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glance at D.D. Outside, there had been at least half a dozen detectives’ vehicles. But inside the house, Tessa had so far seen D.D., D.D., and only D.D.
    Then, Tessa corrected herself. On the first floor of the home, she’d encountered a single detective. Meaning—she raised her gaze automatically to the ceiling above her—if the foyer was bad, upstairs, she guessed, had to be worse to have demanded the attention of at least five more Boston detectives.
    “Look.” D.D. pointed straight ahead.
    Big center island. At least eight feet long, covered in an expanse ofgreen-gold granite with darker gray veins that flowed like water. Currently, the high-polished surface was marred by a single jumbled collection of items, all piled directly in the middle.
    Tessa approached slowly, reaching into her coat pocket for a pair of latex gloves.
    Purse, she identified. Rich brown leather, looked Italian. Smart phone. iPod. Man’s wallet. Another smart phone, two key fobs, one for a Range Rover, another bearing the logo of Mercedes-Benz. Two iPads. A red Swiss Army pocketknife, tightly folded. Finally, cotton-candy-pink lip gloss, a wad of cash and two sticks of bent gum, still in silver foil.
    Purse most likely belonged to the wife. Wallet, pocketknife, at least one of the phones would be the husband’s, while the two sets of keys translated to his car, her car. The rest she would guess belonged to Ashlyn. Electronics, smart phone, lip gloss, cash, gum. Pretty much everything required by the modern teenager on the go.
    Tessa was looking at the contents of an entire family’s pockets/purses, single-mindedly extricated and piled like offerings on an altar in the middle of the kitchen island.
    She glanced again at D.D., found the detective studying her.
    “The two cell phones?” Tessa asked.
    “Three. Third’s in the purse, belongs to Libby. We contacted the carrier, who’s in the process of faxing the past forty-eight hours of calls, texts and messages. Preliminary synopsis: no outgoing calls from any member of the family after ten P.M. last night. Ashlyn, the teenager, has a series of texts from various friends trying to contact her with growing degrees of urgency, but nothing the other way around. Last text message Ashlyn sent was at approximately nine forty-eight P.M. Last text message she received was shortly after midnight, the fourth from her BFF, Lindsay Edmiston, demanding her immediate reply.”
    “Perpetrator catches the family by surprise,” Tessa said, testingout the scenario in her mind. “Hence no aborted calls or texts for help. Attacker uses a Taser to subdue them, hence the confetti in the foyer. Then he restrains them and divests them of their personal possessions.”
    “Some robbery,” D.D. stated, voice challenging.
    “Not a robbery,” Tessa immediately concurred. “You’re right. The smart phones, purse, wallet. Those would be the first items taken, not left behind.”
    Tessa wondered if the family had been conscious during this phase. Most likely. Tasering was intensely painful, but only briefly incapacitating. The moment the shooter squeezed the trigger, an electric current screamed through the victim’s body, firing each nerve ending to intense, excruciating life. The second the trigger was released, however, the current ceased and the pain passed, leaving the subject shaken, but standing.
    Most police officers preferred Tasering to pepper spray for just that reason. Pepper spray reduced the subject to a giant, blubbering, mucousy mess, which the officer then had to awkwardly heave into the back of the squad car. Tasering, on the other hand, generally involved two to three quick bursts of searing electrical charge, at which point most perpetrators tucked themselves obediently inside the squad car, anything not to be Tasered again.
    So most likely the family was conscious. Restrained, subdued, while the perpetrator ransacked their pockets, rifled through their personal possessions, then placed