and the tiny hallway leading to a spacious TV room with mint-green walls and a brown couch and a matching chair mended by strips of duct tape. The mother had tried to brighten the place up with decorative throw pillows, a good area rug and assorted knickknacks.
    An archway separated the TV room from the dining room. On the table were several paperback romance novels by Nora Roberts and stacks of coupons. The two rooms had the stale, soiledwrapper feel of too much fast food and the fading odor of dope.
    Stretching across the upstairs wall were dozens of pictures of Carol and her achievements. Here was one of Carol as a toddler holding a paintbrush. In another one, Carol was wearing Mickey Mouse ears at Disney World. An expensive-looking frame held a certificate from Belham High School for the distinction of being a straight-A student. Then another framed certificate, this one for her leadership abilities on the student council. Here was a framed watercolor of the ocean, a ribbon pinned on it. Carol had won first place in an art contest.
    Carol’s mother had hung the most