A Deadly Influence (Abby Mullen Thrillers #1)(83)

She unholstered her gun and quietly crept through the dark yard. There was a light on inside the house. Carefully peering through the window, she scrutinized the room. It looked like a sort of office coupled with a home gym. A treadmill covered with unfolded laundry. A desk with a large monitor.

And in the doorway, on the dusty floor, a sticky reddish-brown smear.

She went back to the door, tried the handle. The door was unlocked. She pushed it quietly with her body, both hands on the gun now, holding it steady.

Signs of a struggle, a chair knocked to the floor. Taking a shallow breath, she took a step inside. There. An inert body lying facedown on the floor in a large pool of glistening blood.

Stepping softly, she made her way to the closed bathroom door. Turned the doorknob and kicked it open, gun aimed ahead. A few bloody footprints on the creamy floor. Shower curtain hiding the bath. She pulled it aside with one swift movement, made sure there was no one there, already swiveling around, pausing, listening for any sound.

Next came the bedroom. No one under the bed or in the closet. She checked the office, heart leaping at the silhouette of a man, but it was a coat and a hat hanging on the wall. The computer was still on, and her mind registered that it was Gabrielle on the screen even as she checked for anyone hiding inside the room.

The house was clear.

She hurried to the inert body, checking the pulse, finding none; the vacant eyes stared at nothing, the hair matted and sticky. So much blood everywhere.

Dashing outside, she reached her car in less than ten seconds. She grabbed the mic and hit the button.

“Central, Lieutenant Abby Mullen, I have a ten-twenty-four, man down. I need backup and medical assistance.”

Static, then the choppy, interrupted voice of the dispatcher: “ . . . the location, what’s the location?”

Abby gave them the address and repeated the need for patrol assistance as well as an ambulance. The radio crackled as the dispatcher called all units in the area to respond, but Abby didn’t stay to listen. She slammed the door and went back into the house, heart thrumming in her chest. She leaned down by Eric’s body, checking again for vitals, noticing the blood-matted hair, the crimson trickle on his forehead, the ragged wounds in his back. He was well beyond anything she could do to help him.





CHAPTER 56


“No rigor mortis,” Dr. Gomez told Abby. “Livor mortis just starting to show. Body temperature still almost normal. He’s been dead for less than three hours.”

Abby kept her eyes on Gomez, avoiding the gaping wound in Eric Layton’s skull. The smell of blood was overpowering. The pool of glistening blood surrounding the victim was still fresh, and it was difficult to avoid stepping in it. Abby and Gomez had both put on shoe booties in addition to the gloves.

Abby ignored the nausea that assailed her. She’d been involved in worse crime scenes than this. She would deal. “Did the head wound kill him?”

“I don’t know if it killed him, but I doubt he kept moving after getting it. There’s major trauma to the skull. See the bone fragments here?”

“No, I don’t.” Abby glanced away.

Gomez’s eyes softened. “Well, they’re there. But the actual cause of death might be from the blood loss, and most of it didn’t come from the head wound.”

“Where then?”

“I’ll show you.” Gomez glanced up at the police photographer. “Are you done? Can we move him?”

The photographer nodded. Gomez motioned to her paramedics. “Try to avoid stepping in the blood.”

They walked over and picked Eric’s body up, flipped him, and placed him on the gurney faceup. His shirt was soaked with blood. A ragged tear in the fabric exposed another deep wound.

“Stab wound in his chest,” Gomez said. “You’re searching for two murder weapons. A blunt weapon bashed his skull. And a blade.”

“Looks like the murderer also stomped him,” Abby said, pointing at a faint outline of mud on the victim’s shoulder. “See? That seems like a footprint.”

“Maybe,” Gomez said. “I’ll tell you if there’s any bruising to the shoulder.”

“When’s the autopsy?” Abby asked.

“I’ll let you know, but if this case is linked to the Nathan Fletcher kidnapping case, I suspect it’s high priority,” Gomez said. “So probably tomorrow morning.”

The paramedics rolled the gurney out. Abby stood up and glanced around the room, her breathing shallow. The coppery smell of the blood was slowly clogging her nostrils. A sudden image of Eric sitting next to Gabrielle Fletcher, trying to console her, flashed through Abby’s mind.

There were blood smears everywhere, a red handprint on the kitchen counter. A spatter of blood on the wall. Eric had struggled. Abby inspected the fallen chair, wondering if this was what had been used to bash Eric’s head. It didn’t look like it; the chair was clean. Then she noticed the small black dumbbell in the corner of the room. It was the type sold in pairs. Where was its twin?

“Did you find the other dumbbell?” she asked a masked woman from the forensic crew.

The woman shook her head. “Didn’t see it.”

Maybe that was the blunt weapon the murderer had used. He’d stabbed Eric and then, in the struggle, somehow lost his knife. Grabbed one of Eric’s dumbbells and bashed Eric’s head with it.