Eternity in Death (In Death #24.5)(20)

“I’ll go with you,” Roarke told her. “I’m closer than Peabody. You can contact her on the way. You know you won’t find her in her apartment,” he added as they rushed downstairs.

“Maybe she got away. Maybe he just wanted to scare her. Goddamn it, I picked her out for him. I set her up.”

“You did nothing of the kind.” He snatched up her jacket from the newel, tossed it to her as he snagged his own. “He chose her, the minute he asked her to lie for him, he chose her. I’ll drive.”

He’d get there faster, Eve knew, and it freed her to contact Peabody, then take the report from Dispatch. There was no response at Allesseria’s apartment.

“Get inside,” Eve snapped. “The victim’s life is in immediate jeopardy. I have probable cause. Get the f**k inside.”

She thumped her fist against her leg as she waited, waited, as Roarke maneuvered her police-issue through streams and clogs of morning traffic.

Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Officers report the apartment is currently unoccupied. There is no sign of break-in or foul play.

No, Eve thought, there wouldn’t be. He didn’t take her there. “Start an immediate search in a five-block radius. Repeating description. Subject is female, Caucasian, age thirty-four, black and brown, last seen wearing black pants, black shirt, red jacket.”

Eve ended the transmission, stared out the windshield. “I know it,” she said, though Roarke had said nothing. “I know it. He didn’t leave her alive.”

Seven

Eve scanned sidewalks, the buildings as they approached Allesseria’s apartment. It was a tough, low end of the lower-middle-class neighborhood. Most self-respecting muggers would hunt for scores a few blocks away in any direction.

Pickings would be slim here, and the population willing to fight for what they carried in their pockets. Street level LCs would troll for johns elsewhere, too. All in all, the handful of blocks were safe simply because they were poor enough not to warrant much trouble.

But Allesseria Carter hadn’t been safe.

Eve’s gaze zeroed in on a subway exit. “Pull over, park wherever you can. She’d take the subway, wouldn’t she? Cheap and quick. If she did, this would’ve been her route home.”

She slammed out of the car the minute Roarke stopped, then pulled out her ’link to replay the message. Looked for landmarks. “It’s dark, and it’s mostly her face, but…” She held up her own ’link as if relaying a message, then looked over her left shoulder. “See here, could be that building in the background.”

She kept walking, studying the screen, the street. “Here, he took her right about here. Somebody would’ve picked up her ’link by now, or he did, but it was right about here he attacked.”

She scanned again, focused on a narrow building sagging between a Thai market and a boarded-up storefront. It was plastered with graffiti, and what looked like an old, torn CONDEMNED sign.

Eve took out her communicator, requested backup at the location. Then drawing her weapon, she started toward the door. “You carrying anything besides half the wealth of the world in your pocket?”

“Burglary tools, though this won’t require them.”

She nodded, reached down, and took her clutch piece out of its ankle holster. “You’re deputized, ace.” She sucked in a breath, kicked in the door.

She went in low and to the right while he took high and left in a routine they’d danced before. Sunlight dribbled through the broken windows, striking off shards of glass, filth, vermin droppings.

And blood.

Eve could smell it—not just the blood, but the death. That heavy human stench.

Roarke took out a penlight, shone it on the trail of smeared red.

He’d left her splayed on the floor, arms and legs spread out so her body formed a gruesome human X. Most of her clothes had been torn off, leaving only ragged remnants of black clinging to skin mottled with bruises.

Her blood spread out in a pool from the puncture wounds in her throat. Her eyes hadn’t lost their horror with death, but stared at the ceiling in a fixed expression of abject terror.

“Didn’t take her blood with him this time,” Eve said quietly. “Didn’t come prepared for that. But he made sure to hurt her plenty before he bled her out. Got off on her pain, got off on the power. See how he spread her out? Motherf*cker.”

Roarke touched a hand to Eve’s shoulder. “I’ll get your field kit.”

She worked the scene; it’s what she did. What she had to do. She could follow the trail of blood, of smeared footprints, and see Allesseria being dragged inside.

Kicking, Eve thought, her work shoes thudding hard against the broken concrete steps. Hard enough to cut through the cheap canvas before he’d hauled her inside.

He’d punctured her throat immediately, only steps inside the door. There was spatter against the dirty wall where she’d gushed. Where she’d collapsed. Dragged her unconscious from there, she noted. Gave himself a little more room to work. To beat her with his fists, to rape her. All while the blood ran out of her.

But he’d taken some, too. Ingested it, bottled it. She’d find out.

“Time of death oh-three-thirty,” she said for the record. “Took her about an hour to die.” She sat back on her haunches. “A block and a half from home.”