Survivor In Death (In Death #20)(3)

“Practically a baby.”

“Yeah.” Eve scanned the room, and her head cocked. “What do you see, Peabody?”

“Some poor kid who'll never get the chance to grow up.”

“Two pair of shoes over there.”

“Kids, especially upper income, swim in shoes.”

“Two of those backpack deals kids haul their stuff in. You seal up yet?”

“No, I was just--”

“I have.” Eve walked into the crime scene, reached down with a sealed hand, and picked up the shoes. “Different sizes. Go get the first on scene.”

With the shoes still in her hand, Eve turned back to the bed, to the child, as Peabody hurried out. Then she set them aside, took an Identipad out of her field kit.

Yes, it was harder when it was a child. It was hard to take such a small hand in yours. Such a small, lifeless hand, to look down at the young who'd been robbed of so many years, and all the joys, all the pains that went in them.

She pressed the fingers to the pad, waited for the readout.

“Officer Grimes, Lieutenant,” Peabody said from the doorway. “First on scene.”

“Who called this in, Grimes?” Eve asked without turning around.

“Sir, unidentified female.”

“And where is this unidentified female?”

“I ... Lieutenant, I assumed it was one of the vies.”

She glanced back now, and Grimes saw the tall, lean woman in mannish trousers, a battered leather jacket. The cool brown eyes, flat cop's eyes, in a sharply featured face. Her hair was brown, like her eyes, short, choppy rather than sleek.

She had a rep, and when that icy gaze pinned him, he knew she'd earned it.

“So our nine-one-one calls in murder, then hops into bed so she can get her throat slashed?”

“Ah . . .” He was a beat cop, with two years under his belt. He wasn't ranking Homicide. “The kid here might've called it, Lieutenant, then tried to hide in bed.”

“How long you had a badge, Grimes?”

“Two years--in January, Lieutenant.”

“I know civilians who've got a better sense of crime scene than you. Fifth victim, identified as Linnie Dyson, age nine, who is not a f**king resident of this f**king address. Who is not one Nixie Swisher. Peabody, start a search of the residence. We're looking for another nine-year-old girl, living or dead. Grimes, you idiot, call in an Amber Alert. She may have been the reason for this. Possible abduction. Move!”

Peabody snagged a can of Seal-It out of her own kit, hurriedly sprayed her shoes and hands.

“She could be hiding. If the kid called it in, Dallas, she could be hiding. She could be afraid to come out, or she's in shock. She could be alive.”

“Start downstairs.” Eve dropped on her hands and knees to look under the bed. “Find out what unit, what 'link placed the nine-one-one.”

“On that.”

Eve strode to the closet, searched through it, pushed into any area of the room where a child might hide. She started out, moving toward the boy's room, then checked herself.

You were a little girl, with what seemed to be a nice family. Where did you go when things got bad?

Somewhere, Eve thought, she herself never had to go. Because when things got bad for her, the family was the cause.

But she bypassed the other rooms and walked back into the master bedroom.

“Nixie,” she said quietly, as her eyes scanned. “I'm Lieutenant Dallas, with the police. I'm here to help you. You call the police, Nixie?”

Abduction, she thought again. But why slaughter an entire household to snatch a little girl? Easier to boost her off the street somewhere, even to come in, tranq her, carry her out. More likely they'd found her trying to hide, and she'd be curled up somewhere, dead as the rest.

She called for lights, full, and saw the smears of blood on the carpet on the far side of the bed. A small, bloody handprint, another, and a trail of red leading to the master bath.

Didn't have to be the kid's blood. More likely the parents. More likely, but there was a hell of a lot of it. Crawled through the blood, Eve thought.

The tub was big and sexy, double sinks in a long peachy-colored counter, and a little closet-type deal for the toilet.

A smudged and bloody swath stained the pretty pastel floor tiles.

“Goddamn it,” Eve mumbled, and followed the trail toward the thick, green glass walls of a shower station.

She expected to find the bloodied body of a small dead girl.

Instead she found the trembling form of a live one.

There was blood on her hands, on her nightshirt, on her face.

For a moment, one hideous moment, Eve stared at the child and saw herself. Blood on her hands, her shirt, her face, huddled in a freezing room. For that moment, she saw the knife, still dripping, in her hand, and the body--the man--she'd hacked to pieces lying on the floor.

“Jesus. Oh Jesus.” She took a stumbling step back, primed to run, to scream. And the child lifted her head, locked glassy eyes on hers, and whimpered.

She came back, hard, as if someone had slapped her. Not me, she told herself as she fought to get her breathing under control. Nothing like me.

Nixie Swisher. She has a name. Nixie Swisher.

“Nixie Swisher.” Eve said it out loud, and felt herself settle. The kid was alive, and there was a job to do.