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JUDY

The dead woman was smiling.

That was the first thing I noticed when I walked into the bedroom.

The second was that someone had forced her mouth into that smile after she died.

I stopped just inside the doorway and pulled in a slow breath through my nose. The smell of bleach burned the back of my throat. Beneath it lingered the unmistakable metallic scent of blood.

Blood.

There wasn’t much of it.

There never was.

“Detective Langley.”

I looked toward the crime scene technician kneeling beside the bed. Will Forester had worked four of these scenes with me. He no longer asked whether they were connected.

We both knew they were.

“What did he leave us?” I asked.

Will glanced at the woman stretched across the white comforter.

“A clean room.”

“He always leaves a clean room.”

“This one is cleaner.”

I stepped farther inside, careful to place my feet on the paper path the technicians had laid across the carpet. The victim wore a pale blue dress. Her blond hair had been brushed until every strand lay perfectly across the pillow.

Her hands were folded over her stomach.

Her fingernails had been painted a glossy pink.

The polish looked wet.

My stomach tightened.

“How long has she been dead?”

“Medical examiner’s preliminary estimate is between six and eight hours. We’ll know more after the autopsy.”

I studied the room.

No overturned furniture. No broken windows. No sign the victim had fought for her life. A glass of water sat on the nightstand beside a closed book. Her shoes had been placed neatly beneath a chair.

The killer hadn’t murdered her here.

He had brought her here afterward.

Just like the others.

“Do we have an identification?”