Lassiter shoved Shawn off him and got to his feet. “All right, get out of here,” he commanded. “Right now.”

“I don’t know, Lassie,” Shawn said. “It looks pretty exigent to me.”

Lassiter knew he wasn’t supposed to be in here, and now that he was, it was incumbent upon him to get out as quickly as possible. But the cop in him couldn’t resist one look around. Ellen Svaco didn’t seem to have too many possessions-the furniture was all assemble-it-yourself quality, the wall decorations were unframed posters of famous paintings, her TV was a small, fat desktop tube model, and the major design element was lots and lots of old books.

It wasn’t the meagerness of the house’s contents that grabbed their attention. It was the fact that every bit of it was scattered across the bungalow’s floor. Furniture was smashed into pieces, the posters were torn in shreds, the TV was a mess of wires and plastic.

Gus joined Shawn and Lassiter in the ransacked bungalow.

“Ms. Svaco?” Lassiter called out, but there was no answer.

“Maybe she wasn’t here when they broke in,” Gus said.

“She was here.” Shawn pointed towards a door leading to the bathroom. Gus saw a small pink hand lying palm up on the ground.

Lassiter did a broken-field run across the demolished room until he’d reached the hand. He signaled for Shawn and Gus to stay back, but they were right behind him. By the time they were halfway there, they could tell there was no point in going any farther. Ellen Svaco lay sprawled lifelessly across the white tile, an angry red line across her throat where someone had garroted her.

Even knowing it was useless, Lassiter took her wrist and felt for a pulse. Her icy skin told him everything he needed to know.