Desperation in Death (In Death #55)(6)

Under a black umbrella, Auntie stood over the body. The trainee she’d put so much time and effort into, had such high hopes for, lay like a soaked rag, impaled with a jagged spear of wood.

Useless now, she thought. Useless.

“No sign of the other one.” Her head of security stood next to her. “What a fuckup. I’ll have a full report for you after I debrief. Do you want her taken to the crematorium?”

“No. 238 may go to the police. It’s not her nature, but in case she does, we’ll turn this on her. Have that idiot Nurse get the last blood draw from 238. When the cops find the body where you’ll deposit it, it’ll have 238’s blood on it. And have whatever 232 was wearing when we recruited her brought up. Get this disappointment in a van. You’ll take care of this tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ll relay precise instructions. I want no more carelessness. Understood?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Stupid, ungrateful bitch.”

Auntie kicked the body once, viciously, then walked away.





2





Dorian woke with her head pounding like an airjack. Her knee felt sick and squishy, like her stomach. She didn’t know where she was or what had happened. For a terrifying few minutes she didn’t know who she was.

Everything went blurry when she tried to sit up, so she lay still. The air smelled bad, and the ground felt rough and bumpy under her. Her ankle throbbed.

She tried hard to think of the last thing she remembered, but just couldn’t, so she concentrated on what she did know.

Somebody had hurt her, and she didn’t want to be wherever she was. That somebody might come back, hurt her again.

This time when she sat up, she braced against the dizziness, hissed her way through it. She saw some buildings—crapholes—some junk.

She wore gray pants—they looked like good pants except for the bloody tear in the left knee. Wet and clingy pants, like her shirt—her white shirt.

She pressed her fingers to her knee, squawked in pain before she could stop herself. She wore plain white sneakers, and the ankle above the left foot swelled like a balloon.

She’d had bumps and bruises and swollen parts before. Her mother got pissed and dealt them out like a hand of cards.

Had her mother done this to her?

No, no, she didn’t think so. She’d gotten away, again.

Spend Christmas in New York. Wasn’t she going to do that? But it didn’t feel like Christmas. It felt hot. Even though she couldn’t stop shivering, it felt hot.

Maybe she had a fever.

Wherever, whenever, she had to move. Maybe find a place she could steal some medicine, an ice pack.

She picked around the woodpile—got a splinter for her trouble—until she found something she could use as a kind of crutch.

Tears streamed, watering the pain as she used the wood to pull herself up. She hobbled her way toward the lights in the distance.

Lights meant people, people meant pockets to pick or stores with ice packs and blockers. Once she had those, she’d find a hole somewhere and sleep. Just sleep until the pain went away.

Dazed, her mind heading toward numb in defense, she walked.

And walked. And walked.



* * *



About the same time Dorian crawled through a broken window in a condemned building and fell into a blocker-and-tranq-induced sleep with ice packs strapped to her knee and ankle, Lieutenant Eve Dallas stood over a body on the north edge of Battery Park.

Last night’s storm had cleared the worst of a late June three-day heat wave and left the air in Lower Manhattan oddly refreshed.

Wouldn’t last, but it made a nice morning.

Except for the kid—just a kid, Eve thought. Hair in a frizzy red cloud around a sweet, heart-shaped face. Green eyes stared out behind the film death smeared on them.

Blood stained the white shirt, spreading out from the spear of wood in the girl’s chest.

No blood on the grass or ground, she noted. Could’ve washed away in the rain, but the body lay fairly sheltered under the leafy branches of a tree near the bike path.

She glanced toward the path—light traffic at this hour—then at the uniform who stood by.

“What do you know?”

“Sir. Not a hell of a lot. Guy decides to do some yoga in the park at sunrise.” The uniform chin-pointed at a man of around seventy in compression shorts and tank holding a rolled mat. He stood by a second uniform. “Wilfred Meadows. He lives a couple blocks away and says he likes this spot for his, ah, sunrise salutations. He saw the body, contacted nine-one-one.”

The officer cleared his throat. “When we arrived on scene, the witness was sitting cross-legged a few feet away from the victim, with his hands pressed together.”

The officer demonstrated. “He said he was trying to send positive energy to her spirit on her journey. And he cried a little because she’s just a kid. Says he’s got a redheaded granddaughter about her age.

“He comes here most mornings, he said, and rides his bike on the path three afternoons a week, leads a tai chi class in the park two afternoons a week. He hasn’t seen the victim around before. He thinks he’d have noticed because of the hair and his granddaughter.”

“Okay, get his information and let him go home. We’ll follow up. Wait.”