New York to Dallas (In Death #33)(80)

“Ambulance is on the way. We need to get them out, Melinda and the girl. Get them medical attention before we take statements. I want this scene secured and every inch of it gone over. We’ve issued a BOLO for the vehicle he’s driving.”

He won’t be driving it long, Eve thought, but nodded.

“We’ve got agents at every transpo station in the city,” Nikos added. “If he ditches the vehicle and tries to get out of Dallas by other means, we’ll find him.”

“He had to leave in a hurry.” Laurence glanced at the body. “He could’ve left something behind besides his dead partner. If he’s going to make a mistake, this would be the time. I’ll start on the scene with a couple of your men. Lieutenant Ricchio, continue when your CSU arrives.”

“Good. I’m going to notify Darlie’s parents, get some people knocking on doors.”

They watched as Detective Price lifted Darlie into his arms. He murmured to her, and she closed her eyes; he pressed her face to his shoulder as he carried her out.

Didn’t want her to see the body, Eve thought, the blood. Spare her from that anyway. She’d have enough horror in her head already.

Melinda came out, leaning on her sister. She looked at death, then at Eve. “Thank you. Again. He said to tell you to stick around. He said, ‘Tell Dallas to stick around. More fun to come.’ He’s . . .”

“Later, Melinda.” Bree gripped her tighter.

“I need to stay with Darlie. She needs me to stay with her.”

“I’ll be around,” Eve told her. “We’ll talk later.”

“Come on, Melly, come with me. We need to tell Mom and Dad you’re okay,” Bree said as she led her sister out.

“Bad as it is,” Ricchio said, “it’s a good day.”

But it wasn’t over, Eve thought. Not nearly over. “I’m Homicide. I’ll take the body if you have no objections.”

“I’d appreciate it. We’ll inform the ME. Do you want an aide or assistant?”

“Roarke’s done it before.”

“Then I’ll leave it to you.” His glance at the body, the blood, held no pity. “It looks pretty straightforward.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it does.” She stepped over to the body again. “I’ll need a field kit,” she said to Roarke, then looked at him, held his eyes when he said nothing. She reached up, switched off her recorder. “Please. I need to do this. It’ll be easier if you help me do it.”

“Then I will. But Eve, there’s a great deal to say when this is done.”

“I know it.”

“I’ll get the kit.”

The room buzzed with cops, but she was alone, very much alone when she crouched by the body, the toes of her boots at the edge of a river of blood.

What should she feel, she asked herself. She didn’t know, only knew what to do.

Routine.

She switched on her recorder.

“The victim is female, Caucasian, approximately fifty-five. Facial bruises and contusions were incurred in a vehicular accident earlier on this date, and treated at Dallas City Hospital. Other injuries so incurred are on record. Initial visual shows a single deep gash across the throat, which severed the jugular. Blood-spatter patterns consistent with same.”

She sat back on her heels, let her gaze scan the floor, the walls, the sofa.

Work the scene, she ordered herself.

“She was sitting on the sofa, facing out into the room. Pressure syringe on the cushion. Needed a hit. He gave her a hit. Tox screen hereby ordered to determine substance and amount. Talking to her, taking time to talk to her, placate her, until she told him what she’d spilled, what we knew. Already packed, ready to go. Sure, all packed and ready because she’d tagged him from the stolen car. Note to check the in-dash ’link in the vehicle stolen from hospital lot for communications from vic to McQueen.”

She tagged him, Eve thought. Warned him, gave him time to pack up, plan, and plot. She set up her own murder.

While she waited for Roarke and the kit, Eve imagined it. The frantic rush in the stolen car from the hospital, after she’d done murder. After she’d killed in the same way she’d be killed so soon after. By the man she ran to.

Was that irony? she wondered. Some sort of brutal poetic justice.

She’d have been hurting, Eve thought. Head, ribs, chest.

Eve let her eyes track over the body. Badly swollen left ankle. That had to give her pain. Limping, trying to run, jonesing, sweating, heart racing, head pounding. Sick and hurt, a cop’s blood on her hands, and thinking only of getting back to the man who’d kill her.

Thinking, too, no doubt, of another cop. Thinking of payback and paydays, of causing pain, spilling blood.

Was it more irony that her mother’s last thoughts had revolved around her? Hateful, violent, murderous thoughts.

She straightened when Roarke came back with the kit.

“Easy enough to see how it played out,” she began, and kept her eyes on his face. Kept them on him until she felt centered again.

“We’re going to find she contacted him from the stolen car. That gave him time to pack up what he wanted or needed to take with him. There aren’t enough electronics in here, not for McQueen. He’s got what he wanted there with him. Clothes, personal items, cash, alternate IDs. He had time. Most likely he already had a go bag stashed with the essentials.”