CHAPTER ONE

            The old Spanish house sat back away from the street, nestled behind lush tropical foliage and towering palms. Halloween decorations dotted a manicured front lawn, where a six-foot tall, black-hooded Grim Reaper waited menacingly to scare trick-or-treaters from a flowerbed filled with impatiens.  Homemade ghosts with magic-markered black eyes dangled from the branches of an oak tree, twisting and turning in the gusty breeze that had come in overnight, courtesy of an early-season cold front. In the fast-fading moonlight they glowed an odd, bright white. Somewhere up the block a dog barked, as night yawned into morning.
            The short whoop of a police siren broke the sleepy pre-dawn quiet as it turned onto Sorolla Avenue from Granada. Coral Gables P.O. Pete Colonna ignored the long driveway and instead pulled the cruiser over at the curb. Stepping out of the car, he surveyed the house for a moment and then made his way up the winding brick walkway to the front door, past scattered sticks of sidewalk chalk and an abandoned tricycle. When he spotted the little bike with silver racing stripes he moved faster. He rang the bell and pounded on an impressive oak front door. He could hear the loud chimes inside, but no one answered.
            “8362, Gables,” Pete said into his shoulder mike.
            “Go ahead 8362.”
            “10-97 at nine-eight-five Sorolla. There’s no response. ”
            “Stand by, 8362.” After a moment the dispatcher with the Coral Gables P.D. came back on. “Bell South has checked the line. It’s open, but there’s no conversation. They’re not getting an answer.”
            “I don’t hear any ringing from inside.”
            As Pete looked the front door up and down, the voice of his sergeant crackled to life on the radio pack. “8362, this is 998. Go to Channel Two.” Channel Two was the talk-around channel, where they could speak without going through dispatch. Pete switched over. “Go ahead Sarge.”
            “What’ve you got?” asked his sergeant.
            “I’m checking the residence,” Pete said as he moved about the front yard. “There’s no broken windows or evidence of a break-in that I can see, but...” he hesitated.
            “Yeah?”
            “Something don’t feel right, Sarge.”
            There was a pause. “Alright. Trust your gut. I’ll come now then.”
            “I’m gonna take the door.”
            “The hell you are. Stand down. Wait for me,” his sergeant said sternly.
            Pete looked through shrubbery that hid a black iron fence and back gate. Forgotten toys drifted lazily across a still pool. “Kids live here,” he said. Pete’s wife was pregnant. In just a few weeks he would have two little ones of his own.
            “Wait for me. Don’t go in there alone, Colonna. You may find a confused homeowner with a shotgun in his hand that didn’t hear the doorbell. 10-23 for back-up. I’m there in five.”
            Pete clicked back over to dispatch. His sergeant’s voice radioed in. “998 is 10-51 to 8362’s location from the University of Miami. Five minute ETA.”
            Pete walked back around to the front of the house where he spotted the tricycle again. Mounted next to the front door he noticed a hand-carved “Welcome Home” plaque. An uneasy, anxious feeling began to spread through his chest.
            It seemed like a lifetime, and definitely more than five minutes, before he heard the squad car pull down the residential street and up to the curb. Sergeant Demos was a large man, and with just weeks to go before his retirement party, things moved at a considerably slower pace for him. It took more than a few moments for him to get out of the car and lumber up the walk.
            “Still nothing, Colonna?” he asked.
            “Nah, Sarge. No sign of life.”
            “The hang-up was a kid, right? Could be a prank,” Demos said, scratching at his lumpy, bald head. “Great. Everyone’s in bed except for junior. Kid’s sweating it out right now, watching us from behind Bugs Bunny curtains,” he finished, looking up at the dark windows above.
            Pete shook his head. “Line’s alive, but there’s no ringing. No one’s answering the door. I got a feeling.”
            “You and your feelings. I got a feeling you’re looking for some OT, what with all the reports you’ll be writing.” The sergeant used his asp to bang on the door. “Police! Anybody home?” After a moment, he looked at Pete again. “Any history on the house?”
