The Killing Edge by Heather Graham Page A

he would just head home, but then he picked up his phone and dialed Stuckey instead.
    “Hey. What are you doing?” he asked when the cop answered his phone.
    “Enjoying a few hours off,” Stuckey said, then groaned. “At least, I was.”
    “You can still enjoy yourself. I just want you to take a drive with me.”
    “Where?” Stuckey asked suspiciously.
    Luke told him.
    Stuckey groaned again, louder this time.
    “It’s important to me,” Luke said.
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “It was ten years ago. What do you think you’re going to find?” Stuckey demanded.
    “I don’t know. I just feel as if it’s important for me to see it. Come on. Meet me there, and I’ll buy you a beer.”
    “You’d better buy me two,” Stuckey warned.
    Luke grinned. Stuckey was in.
    They agreed on a time to meet—Luke’s stomach reminded him that it was well past lunchtime and he needed something to eat first—and he reached the house first. It was farther north than he had been the night before, but not by much.
    The place was off the main road, but again, not by much. Other homes stood to either side, but their high walls and lush foliage hid them, so when he drove up, it was almost as if he were at the ends of the earth.
    The sun was just beginning its descent when he parked and stood in front of the scene of the crime. There were large iron gates and beyond them a lawn that was seriously overgrown. The paint was peeling, but not ten years’ worth of peeling. Apparently, someone did enough maintenance to keep from being fined by the city, but nothing more. A For Sale sign lay haphazardly on its side just inside the gate,as if someone had long ago given up making any real effort to unload the place.
    He stared at it and told himself it was just a house. But at the moment, caught in the waning light of afternoon, the windows were like dark eye sockets, looking out at him with brooding menace. He found himself surprised that some filmmaker hadn’t picked up the place for a horror movie. However beautiful this mansion might once have been, it carried an aura of evil about it now.
    He heard Stuckey’s car arrive, saw Stuckey muttering to himself as he parked and stepped out. He was dangling keys and complaining, “I really don’t know what you think you’re going to find. They had one of those companies come in and clean up the blood. The mansion belongs to the Varacaro family. Their daughter was killed here, and they never stepped foot in the place again after the massacre, just moved with their other kids to their place in Rio de Janeiro. They’ve had it for sale forever. No one’s ever made a bid on the place, but the Varacaros don’t really care. They have oil money. Nice people. Sad. They have two younger girls, almost grown up now, I guess. And three sons. Anyway, the taxes are like pocket change to them, so…here.” Stuckey handed Luke the keys, separating the one that opened the gate, and a minute later the two of them walked onto the grounds.
    “You got a flashlight?” Stuckey asked. “It gets dark fast under all these old trees once the sun starts to go down.”
    Luke patted his pocket. “Yeah. I got a flashlight.”
    The driveway was long and expansive. Luke imagined thenight ten years ago when the police had come racing up. “The gate was open that night?”
    “Wide open. I guess the kids never locked it. The parents were in Brazil, so it was one big open house as far as those kids were concerned.”
    With the gate unlocked, anyone could have come in, Luke thought.
    “What about the front door?” he asked.
    “Open, too, I’m afraid. Along with the back door.”
    Once upon a time the place had been beautiful. Distinctive architectural elements abounded, like the carved double doors, the use of tile and marble and the giant Chinese lions that apparently hadn’t done much good guarding the place.
    Luke stepped in. For a moment the house seemed to be bathed in blood, and then he realized it