He left the car in the herd of vehicles clustered in a lot that served a small city park and walked a block to a sprawling six-story condominium complex.

Bradley Mitchell’s home security was stunningly low-end. Then again, maybe hotshot detectives assumed that the bad guys wouldn’t dream of burglarizing a cop’s home. Talk about a state of denial.

He deactivated the simple alarm system with the same J&J gadget that he had used to open the front door.

Once inside, he found himself in a one-bedroom apartment decorated in surprisingly good taste. He had been expecting a cluttered, dust-laden bachelor pad filled with cheap rental furniture, a lot of high-tech media equipment and the kind of artwork that was ripped out of girlie magazines.

The state-of-the-art television and sound system were present but the sofa, chairs and coffee table were comfortable and modern in design—clearly several steps above rental quality. The pictures on the walls were Ansel Adams prints. Maybe the biggest shocker of all was the well-stocked bookcase.

Okay, so he had been hoping that Mitchell would prove to be a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal with no redeeming traits. He should have known that Raine would never have been attracted to a man who didn’t exhibit some civilized behavior patterns and a degree of intelligence.

He brushed against the first ghostly images when he took off a glove and touched the bed. The scenes were very faint, little more than gossamer flickers slicing through his mind. His powerful intuition conjured up a vision of two people engaged in heated sex. One of them—the one who left the strongest impression—wasn’t enjoying the act, at least not in a normal, healthy way. For one of the two lovers, sex was a weapon—no, a tool—that had been used to achieve some objective far more vital than a momentary release. Power was the goal.

He steeled himself against the visions long enough to absorb the few clues they offered and then suppressed them, temporarily at least.

Moving more quickly now, he pulled the glove back on and went into the kitchen. Disappointment shafted through him when he found no unmarked vials inside the refrigerator but he used the little metal stick to sample a carton of orange juice and the milk, just to make sure.

He closed the door and stood quietly in the middle of Mitchell’s neat, tidy kitchen, thinking about things. All his parasenses were yelling at him, telling him that the drug had to be somewhere in the apartment.

He went back into the living room and stood listening intently. Nothing. Then he went down the hall and opened a closet door. There was a stacked set of apartment-sized appliances inside, a washer and dryer. He finally heard it: the high-pitched whine of a miniature refrigerator, the kind designed for a den.

The little unit was sitting in the corner, plugged into a wall socket. When he touched the handle, another whispery vision slashed through him, strong enough to penetrate the glove. He opened the door and saw a small, unlabeled vial. There was a trace amount of clear fluid inside.

Bradley shoved the key into the lock of his front door. He moved into the foyer and looked at the small white control panel on the wall. The security system was off. That wasn’t right. He was sure he’d set it before he left the apartment. The damn thing was broken again. One of these days he would have to get around to replacing it.

He thumped the panel box a couple of times. The lights didn’t come on. He was about to hit the box again when he sensed a presence behind him.

He spun around, hand going inside his jacket. But Zack Jones already had his gun out.

“Guy in your line of work should probably get a better security system,” Zack said.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Zack held up a small glass vial. “You and I need to talk.”