Kendra Ironheart read the dead man's name twice, because the last one had been her boyfriend. A woman was killing men in Palmshade, and Kendra had sworn to stop her. Now a second body lay cooling near the old cannery, and the police were already moving to seal it. Her phone buzzed. The clerk's voice came low and quick. "Fresh one. They're taping it off in twenty minutes." Mr. Tom passed her tips from inside the Palmshade force, for a price she paid in cash and silence. He was fat and sour, a man who sold evidence like fish at a market. She trusted nothing about him except his greed. "Twenty minutes isn't enough," Kendra said. "Traffic's locked." "Then don't take traffic," he said, and hung up. She looked out the window. A battered police cruiser sat in the lot across the street. Its lights still worked. A shotgun lay in the back seat. Someone had stolen it and dumped it there. Kendra had never driven anything so illegal. She had also never let a clue rot behind yellow tape. She crossed the street and tore the door open. The wires under the column were already cut and hanging. She touched two together. The engine caught. Kendra flipped the lights on and drove. Cars peeled aside for the flashing red and blue. She ran two reds and climbed a curb. The cannery came up fast. One squad car sat out front, an officer unrolling tape across the gate. She stopped hard and stepped out. The officer raised a hand. "Scene's closed, ma'am." "Give me one minute," Kendra said. "No." She did not argue. She walked past him. He grabbed her arm. That was the mistake. Kendra turned, lifted him by his belt and collar, and set him down ten feet away in the weeds. He stayed there, stunned, reaching for his radio. Kendra knelt by the body. A man, middle-aged, throat marked. Beside his hand lay a cluster of green mushrooms, caps glowing faint even in daylight. Someone had placed them there. The same kind had been left on her boyfriend. A signature. The killer's signature. She pulled her phone out and shot three photos. The officer's radio crackled. More units were coming. Kendra stood. Near the loading dock sat a heavy steel safe, bolted and scorched, its door scraped raw. Someone had tried to force it open and failed. The dead man's hand pointed toward it. She photographed that too. Tires screamed in the distance. She ran for the cruiser. She had the clue now. She also had an officer who could name her, a stolen police car, and a safe she could not crack sitting at a murder scene the whole force was about to swarm. The glowing mushrooms meant the killer was close and getting bold. Kendra drove into the dark and started planning how to open that safe before they moved it.

Kendra drove the stolen cruiser hard through the dark, red and blue lights off now. The officer she'd thrown had radioed her in. Behind her, sirens climbed. The whole force hunted this car, and she still needed to crack a safe they would soon haul away. If they cornered her, the trail to the killer died tonight. She dialed the clerk. He picked up on the second ring, chewing something. "They're saying a woman stole one of our cars," Mr. Tom said. He sounded amused, not worried. "Fat lot of good it'll do you. That's a hot plate now." "I need the safe," Kendra said. "The one at the cannery. Where are they taking it?" "Impound lot. Tonight." He paused. She heard him calculating the price. "Five hundred, and I'll tell you the gate code." "Done." She wasn't paying for a code. She was paying to know where the safe would be, far from the murder scene swarm. Two cruisers swung onto the road behind her. Their lights filled her mirror. Kendra floored it, then yanked the wheel into a narrow service alley. The car scraped a wall and lost a mirror. She killed the engine behind a dumpster and dropped low in the seat. The two cruisers shot past the alley mouth. Their sirens faded. She breathed out slow. She couldn't keep this car. The plate had burned her. Kendra grabbed the shotgun from the back seat and wiped the wheel and door with her sleeve. She left the cruiser dead in the alley. Let them find it empty. Let them think the woman had run. On foot, she was nobody. On foot, no patrol had a plate to chase. She walked out the far end and found the impound lot by the clerk's directions. A chain fence ringed it. Inside, under a buzzing lamp, sat the scorched safe on a flatbed. The reinforced steel box. The killer had tried to burn it open and failed. Whatever was inside had stayed inside. Kendra climbed the fence. Her hands found the top rail and she hauled her weight over. She dropped onto gravel and crossed to the flatbed. Up close the safe was huge, bolted and blackened, its handle fused by heat. She gripped the wheel handle and pulled. Nothing. She braced a boot on the frame and threw her whole back into it. The metal screamed. The scorched bolt sheared. The door swung wide. Inside lay a single thing. A stuffed bear, dark red glass eyes catching the lamplight. Pinned to its chest was a note in careful handwriting. "For the next one. He was sweet, like you'll be." Kendra's hands went cold. The killer knew about her. The killer was leaving messages for her now. She tucked the bear under her arm and climbed back over the fence into the dark, hunted but closer than ever.