“Came at her from behind, that’s what he did. But it didn’t matter to him if she saw him. Knocked her down—sidewalk or pavement. No, gravelly path. See the scrapes on her elbows? Smacks her around. She tries to fight him off, tries to scream. Maybe she does scream, but he’s hauling her away, somewhere he can have his fun without anyone trying to interfere. Drags her, across the grass. Beats her into submission, rapes her. Ties the cord around her neck, kills her. When that part of the job’s over, it’s time for the real business.”
Eve replaced the goggles. “Strip off what’s left of her clothes, take her shoes, anything else she was wearing. Jewelry, anything that individualizes her. Carry her down here. Pose her. Take the eyes—carefully. Check the pose, make any necessary adjustments. Wash off all that blood in the lake if you want. Clean up, take your prize, and be on your way.”
“Ritual killing?”
“His ritual anyway. They can bag her,” Eve said as she straightened. “Let’s see if we can find the kill site.”
Roarke watched her slide her feet back into the shoes. She’d have been better off barefoot, he mused, but that wasn’t an option the lieutenant would consider.
Despite the heels, the glamorous dress—worse for wear now—the glitter of diamonds, she was every inch the cop. Tall, lean, steady as the rocks she’d just climbed on to view some new horror. You wouldn’t see the horror in her eyes, those long, golden brown eyes. She looked pale in the harsh lights, and the glare of them only accentuated her sharp features. Her hair, nearly the same color as those eyes, was short, choppy, and mussed now from the breeze off the water.
He watched her stop, hold a brief conversation with a uniform. Her voice would be flat, he knew, and brisk, and reveal nothing of what she felt.
He saw her gesture, and saw the stalwart and more comfortably dressed Peabody nod. Then Eve was peeling off from the group of cops and heading back to him.
“You’re going to want to go on home,” she told him. “This is going to take some time.”
“I suspect it will. Rape, strangulation, mutilation.” He lifted a brow when her eyes narrowed. “I keep my ear to the ground when it involves my cop. Can I help?”
“No. I’m keeping civilians—even you—out. He didn’t kill her down there, so we need to find where he did. I probably won’t make it home tonight.”
“Would you like me to bring you, or send you, a change of clothes?”
Since even with his amazing powers, he couldn’t just snap his fingers and put her in boots and trousers, she shook her head. “I’ve got spare stuff in my locker at Central.” She glanced down at the dress, sighed at the smears of dirt, the small tears, the stains from body fluid. She’d tried to be careful, but there you go, and God knew what he paid for the damn thing.
“Sorry about the dress.”
“It’s not important. Get in touch when you can.”
“Sure.”
She struggled—knew he knew she struggled—not to wince when he skimmed a finger down the dent in her chin, when he leaned down and brushed his lips to hers. “Good luck, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
As he walked back to the limo, he heard her raise her voice. “Okay, boys and girls, fan out. Teams of two. Standard evidence search.”
He wouldn’t have carried her far, Eve deduced. What would be the point? The added time, trouble, the additional risk of being seen. Still, they were talking Central Park, so it wasn’t going to be quick and easy unless they ran into incredible luck.
She did, inside of thirty minutes.
“Here.” She held up a hand to stop Peabody, then crouched. “Ground’s torn up some. Hand me the goggles. Yeah, yeah,” she said after she’d strapped them on. “We got some blood here.”
She went down on hands and knees, her nose nearly to the ground, like a hound scenting prey. “I want this area cordoned off. Call the sweepers. I want to see if they can find any trace. Look here.”
She got tweezers out of the field kit. “Broken fingernail. Hers,” she decided when she held it up to the light. “Didn’t make it easy for him, did you, Elisa? You did what you could.”
She bagged the nail, then sat back on her heels.
“Dragged her over the grass. You can see where she tried to dig in. Lost a shoe. That’s why she’s got grass stains and dirt on one foot. But he went back for it. Took her clothes with him.”
She pushed to her feet. “We’ll check bins in a ten-block radius in case he dumped them. They’ll be torn, bloody, dirty. We’ll see if we can get a description of what she was wearing, but even without it, we’ll look. Kept them though, didn’t you?” she murmured. “Kept them as a memento.”
“She lives a couple blocks from here,” Peabody commented. “Grabbed her close to home, dragged her here, did the job, then carried her over to the dump site.”
“We’ll canvass. Let’s get this coordinated, then take her residence.”
Peabody cleared her throat, studied Eve’s dress. “You’re going like that?”