She thought about calling Todd, but she felt awkward doing that now, and not knowing what else to do, she called Chris on his cell phone to steady her nerves and ask his advice. She walked back down the stairs, and sat on the first step outside. There was lots of noise around him when he answered. She could hardly hear him, and it sounded as though he was in a playground surrounded by children, which was fairly accurate. He was at the family compound, with his many cousins’ children around him. He sounded happy to hear her.

“Hi, Francesca. How’ve you been?” He smiled at the sound of her voice.

“I’ve been great,” she said, her voice shaking a little. She felt silly for calling him now. Everything was probably fine in the house. But she couldn’t explain the shattered chair in her living room, or the hair standing up on her arms. She wondered if they had been robbed. But if there had been a burglary, why hadn’t Eileen called her? The pieces of the puzzle didn’t quite fit together. “I had a great vacation. How’s yours?”

“Wonderful. We went down to Newport a few days ago, and this is our last weekend here. You won’t recognize Ian. He’s ten feet tall.” She smiled at his description, and took a breath to steady her nerves.

“I’m sorry to bother you, and I feel really stupid calling you. But I just got back to the house about five minutes ago, and I got a really strange feeling when I walked in. And this sounds even crazier, but my living room door was open, and it looks like someone smashed one of my chairs. Nothing else looks disturbed. But it was eerie, and I ran back outside. I’m sitting on the front steps, feeling like a moron, but I’m scared to go into the house. What if someone is in there? Like intruders, or burglars. I called Eileen’s name, but she’s not home.” The alarm hadn’t been on. And Francesca hadn’t even thought to call her, and felt stupid for that now too. And it seemed pretty wimpy to be calling him, like a damsel in distress, or a coward sitting on the front steps of her own house. But she was scared.

Chris didn’t hesitate for a minute, and he frowned as he answered her. “Trust your instincts. Whatever you do, don’t go back in. Call the police. There may be someone in there. There are a lot of burglaries in the summer, when they figure people are away. I’d call the police right now.”

“They’ll think I’m crazy,” she said, feeling foolish, but she wondered if he was right.

“Better foolish than injured, or shot by a burglar in your own house. Call the cops. And call me back once they check it out.”

“Okay.” She hung up then and called the police. She told them she had just gotten back from vacation, and she thought there might have been a burglary or might be someone in the house. She couldn’t explain the shattered chair to herself, unless one of Eileen’s Internet boyfriends had gotten drunk and gone nuts.

The police told her it wasn’t a problem, instructed her not to go back in, and promised to be there in ten minutes. They were there in five, they had a car with two patrolmen nearby. She described the feeling she’d gotten and what she’d seen, and they told her to wait outside. They asked her if anyone else lived in the house. She described the other occupants and said that all of them were still away, except one who had stayed in town, and she might be at work, or asleep upstairs. She described the layout of the house and who lived where. She said Eileen lived on the top floor, and everyone else was gone. Both patrolmen walked in, looking alert, with their hands resting loosely on their guns. It told her that they had taken her seriously. She thought of calling Chris while she waited, but she didn’t want to bother him again, and more than likely they would find nothing more than the broken chair. She didn’t want to sound like a hysteric, and she started to relax after they’d been inside for a while. Obviously nothing was wrong, nothing had happened, there had been no gunshots, no burglars had come running out. She had moved slightly away from the direct line of the door, but it was fully twenty minutes later when one of them came out. They had made a thorough search. The officer came slowly down the stairs and looked at Francesca with an unreadable expression.

“Everything okay?” Francesca smiled at him, feeling foolish again. His partner was still inside.

He spoke to her in a quiet, calm voice. “Your instincts were right. Your tenant on the top floor is dead.” Eileen. Oh my God. That couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible. Francesca felt like she was going to faint. He led her back to the steps and helped her to sit down. She looked so pale that he told her to put her head between her legs. It took Francesca a minute to catch her breath.

“She can’t be dead,” Francesca said in a choked voice. “She’s twenty-three years old.” As though that made it impossible. Francesca’s mind was a blur. She couldn’t think.

