The Silent Girl

pair of goggles and a respirator, which she pulled over her face to protect against the luminol fumes. Only aftereveryone was masked did Ed—at least she now knew the tall man’s name—begin mixing chemicals. He swirled the solution in a jar, then decanted it into a spray bottle. “Someone want to be in charge of the lights?”
    “I’ll do it,” said Frost.
    “It’s gonna be really dark in here, so stay by the lamp or you’ll be fumbling for the switch.” Ed glanced around the room. “Where do you folks want to start?”
    “This section,” said Jane, pointing to the area near the cash register.
    Ed moved into position, then glanced at Frost. “Lights.”
    The room went black, and the darkness seemed to magnify the sound of Maura’s breathing in the respirator. Only faintly did she hear the hiss of the spray bottle as Ed released a mist of luminol. A geometric pattern of blue-green suddenly glowed on the floor as the luminol reacted with traces of old hemoglobin. Wherever blood drips or splatters or flows, it leaves behind echoes of its presence. Nineteen years ago, blood had seeped into this linoleum, lodging so stubbornly in cracks and crevices that it could not be eradicated, even with the most thorough mopping.
    “Light.”
    Frost flipped the switch and they all stood blinking in the glare. The blue-green glow had vanished; in its place was the same patch of floor they had seen earlier.
    Tam looked up from his laptop, on which he’d loaded the Red Phoenix crime scene photos. “Corresponds with what I see here,” he said. “No surprises. That’s right where Joey Gilmore’s body was found.”
    They moved the camera and tripod to the nook behind the counter, and everyone took their positions. Again the lights went out; again they heard the hiss of the spray bottle and more of the floor began to luminesce in checkerboard lines. Here was where James Fang died. The wall lit up as well, glowing spatters where traces of the waiter’s blood had splashed, like the fading echoes of a scream.
    In this building, there were still more screams to be heard.
    They moved on to the corner where the Mallorys had perished. Two bodies meant twice as many splatters, and here were the loudest shrieks of all, a horror show of splashes and smears that flared in the darkness and slowly faded.
    Frost turned on the lights and they all stood silent for a moment as they stared down at the tired patch of floor that had glowed so brightly only a moment earlier. Nothing had surprised them so far, but what they’d seen was nonetheless unsettling.
    “Let’s move on to the kitchen,” said Jane.
    They stepped through the doorway. It seemed colder in the next room, so cold that a chill rippled across Maura’s skin. She looked around at a refrigerator, an ancient ventilation hood and stove. The floor was concrete in here, designed for easy swabbing in an area where grease and sauces would splatter.
And blood, too
. She stood shivering by the cellar door while the team transferred their equipment from the next room, bringing in their cameras and chemicals. With the room now brightly lit, Ed and his partner frowned at their surroundings.
    “Got some rusty-looking kitchen equipment over there,” said Ed. “That’s going to react with the luminol and light up.”
    “It’s the floor we need to focus on,” said Maura. “Right here is where the cook was found.”
    “So we’ll find more blood. Big surprise,” said Ed, his note of sarcasm unmistakable.
    “Look, if you think this is a waste of time, just give me the bottle and I’ll do it,” Maura snapped.
    In the sudden silence, the two criminalists looked at each other. Ed said, “Do you want to tell us what you’re looking for, Dr. Isles? So this might actually make sense?”
    “I’ll tell you when I see it. Let’s start with that doorway leading into the dining room.”
    Ed nodded to Frost. “Lights off.”
    The sudden blackness was so complete in the kitchen that Maurafelt herself sway, disoriented by the lack of any visual cues, any sense of who or what surrounded her. In this darkness, anyone could be standing beside her and she would not know he was there. The spray bottle hissed, and as glowing streaks of blue-green magically spread on the floor, she felt another chill whisper across her skin, as if a phantom had just brushed past her. Yes, there are indeed ghosts in this room, she thought, the ghosts of spilled blood that still cling to this floor. She