The officer glanced toward the elevator. “She was sitting on the steps out there, bawling, when we pulled up. Pretty much been bawling since.”

“That’s always fun. Send in Crime Scene when they get here.”

Thinking of the shoddy maintenance, Eve turned to the stairs, unpeeling her cold-weather gear as they climbed. One unit per level, she noted. Decent space, privacy. On the third floor she saw that the unit boasted what looked to be a spanking new security peep and cop-lock system. Both were broken in a way that indicated amateur – and effective. She stepped inside, into a living area where a second female officer stood over a woman who was bundled under a blanket, trembling. Early twenties, by Eve’s gauge, with a long blond tail of hair sleeked back from a face where tears had washed through the makeup. She held a clear glass of what Eve assumed to be water in a two-handed grip. She choked out a sob.

“Ms. Copperfield, I’m Lieutenant Dallas. My partner, Detective Peabody.”

“The Homicide police. The Homicide police,” she babbled in a flattened-vowel accent that told Eve Midwest.

“That’s right.”

“Somebody killed Nat. Someone killed my sister. She’s dead. Natalie’s dead.”

“I’m sorry. Can you tell us what happened?”

“I – I came in. She knew I was coming. I called her this morning to remind her. We got in late, and I had a wind-down drink with Mae, the other attendant. The door, downstairs…the door was broken or something. I didn’t need my key. I have a key. And I came up, and the lock – she had a new lock, and she gave me the code for it this morning, when – when I called? But it looked broken. The door wasn’t even locked. I thought, ‘Something’s wrong, something has to be wrong,’ because Nat wouldn’t go to bed without locking up. So I thought I should check, just look in on her before I went to bed. And I saw…Oh, God, oh, God, she was on the floor and everything was broken and she was on the floor, and her face. Her face.”