“Son of a bitch.” D.D. was back out the door, off the front steps, and over the edge of the property, where she willed herself not to puke in front of the crime-scene team or, heaven help her, the local news. Her eyes swam with tears. It took several gulping breaths of rain-swept August air to calm her stomach.

She had just straightened, turning toward the house to debate round two, when she spotted Bobby Dodge ducking beneath the yellow crime-scene tape at the end of the drive. Given a choice between tap-dancing with a cockroach or tangling with a Massachusetts State Police detective, she headed straight for the state cop. Who also happened to be her former lover. Who also now happened to be a happily married man.

“My crime scene,” D.D. stated by way of greeting.

“My apologies,” Bobby replied easily. They went too far back for him to ever be seriously insulted. D.D. found that annoying. The rain three hours ago had finally brought the August heat down into the eighties. It was still muggy, and Bobby had his sports jacket slung over his right arm, revealing a dark blue short-sleeved shirt embroidered with the gold insignia of the state police.

“Why are you here?” D.D. demanded.

“I was in the neighborhood?” He grinned at her. He was cute when he grinned and he knew it.

“Don’t you have a baby to tend to, or something like that?”

“Carina Lillian,” he said immediately, already fishing into his back pocket for the photo. “Nine pounds thirteen ounces. Isn’t she beautiful?”

He moved closer to one of the outdoor floodlights, holding the wallet-sized photo beneath the glow. D.D. registered fat red cheeks, narrow little eyes, and a distinctly pointed head.

“She looks just like you,” D.D. assured him.

“Vaginal birth,” he said proudly.

And thanks to those two words, D.D. thought, she would never have sex again. “Annabelle?” she asked, referring to Bobby’s wife.

“Doing great. Breast-feeding like a champ and getting Carina settled onto a nice schedule. Whole family’s great. And you?”

“I’m not breast-feeding like a champ.”

“Someone’s loss,” Bobby told her.

“Why are you at my crime scene?”

“We have an interest.”

“Ah, but I have jurisdiction.”

“Which is why I thought we could walk through it together.”

“Please-you were hoping I wasn’t here yet, and you could wander through at your leisure.”

“From plan A to plan B,” Bobby agreed.

“Tell me about your interest.”

“Marijuana,” he said.

“Dealing?”

“And importing, we believe.”

She frowned, studying him. “You think this is some kind of gangland hit?”

He shrugged. “I was hoping to walk through the scene to see if it feels like some kind of gangland hit.”

“Whole family, you know.”

“That’s what I was told.”

“ Lot of bodies for marijuana wars,” D.D. said. “Meth, okay. Heroin, sure. But the dope dealers…”

“Don’t like to get so bonged up, I know.” Inside joke. Cops. They had to have something to laugh about.

“All right,” D.D. conceded. “You can join the party. But I still think this is my scene.”

“Then you still have my apologies.”

D.D. made it all the way into the family room this time. Alex was no longer there, but had left an array of yellow evidence placards in his wake. D.D. held her hand over her nose and breathed shallowly through her mouth. Her gag reflex started to kick in, so she pinched her forearm as hard as she could. The pain overrode the smell. Lucky her.

Beside her, Bobby had gone quiet. He used to be a police sniper, and his ability to retreat, to be both in the moment and outside of the moment, had always appealed to D.D. Now she could feel the coiled tension in him. He was appalled but, like any good cop, focusing his rage.

In the middle of the cockroach-infested family room sat a brown-and-gold plaid couch. And in the middle of the brown-and-gold plaid couch sprawled a dead white male, duded up as a wannabe Rastafarian, complete with a rainbow knit hat. D.D. put his age in the late twenties, early thirties. He sported a dozen tremendously long dreadlocks, two large sightless brown eyes, and one small bullet hole, center of his forehead. His right arm was flung off the sofa, toward the floor. Beneath his dangling fingers, on top of a paper bag filled with God knows what, rested a snub-nosed handgun. Looked like a twenty-two to D.D.

“Not much blood,” Bobby commented.

“Probably soaked into the sofa,” D.D. muttered.

She noticed that a wadded-up tissue about three feet away was starting to move. She wondered how many rules of Crime Scene 101 she’d violate if she pulled out her Glock and went after whatever was under the tissue.

A cockroach crawled out, stopped for a second-she swore to God it was studying them-then went about its cockroach business, disappearing beneath another foul pile of refuse.

“I’m showering with bleach when I get home,” D.D. gritted out between clenched teeth.

“Eucalyptus oil,” Bobby informed her. “Pour it straight in the bath. Works every time.” He added primly, “And it makes for very soft skin.”

D.D. shook her head. She turned away from Mr. Dreadlocks and, feeling a bit hopeless about the whole damn thing, headed deeper into the house.

The woman had gone down in the kitchenette just off the family room. The knife, bearing a black curved handle that matched the set in the wooden block on the counter, was still lodged in her back. This hadn’t been a clean kill. The grime-covered floor was further soiled with red streak marks from the woman trying to crawl forward on her elbows. She’d made it about four inches before succumbing to her injury.

The kitchen stank worse than the family room. D.D. noted rotting food in the sink, sour milk on the table, and mold growing up one corner wall. She’d seen some things in her time. She’d heard some things in her time. She still didn’t know how anyone could live like this.

Off the kitchen was the lone bathroom. Garbage overflowed the shower stall, including gallon jugs filled with yellow liquid. The toilet was clogged and didn’t appear to be working. That made D.D. eye the gallon jugs all over again, wishing she didn’t know what she now knew.

Leaving the kitchen area, they made it to the hallway. A kid, looked sixteen, seventeen, was spread-eagle outside the first bedroom door. He appeared to have been shot twice. First time in the upper leg. Second time was the money shot-a neat round hole one inch above his left eye.

Inside the bedroom, Alex was bent over the body of an adolescent girl. She was wearing shorts and a tank top. It appeared she’d been sleeping on the twin-sized bed. She’d tossed back the cover sheet, maybe hearing a noise in the hall. She’d just made it to sitting when the bullet caught her above her right eye. She’d fallen to the side, one of her hands still fisting the stained pink sheet.

This room was cleaner, D.D. noted. Impossibly small and cramped, but neater. The girl had painted the walls pink with swirls of green and blue. Her sanctuary, D.D. thought, and noted a pile of paperback novels stacked in the corner.

“Third child’s behind me,” Alex spoke up.

“Third child?”

“On the floor.”

D.D. and Bobby sidestepped their way to the foot of the bed. Sure enough, in the three feet between the twin bed and the outside wall was a small cushion, and on top of the cushion was a much younger child, probably three or four. She had a tattered blanket clenched in her fingers and one thumb still popped in her mouth. She could’ve been sleeping, except for the blood on her left temple.

“Never woke up,” Alex said, his voice subdued, tense.

“So it would seem,” D.D. murmured. “Is that a dog bed? Is she sleeping on a dog bed?”

“Looks it,” Bobby said, his voice flat.