“She was severely beaten, and strangled. We’re not sure, but she may have been raped. She’s naked in her bed. She’s been dead for about three days. Do you have any idea who might have done this? Did she have a boyfriend? An ex-husband? It doesn’t look like it was done by an intruder. Very little is disturbed in the house. A couple of chairs, and that’s about it.”

Francesca was staring at him with wide eyes. “She had a very nasty boyfriend, but when I last saw her, she hadn’t seen him in a while. He beat her up twice. I left three weeks ago, and I don’t think she’d been with him since June. I don’t know. She wasn’t always honest with me about it. But I think it must have been him… or someone new she met on the Internet… she did a lot of that…” He had taken out a notepad, and the other patrolman had called for backup. As they were talking, three squad cars and an ambulance arrived.

“Do you know his name?” the officer asked her, taking notes, as everyone else ran inside.

“Brad. Brad Turner, I think. He was a really nasty guy.”

“Do you know where he works?”

“No, I don’t. He’s a motorcycle mechanic, but that’s all I know. He has a lot of tattoos.”

“Do you remember what they look like?”

She closed her eyes as she answered, trying to see them again in her mind. She was shaking even more violently by then, and she felt like she was going to be sick. “An eagle… a rose… a big snake down one arm… some kind of Chinese thing… I can’t remember the rest of them.” She opened her eyes again, and all she could think of now was Eileen, dead upstairs in her room, probably killed by Brad. The officer looked at her apologetically then.

“I’m sorry to ask you this, but we’re going to need someone to identify the body, to make sure it’s her. Do you think you can do that?” Francesca didn’t answer and looked at him with terrified eyes.

“Do I have to?” She didn’t want to see Eileen that way. Francesca had never seen anyone dead before.

“‘You’re all we’ve got. We don’t want to ID the wrong person. For all we know, that’s a stranger up there in her bed.” Francesca nodded, as another squad car arrived. Her house had become a crime scene, and it was crawling with cops. The patrolman went back inside for a minute then, and with a shaking hand on the phone, she called Chris.

He saw her number come up on his phone and answered immediately. “Hi, Francesca. What did they say? Coast clear?” He was hopeful.

There was an endless silence at her end before she spoke. “Eileen’s dead. Someone beat her up and strangled her, and may have raped her. She must have seen Brad again after I left. Or someone else just as bad.”

He was silent for a moment, absorbing what she’d said. “I’m so sorry.”

“She was just a kid. They want me to identify the body. I don’t know if I can. They said it might not even be her. But she’s naked in her bed.” She was clutching at straws. Chris had no doubt that it was Eileen, and neither did she. She didn’t want it to be, but she was sure it was.

“Do you want me to come back right now?” Chris offered. “I can be back in a few hours.”

“It’s okay. It’ll just scare Ian. When were you planning to come back?”

“In three days. I can shorten the trip and come back tomorrow. I don’t think you should be there alone.”

“I won’t stay at the house.” There was no way she could now. “I’ll go to a hotel.”

“I’m so sorry you have to identify the body. If they’ll wait, I’ll do it when I get back.” He didn’t want to either, but he would have done it for her.

“I should do it, so they can call her parents.” Not that her father would care. But she had five siblings and a mother. And they had to know. She deserved at least that. Eileen had given her her mother’s number once, in case of an accident. Francesca had the number in her desk.

Two of the patrolmen came out and got her then, and asked her to come inside after inquiring if she was all right. They had put Eileen on a gurney, and covered her with a sheet and a blanket, and they had set the gurney down in the front hall. They asked her if she was ready, and she nodded, clutching the patrolman’s hand. He had an arm behind her in case she fainted; they knew how rough this was for everyone. One of the officers pulled back the blanket and the sheet, and Francesca knew instantly that it was Eileen. Her face was beaten almost to a pulp, but she was recognizable. Francesca nodded, and they covered her up again and took the gurney out. Francesca sat down on the floor, and then they led her out of the house, sat her in one of the patrol cars and gave her a bottle of water they kept on hand for occasions like this. She knew it must look to the neighbors like she was being arrested, but she didn’t care. She was crying when she called Chris again.

“It’s her. He almost destroyed her face.”

“I’m so sorry. Why don’t I leave Ian here with his cousins, and come into town. I don’t want you there alone.”