Page 12 of If She Sensed

She thought about the unlocked back door at Carol's house—of the neighbor who used it regularly, whose habit had essentially made it a known quantity.Someone had used that knowledge.Had they done the same thing here?Had they known something about Donna Holt's home, her routine, her habits, in advance?

And the dates.Both women had been on dates the night before.That detail sat at the center of everything and she couldn't see around it yet.

She pulled onto Donna Holt's street at 8:52.Sloane's car was just ahead of her, pulling to the curb in front of a modest split-level with a concrete walkway and a pair of small junipers flanking the front steps.Two police cruisers were parked outside along with an unmarked sedan.Kate cut the engine and got out as Sloane was closing her own door.They met on the sidewalk and Kate could see the heaviness of the morning already settling on around Sloane’s shoulders.

"Hell of a way to start the morning," Sloane said.

Before Kate could comment, a man came down the front steps to meet them.He was in his late forties, broad through the shoulders, with a day's growth of beard and the alert, slightly worn look of a detective who had been up since before sunrise.He had his badge clipped to his belt and his hands in his jacket pockets.

"Agents Wise and Sloane?"He didn't wait for confirmation."Detective Middleton. I appreciate you coming out."He glanced back at the house with the same heaviness Kate had just seen on Sloane."The son's name is Brady Holt.He's twenty-six years old.He came over this morning after his mother didn't pick up his calls.He has a key, let himself in, found her in the living room."He pulled one hand from his pocket and rubbed the back of his neck."He's at the station right now being held in a private room."

"Voluntarily?"Kate asked.

"More or less.He was cooperative until about forty minutes ago, when he started insisting we go find whoever his mother had been on a date with last night.It escalated.He put his fist through the wall in our interview room and we had to physically restrain him."Middleton said it without drama, as a matter of record."He's calmed down since, but we figured a private room was better than the waiting area."

"Is he a person of interest?"Sloane asked.

"I'd say no.He was out with friends last night at Harker's Bar on Clement.The bartender confirms he was there until around midnight or so.His doorbell camera shows him arriving home at 1:14 in the morning and leaving again at 7:20, which is consistent with when the neighbor across the street saw his car pull up here."Middleton looked at Kate and shrugged."He didn't do this.He's just a kid who was unfortunate enough to have found his mother dead on the floor."

Kate nodded toward the house."Take us in."

He did so, without any comment.The interior of the house stopped her just inside the doorway, the same way Carol Paige's had.Not because of the disorder, but because of the absence of it.The entry hall was undisturbed.A coat hung on the hook by the door, and a pair of shoes had been placed neatly on a mat.Nothing was out of place.

They followed Middleton down the short hall and into the living room and that was where the order of things came unraveled.

Donna Holt was on her back near the coffee table, one arm across her stomach and one at her side.She was dressed in what appeared to be date clothes—a dark green blouse and black trousers, low heels still on her feet.The blood had spread wide and then dried, dark and sticky-edged, into the area rug beneath her.Kate looked at the wounds without looking away.Two to the chest.One to the throat and neck area.

It was identical to Carol Paige.

She looked around the room.The couch cushions were undisturbed.A throw pillow sat squarely in the corner of the loveseat.On the coffee table, a phone charger was plugged into the wall but there was no phone on it, which likely meant the phone was already in evidence.A half-full glass of water sat beside the charger, leaving a faint ring on the wood.

"The front door was locked when the son arrived," Middleton said."He used his key.The back door was unlocked as far as we can tell.There were no obvious signs of forced entry on either door, but forensics will give us the final word on that, I suppose.No broken windows.Nothing stolen, purse and jewelry still in the bedroom, laptop on the kitchen table."

Kate looked at the back of the room, toward the kitchen, and then back at the body.She thought about Carol Paige's back door and felt something tighten in her chest.

"Who knew the back door was unlocked?"she asked.

"That's what I'm trying to find out," Middleton said."The son says his mother was pretty good about making sure the doors were locked, though.”

Sloane had her phone out and was moving slowly around the perimeter of the room, photographing the body, the furniture, the relative positions of everything.She stopped near the doorway to the kitchen and looked back at Kate.

"She's in her fifties," Sloane said, keeping her voice low and even."Recently divorced.Just started dating again."She let the observation sit without adding to it.

"How recently divorced?"Kate asked Middleton.

"The son said fourteen months."

Kate looked at Donna Holt on the floor in her dark green blouse and her date-night heels.She felt something move through her that she didn't try to name.Two women in their fifties.Both had spent years in marriages that had ended.Both had been putting themselves back out into the world, carefully and hopefully, and had each found a man they liked well enough to meet for dinner.Both had come home afterward, alone…and maybe nottoan unlocked back door, but there had been an unlocked door quickly after.

She thought about what it took to start over at that age.She knew from personal experience that there was a very specific courage to it.The willingness to feel hopeful again after a long stretch of not feeling much at all.

She turned away from the body and looked at the room again from the doorway.

Sloane finished her documentation and came to stand beside her."Same wounds.Same entry point.Same staging, or lack of it."

"Not staging," Kate said."Staging implies they were trying to create a story.This is something else.They didn't touch anything because they didn't need to."She looked at the undisturbed cushions, the throw pillow, the phone charger with its perfect ring on the wood."They came in, they did what they came to do, and they left."

Middleton watched her."You think this is connected to Carol Paige?"