them, that she'd heard was obvious by her distraught expression.

She shifted her gaze from him to his dad, then Matt. "What's going on?"

Hunter held out a hand. "I'm sorry, Avery. I didn't mean to involve you in this."

Matt stepped between them. "Let's take this outside." Hunter was happy to oblige. He followed his father

and brother out front. Sarah thumped her tail against the porch when she saw him.

The two men faced him. Matt spoke first. "This better not be your idea of a sick-"

"Joke? I wish it was."

Quickly, Hunter explained, starting with Sarah pawing at the door and finishing with checking the

woman's pulse.

Buddy and Matt exchanged glances, then met his eyes once more. Buddy took the lead. "Are you certain the woman was murdered?"

Hunter hesitated. He wasn't, he realized. She could have been a street person. Or someone who worked

at one of the businesses on the alley. She could have had a heart attack, fallen into the crates, causing

them to topple.

He pictured those ruby-colored nails and his relief died. Street people didn't get manicures. The businesses lining the alley all closed at five; if the woman worked in one of those businesses, wouldn't a loved one be looking for her by now? Wouldn't they think to check the alley?

Still, the woman could have died of natural causes.

"Hunter?"

He blinked, refocusing on his father. "I just assumed...because she was dead, in the alley..."

"Show us where she is."

Hunter did, leading the men to the spot. As he passed his door he could hear the puppies crying and

stopped to put Sarah in. His dad and brother continued without him.

"Son of a bitch. Shit."

"Oh, goddamn."

They'd found her. Their brief responses expressed volumes.

Hunter made his way up the alley. He hung back a few feet, keeping his gaze averted as the other two men carefully shifted the crates to get a better look at the victim. He listened to their dialogue.

"This woman did not die of natural causes."

"No shit."

"Oh man, she's torn up bad."

That had come from Matt; he sounded weird, more than shaken. As if someone had a hold on his vocal cords and was squeezing. Hard.

"Slow down," his father warned. "We don't know what happened. We have to be careful not to destroy

any evidence."

Hunter glanced at his brother. He saw him nod at his father's advice. Saw him trying to pull himself together. Saw the moment he got a grip on himself.

"Look, she's propped up on the right-" Matt squatted and peered closely at the corpse. "But no lividity on her left side."

"So she's been moved."

"Bingo."

It was human nature, Hunter supposed, that made him look her way. He immediately regretted it, but couldn't tear his gaze away. The woman's lower half was naked, her legs spread. It looked as if her panties had been ripped away, her mini skirt shoved up over her hips, bunching at her waist.

Blood...everywhere. Smeared over her thighs, belly. Bile rose in his throat. He averted his gaze, struggling to breathe.

Not to throw up.

"I've got to call this in," Buddy said, voice thick. "Get a crew here, ASAP."

"You need the sheriff's department's help on this one, Dad?" Matt sounded just as shaky. Hunter realized

that for all their years in law enforcement, they had little experience with this kind of thing.

This kind of thing? He was already dehumanizing it. Making it palpable.

Call it what it was. Murder. The violent extinguishing of a human life.

"Hell yes," his father answered. "We're not equipped...this...It's Sallie Waguespack all over again."

Buddy and Matt made their calls. Within twenty minutes a crew consisting of both the Cypress Springs Police Department and the West Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Department had assembled at the scene.

Hunter stood back as a CSPD officer secured the scene with yellow tape. Another stood at each end of the alley to keep the curious away. The sheriff's department's crime scene guys had begun to do their thing: they'd set up portable spotlights to illuminate the alley so they could begin the painstaking job of collecting evidence. The police photographer was shooting the scene from every imaginable angle.

Except from the perspective of the victim, Hunter thought. Her eyes would never see anything again.

He turned his back on the scene and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Still he pictured her, as if

her image had been stamped on the inside of his eyelids. How long would it take to fade? he wondered.

Would it ever?

"Need to ask you a few questions, Hunter."

The request came from Matt. Hunter dropped his hands and looked over his shoulder at his brother,

realizing then how tired he was. Bone tired. "Figured. What do you want to know?"

"Tell us again the sequence of events that led to your finding the victim. As exactly as you can recall.

Every detail."

The victim. Hunter angled a glance her way. "She have a name?"

"Yeah," Buddy answered. "Elaine St. Claire. Keep it to yourself for a couple hours until we notify her

next of kin."

He wasn't surprised his father knew her name-he knew everybody in his town. "Who was she?"

"A local barfly. Party girl." Buddy glanced over his shoulder at her, grimaced and looked back. "Last I

heard, she'd left town."

She hadn't gotten far. Poor woman. He sometimes thought of Cypress Springs as a spiderweb. Once tangled in its threads, there was no escape.

If the town was the web, who was the spider?

Matt made a sound of irritation. "Can we get on with it?"

"Sure." Hunter narrowed his eyes on his brother. "What do you want to know?"

His brother repeated his question and for the second time Hunter detailed how he had come upon Elaine

St. Claire.

"And that's it? You're certain?" Buddy asked.

"Yes."

Matt frowned. "And you heard nothing, no commotion from the alley?"

"No. Nothing. I was working."

"Working?"

"At my computer."