“That one thing, Eve,” he said as she turned away. “Answer that one thing. Do you believe I’d betray you with her?”
She drew in what little she had and turned to face him. “No. No, I don’t believe you’d betray me with her. I don’t believe you’d cheat on me. But I’m afraid, and I’m sick in my heart that you might look at her, then at me. And regret.”
He took a step toward her. “Eve.”
“If you don’t let me go now, this will never be right.”
She made it out of the room, down the stairs. She heard Summerset say her name, and kept moving. Get out, was all she could think. Get away.
“You need your coat.” As she yanked at the door, Summerset draped it over her shoulders. “It’s very cold. Eve.” He spoke her given name quietly, and nearly shattered her last line of defense. “Will you let her use you both this way?”
“I don’t know. I—” Her communicator beeped. “Oh God, oh God.” She bore down. “Block video,” she ordered. “Dallas.”
Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve…
She shoved her arms into the sleeves of the coat as she was ordered to Sarah Child. She responded as she strode out to the car.
And she felt Roarke watching her from their bedroom window as she drove away to do the job.
Eve stood over the body of Reed Williams and blocked out everything but the work. She knew Eric Dawson—who’d found Williams floating and had jumped in to try to save him—was currently in the locker room with a uniform.
The med-techs who responded had fought to revive him, even after Dawson’s attempts, then Nurse Brennan’s, as CPR had failed.
So her crime scene and the body had been severely compromised. And Reed Williams was still very dead.
She crouched down, examined the bruise and shallow laceration along his jaw. Otherwise, from her exam, his body was unmarked. He was wearing black swim trunks, and a pair of blue-lens minigoggles floated in the pool.
As Peabody hadn’t yet arrived on scene, she turned the body herself to study the back, the legs, the shoulders.
“No visible trauma other than the jawline, some superficial scratches consistent with being pulled out of the pool on the back. No sign of struggle. She rose, began to walk around the pool. “No visible blood. Might’ve been blood, and it was washed away.” Frowning, she looked around for a weapon that might have caused the wound on the jaw.
“Vic stands near the pool. Somebody strikes out, vic falls back into the water. Lost consciousness and drowns? Maybe, maybe, but the bruise isn’t that severe. But maybe.”
She kept walking, and studied the edge of the pool. Walked back, hunkered down again, and used microgoggles and a penlight to get a better look at the wound. “Flat. More a scrape than a cut. In the water already maybe. Yeah, it’s the right angle, isn’t it? Vic’s taking his swim, gets to the wall, holds onto the edge for a minute. That’s what you do. Slips, loses his grip, knocks his chin on the skirting. But why? Just clumsiness? Didn’t strike me as a clumsy guy. And does that knock end up drowning him? Or did he have help?”
She went back to the body, shook her head. “There’s no skin under his nails. No sealant, no nothing. Clean as a damn whistle. What do you do if somebody holds your head under? You fight, you scratch. And if I’m standing on the skirt of the pool holding some guy under—for instance, a strong guy, a guy who works out regularly—I’m probably going to give his head a good thump against the wall for insurance. Easy to mistake a head knock for accidental.”
Frowning again, she began to search, to feel the back of Williams’s head. No bump, no laceration, no trauma.
Looked simple, looked easy. Looked accidental.
And she thought: No fucking way.
“Bag and tag him,” Eve ordered and straightened. “ME to determine. Priority request for Morris. I want the sweepers to go over the edging. I’m looking for blood or skin.”
She moved off, into the locker room where Dawson sat in a baggy sweatsuit drinking hot coffee. “Officer.” Eve nodded to the uniform. “Detective Peabody should be arriving momentarily. Direct her here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Dawson.”
“He was floating.” Dawson’s hands began to shake a little. “He was floating. I thought at first he was just…just floating, the way you do. Then I saw he wasn’t.”
“Mr. Dawson, I’m going to record this. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes.”
&nbs