In his other hand he gripped a glass of Jack Daniels. No ice cubes tinkled gaily as he raised it to his lips. The whiskey burned strong and straight down his throat, settling like fire in his stomach.

He was becoming a drunk. His partner Benji complained incessantly that he didn't take care of himself. His friends were starting to worry about him. How did you tell people not to worry about you when you planned to commit suicide as soon as your justice was served?

John raised bleary eyes to the mirror over the bedroom bureau. He saw the reflection of a man who'd just turned forty and looked like hell. Shaggy black hair sprinkled with gray stabbed into steel blue eyes; his unshaven, prickly jaw led up to lines that radiated out from the corners of his eyes like the rippled soil of a delta. He had once been a decent-looking guy. His college football bulk had remained muscle and hadn't softened. His wife had often claimed John would age very well, although, the last time had been nearly four years ago. Right now he was a mess. He knew it. But when you'd lost your wife and daughter to a serial killer, did it matter anymore what you looked like? People expected you to look a little off, a little crazy.

John was merely living down to their expectations of him.

Stones rattled outside his window, like someone had wandered off the path and into the flowerbed outside his apartment. John took another sip, accustomed to noisy neighbors. It was the price you paid when you lived in a sleazy neighborhood like this. John had chosen it because it was far away from schools. He never saw any children around. Katie had been sixteen when she'd been killed -- almost an adult. But still ... he didn't need the reminder of what he'd lost. He didn't need to see picture-perfect families living the American Dream. He needed the ugliness of reality, and this shit-hole was it.

Something screeched, as if a cat had just gotten its tail pulled. The sound raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

"Cats in heat," he murmured, standing up. He wobbled for a moment before regaining his balance and moving to the window.

The apartment manager was a lazy slob. John was pretty sure the guy was bartering drugs for rent payments. He sure as hell wasn't maintaining the complex. The lamp outside John's apartment was broken again. The overgrown grass and the cracked cement path that wound through the decrepit buildings were illuminated only by moonlight.

Moonlight marred by the shadow of a man.

John started in surprise, sloshing whiskey over his hand. Because of the direction his window faced he couldn't see the man himself, only his dark silhouette on the ground. Something in the way the slender figure stood, utterly motionless, set John's cop instincts to ringing. He waited, keeping his attention fixed on the shady form. After a minute, the shadow moved.

Only to become two shadows.

John blinked several times. He didn't think he was drunk, but those shapes looked identical. Twins? Maybe. But what the hell were they doing standing out there in the middle of the night? Standing there and not moving? As if they were casing the place ...

John almost shook his head at the ridiculous notion. As if there was anything around here worth stealing. Broken bottles, brown stalks of dying grass ... That’s about all there was to see. Calling himself a drunk, paranoid fool, John started to look away and return to his alcoholic endeavor.

That's when he saw the tails.

The glass dropped to the carpet, the amber liquid soaking into the fibers. John pressed his face against the cold window, trying to see around the corner. He could just make out one man's foot --

The screech made him bang his head on the glass. That was not a cat.

John backed away and went to the metal safe sitting in the corner of his dingy bedroom. He spun the combination and pulled out his service revolver. He still had the two bullets in his palm, warm from his body. He slid them into the chamber, struggling to perform the task with slightly shaky hands.

It was cold outside but not enough to make his breath fog. He stepped carefully down the shaky wrought iron stairs. They trembled with every step, humming softly like a tuning fork.

The concrete path was bare, the other apartment windows black with sleep. John cautiously approached the area where the two men had been standing. Nausea threatened to empty his stomach when he found nothing but the sickening sight and cloying smell of blood.

He stared at the drops of dark crimson liquid and felt his heart thump hard within his chest. Others might call him crazy, but John believed he could recognize the blood of violence. He'd been a cop for nineteen years. He'd seen the evidence of violent death often enough to know it when he saw it.

He searched the shadows.

He strained his ears.

But he was all alone.