“Lord, it’s chilly up here.” Eve shuddered as they reached the bedroom door. “What are you doing, Catherine? Are you trying to freeze information out of him?”

Catherine frowned. “It wasn’t this chilly before.” She opened the door. “I don’t know why it would-”

“Dear God!” Eve took a step back, her gaze on the bed. “Catherine?”

Catherine’s gaze followed Eve’s. She went rigid. “No, Eve, no. We didn’t- Gallo!”

There was water on the floor around the bed.

Thomas Jacobs was still bound, spread-eagled on the bed, just as they had left him.

And there was a knife sticking upright in his chest.

“Shit!” Gallo pushed by them and ran to the bed. Jacobs’s mouth was still taped and his eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling. Gallo checked the pulse in his throat, but they all knew it wasn’t necessary. “Dead. But how the hell-”

“The window.” The sheer white drapes were blowing from the open window, and Catherine was there in a heartbeat. “We were downstairs. He had to come in the window.”

Dammit, she could see nothing through the heavy fog.

But she could hear something.

The splash of water being moved, the sound of suction in the mud…

“He’s in the bayou.”

“Heading south.” Gallo had already swung his legs over the sill and was climbing hand over hand down the side of the house to the roof of the porch.

Gallo might think he was Spider-Man, but she’d make almost as good time going down to the front door and wouldn’t risk falling and breaking her neck, Catherine thought. She turned and was running out the room when Joe grabbed her arm and spun her around.

“One question,” he said.

“I don’t have time, Joe.”

“You have time for this one.” His glance shifted to Jacobs. “This isn’t some con you set up to convince us that Gallo was innocent? You didn’t get overenthusiastic with that knife in Jacobs?”

Her eyes widened. “I wouldn’t do that, Joe.”