Survivor in Death (In Death 20)

“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.

One quick survey told Eve none of the blood was the child’s.

Even with the punch of relief, the stiffening of spine, she wished for Peabody. Kids weren’t her strong suit.

“Hey.” She crouched, carefully tapped the badge she’d hooked to her waistband with a finger that was nearly steady now. “I’m Dallas. I’m a cop. You called us, Nixie.”

The child’s eyes were wide and glazed. Her teeth chattered.

“I need you to come with me, so I can help you.” She reached out a hand, but the girl cringed back and made a sound like a trapped animal.

Know how you feel, kid. Just how.

“You don’t have to be afraid. Nobody’s going to hurt you.” Keeping one hand up, she reached in her pocket with the other for her communicator. “Peabody, I’ve got her. Master bath. Get up here.”

Wracking her brain, Eve tried to think of the right approach. “You called us, Nixie. That was smart, that was brave. I know you’re scared, but we’re going to take care of you.”

“They killed, they killed, they killed . . .”

“They?”

Her head shook, like an old woman with palsy. “They killed, they killed my mom. I saw, I saw. They killed my mom, my dad. They killed—”