There was no use arguing with her. Nell was obviously determined to keep moving forward. Sara and Faith silently followed her toward the hallway.
Nell didn’t get far. She stopped just outside the guest bathroom. The shower curtain was pulled back. A dirty sliver of soap was beside a bottle of Axe shampoo. The seat was up on the toilet. The counter was cluttered with men’s toiletries—deodorant, a razor and shaving cream, a toothbrush that needed replacing and a half-empty tube of toothpaste. Little hairs filled the sink where Jared had shaved and failed to wash out the bowl.
Nell continued down the hall, mumbling, “I guess she kicked him out of the bathroom, too.”
Faith mumbled in an equally low voice, “You couldn’t pay me to share my bathroom with a man.”
“Amen,” Sara answered as she trailed Nell down the hallway. She stepped over a white chalk outline on the floor where Charlie had taken some DNA. Sara guessed from the look of it that someone had spat in the hall, probably to make a point.
Which further supported the idea that the shooters hadn’t randomly chosen their victims.
There was a spare bedroom on either side of the hall. The first one was being used as an office. The second appeared to be another unfinished project. The walls were a cheery yellow. The closet door was propped up on two sawhorses. Nell shook her head as she passed by, probably adding it to the list of Possum’s chores. She stopped a few feet from the master bedroom.
Sara heard Nell draw in a sharp breath. The woman’s hands shook as she grabbed the doorframe.
Charlie’s estimate may have been too conservative. Despite the passage of time, the pool of blood where Jared had fallen was still congealing. Light glimmered on the wet surface. The edges had curdled into a dark rust that seeped into the hardwood floor.
The rest of the blood had dried hours ago, leaving burgundy stains that told the story of violent altercation. The ceiling and walls weren’t the worst of it. Large boot prints mixed with Lena’s bare footprints back and forth across the floor. Splatter. Spatter. Spray. Drops. Knee prints. Handprints. Smears where an area rug must’ve gotten bunched up beneath Jared’s body. Tracks that showed where someone had crawled toward the bed. Still more shoe prints indicated where the neighbors and first responders rushed in to work on Jared. They must have all been covered in blood by the time they left. Long trails of red even managed to seep into the grout lines in the bathroom floor.
But the area around the door to the bedroom told the real story. This was where Jared had been shot. This was where Lena had first taken on the intruders. The dried blood splattering and spattering the walls and ceiling could fill a forensic textbook. They varied in size and shape, in coverage and scope, and would help map out every second of what had obviously been an extremely violent struggle. Even with the pieces of tooth and bone gone, the hammer and weapons taken into evidence, the shadow of death lurked in every corner.
Nell’s voice caught. “I can’t … I don’t know what …”
Sara didn’t say anything.
Nell sniffed, but no tears came. “Do you think a wet-vac would …” Her voice trailed off again. Her grip tightened on the splintered wood around the door.
Sara looked at Faith, who just shook her head.
“All right.” Nell thrust herself into the room. She picked her way toward the dresser. Though she was careful, there was no way to avoid the carnage. Her sneakers walked across dried footprints. Boot prints. Shoe prints. Handprints.
Her voice came out at a higher pitch. “Jared’s always been more comfortable in his pajamas.” She started opening drawers, which had presumably been photographed and inventoried by Charlie’s team. “No self-respecting man sits around in a hospital gown. I know he’ll want to put on something normal as soon as possible.”
Sara stood outside the door with Faith. They both silently watched the woman riffle Lena and Jared’s private things. The top three drawers obviously belonged to Lena. Her underthings were mostly utilitarian, though Nell managed to make a huffing sound when she found something that crossed the line. The bottom drawers belonged to Jared. They were filled with basketball shorts, T-shirts, and boxers. He wore a uniform eighty percent of his day. He probably had one suit in the closet for weddings and funerals and a couple of polos and khakis for less formal occasions.
Nell stopped her search. She rested her hands on her hips as she looked around the room. “I know he hasn’t stopped wearing pajamas.”
Sara kept her mouth shut right up until Nell made her way to the bedside table. “Nell.”
She looked up, but kept her hand on the drawer pull.
“That’s probably Lena’s.” Sara indicated the flattened book, which was clearly a romance novel, beside the hand lotion and tube of lip balm.
When Nell didn’t move, Faith said, “You probably don’t want to know what your son’s wife keeps in her bedside table.” She added, “Or your son, for that matter.”
“What on earth does that—”
She was cut off by the sound of motorcycle engines. Sara turned around. The front door was wide open. She saw at least six motormen in the street. If Sara knew cops, they’d come here to look after Jared’s mother. And just in time, too.
Faith seized on the opportunity, suggesting to Nell, “Why don’t you go talk to Jared’s friends? I’m sure they want to know how he’s doing.”
“I don’t have time to be everybody’s mama,” Nell grumbled, but she stomped out of the room anyway.
“Man.” Faith waited until Nell was out of earshot. “That woman has a razor for a mouth.”
Sara kept her own counsel. “Did you talk to Charlie?”
“He briefed me earlier.” Faith looked back at the bedroom. “Nell’s gonna get a call in a few minutes from the hospital. Jared’s fever is up.”
“He has an infection?”
“That’s what the nurse said.”
Nurses were seldom wrong about these things. Sara thought of Nell’s steely determination, all the plans she’d made in the last few hours for when Jared finally woke up. “I don’t think she’ll make it if he dies.”
“It’s always the strong ones who break the hardest.”
Sara tucked her chin to her chest.
Faith entered the room, walking across the dried blood with a cop’s impunity. “I guess I should look for those pajamas. Maybe that’ll make her feel like she’s helping him.”
“Maybe.” Sara leaned against the doorjamb as Faith searched the closet. She stared at the footprints scattered across the floor. The blood was so dry that it had skeletonized, but Charlie had been careful. Sara could still track the progress. It helped that Lena had such small feet. Sara always forgot how petite she was, barely five-four and probably one-ten on a heavy day.
Charlie Reed had said that four initial responders came from the neighborhood. Judging by the bloody prints on the floor, they had each waited by the bathroom door as the others took turns working on Jared. That left the two sets of boot prints to the assailants. They had both sported the cowboy variety, with flat plastic soles that left distinct exclamation points in the blood. One had a skull and crossbones carved into each heel. The other pair was an off brand with a generic set of furrows. Both of the attackers pronated, probably from riding motorcycles.