“Burke!” I’ve spotted her.
She’s wearing yellow pants, tennis shoes, and a jean jacket and is sprawled face down, as if she’d been running, tackled and left to die. Her brown hair is in a puddle around her, soaked in blood.
I crouch next to her and turn her over.
A massive red and purple hematoma lifts from the side of her head, and a cut has opened, bleeding into her face. She’s not breathing. I wipe her mouth with my sleeve and start CPR.
Burke is beside me, calling for 9-1-1.
I’m still compressing, offer her two breaths, and back to the compressions. CPR has been updated since 1997, but I don’t remember the early training.
“How did you see her?” Burke says, but I can’t answer.
C’mon, Gretta!
I check her pulse. Nothing.
Sirens bruise the morning air and a few people clutter the parking lot, voyeurs to the tragedy in the weeds.
I focus on Gretta. She’s still not breathing and I fear—know—the worst. But the fire department has arrived, and with them the rescue squad and a couple of EMTs take over as I back away.
That’s when I see it. A twenty dollar bill in her grip. Victim number one? Well done, Booker.
Gretta is young. Eighteen. The only daughter of a couple from the upscale neighborhood of Edina. I dread having to talk to them again—but this time, at least, when I tell them that we’ll solve the case, I’ll be able to keep that promise.
I hope.
Burke keeps the crowd away, but a woman pushes past him, her hands over her mouth.
I remember her now. Teresa Birch. She wears a full sleeve of tats down her arms, dresses in fifties attire—this morning a hot pink dress—and wears her cherry red hair in victory rolls. Hard to forget. Especially when, in a time before, she offered to give me free breakfasts for life, wink, wink.
I get up and walk away, watching the EMTs do their work. They can’t call it until they get her to the Hennepin County Medical Center, but I’ll bring in the CSI team and get them started. I know she hasn’t been here long.
Someone saw something. In fact, her killer might be standing in the crowd. Which I face and stare down. A few businessmen, construction workers, a couple women.
It starts here. Now.
A Ford escort pulls up, and my body stills as Eve slides out. Shelby emerges from the other side, holding a radio.
Eve walks over to the edge of the crowd, looks at the EMTs working on Gretta. Eve’s face is drawn, a frown tangling her expression. Then she meets my eyes, such a sadness in her expression it nearly steals my breath.
It’s the same look she gave me last night.
And with a jolt, I know.
I’m not here for Gretta.
I’m here to save Danny and Asher. Because in less than forty-eight hours, they die.
7
It wasn’t Julia. Of course it wasn’t, but every time Eve let her imagination snapshot Julia’s’s body, it looked like this.
Broken, in the weeds, a glassy look to the heavens as if shocked.
She blew out a breath, trying to shake away the grief. Focus. She was on the job after all, not looking at the fifteen-year-old body of her best friend.
Her job was to see what other people missed. She had to detach. Think outside of her emotions. Eve stepped back and took another shot of the victim’s body with her Canon EOS3.