Chapter One

      THE HOUSE WAS off Frenchman Street, not a mansion and not derelict. It sat in a neighborhood of middle-class homes from which men and women went to work every day and children went off to school. The yard was well-kept but not overmanicured; the paint wasn’t peeling, but it was a few years old. In short, to all appearances, it was the average family home in the average family neighborhood.

      Or had been.

      Until a neighbor had spotted the body of the woman on the kitchen floor that morning and called the police. They’d entered the house and found a scene of devastating chaos.

      Michael Quinn hadn’t been among the first to arrive. He wasn’t a cop, not anymore. He was a private investigator and took on clients, working for no one but himself. However, he maintained a friendly relationship with the police. It was necessary—and, in general, made life a hell of a lot easier.

      It also brought about mornings like this, when Jake Larue, his ex-partner, called him in, which was fine, since he was paid a consultant’s fee for his work with the police...and his personal pursuits could sometimes be expensive.

      “You know, Quinn,” Jake said, meeting him outside, “I’ve seen bad times. The days after the storm, gang struggles in our city and the usual human cruelty every cop faces. But I’ve never seen anything like this.”

      Jake—Detective Larue—was sent on the worst and/or most explosive cases in the city...or when something bordered on the bizarre.

      Jake was good at his job. He was good at it, Quinn had long ago discovered, because he’d never thought of himself as the be-all and end-all. He took whatever help he could get, no matter where he got it. That was how cases were solved, and that was why he was willing to call Quinn.

      Good thing he was back in the city, Quinn thought. He’d just arrived a few hours earlier. Danni didn’t even know he was back after his weeks in Texas—he’d meant to surprise her this morning.

      Quinn looked curiously at the house. “Drug deal gone bad?” he asked. It didn’t seem like the type of home where such a thing happened, but there was no telling in that market.

      “I’ll be damned if I know, but I doubt it. Get gloves and booties. We’re trying to keep it down to a small parade going through,” Larue said.

      Quinn raised his brows. It was almost impossible to protect evidence from being compromised when that many people were involved. But Larue was a stickler; he’d set up a cordoned path to the porch. There were officers in the yard, and they were holding back the onlookers who’d gathered nearby. The van belonging to the crime scene techs was half on the sidewalk and cop cars crowded the streets, along with the medical examiner’s SUV. The only people who had passed him were wearing jumpsuits that identified them as crime scene investigators.

      “Dr. Hubert is on,” Larue said.

      Quinn liked Ron Hubert; he was excellent at his job and looked beyond the norm when necessary. He wasn’t offended when another test was suggested or when he was questioned. As he’d said himself, he was human; humans made mistakes and could overlook something important. His job was to speak for the dead, but hell, if the dead were whispering to someone else, that was fine with him.

      “First things first, I guess. The entry hallway,” Larue said.

      There was no way to avoid the body in the entry hall. The large man lay sprawled across the floor in death. Hubert was crouched by the body, speaking softly into his phone as he made notes.

      “The victim is male, forty-five to fifty years. Time of death was approximately two hours ago or sometime between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. Cause of death appears to be multiple stab wounds, several of which on their own would prove fatal. Death seems to have taken place where the victim has fallen. There are abundant pools of blood in the immediate vicinity.” He switched off his phone, stopped speaking and glanced up. “Please watch out for the blood. The lab folks are busy taking pictures, but we’re trying to preserve the scene as best we can. Ah, Quinn, glad to see you here, son.” Pretty much anyone could be “son” to Dr. Ron Hubert. He was originally from Minnesota and his Viking heritage was apparent. His hair was whitening, but where it wasn’t white, it was platinum. His eyes were so pale a blue they were almost transparent. His dignity and reserve made him seem ageless, but realistically, Quinn knew he was somewhere in his mid-sixties.

      “He was stabbed? Have you found the weapon?” Quinn asked.

      “No weapons anywhere,” Larue answered. “This is—we believe but will confirm—Mr. James A. Garcia. His family has lived in the area since the nineteenth century. He inherited the house. He was a courier who worked for a specialty freight company.”

      “The woman in the kitchen, we believe, is his wife, Andrea. It looks as if she was slashed by a sword,” Hubert said. “Make your tour quick, Detective,” he told Larue while nodding grimly at Quinn. “I need to get the bodies to the morgue.”

      Quinn accompanied Larue to the kitchen. He couldn’t begin to determine the age of the victim there; only her dress and the length of her hair suggested that she’d been a woman. To say that a sword might have been used was actually a mild description; she looked like she’d been put through a meat slicer. Blood created a haphazard pattern on the old linoleum floor and they moved carefully to avoid it. “There’s more,” Larue told him, “and stranger.”

      Upstairs, another body lay on a bed.

      “Mr. Arnold Santander, Mrs. Garcia’s father, as far as we know. Shot.”

      “Gun? Calibre?”

      “Something that blew a hole in him the size of China. And there are two more.”

      Another bedroom revealed a fourth body—this one bludgeoned to death. Quinn couldn’t even guess the sex, age or anything else about the remains on the bed.

      “Maggie Santander, the wife’s mother,” Larue said.

      The fifth body was downstairs by the back door. Compared to the others, it was in relatively good condition.

      “This one is a family aunt—Mr. Garcia’s sister, Maria Orr. What I’ve been able to gather from the neighbors is that Maria Orr picked up the Garcia children to take them to school. She was the drop-off mom and Mrs. Garcia was the pickup mom. Maria often stopped by for a coffee after she took the kids to school and before heading to her job at a local market. Mrs. Garcia was a stay-at-home mom and looked after all the children in the afternoon.”

      Quinn hunkered down by the body and gingerly moved the woman’s hair. He frowned up at Larue. “Strangled?”

      “That’s Hubert’s preliminary finding, yes,” Larue replied.

      Quinn stood. “No weapons anywhere in the house? The yard?”

      “No. Obviously, the techs are still combing the house. I have officers out there questioning neighbors and going through every trash pile and dump in the vicinity and beyond. The city’s on high