Survivor in Death (In Death 20)

“Okay, I’ll see if—”

“No, I went down to get one. I’m not supposed to, but I went down to get one, and Linnie didn’t want to wake up and come. I went down to the kitchen, and I saw.”

With blood smeared on both of them now, Eve decided washing up would have to wait. “What did you see, Nixie?”

“The shadow, the man, who went into Inga’s room. I thought . . . I was going to watch, just for a minute, if they were going to do it, you know.”

“Do what?”

“Sex. I wasn’t supposed to, but I did, and I saw!”

There were tears and snot as well as blood on the kid’s face now. With nothing else handy, Eve pulled a wipe rag out of her field kit and passed it over.

“What did you see?”

“He had a big knife and he cut her, he cut her bad.” She closed her own hand over her throat. “And there was blood.”

“Can you tell me what happened then?”

As the tears gushed, she rubbed the wipe and her hands over her cheeks, smearing them with blood. “He left. He didn’t see me, and he left and I got Inga’s ’link an

d I called Emergency.”

“That’s stand-up thinking, Nixie. That was really smart.”

“But I wanted Mom.” Her voice cracked with tears and mucus flowing. “I wanted Dad, and I went up the back way, Inga’s way, and I saw them. Two of them. They were going into my room, and Coyle’s room, and I knew what they would do, but I wanted my mom, and I crawled in, and I got their blood on me, and I saw them. They were dead. They’re all dead, aren’t they? Everybody. I couldn’t go look. I went to hide.”

“You did right. You did exactly right. Look at me. Nixie.” She waited until those drenched eyes met hers. “You’re alive, and you did everything right. Because you did, it’s going to help me find the people who did this, and make them pay.”

“My mommy’s dead.” Crawling into Eve’s lap, she wept and wept and wept.

It was nearly five a.m. before Eve could get back to Peabody, and the work.

“How’s the kid?”

“No better than you’d expect. Got the social worker and a doctor with her. Cleaning her up, doing a physical. I had to swear an oath I wouldn’t leave the house before she’d unclamp herself.”

“You found her, came when she called for help kind of thing.”

“She made the nine-one-one on the housekeeper’s pocket ’link, from down there.” She caught Peabody up with Nixie’s timetable.

“From what she was able to tell me so far, it jibes with how it looks to me—efficient professional job. Come in. Bypass or jam alarms and security. One takes the housekeeper. That’s the first hit. She’s isolated, on another floor, and they need to deal with her first, insure she doesn’t wake up, catch a whiff and tag the cops. Other guy’s probably upstairs, ready to move if anybody up there wakes up. Then they do the parents together.”

“One for each,” Peabody agreed. “No noise, no struggle. Deal with the adults first. Kids aren’t a big worry.”

“One takes the boy, one takes the girl. They’re expecting one boy, one girl. It was dark, so the fact they killed the wrong kid doesn’t necessarily mean they didn’t know the family personally. They were expecting to find one small blonde girl, and they did. Job’s done, and they walk out.”

“No blood trail leading out of the house.”

“Seal up in protective gear, strip it off when you’re done. No muss, no fuss. You get time of deaths?”

“Oh two-fifteen on the housekeeper. Maybe three minutes later on Dad, Mom right after. Another minute or so for each kid. Whole deal took five, six minutes. Cold and clean.”

“Not so clean. They left a witness. Kid’s messed up now, but I think we’ll get more out of her. She’s got a brain, and she’s got spine. Doesn’t scream when she sees her housekeeper get her throat cut.”

She put herself into the child, imagined those few minutes when murder cut quietly through the house.

“Terrified, she’s got to be terrified, but she doesn’t go running away so she can get caught and hacked up. She stays quiet, and she calls nine-one-one. Gutsy.”