The room buzzed with cops, but she was alone, very much alone when she crouched by the body, the toes of her boots at the edge of a river of blood.
What should she feel, she asked herself. She didn’t know, only knew what to do.
Routine.
She switched on her recorder.
“The victim is female, Caucasian, approximately fifty-five. Facial bruises and contusions were incurred in a vehicular accident earlier on this date, and treated at Dallas City Hospital. Other injuries so incurred are on record. Initial visual shows a single deep gash across the throat, which severed the jugular. Blood-spatter patterns consistent with same.”
She sat back on her heels, let her gaze scan the floor, the walls, the sofa.
Work the scene, she ordered herself.
“She was sitting on the sofa, facing out into the room. Pressure syringe on the cushion. Needed a hit. He gave her a hit. Tox screen hereby ordered to determine substance and amount. Talking to her, taking time to talk to her, placate her, until she told him what she’d spilled, what we knew. Already packed, ready to go. Sure, all packed and ready because she’d tagged him from the stolen car. Note to check the in-dash ’link in the vehicle stolen from hospital lot for communications from vic to McQueen.”
She tagged him, Eve thought. Warned him, gave him time to pack up, plan, and plot. She set up her own murder.
While she waited for Roarke and the kit, Eve imagined it. The frantic rush in the stolen car from the hospital, after she’d done murder. After she’d killed in the same way she’d be killed so soon after. By the man she ran to.
Was that irony? she wondered. Some sort of brutal poetic justice.
She’d have been hurting, Eve thought. Head, ribs, chest.
Eve let her eyes track over the body. Badly swollen left ankle. That had to give her pain. Limping, trying to run, jonesing, sweating, heart racing, head pounding. Sick and hurt, a cop’s blood on her hands, and thinking only of getting back to the man who’d kill her.
Thinking, too, no doubt, of another cop. Thinking of payback and paydays, of causing pain, spilling blood.
Was it more irony that her mother’s last thoughts had revolved around her? Hateful, violent, murderous thoughts.
She straightened when Roarke came back with the kit.
“Easy enough to see how it played out,” she began, and kept her eyes on his face. Kept them on him until she felt centered again.
“We’re going to find she contacted him from the stolen car. That gave him time to pack up what he wanted or needed to take with him. There aren’t enough electronics in here, not for McQueen. He’s got what he wanted there with him. Clothes, personal items, cash, alternate IDs. He had time. Most likely he already had a go bag stashed with the essentials.”
“He’d want the flexibility of being able to leave, move quickly, at any time,” Roarke agreed.
“I bet he kept that suit, the sharp one from the bank. He doesn’t know you found the accounts. He doesn’t know that yet. Can you trace any transactions he makes?”
“I can.”
“Set that up, okay? But I’ve got to play the team deal. Nikos! I need a minute.”
“You need help with her?”
“No. Roarke found McQueen’s primary accounts. We’ve got his money.”
“That’s good work.” Nikos gave Roarke a considering look. “Our guys are still bouncing around. I need that data. We can freeze the funds, block him out, make him sweat.”
“You could,” Eve said, “or you could track any activity, and maybe lock his new location.”
“And if he uses the money, manages to get someplace we don’t have extradition, he’s gone.”
“It’s a chance. He’s not finished, Nikos. He didn’t get what he wants, w
hat he’s been working toward, planning. You better believe no matter how he rolls on this, under it he’s pissed. He’s furious. He wants another shot.”
“At you, maybe. Or he’s smart enough to cut his losses. Look, I’ll run this by my superiors—both ways. We’ll make a decision, but I need the data.”