But had those kids left just one muddy shoe behind? In a car with a body in the trunk?

“There,” Carver said, turning off the navigation app. The red-and-blue lights of the two patrol cars were now their beacon. As they got closer, they saw the ME van, the forensics van, and the unavoidable media vehicles that homed in on crime scenes with unerring instinct.

Carver drove over to the cordoned area, where a young patrolman in uniform handed them the ripped page from a crime scene logbook. Both of them signed their names and were let inside. Abby was the first one out of the car, crouching under the tape, hurrying toward the trunk of the vehicle illuminated by a bright spotlight.

As she got close enough to see the large body inside, she exhaled, realizing that she’d been holding her breath. She’d been expecting to see the body of a small boy in the trunk.

She put a hand up to block the harsh glare of the spotlight as a silhouette of a tall woman took a step toward her. “Lieutenant Mullen. You got here just in time. We were about to remove the body.” The woman wore a face mask, but Abby recognized her voice easily. Dr. Valeria Gomez had been the ME in many of her homicide investigations over the years.

“What do we have, Gomez?” Abby asked.

“Male victim in his early fifties. Rigor mortis has fully set while the body was in the trunk, so it is in a rigid fetal position.”

Abby peered at the pale body, smelling the unmistakable metallic scent of blood. The victim had been stuffed roughly in the trunk, lying on top of the spare tire. A tripod and a few metal cases were stacked around him as if they had been shoved aside to make room for the body. Whoever had put him in the trunk hadn’t bothered emptying it first.

The victim’s neck was covered in blood and marred by several dark stab wounds. The man’s beige shirt was soaked in blood as well. His eyes were wide open, mouth ajar, a trickle of blood staining his chin.

“On initial inspection livor mortis seems to have appeared only on the lateral right side of the body,” Gomez said. “So in all likelihood the body was placed in the trunk very soon after his death.”

“Or before?” Carver suggested.

Gomez shrugged. “Medically speaking I can’t discount it yet, but all the blood on the driver’s seat tells a different story according to our forensics expert. In addition to the stab wounds on the throat and chest, there’s a shallow stab wound on the left palm as well as a minor incision across it.”

“Defensive wounds?”

“Probably. The blood on the body’s lips and mouth indicates trauma to the respiratory system, and the likely culprit is either of these.” She pointed at two of the numerous wounds on the throat.

“Time of death?” Abby asked.

“For now, the best I can say is sometime last night, maybe early morning,” Gomez answered. “I’ll do the autopsy first thing tomorrow, and maybe I’ll manage to narrow it down.”

Abby took a step back, and took a deep breath. The air in the parking lot smelled like exhaust, trash, and urine, but it was a significant improvement from the odors that rose from the car’s trunk. She scrutinized the people working the scene. She didn’t recognize the detective and the uniformed cop who were busy sketching it. Carver approached them, shaking the detective’s hand. As for the rest—she’d worked with the police photographer before, a dour man with a pretentious demeanor. She was glad to recognize Ahmed Nader from CSU kneeling by the driver’s seat.

“Hey, Ahmed,” she said, sticking her hands in her pockets.

“Abby Mullen,” he said, straightening. “What? You decided that you miss homicide? Or were you just longing for my company?”

“Definitely longing for your company,” she said. “But I’m also part of the Nathan Fletcher kidnapping task force. What are you looking at?”

“A muddy footprint on the floor mat of the driver’s seat. It’s a good print, and it doesn’t match the victim’s shoes. It seems like a twelve, maybe even thirteen.”

Could they be Karl’s shoes? He had a pair of worn-out tennis shoes, but they weren’t particularly large. “If I send you a shoe sole photograph, would you be able to see if it matches?”

He straightened. “Maybe. Talking about shoes, I suppose this is the one you’re really interested in.”

He produced a plastic bag from a nearby container and held it up to the spotlight. A small shoe. “We found it on the floor of the front passenger seat underneath a man’s coat. The coat is definitely too large for a child; it could be the victim’s.”

Abby peered at it through the translucent plastic. The shoe was covered in brown stains. “Is that blood?”

“No. Mud. The shoe is still soggy and is stained with mud both inside and out. Whoever wore it stepped in mud up to his ankle.”

“Either that or he was buried in mud,” Abby said. “It could explain the muddy footprint on the driver’s side.”

Ahmed raised an eyebrow. “Always finding the worst possible scenario for everything.”

“You of all people should know a muddy article of clothing isn’t good news.”

Ahmed motioned her over to the other side of the car. “Come on, I need to show you something.”

Abby followed him, and crouched by the open passenger door. The interior of the car smelled like a slaughterhouse. There was smeared blood on the steering wheel, the seats, and the dashboard. Multiple blood spatters on the top part of the driver’s window as well as the inside of the door. The body had stab wounds on the left side. If the victim had been the passenger, the attacker had probably been the driver. But if he had been the driver . . . she glanced at the door. The attacker would have stood outside the car.