He caught her face in his hands, kissed her—taking his time with it, despite the cold wind and the call of duty.
“I’ll see you later,” she told him. “Maybe even sooner. There’s a glass of wine in the parlor. I’d just poured it.”
He gave her another, briefer kiss. “I’ll think of you when I drink it.”
Less than ten minutes after she’d walked in, she started out. “Don’t forget to feed the cat.”
“As if he’d let me.”
Now Eve imagined
Galahad’s belly was full, and Roarke had enjoyed her wine while she studied a woman identified as Chanel Rylan by her vid-watching friend.
Eve stood alone in the theater, having already taken the report of the first officer on scene. She studied the blood on the back of the chair—first in from the aisle—and the smeared drops helpful civilians had stepped in when moving the body.
Eve opened her field kit and, with her hands and boots sealed, crouched down to do her job.
She pressed the victim’s right thumb to her Identi-pad.
“Victim is identified as Chanel Rylan, mixed-race female, age thirty-two. No marriages, no offspring, no current cohab.”
She took out her gauges for time of death.
“TOD eighteen-thirty-one. No defensive wounds visible. ME to confirm.”
Prepared to turn the body, Eve looked up and over at the familiar clomp, and watched her partner start down the slanted aisle.
Pink, fuzzy-topped boots, pink magic coat, and today’s scarf a long snake of variegated blues. Peabody wore a matching cap over a flip of dark hair.
“So much for the night off.” Peabody studied the victim. “Then again, she’s got nothing but nights off now.”
“Seal up. I want to turn her. First on scene reports the wound’s at the base of her neck.”
Peabody stripped off her outdoor gear, sealed up. “I’d just ordered a bowl of minestrone. McNab offered to come with, but I told him to eat, and take mine to go. I figured if you wanted EDD, we’d just tag him.”
Since Eve considered Peabody’s skinny, wildly fashionable main man an e-ace, if she did, she would.
Together, they turned the body. Eve parted the victim’s blood-matted blond hair.
“Single puncture wound, base of the skull. Not a flat blade. Stiletto maybe, or an ice pick. Hand me microgoggles.”
Eve fit them on, her eyes huge and whiskey brown behind the lenses as she leaned over. “Smooth, small, and deep. Looks about three inches deep. No hesitation marks visible.”
She rocked back on her heels, still crouched on long legs as she studied the chair.
“The killer had to be sitting right behind her. I can’t see any angle to the wound. The theater’s dark, people are watching the screen. All he has to do is lean up a little and jam it into her. In and out. A couple of seconds. If this hit the brain stem, she wouldn’t even have time to say ouch.”
She stood now, hooked her thumbs in the front pockets of her trousers. A tall woman and lean with it, she took a penlight from the kit to examine the aisle, the seat directly behind the victim’s.
“You can call in the sweepers. Long shot he left any trace on the seat—or that we’ll be able to separate it from the hundreds of other asses who’ve sat in it—but maybe we’ll get lucky.”
She scanned the space, raking her fingers through her short chop of brown hair. “No cams in the theater. I’ve got a uniform getting security discs from the lobby, the concession area, anywhere there are cams. A place this size …”
“Ten theaters, two floors, with the two mega screens upstairs,” Peabody supplied. “This is one of the smaller theaters in here, mostly for classic vids. Looks like, what, it holds maybe three hundred.”
“Two seventy-five.” Eve had already checked. “Uniforms have over a hundred people holding in the theater next door. The friend of the vic and three potential wits holding in another. Call the dead wagon, Peabody, and let’s get a uniform to sit with her until she’s bagged and tagged.”
“She was really pretty.”