'You heard me.'
Glenn complied.
'Now stay on your knees,' she told him. 'Crawl toward me. Slowly.'
Serena backed a few steps into the hallway. The tall surgeon came forward on his knees, watching her gun.
'Could you please put that thing down?' he asked.
'Shut up.' When Glenn was in the doorway of the office, she told him, 'Stop right there. Now get down on all fours.'
He went to his hands and knees on the carpet.
'This is crazy,' he said. 'I haven't done anything.'
'Put your hands on the carpet and lie with your face down and your hands and legs far apart. Keep your fingers spread.'
'Look, I already told you—'
'Do it.'
Glenn heard the ice in her voice. He slid on to the ground until his body made an extended X on the carpet.
'Stay that way,' Serena snapped. 'Don't move. Don't look up.'
She backed up to the first closed door on her right. She turned the knob with two fingers and pushed the door open, revealing an empty spare bedroom. Nothing was amiss. Keeping her gun trained on Glenn, she backed up to the next door and found an elegant bathroom with rose decor and a double shower.
'Where's Regan's bedroom?' she asked Glenn.
'At the other end of the hallway.'
'Stay where you are.'
She walked past the stairs to the closed door leading to the master suite. On the carpet, she spotted another wet stain extending from inside the bedroom under the crack of the door. She inhaled and didn't like what she smelled. When she glanced at Glenn, she saw him with his head up, watching her.
'What am I going to find in there?' she asked.
'I have no idea.'
He was lying.
'If you went in there, we'll find your prints,' she told him.
Glenn's face twisted in dismay. 'I didn't do it,' he said.
'Do what?' Serena asked, but she could guess what was waiting for her.
'It's not good,' he told her.
Serena dug in her pocket for gloves. She snapped one on to her right hand and twisted the knob with a light touch, then eased the door open with her foot. The bedroom was shadowy, its curtains closed. Light from the skylight in the hallway cascaded through the open door in a stream and illuminated the wall.
Her breath caught in her chest.
She took two steps into the room, far enough to see the king-sized bed, with its turquoise blue sheets in disarray; the shotgun lying on the carpet, emanating a smell of burnt powder; and the blood. Halfway between the bed and the door was a massive pool of blood spread out like the spidery fingers of a lake, and behind it, on the wall, she saw gruesome splatters of brain, tissue, and bone.
There was no body. But whoever had lain in that pool wasn't alive.
'Son of a bitch,' Serena murmured.
She stared at the wall and realized that someone had dipped into the blood like red paint and written a message. Each letter was six inches tall, printed awkwardly, the way a child would write. Streaks dripped from the words and made parallel lines down the wall. The message read:
Chapter Thirty-six
Maggie carried a chair into Regan Conrad's living room under one arm and set it down with the back facing the sofa and the bay window. She straddled the seat and leaned her forearms on top of the chair. Her heels sank into the plush carpet. She eyed the glass artwork in the room with casual curiosity and then focused on Marcus Glenn, who sat on the sofa with his hands in his lap.
'When can I go home?' Glenn asked.
Maggie shrugged. 'What's the rush, Doc?'
'I have surgeries scheduled in the morning. I can't just walk into the hospital and cut someone open. I have to prepare.'
'Yeah, those knee jobs, ka-ching, right?' she said. 'I saw your Lexus outside. KNEEDOC, that's pretty cute. But right now I'm not too worried about some CEO who needs help with his golf game, OK? We found you at a crime scene, Dr Glenn, so whether you make it home today really depends on the conversation we're having right now.'
The surgeon settled back into the sofa with an exaggerated sigh. 'I told Ms Dial, and I'm telling you, I had nothing to do with whatever happened here.'
'So you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Again. This is becoming sort of a habit for you, isn't it? You were in the house when your daughter disappeared, but you had nothing to do with it. You were in the house where a murder appears to have taken place, but you had nothing to do with it.'
'That's right.'
Maggie had dealt with doctors before, and she knew they were tough to rattle, but Glenn's eyes were nervous underneath his annoyed facade. He had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and he knew it. When Maggie didn't say anything more, Glenn added, 'Look, if someone killed Regan, it happened hours before I arrived.'
'Really? How do you know that?'
'I'm a doctor. I see a lot of blood.'
'But you're not a pathologist, are you?'
'I'm also not a magician. I can't make a dead body disappear. The one good thing about being under surveillance is that the police always know where I am. Ms Dial knows perfectly well that I was here for less than an hour before she arrived.'
'Yeah, let's talk about that,' Maggie said. 'Why exactly were you here?'
Glenn shrugged. 'I thought that Regan may have had something to do with Callie's disappearance.'
'Why is that?'
'We were having an affair. The break-up was extremely bitter.'
'So what were you planning to do? Ask her if she was involved in stealing your daughter? Did you think she'd break down and confess?'
'You didn't know Regan. If she did something, she was the kind of person who would throw it in my face.'
'But she wasn't home when you arrived?' Maggie asked.
'Obviously.'
'Did you break in or was the door open?'
'The door was open.'
Maggie nodded. 'Do you have a key?'
'I didn't need a key. I told you, the door was open.'
'Let's try answering the questions I ask. Do you have a key to Regan's house?'
'Yes, I do,' Glenn admitted. 'Regan gave me a key while we were involved.'
'Do you have it with you?'
