“No blood on the stairs, or in the hall,” I noticed, trying to focus on evidence, trying to do the job. It was freezing cold, with a hatch door open overhead. November third, and the forecast was for single-digit temperatures overnight. Even the weather had gone a little crazy.

    “Alex?”

    Bree was waiting up ahead, standing at the doorway to a room on the third floor. She didn't move as I approached. “You sure you're okay to be here?” she asked, speaking low so the others wouldn't hear.

    I nodded and peered into the room.

    Behind Bree, the two little girls' bodies were crisscrossed on an oval rag rug. A white canopy bed was broken into pieces, collapsed in on itself as if someone had jumped too hard on it.

    “I’lI be fine,” I said. I need to see what happened here. I need to begin to understand what it all means. Like who the hell was jumping on that bed?"

Cross Country

Chapter 4

    BUT I DIDN'T even begin to understand the horrible murders of five family members. Not that night, anyway. I was as baffled as everybody else about the possible motivation of the killers.

    What made the mystery even deeper was something that happened about an hour after I got to the crime scene. Two officers from the CIA showed up. They looked around, then left. What was the CIA doing there?

    It was a little after three thirty in the morning when Bree and I finally got back home to Fifth Street. In the stillness of my house, I could hear Ali's little-boy snores wafting down from upstairs. Reassuring and comforting sounds, to be sure.