Across the hall they found the living room in the same state of disarray. Upended chairs rested on shredded coffee-table books. A snow of pillow feathers coated broken vases and pottery. Canvas flags drooped out of frames where someone had torn or slashed the oil paintings. A pile of ashes from the fireplace blanketed the hearth and the oriental rug in front of it, as if a critter had tried to burrow out through there.

Unlike in the front of the apartment, a light was on in the adjoining room toward the back, which, from where she stood, Heat made out to be a study. Nikki hand-cued Raley to hold his place and spot them as she and Ochoa once again took position on opposite sides of the door frame. On her nod, they rolled into the study.

The dead woman looked to be about fifty and was seated at the desk in an office chair, with her head tilted way back as if frozen in the windup to a huge sneeze. Heat signed a circle in the air with her left hand to tell her partners to keep alert while she navigated her way through the office debris scattered on the floor and went to the desk to check for any pulse or breathing. She released her touch from the corpse's cold flesh, looked up, and gave them a head shake.

A sound from across the hall.

They all spun at once when they heard it. Like a foot crunching broken glass. The door to the room where it came from was closed, but light was shining on the polished linoleum under the crack. Heat worked out the likely floor plan in her head. If that was the kitchen, then the door she'd seen at the back end of the dining room would also lead to it. She pointed at Raley and signed for him to go around to that door and wait for her move. She pointed to her watch and then made a chop on it to indicate half a minute. He checked his wrist, nodded, and went.