She heard something. A groan. A man’s groan. The sound was so unnerving and unexpected that she responded instinctively by running toward it. Someone sounded hurt. Badly hurt.

She’d been in the Cunninghams’ house before, but that was years ago. They had no children of their own, but she’d been there trick-or-treating, selling magazines for school projects, bringing a bushel of apples from her dad’s orchard, that kind of thing. She’d never seen the upstairs, but she knew the front hall led to a living room off to the right, then a dining area, then the big, old fashioned kitchen.

The man’s groan had seemed to come from the kitchen.

The last time she’d seen it, the room had avocado-green counters and wallpaper with big splashes of orange and green-circa the sixties or seventies-who knew? She’d been a kid, didn’t care. Now, though, the kitchen was obviously in the process of a major rehab. A sawhorse and power tools and impressive-looking cords dominated the middle of the room. There was sawdust all over the floor, new counters and cupboards in the process of being installed. Half were done. The ceiling was done, too, except for a light fixture hanging like a drunken sailor. And beneath that, tangled with an overturned ladder, was a man.

Daisy couldn’t take in much in that millisecond-just enough to register that he wasn’t one of the Cunninghams. The stranger was youngish, somewhere around thirty. She took in his appearance in a mental snap-shot-the dark hair, the lean, broad-shouldered build. He was dressed for work, in jeans and a long-sleeved tee, a tool belt slung around his hips. But God. None of that mattered.

He was lying on the dusty, littered floor, his eyes closed, flat on his back. One of his boots was still caught in the rung of a ladder. A pool of blood gleamed beneath his head, shining dark red under the bald light-bulb.