Roarke, she thought and her spirits lifted considerably.
She rubbed her cheek against Galahad’s head as she answered. “Dallas.”
Dispatch. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve . . .
Death didn’t only come in dreams.
Eve stood over it now, in the balmy early morning air of a Tuesday in June. The New York City sidewalk was cordoned off, the sensors and blocks squaring around the pavement and the cheerful tubs of petunias used to spruce up the building’s entrance.
She had a particular fondness for petunias, but she didn’t think they were going to do the job this time. And not for some time to come.
The woman was facedown on the sidewalk. From the angle of the body, the splatter and pools of blood, there wasn’t going to be a lot of that face left. Eve looked up at the dignified gray tower with its semicircle balconies, its silver ribbon of people glides. Until they identified the body, they’d have a hard time pinning down the area from which she’d fallen. Or jumped. Or been pushed.
The one thing Eve was sure of: It had been a very long drop.
“Get her prints and run them,” she ordered.
She glanced down at her aide as Peabody squatted, opened a field kit. Peabody’s uniform cap sat squarely on her ruler-straight dark hair. She had steady hands, Eve thought, and a good eye. “Why don’t you do time of death.”
“Me?” Peabody asked in surprise.
“Get me an ID, establish time of death. Log in description of scene and body.”
Now, despite the grisly circumstance, it was excitement that moved over Peabody’s face. “Yes, sir. Sir, first officer on-scene has a potential witness.”
“A witness from up there, or down here?”
“Down here.”
“I’ll take it.” But Eve stayed where she was a moment longer, watching Peabody scan the dead woman’s fingerprints. Though Peabody’s hands and feet were sealed, she made no contact with the body and did the scan quickly, delicately.
After one nod of approval, Eve strode away to question the uniforms flanking the perimeter.
It might have been nearly three in the morning, but there were bystanders, gapers, and they had to be encouraged along, blocked out. News hawks were already in evidence, calling out questions, trying to snag a few minutes of recording to pump into the airwaves before the first morning commute.
An ambitious glide-cart operator had jumped on the opportunity and was putting in some overtime selling to the crowd. His grill pumped out smoke that spewed the scents of soy dogs and rehydrated onions into the air.
He appeared to be doing brisk business.
In the gorgeous spring of 2059, death continued to draw an audience from the living, and those who knew how to make a quick buck out of the deal.
A cab winged by, didn’t bother to so much as tap the brakes. From somewhere farther downtown, a siren screamed.
Eve blocked it out, turned to the uniform. “Rumor is we’ve got eyes.”
“Yes, sir. Officer Young’s got her in the squad car keeping her away from the ghouls.”
“Good.” Eve scanned the faces behind the barrier. In them she saw horror, excitement, curiosity, and a kind of relief.
I’m alive, and you’re not.
Shaking it off, she hunted down Young and the witness.
Given the neighborhood—for in spite of the dignity and the petunias, the apartment building was right on the border of midtown bustle and downtown sleaze?
?Eve was expecting a licensed companion, maybe a jonesing chemi-head or a dealer on the way to a mark.
She certainly hadn’t expected the tiny, snappily dressed blonde with the pretty and familiar face.