with every attempt the wound in his neck gurgled up foaming blood. The sound reminded Max of a death rattle.
“Should I stay with him?” the deputy beside Max asked.
“No. Follow procedure. Clear the house fast and we’ll get medical in here,” Max said. “Let’s go. Hurry.”
From the kitchen, they rushed through the mudroom and pantry, then downstairs and did a once-over of the cellar, shelves filled with the typical gallon-size glass jars of canned fruit and vegetables fanning out around them. In Alber, nearly all the families stored at least a year’s worth of supplies. As he scanned the rows, Max worried about Jacob, intent on getting care to him as quickly as possible.
When they rejoined the officer at the foot of the stairs, Max and the two deputies ran upstairs and did a swift search, going room to room. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary in the nursery with the crib, or the children’s room with two single beds, a framed fairy princess picture over one and a Buzz Lightyear poster over the other. A moan caught in his throat as Max glanced at two sets of pajamas discarded on the floor, and he thought again of the small, lifeless bodies under the sheet. One set of PJs had purple flowers and the other cartoon fire engines.
The next bedroom had a king-size bed, two nightstands, a dresser, and a three-foot-high vase on a corner table that held oversized artificial pussy willows and cattails. The quilt spread across the unmade bed reminded Max of one his mother had made, a double wedding-ring pattern, light peach and yellow on a white background. No one hid behind the shower curtain in the attached bathroom, and they turned and walked out.
They quickly cleared a second bathroom, one with a basket of Fisher Price figures in the tub, two-inch-tall plastic girls in skirts and boys in trousers, along with cheerful, smiling yellow rubber ducks.
That left a single room to search, and Max wondered why that particular one had the door closed. The others had all been open.
His gun raised and ready, the two deputies behind him, Max cautiously cracked the door open. The drapes were closed, and the room had only dim light coming in from the hallway. But Max could see into the closet gaping open, clothes hanging haphazardly from a wooden rod, boxes piled up on the shelf. He felt around on the wall to his left and found a switch.
The ceiling light flicked on. The room looked normal; the large dresser had a mirror, and a fluffy duvet, the blue of a pale morning sky, was pulled up to the headboard’s wooden spindles. But the more he looked at it, the more unnatural the bed appeared. It had a bulge on the far-right side. Pointing his gun at the bump, Max circled the bed and let his eyes trail down the bedside. A delicate wrist and hand peeked out from beneath the bedding.
Max held his breath, inched over to the bed, and picked up the corner of the duvet. Slowly, he pulled it back. A woman in a cotton nightgown covered with cheerful flowers lay spread-eagled on her back beneath it, her hand dangling down. Blood saturated the sheet beneath her in a pattern that resembled a Rorschach turtle. Her light brown hair encircled her head on the pillow, and her open pale eyes were unseeing. In life, he thought she must have been beautiful: finely chiseled features, an alabaster complexion.
Yet his attention kept being drawn to her mouth, where someone had taken lipstick and pushed hard to paint a thick red oval around her lips, one as dark as the smears of drying blood that marked the deep slash across her throat.
“That’s Laurel Johansson,” the deputy at his side whispered. Max wondered why that name sounded familiar, then felt his heart lodge in his throat when the guy said, “You know, one of Mullins’ kids.”
“Jeff Mullins?” Max asked, hoping the deputy meant someone else, not Alber PD’s veteran officer. “The detective?”
“Yeah,” the deputy said. “That Jeff Mullins.”
Max’s stomach churned thinking that someone would have to call Mullins. That wasn’t a call he wanted to make and no one wanted to receive. But first they needed to take care of the man bleeding on the kitchen floor. Max tapped his shoulder mic. “Send in the EMTs. We have two additional vics inside, one alive, one dead. Tell the paramedics that their patient is on the first floor, the kitchen, throat cut.