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Tranquil.

Ordinary.

Safe.

She absorbed her surroundings—the young pine forest across the street from the lakefront houses, the cul-de-sacs at each end, the road that dead-ended into Shortleaf Drive, the number of houses between cul-de-sacs (eleven) and that serene black lake.

Violet did not speculate or theorize. With the investigation only in its infancy it wasn’t useful to do so. All she knew was that a family of four had been slain in that brick ranch forty yards down the street. Coupled with the other murders—the clerk knifed to death in a Rocky Mount Wal-Mart and the woman hanged from the Bodie Island Lighthouse—this had been one of the bloodiest weeks in North Carolina since the Civil War.

As she opened the door and stepped out into the autumn evening she couldn’t help thinking, Most investigators never encounter anything like this. And then: You are not equipped to handle it.

Her legs gave out and she leaned against the Jeep.

Closing her eyes, she took a long calming breath, whispered a prayer, and started walking toward the flashing blue lights.

The perimeter of the Worthingtons’ half-acre lot had already been roped off with crime scene tape. Violet counted three police cruisers, an ambulance, a van, and two unmarked cars parked along the curb across the street.

A uniformed patrolman stood at the foot of the driveway, guarding the perimeter.

"Hi, Reuben," she said.

"Viking? You were on-call for this one?"

"Yep."

"Lucky you. That house next door is where we had the kidnapping on Monday. These are the neighbors we could never get to answer the door or the phone."

"You’re kidding me. You were first car?"

"No, Bruce was. He’s over talking to Barry."

Violet stepped under the tape and walked down the driveway toward her sergeant, a wide massive man with the girth of an oak tree and a voice as deep as her daddy’s. He was talking to a patrolman when she walked up between them.

"Hey, guys."

Her sergeant looked down at her and shook his head.

"You sure caught it this time, Viking," he said as though it were her fault. "I’m gonna go talk with Chip and the boys. Bruce can tell you what you got."

"You been in yet, Barry?" she asked.

"No. We just got the search warrant. Bobby’s executing it right now."

"CSI ready to start videotaping?"

"I think so."

"Would you ask them to hold off a sec? After I talk with Bruce, I’d like to do a quick walkthrough."

Sgt. Mullins gazed down at her for a moment. He rarely smiled. Standing under his undecipherable scowl always made her feel eight years old again. She knew exactly what he was thinking because she’d thought it too: she was incapable of handling this.

As Sgt. Mullins lumbered off toward the white-jacketed CSI techs, Violet glanced over her shoulder at a woman who stood weeping in the street at the edge of the Worthingtons’ lawn.

She turned back to Bruce.

He was a year younger than Violet, just a year out of the academy on uniformed patrol. They’d attended the same high school though they hadn’t known each other then. But Violet remembered him. He looked much the same—tall, slender, slightly bugeyed, with a fearful nervous mien.

She pulled a notepad and pencil from her purse as Bruce stared at the woman crying in the street.

"Bruce?" His large eyes came to Violet. "You all right?" Bruce took a deep breath. "Tell me what I got." They were standing by the Worthingtons’ minivan and Bruce leaned against the back hatch. "No, Bruce, don’t."

He stood back up, pointed toward the street, said, "That woman up there crying—name’s Brenda Moorefield. She lives three houses down. Earlier this afternoon—"

"’Bout what time?"

"Between three-thirty and four. She came over and knocked on the Worthingtons’ door. Apparently their children play together, and Mrs. Moorefield hadn’t seen the Worthington kids in two days. She had a key to the house and since their cars were in the driveway but they weren’t answering the phone or getting the mail, she decided to go in.