Jane looks down on Lauren’s dead body, in particular her scalp, bearing a bloody gash.

“Hits her with what?”

“We don’t know yet. But he hits her hard enough to draw blood. We figure it stuns her enough, at least momentarily, so he can get the noose around her neck.”

“How’d he tie off the rope?”

“Well, it was kind of clever,” she says, squatting down. “This is a thick, knotted rope, knotted every foot or so. The wrought iron bannister—well, you saw the photos.”

“I saw them but didn’t focus on the bannister.”

“Sure. It’s one of these ornate spiral patterns, right? It looks like some Gothic design, like some old family coat of arms.”

“Or a series of Rorschach tests,” says Andy.

“Right, or like Rorschach tests. A bunch of intricate spirals and whirls and shapes.”

“Okay, so . . .”

“He shoved one end of the rope into the curves of the pattern and wrapped it around once or twice. It held firm.”

“And then what?”

Jane shrugs. “Then he chucked her over the railing.”

“Ugh.”

Yeah, ugh. But the most likely way this happened.

“Why not just strangle her?”

“He probably couldn’t,” says Jane. “Or not easily, at least. She put up a struggle. He’s behind her, with the slipknot around her neck and tugging, but she doesn’t go down easily. We have some broken painted fingernails up here. She was struggling against the noose around her throat. And if she were able to kick with those heels—well, they’d be sharp as knives. It might have been easier to keep the noose taut around her neck with one hand, stuff one end of the rope into the bannister curves with the other, then pick her up and throw her over.”

“Jesus. Okay. I got it. So, Jane, listen. Major Crimes can bring forensics, but otherwise this stays in-house, understand?”

“Yes.” Jane feels butterflies through her chest, not for the first time today.

“No statements to the press until I get there. Understand?”

“Yes.”

He goes silent. He’s thinking.

Outside, Jane hears heavy car doors closing. Probably the medical examiner or forensics arriving.

“You think this was a lover’s quarrel, something like that?”

“No robbery,” she says. “No sexual assault or, from what we see preliminarily, even an attempt at sexual assault. It sure seems like this guy came here to do one thing and one thing only, and that’s kill Lauren Betancourt.”

“Personal,” says the chief. “Someone who really wanted her dead.”

Jane looks down at the body and shudders.

“Or really wanted her, period,” she says, “but couldn’t have her.”

BEFORE HALLOWEEN

August

11

Thursday, August 11, 2022

I tried. I swear I did! I showed up at your door today, seeing you for the first time since you got back from Paris, and I was all ready to do the right thing. When you opened the door, tanned and elegant and, well, just gorgeous, I said, Go ahead, Simon, do it. Tell Lauren, say it, do it, and I did, I told you, I told you I couldn’t betray Vicky like that, we had to stop this thing before it started.

And you, Lauren, bless your heart, you said you understood. “The fact that you’d say something like that is why you’re such a great guy,” you said. My stomach twisted in knots and my chest was about to explode, but we stood there a moment and I said to myself, You’re going to be glad later that you did this even though it sucks right now.