‘I could kill you,’ she said.

‘I had to go in, we were getting nowhere.’

‘You should have waited for me!’ she whispered angrily. ‘You always do this.’

‘It wasn’t planned.’

‘Bullshit. Are we a partnership here, or not?’

Before Striker could respond, loud yelling noises came from within the residence. The words were impossible to make out, but the voices were definitely male and female. And Striker knew he had done his job well.

Dr Ostermann and his wife were fighting.

‘What did you do in there?’ Felicia asked.

He shrugged. ‘I just cornered a dog.’

Felicia gave him a hard look. ‘What else?’

Striker shrugged. ‘I bluffed him. Told him we knew about the videos.’

‘You what?’

‘Let him think we have more than we have,’ Striker said. ‘It worked, Feleesh. It connected. Like a friggin’ home run. You should’ve seen the look on his face. He damn near had a coronary right there in the foyer.’

‘But at what cost? Now he might destroy the evidence.’

Striker shook his head. ‘Never. If he’s making videos, then you know as well as I do what they are – his goddam trophies. He’ll keep them forever, even at the expense of being caught. But he will try to hide them.’

‘Probably immediately.’

‘Exactly, so get ready to motor.’

Striker focused back on the house. He’d barely lifted the binoculars to his eyes when a table lamp smashed out through a front-room window. Shards of glass littered the front lawn and driveway, and the lamp came crashing down on top of Dr Ostermann’s X5, denting the hood and cracking the windshield. Almost immediately, the car alarm went off and the street was filled with long, undulating wails.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Felicia said.

They both got up. Striker got on his phone and called Central Dispatch. Sue Rhaemer told him they were already getting a call from a frantic neighbour.

‘We’re already on scene,’ Striker told her. ‘And we’re going in.’

He hung up the phone and they headed for the house.

Felicia ran beside him. They crossed the lawn, reached the roundabout, and were just nearing the front door when Striker’s cell went off again. Thinking Sue Rhaemer was calling back, he snatched it up. But instead of hearing Sue’s scratchy voice, he heard the hardened tone of Jim Banner.

‘Noodles, I’m going into a domestic here.’

‘The Ostermann house?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then be careful. We got the prints back on the can of varnish. And we got a perfect hit on them.’

‘Who do they come back to?’

‘Who do you think?’ Noodles replied. ‘None other than the doctor himself. Erich Reinhold Ostermann.’

Seventy-Four

When Striker and Felicia reached the front alcove of the Ostermann mansion, they each took sides. Striker glanced at the broken shards of glass that covered the front lawn and driveway, then at the table lamp that had broken apart when smashing into the BMW. Lastly, he looked at the room above, where curtains now hung out of the window.

‘Watch our backs,’ he told Felicia and gestured towards the window.

‘Copy. You take the door.’

Striker did. He moved up to the front door and knocked hard.

‘Vancouver Police!’ he yelled. ‘Dr Ostermann, it’s Detectives Striker and Santos – come to the door!’

No response.

He pressed the doorbell and heard the chimes go off inside the house.

‘Dr Ostermann! Lexa!’ he called, then added, ‘Dalia? Gabriel?’

But again there was no response.

‘Fuck this,’ he said.

He stepped back from the door and gave it a quick once-over. The door was made from solid oak with steel hinges, and the surrounding frame looked strong. It was going to be a bitch to kick in, but what other option did they have?

Striker turned around and gave the door three heavy donkey kicks, placing the heel of his shoe between the lock and frame each time. On the third kick, the frame cracked. On the fourth, it splintered. And on the fifth, the entire structure broke apart and the front door went crashing inwards.

Striker pulled out his pistol and used the broken frame as cover. ‘Chunk out,’ he told Felicia. ‘Chunk out!’

She nodded and drew her pistol.

And they headed into the house.

They swept into the foyer and quickly took sides; Felicia got the east, Striker took west. Striker strained his ears to detect anything besides the blaring car alarm out front, but heard nothing.

The house was dead silent.

‘It’s too quiet in here,’ Felicia said.

‘Just be ready,’ Striker told her.

Together they cleared the bottom of the house, starting with the living room and den area, then carrying on into the kitchen, a sitting room and the library.

At the far end of the hallway was the last room, the office. Striker reached it, tried the doorknob, and found it locked. He didn’t so much as hesitate. He simply took a step back, then swung his leg forward and kicked the door in with one try.

The lock snapped and the door broke inwards, revealing a small secluded office. There were no windows in the room. No closets. And no other doors. Just a huge old wooden desk with a computer on it, a pair of chairs on one side, and the doctor’s chair on the other.

A place for private sessions? Striker wondered. The emptiness of the room seemed odd.

‘It’s clear,’ Felicia said.

Striker nodded. ‘Upstairs then.’

They spun about and made their way back down the hall. When they reached the foyer, they turned and started up the stairs.

Felicia spoke. ‘We should have a second unit for this. Patrol cops will be here soon.’

‘Not soon enough,’ Striker replied.

He pressed on, up the stairs.

When they reached the landing, they stepped into a hallway that led in both directions. Striker paused. A strong smell filled the hall – clean, floral, earthy. After a moment, he figured it to be herbal additives from the bath Lexa had been taking. Lavender. Or juniper, maybe.

‘Hold west,’ he said. ‘Make sure no one comes up behind us. I’ll clear the east end first.’

‘Got it,’ Felicia said.

Striker made his way down the hall. He came to a bathroom, complete with shower and tub, but this was not where the smell was coming from. Once cleared, he made his way down the hallway, clearing two more bedrooms along the way. The smaller one belonged to Dalia, Striker presumed, for the clothes on the chair were almost Goth in style, dark and drab, and all the same. The pictures on the wall were equally morbid. Posters of Marilyn Manson and the like.

The second bedroom was the exact opposite. A guest bedroom of sorts that looked made for a queen. The bed was immense, a king-sized, four-poster number, covered with a thick burgundy quilt that matched the colour of the drapes, which now hung out of the broken window. In the far corner of the room was a pair of high-backed floral Victorian-style chairs, and opposite them was a small bar, complete with fridge and an ice-cube machine.

Striker cleared the room then made his way down the hall, and came up beside Felicia. She still had her pistol aimed down the other side of the landing.

‘It’s all clear,’ he said. ‘You ready?’

‘Just go.’

Together, they made their way down to the west end of the hallway. They passed an old storage room, which was empty save for a few piles of boxes and an older-style television set. Then they cleared a reading room with a huge bay window that looked north over the cliffs and harbour below. Out there, the night was black and the waters below looked deep and violent.

Striker had no time for the view, and he carried on. So far they’d cleared almost two out of three floors in the house, and they had yet to run into one member of the family.