            “Not that I know of. Dispatch didn’t say and I know I ain’t been here before,” he said, looking around at the stately homes that lined the block. “Nice hood.”
            “Don’t let the address fool you, Junior. O.J. lived in Beverly Hills.”
            “Actually, I think it was Brentwood.”
            “Same damn difference. The point I was trying to make was domestics happen everywhere. You’d do good to remember that.” Demos sighed. “A little kid? All right. Minimal damage. Take the pane. The city’s paying for it, so don’t go nuts.”
            Using his flashlight, Pete broke out one pane of the frosted, etched glass that framed the front door, reached in and unlocked the lock. The scream of an ear-piercing alarm sounded when the door opened.
            “Well, if everyone was sleeping, they ain’t no more,” shouted his sergeant. “Give it a second.” They stood together on the front stoop with the door wide open, but no one appeared. 
            Dispatch came back on the radio. “8362, 998. Be advised we have ADT on the line. We have an audible alarm at your location.”
            “10-4,” said Demos, “998 and 8362 have made entry through the front door. Has the homeowner called in for nine-one-one response?”
            “Negative, 998. Still no answer on the line.”
            The sergeant nodded at Pete. “Alright. Let’s go in.”
            “Coral Gables Police! Is everyone okay in here?” Pete yelled into the dark house. He pulled his Glock and stepped inside, his sergeant breathing heavy behind him. Shards of glass from the windowpane crunched under his feet.
            Twenty-foot ceilings loomed over a beautifully decorated formal living room. A staircase zigzagged up a sidewall and an ornate iron railing stretched across an overhead balcony. Past the balcony and down the upstairs hallway Pete could see a light was on. “Police!” he yelled again, competing with the scream of the alarm.
            They moved quickly through the first floor rooms. Laundry sat piled on a washing machine and toys cluttered the family room. In the kitchen, cleaned baby bottles were lined up neatly next to the sink on paper towels.
            The alarm suddenly stopped. Dispatch had probably told ADT that officers were at the location. Now the house seemed too large and too quiet. Pete thought of the baby bottles and a feeling of pure panic squeezed his chest.
            “Coral Gables Police!” Demos yelled. Still nothing.
            Pete ran for the stairs. Behind him he could hear the labored breathing of his sergeant as he tried to keep up—the jingle of the cumbersome equipment belt under the sarge’s well-endowed belly, the heavy clicking of his heels on the stone steps.  Retirement probably seemed a lifetime away at that moment.
            At the top landing, Pete’s feet touched padded carpet. Light spilled softly into the hallway from a back room whose door was partly closed. It grew brighter and brighter as he made his way down the hall. Family pictures smiled at him from every angle. All the other hall doors were shut tight.
            “Anything?” called Demos, still on the stairs.
            Pete moved down the hall toward the open door. Like in a movie under the hand of an artful director, select pieces of the room slowly came into view. Colorful butterflies danced across a bright purple wall. A Hello Kitty mirror. A wall plaque that spelled out EMMA. The edge of a Disney Princess comforter. “Kid’s room,” he called out.
            “What the fuck did you step in?” Demos asked suddenly.
            Pete looked down. Behind him in the faint light he saw the dark smear of footprints where he had just walked. Red drops spotted the pink carpet before him that led into what was obviously a little girl’s room.
            “Jesus Christ!” the sergeant said, answering his own question.
            Suddenly Pete wanted to stop. He didn’t want to see anymore. A sick, unfamiliar feeling churned his stomach and sweat dribbled off his forehead. For instinctively he knew that what he was about to witness was something he would probably spend the rest of his life trying to forget. He took a deep breath and pressed his head against the wall, his firearm out before him at the ready. His hands shook and he thought for a moment of his wife and the two perfect, innocent babies he had not yet met. From the sonogram he knew they were both girls. Madison and McKenzie were going to be their names. “Police!” he shouted again, struggling to hide the slight tremble in his voice. 
            Then he entered the room and completely fell apart.