I rolled my shoulders, twisted my neck. I could feel the tension invading my body. I saw it, all right. How could they have murdered those people for no reason?

I really wasn't in the mood for police business, though, not even a bad case like this one. "Which brings you out to my house tonight? On my son's christening day?"

"Oh, hell." Kyle suddenly smiled and lightened his tone. "I had to come over to see the promised child anyway. Unfortunately, this case is really intense. There's a possibility the crew is from DC. Even if they're not from Washington, there's still a possibility somebody here might know them, Alex. I need you to look for the killers before they do it again. We have the feeling this isn't a one-shot. Alex, your baby is a beauty, though."

"Yeah, you're a beauty too," I said to Kyle. "You are truly beyond compare."

"Three-year-old boy, the father, a nanny," Kyle said one more time before he left the party. He was about to go out through the door in the sun porch when he turned to me and said, "You're the right person for this. They murdered a family, Alex."

As soon as Kyle was gone, I went looking for Christine, but she had already left. My heart sank. She had taken Alex and left without saying goodbye, without a single word.

Chapter Four

Reluctantly, the Mastermind parked on the street, then walked toward an abandoned project within a stone's throw of the Anacostia River. A full moon cast a cold, hard, bone-white light on half a dozen crumbling, three-story row houses with open, screen less windows. He wondered if he had the stomach for this. "Into the valley of death," he whispered.