The Silent Girl

flitted against the sky. All at once, he was desperate to get out of that dark alley and flee this building. So desperate that it took every ounce of willpower not to run back toward Beach Street. Toward the lights. He took a deep breath and blurted: “The cook shot them. He shot them all. And then he killed himself.”
    With that, Billy turned and quickly waved them on, leading them away from that blighted building with its ghosts and its echoes of horror. Harrison Avenue was a block ahead, its lights and traffic beckoning warmly. A place for the living, not the dead. He was walking so quickly that his group fell behind, but he could not shake off the sense of menace that seemed to coil ever tighter around them. A sense that something was watching them. Watching
him
.
    A woman’s loud shriek made him spin around, heart hammering. Then the group suddenly erupted in noisy laughter, and one of the men said, “Hey, nice prop! Do you use it on all your tours?”
    “What?” said Billy.
    “Scared the crap out of us! Looks pretty damn realistic.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Billy.
    The man pointed at what he assumed was part of the performance. “Hey, kid, show him what you found.”
    “I found it over there, by the trash bin,” said one of the brats, holding up his discovery. “Ewww. It even
feels
real. Gross!”
    Billy took a few steps closer and suddenly found he couldn’t move,couldn’t speak. He froze, staring at the object the boy was holding. He saw inky droplets trickle down and spatter the boy’s jacket, but the boy didn’t seem to notice it.
    It was the boy’s mother who started screaming first. Then the others joined in, shrieking, backing away. The baffled boy just stood there holding up his prize as blood dripped, dripped onto his sleeve.

 
    I HAD DINNER THERE JUST LAST SATURDAY,” SAID DETECTIVE BARRY Frost as they drove toward Chinatown. “I took Liz to see the ballet at the Wang Theater. She loves ballet, but man, I just don’t get it. I fell asleep halfway through. Afterward, we walked over to the Ocean City restaurant for dinner.”
    It was two AM , way too early in the morning for anyone to be so damn chatty, but Detective Jane Rizzoli let her partner babble on about his latest date as she focused on driving. To her tired eyes, every streetlamp seemed too bright, every passing headlight an assault on her retinas. An hour ago, she’d been warmly cocooned in bed with her husband; now she was trying to shake herself awake as she navigated traffic that had inexplicably slowed to a stall and crawl at an hour when sane citizens should be home sleeping.
    “You ever eat there?” Frost asked.
    “What?”
    “Ocean City restaurant. Liz ordered these great clams with garlic and black bean sauce. It’s making me hungry just thinking about it. I can’t wait to go back for more.”
    “Who’s Liz?” said Jane.
    “I told you about her last week. We met at the health club.”
    “I thought you were seeing someone named Muffy.”
    “Maggie.” He shrugged. “That didn’t work out.”
    “Neither did the one before her. Whatever her name was.”
    “Hey, I’m still trying to figure out what I want in a woman, you know? It’s been, like, forever since I was on the market. Man, I had no idea there were so many single girls around.”
    “Women.”
    He sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Alice used to pound that into my head. You’re supposed to say
women
now.”
    Jane braked at a red light and glanced at him. “You and Alice talk very much these days?”
    “What’s there to talk about?”
    “Ten years of marriage, maybe?”
    He looked out the window at nothing in particular. “There’s nothing else to say. She’s moved on.”
    But Frost hasn’t, thought Jane. Eight months ago, his wife, Alice, had moved out of their home. Ever since, Jane had been subjected to a chronicle of Frost’s frantic but joyless adventures with women. There’d been the buxom blonde who told him she was wearing no underwear. The frighteningly athletic librarian with the well-thumbed copy of the Kama Sutra. The fresh-faced Quaker who drank him under the table. He related all these tales with a mingling of bewilderment and wonder, but it was sadness, more than anything else, that she saw in his eyes these days. By no means was he a bad catch. He was lean and fit and good-looking in a bland sort of way, so dating should be easier for him than it had been.
    But he still misses Alice
.
    They