Echoes in Death (In Death #44)(2)

“I heard you, and was grateful, when she went on to explain to you how the police were far too focused on punishment rather than reintegration, that you refrained from punching her.”

“Thought about it. You can bet your fine ass that if one of her ROs—as she called them—walked up, conked her on her whipped-cream head, and ran off with the glitters she was dripping in, she wouldn’t be lecturing me about how the law needs heart and compassion and forgiveness.”

“She’s never stood over a body or had to tell someone the person they loved is gone. And so has no idea the heart and compassion those duties require.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t punch her—or anybody.” A little smug about it, she snuggled more comfortably in the seat. “Score for me. Now we can go home, get out of these duds.”

“I enjoyed seeing you in your duds almost as much as I’ll enjoy getting you out of them.”

“And we can sleep late tomorrow, right? Laze around like a couple of slugs and—”

She broke off as her habitual cop-scan of the street arrowed in. “Jesus! Stop!”

He’d seen for himself an instant before the woman stepped out into the street and into the glare of his headlights.

Naked, bloody, eyes wide and empty as moons, the woman continued to walk.

Eve leaped from the car, started to yank off her coat, but Roarke beat her to it, wrapped his own around the woman.

“She’s near to frozen,” he said to Eve. “You’ll be all right now,” he began, and the woman lifted an icy hand to his face, pressed.

“Are you an angel?” she asked. Then those wide eyes rolled up white as she crumpled.

“Get her into the car. Is there a blanket in the back?”

“In the boot.” He carried the woman to the car, laid her in the warmth as Eve grabbed a blanket.

“I’m back here with her. Toss me that stupid purse thing. Closest hospital is St. Andrew’s.”

“I know it.” He tossed Eve her bag, got behind the wheel, and floored it.

Eve pulled out her ’link, contacted the hospital. “This is Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.” She rattled off her badge number. “I’m bringing in an unidentified female, early to mid-twenties, injuries undetermined, but she’s unconscious, shocky, and likely heading into hypothermia. Five minutes out.” She judged Roarke’s speed. “Make that three.”

She used the ’link to take a photo of the woman’s face, of what she saw now were ligature marks around the neck.

“Someone tuned her up, choked her, and, odds are high, raped her. She’s got some cuts, plenty of abrasions, but I don’t think all this blood’s hers.”

“She can’t have been wandering around in that state very long. Not only because it’s barely into the single digits, but someone would have seen her.”

“Blood in her hair,” Eve murmured, probing. “She took a hit, back of the head.” Wishing she’d grabbed her field kit, she did a visual exam of the hands, the nails. Then glanced up when Roarke swung into the turn for the ER.

She hadn’t given them much notice, but two doctors or nurses—who could tell—stood outside with a gurney. Eve shoved the door open even as Roarke braked. “She’s back here. She’s been choked—rope, scarf—has a head wound, likely from a blunt object. She needs a rape kit.”

As she spoke, Eve moved out of the way while they transferred the woman to the gurney. They rolled her inside at a run, with the one who barely looked old enough to order a legal brew snapping out orders.

“Keep up.” He glanced back at Eve and Roarke. “I need any information you have.”

They banged through the doors of an exam room where more medicals waited. “On three!”

On three they lifted the unconscious woman from gurney to table.

“Core temp’s ninety-one point four,” someone shouted over the rest.

“I’ll get the car out of the way,” Roarke murmured to Eve. “And be back with you.”

IVs, warming blankets, poking, prodding.

God, she hated hospitals.

“Tell me what you know.” The doctor, Eve assumed, glanced briefly at Eve while he worked.

He didn’t appear to be much older than his current patient, with a mop of loosely curling brown hair around a pretty face roughened by a long-night’s scruff and fatigue shadows under his clear blue eyes.

“She stepped out into the street—Carnegie Hill. Just like you see her. Walking like she’d had a few too many, shocky, speech slurred. She asked my husband if he was an angel, then passed out.”

“Core temp’s ninety-three point two and rising.”

“I need you to bag her hands,” Eve said. “After I get her prints. Not all that blood’s hers.”

“Just let me finish saving her life first.”

Eve gave them room, kept her eyes on the woman’s face.

Young, very attractive under the bruising. Mixed race—some Asian, some black. Slight build, no more than a hundred and ten on a little over five feet. Manicured fingers—very pale pink nails, same for the toes. Pierced ears but no earrings. No tats she’d seen. Nearly waist-length black hair, in knots and tangles.

She stepped out, started running a facial recognition with the photo she’d taken in the car. Might not work, she knew, considering the battering that face had taken.