Chrissy Andrews’s eyes were closed, her lashes down on cheeks that were the pale gray of December’s clouds. She did not look peaceful in her perma-repose. Her mouth was a slash of blue, her lips cracked from what might have been a fist or a frying pan or a doorjamb.

The folds of the sheet resting on her throat mostly hid the strangulation marks.

“I know who did this,” Xhex said.

“Just so we’re clear, you are identifying her to be Chrissy Andrews?”

“Yup. And I know who did this.”

The detective nodded at the clinician, who covered Chrissy’s face and closed the drapes. “The boyfriend?”

“Yup.”

“Long history of domestic violence calls.”

“Too long. Course, that’s over now. Motherfucker finally got the job done, didn’t he.”

Xhex went out the door and into the anteroom, and the detective had to hustle to keep up with her.

“Hold up-”

“I have to go back to work.”

As they burst out into the basement corridor, the detective forced her to a stop. “I want you to know that the CPD is conducting a proper murder investigation, and we’ll be handling any suspects in an appropriate, legal manner.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“And you’ve done your part. Now you have to let us take care of her and see this thing through. Let us find him, okay? I don’t want you pulling a vigilante move.”

The image of Chrissy’s hair came to mind. The woman had been fussy about the stuff, always backbrushing it, then smoothing the top layer out and spraying it in place till it was like the top on a chess pawn.

Total Melrose Place rerun, Heather Locklear golden-helmet time.

The hair under that shroud had been flat as a cutting board, mashed in on both sides, no doubt from the body bag she’d been transported in.

“You’ve done your part,” de la Cruz said.

Not yet she hadn’t.

“Have a good evening, Officer. And good luck finding Grady.”

He frowned, then seemed to buy the I’ll-be-a-good-girl act. “Do you need a ride back?”

“No, thanks. And really, don’t worry about me.” She smiled tightly. “I won’t do anything stupid.”

On the contrary, she was a very smart assassin. Trained by the best.

And an eye for an eye was more than just a catchy little phrase.

José de la Cruz was not a rocket scientist or a Mensa member or a molecular geneticist. He was also not a betting man, and not just because of his Catholic faith.

No reason to bet. He had instincts like a fortune-teller’s crystal ball.

So he knew exactly what he was doing as he followed Ms. Alex Hess out of the hospital at a discreet distance. When she got past the revolving doors, she didn’t go left to the parking lot or right toward the three taxis parked by the entrance. She went straight ahead, walking between the cars picking up and dropping off patients and around the cabs that were free. After stepping up on the curb, she hit the frozen lawn and kept right on going, crossing the road and going into the trees the city had planted a couple of years ago to green up downtown.

Between one blink and the next she was gone, as if she had never been.

Which was, of course, impossible. It was dark and he’d been up since four a.m. two nights before, so his eyes were as sharp as they were when he was underwater.

He was going to have to watch that woman. He knew firsthand how hard it was to lose a colleague, and it was clear she cared about the dead girl. Still, this case did not need a wild-card civilian breaking laws and maybe even going so far as to murder the CPD’s prime suspect.

José headed for the unmarked he’d left around back where the ambulances were cleaned up and the medics waited on standby breaks.

Chrissy Andrews’s boyfriend, Robert Grady, a.k.a. Bobby G, had been renting an apartment month-to-month since she’d thrown him out over the summer. The hovel had been empty of inhabitants when José had knocked on the door around one o’clock this afternoon, and a search warrant based on the 911 calls that Chrissy had been making about her boyfriend for the past six months had allowed him to order the landlord to unlock the place.

Lot of rotting food in the kitchen and dirty plates in the living room and laundry all over the bedroom.

Also a number of cellophane Baggies with white powder which-OMG!-had been heroin. Go. Fig.

Boyfriend had been nowhere to be seen. Last sighting of him at the apartment had been the night before at around ten. Next-door neighbor had heard Bobby G shouting. Then a door slam.

And records already obtained from the guy’s cell phone service provider had indicated that a call had been made to Chrissy’s phone at nine thirty-six.

Plainclothes surveillance had been set up immediately, and the detectives were checking in regularly, with no news whatsoever. But José didn’t think there was going to be any from that front. Chances were good that the place was going to stay a ghost town.

So there were two things on his radar: Find the boyfriend. And put a trail on ZeroSum’s head of security.

And his instincts told him it would be best for everyone if he found Bobby G before Alex Hess did.

EIGHT

While Havers was in seeing Rehvenge, Ehlena restocked one of the supply closets. Which just happened to be outside of exam room three. She stacked Ace bandages. Made a tower of plastic-wrapped gauze rolls. Created a Modigliani-esque arrangement from boxes of Kleenex, Band-Aids, and thermometer covers.

She was running out of things to organize when the door to the exam room opened with a click. She put her head out into the hall.

Havers truly looked like a physician, with his tortoiseshell glasses and his precisely parted brown hair and his bow tie and the white coat. He also carried himself like one, always calmly and thoughtfully in charge of his staff, his facilities, and, most of all, his patients.

But he didn’t seem himself as he stood in the corridor, frowning as if confused, rubbing his head like his temples hurt.

“Are you all right, Doctor?” she asked.

He glanced over, his eyes unusually vacant behind his lenses. “Er…yes, thank you.” Shaking himself, he handed her a prescription slip from on top of Rehvenge’s medical record. “I…ah…Would you be so kind as to bring the dopamine to this patient, as well as two doses of scorpion antivenin? I’d do it myself, but I do believe I need to have something to eat. I am feeling rather hypoglycemic.”

“Yes, Doctor. Right away.”

Havers nodded and put the patient’s file back into the holder beside the door. “Thank you so kindly.”

The doctor drifted away as if in a partial trance.

The poor male had to be exhausted. He’d been in the OR for most of the past two nights and days, tending to a birthing female, a male who had been in a car accident, and a small child who had been badly burned when he’d reached for a pot of boiling water on the stove. And that was on top of the fact that he hadn’t taken any time off in the two years she’d worked at the clinic. He was always on call, always there.

Kind of like she was with her father.

So, yeah, she knew exactly how tired he must be.

At the pharmacy, she handed the prescription to the pharmacist, who never made small talk and didn’t break with tradition today. The male went into the back and returned with six boxes of dopamine bottles and some antivenin.

As he handed the meds to her, he flipped a sign that said, BE BACK IN 15 MINUTES and stepped through the cutout door in the counter.

“Wait,” she said, struggling to hold the load. “This can’t be right.”

The male had his cigarette and his lighter already in his hands. “It is.”

“No, this is…Where’s the slip?”

Greater wrath faced no female than that she obstruct the path of a smoker finally getting his break. But she didn’t give a crap.