, but the smell was making her queasy.
Raintree stared right through her with those odd eyes of his. “This is your first homicide, isn’t it?”
Again Hope nodded.
“If you’re going to throw up, do it in the hallway. I won’t have you contaminating my crime scene.”
How thoughtful. “I’m not going to contaminate your crime scene.”
“Good. If you insist on sticking around, interview the neighbors and see if they heard anything last night or early this morning.”
Gladly. Hope nodded yet again, then turned to escape from the room, leaving Gideon Raintree alone with the victim. She was quite certain that he was more comfortable with the dead woman than he was with her.
His new partner was intently interviewing a nosy neighbor, and the crime scene techs were doing their thing inside the apartment. Gideon sat beside Echo on the steps that led to the fourth floor.
“Is she here?” Echo asked softly.
No one was paying them any attention at the moment. Gideon didn’t expect that would last long. “She’s sitting behind us.”
Even though Echo knew she wouldn’t see anything, she glanced over her shoulder to the deserted steps. “I’m sorry. I should’ve known.”
Like Bishop, Echo was a young twenty-two. She was incredibly talented—as a guitar player and as a seer—but she had little or no control over her gift of prophecy. Calling her psychic wasn’t quite right. She couldn’t tell you where you’d left your wallet or whether or not you would marry within the next year, but she did see disasters. She dreamed of floods and earthquakes. Her nightmares came true.
Gideon had a touch of pre-cog ability, but not enough to make a significant difference. His instincts were just a hair sharper than was normal, but he didn’t dream about catastrophes and experience them as if he were there—there and unable to do anything to stop what was coming. Compared to Echo’s power, he considered talking to dead people a walk in the park.
“It was painless,” Gideon said as he put his arm around Echo’s shoulder. “She didn’t even know what happened.”
“What a load of bull,” Sherry muttered, her voice sour. “It hurt like hell!”
Fortunately, no one but Gideon heard her.
“Why would anyone kill Sherry?” Echo asked. The tears hadn’t stopped, but they were softer now. Constant but gentle. “Everyone liked her.”
“I don’t know.” Something Gideon didn’t like niggled at his brain. Bishop hadn’t recognized her killer. She’d never suspected that her life was in danger. There was no logical reason for her to be dead, much less savagely mutilated. In every case he’d had since moving to Wilmington four years ago, the victim had known the name of the killer. Drugs were the usual motive, but there had been a few crimes of misdirected passion. Murder by stranger was a rare thing. With a few notable exceptions, it took a personal connection for murder to occur.
He didn’t want to scare his cousin, but there was one possibility he couldn’t ignore. “Have you had any visions lately that might’ve put you in danger?”
Echo didn’t need to be asked twice. “Do you think the person who killed Sherry was after me?”
“Son of a bitch!” Sherry said softly. “I never should’ve dyed my hair blond and pink like Echo’s. We thought it would be such a good thing for the band, you know? A trademark. A…a thing…” She pouted. “I thought it was so cute.”
“It’s just a possibility,” Gideon said softly. “Look, you won’t be able to stay here for a while anyway, so I want you to find yourself a quiet place to crash, and I want you to stay there until I figure this out. Where are your folks?”
“St. Moritz.”
Figures. “I don’t want you going that far.” Besides, Echo’s parents were all but useless in a crisis. “You can stay at my place for a few days.”
Echo sighed and rested her head on her hands. “We have a gig next weekend, so I’m cool until then. I can call the coffee shop and tell them I won’t be in this week, and then I can go to Charlotte and stay with Dewey until Friday.”
Dewey. Great. The guy was a rail-thin goofy-looking saxophone player who had the hots for Echo, even though she insisted they were just friends. Still, a few days with Dewey would be better than staying around here if there was any chance the murderer had been after Echo and not Sherry. “Call me before you come back to town. You may have to cancel your gig.”
Echo didn’t protest, as he’d thought she might. “Maybe we should just cancel everything. We’ll never find a drummer to take Sherry’s place. And even if we do, it won’t be the same.”
Gideon didn’t see Echo often. He was twelve years older than she was, and they had no common interests. In fact, his little cousin had a wild streak that put his teeth on edge. Not that he’d always been a saint. But they were family, and he checked in on her now and then. He had even been to a smoky club to see her band play a couple of times. The music had been too loud and too angry to suit him, but the girls had all seemed to have a good time.
She was right. It would never be the same.
“You look tired.”