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outside Cynthia Adams’s apartment door watching as the building super tried his drunken best to get his master key in the lock. Jim McNulty had apparently celebrated the Bul s’ win by getting totally shit-faced in his favorite bar. They’d just about given up on him returning for the evening when he’d staggered up, his master key in his hand, just as the ME techs were lifting Cynthia Adams’s body onto a gurney. The MEs hadn’t been able to separate her from the spike, so they’d taken eighteen inches of wrought-iron fence with them. The super bellowed about the missing fence until his eyes dropped to Adams’s body. He hadn’t said a single word since.
    “How long did you know Miss Adams?” Aidan asked him and winced at the stench of the man’s sigh. It was a good thing there were no open flames around. McNulty was completely pissed. “Three years. She moved in three years ago.” He pushed the door open and Aidan was immediately struck by two things. First, the apartment was ice cold, which he’d expected. The patio door had been open for over an hour. But the second, the overpowering scent of flowers, made him blink. Cynthia Adams’s living room floor was covered with more flowers than he’d ever seen outside a flower shop.
    Murphy was frowning. “What the hell?”
    “Lilies.” Aidan stepped inside Adams’s apartment and tentatively plucked one of the flowers from the floor. “Death flowers.”
    “My God,” Murphy murmured, his eyes searching the living room. “She must have a hundred dollars worth of flowers here.”
    Aidan raised a brow. “Try three times that.” When Murphy gave him an inquisitive stare, Aidan shrugged. “I took a horticulture class when I was getting my degree.” He picked up the top envelope of a three-inch pile of mail that littered the foyer table. “She’s got a stack of mail.” He turned to the super. “Has she been out of town?”
    The super shook his head. There was a fine sheen of sweat on his upper lip and his eyes darted from side to side. “No, but she was a month behind on her rent. First time she’d gotten behind in the three years she lived here. The manager had me watching her place to make sure she didn’t try to move out on the sly.”
    Aidan careful y stepped around the flowers as best he could, walking out to the balcony.
    “Step stool,” he called back to Murphy. “The teenagers said she glided up. She walked up a step stool.”
    “Convenient.”
    The super stumbled to the glass door. “That wasn’t there before. I was up here a week ago to fix a leaky faucet and this step stool wasn’t here.”
    “If you were fixing the faucet, how did you notice the balcony?” Murphy asked mildly. The super’s face paled. “I came out for a smoke.”
    “She put it there especially for the main event,” Murphy murmured, then his voice abruptly sharpened. “Aidan.”
    Aidan’s head whipped around. Murphy was holding a printed paper between two gloved fingers, his mouth gone grim. It was a photo, printed on glossy paper. It was of a woman, hanging from a rope, her toes a good foot off the ground. The woman’s face was grotesque, her eyes bulging, mouth open as if gasping for air.

    15
    Karen Rose

    [Suspense 5]

    You Can't Hide
    “Who is this?” Murphy asked the super.
    The super took a step backward, his face gone even paler. “I don’t know. I never seen that woman before. I need to go.”
    “In a minute, Mr. McNulty.” Aidan stepped in McNulty’s path, stopping him. “Please. You say you’ve been watching the place for the manager. Did you see who brought in all these flowers?
    Was it Miss Adams?”
    “I don’t know. Sorry,” he mumbled.
    “It doesn’t matter. We can get the tapes from the security cameras.” He’d noticed the camera eye pointed at the elevator exit as soon as the doors had opened. McNulty shook his head. “No, you can’t. Camera’s broken.”
    “Convenient,” Murphy muttered. “For how long?”
    McNulty