Washington, D.C.

Gwen slowed the car, braking enough to send Harvey’s front paws slipping and readjusting on the passenger seat next to her.

“This is crazy,” she told him as she started searching the brownstones, keeping the address on the dashboard, now rewritten on a Post-it; the original index card was back at her office in a plastic bag.

Her heart pounded in her ears. It hadn’t stopped since she opened the box. She was trying to stay calm, trying to think instead of run on emotion, but all she had to do was look at Harvey’s brown eyes watching her to know she wasn’t very successful. The dog could sense the panic. He could probably smell it on her. Every once in a while he licked her hand or arm as if that was his way of comforting her.

“We make a good team, Harvey, but just between you and me I certainly wish Maggie was here, too.” Even as she said it, she wondered if she would have finally given in and told Maggie if she was still here. Would she have confessed it all? She was running low on logic and professional ethics. Right now the panic and fear of what she may have allowed to happen closed in around her. The calm and logical psychologist in her was having a difficult time hearing over the screaming woman who seemed to be much closer to the surface.

“There it is,” she said, braking again, only this time Harvey was prepared.

She waited for a delivery truck to leave and squeezed her car into the last parking space on the street. Then she sat there, looking up at the brownstone. She double-checked the numbers again, but she knew this was it. Earlier in the day, when she hadn’t been able to reach Dena by phone, she’d pulled her file, jotting down her home address on a Post-it note just in case she decided to drop by and check on her. Why hadn’t she recognized that first lone earring as Dena’s when he left it for her on Saturday? Would she have been able to stop him? Could she have saved Dena? Jesus! Was he the new man in Dena’s life? Had he gone that far? Maybe this was all some elaborate hoax. It was so different from the others. Could he simply be warning her, playing with her? Back at the office when she recognized the address she had actually pinched herself, hoping it was all a nightmare.

She stuck her hand in her jacket pocket and wrapped her fist around the key he had left at the bottom of the box. Of course he was Dena’s new man. How else would he have a key to her apartment?

She stared at the door, then glanced around the other brownstones, across the street and down the block. Was he here someplace, watching? This was ridiculous. She should have called the police. She should have at least asked them to meet her here. Her cell phone was also in her pocket. She could still do it. She could still call.

And what would she tell them?

She took a deep breath, clutched the key and grabbed Harvey’s leash. The big dog came reluctantly, almost as if he was letting her know this wasn’t such a good idea. His instinct was definitely better than hers.

She rang the doorbell and waited, still glancing around, hoping to maybe rouse a neighbor. The neighborhood was quiet. She unlocked the door and it pushed open with ease.

“Hello? Dena?”

She stayed in the entrance, watching Harvey’s reaction while she held tight to his leash. She watched his eyes, the pitch of his ears and tilt of his head as he listened and sniffed the air. So far there wasn’t anything that made him jerk or whine like he had when they found the skull half buried in the park. Almost like a trained bloodhound, he had been able to sense the rotting flesh, or what was left. His instinct had been to show her, then get the hell away from it. He had tugged so hard she’d thought he’d break her hand. But there was none of that now. A good sign. Yes, a very good sign, and she closed the door behind them.

“Dena?”

Was it possible that he had simply left her tied up or drugged? Something to prove to her how close he could get? He had done it with her father, showing that he could get him exactly where he wanted by simply leaving a message that his daughter wanted to meet him for breakfast. Was that what he was doing with Dena? Showing her again that he could get at anyone close to her? It made sense. Maybe that’s all it was. Something to scare her, just to let her know he could.

Dena’s place looked lived in, but there certainly had not been a struggle. There were too many knickknacks on dusty shelves. Had one been misplaced or even knocked down, it would have been obvious. Dust doesn’t lie.

Gwen tried to take in as much as possible with each slow step, all the while listening and watching Harvey. Her eyes skimmed the highest shelves, the mantel and even inside the fireplace, under chairs and the far corners. Suddenly Harvey stopped and started scratching at a cabinet door to what looked like an entertainment armoire. Immediately her heart began pounding again, and she had to force herself to breathe, to keep from holding her breath.

He scratched twice, then sat down in front of the cabinet door, staring at it. He glanced up at her as if to see if she had noticed. She could still call the police. Let them handle this. It wasn’t too late. Harvey scratched at the cabinet door and looked up again.

“Okay, okay. Just wait a minute.”

She pulled a clean tissue from her pocket and tried to grab the cabinet’s door handle, leaning in from as far away as possible. Her hand was shaking so badly she dropped the tissue and had to pick it up. Harvey was getting more and more anxious and she had to tug him to the side. The more anxious he got the more her hand seemed to shake. Even after she had a good grip on the knob, she still hesitated. Her chest hurt from what felt like a constant time bomb banging against her rib cage.

She took a deep breath and yanked the door open. She jumped back from the skittering sound as something came spewing out of the cabinet, an avalanche of jelly beans, bright colors plopping to the floor, spilling out of an overturned decanter. And Harvey strained at the leash, lapping up several before Gwen’s mind and heart started working again. She pulled and tugged and escorted him away from the mess.

“Jesus, Harvey.”

She needed to sit before her knees gave way. She found the corner of the sofa. She should check the other rooms and leave. But if Harvey could smell nothing but jelly beans, then there was nothing else here. He would have sensed it by now. Wouldn’t he? She needed to think about this. Maggie had rescued Harvey from his previous owner’s bloodied bedroom where he had lost that owner to a serial killer in a battle that almost cost him his life. That’s why he was so protective of Maggie and that instinct seemed to transfer to Gwen, too. Wouldn’t it therefore be logical that he would be freaking out if there was even the scent of blood anywhere in the apartment? Wasn’t that exactly how he had reacted with the skull in the park? Maybe it was ridiculous to think she could psychoanalyze him like one of her patients. She wasn’t a dog shrink, but it did make sense. She didn’t allow herself to feel relieved. Not just yet.

She persuaded him to check the bedroom, leading him to the closet and bathroom, looking behind the shower door and under the sink. There was nothing. With each discovery, or rather non-discovery, she felt the tension and the panic slowly subside. Her heartbeat and her breathing had started to return to normal. Until they got to the kitchen. She checked the refrigerator and the oven, even the dishwasher, only to turn around and find Harvey pawing at yet another cabinet door under the sink. She told herself she would treat it like the other doors and cabinets, quick like a Band-Aid, no hesitating, no imagining, just get it over with.

Easier said than done.

The cold, clammy perspiration returned to her forehead and the back of her neck. The tremor in her hand, though not as pronounced, slowed her quick grab of the handle. And Harvey’s side-step dance made her nervous.

She yanked open the cabinet door to find a roll-out trash bin under the sink. The smell of rotting garbage pushed her back so that it took some effort to see the apple peel and coffee grounds on top.

“Harvey, next time I need to feed you first.”

She smiled down at him and patted his head, but he was still nervous, pacing, pulling against his leash. And this time she realized he no longer wanted to get at the trash bin. This time he wrenched and jerked at the leash, trying to get away from it. He twisted against his collar and his panic quickly spread to Gwen. Then there came that horrible low-pitched whine coming from the back of his throat, barely audible but hard to listen to, an uncontrollable moan that sounded as if he was in pain.

This time when she looked, Gwen saw the plastic bag. It was buried underneath the rotting fragments of vegetable peels, coffee grounds, empty boxes and cellophane—the bits and pieces of ordinary household garbage. She had been right about Harvey. He sensed blood and wanted to be as far away from it as possible. Underneath all the garbage, Gwen could see through the plastic. She could see Dena’s brown eyes looking up at her.