Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

order?’
    ‘Response time. We’re still talking one attacker. Unless he shot a gun, he had to catch up to her at the end of the alley to stab her.’
    ‘Maybe he had a gun.’
    ‘Then why not shoot all of them?’
    ‘True. And later he uses a blade on the victim’s throat.’
    Brodie shrugged. ‘It might not matter in what order they were tased.’
    ‘But it’s bugging you and I learned a long time ago to respect that,’ Joseph said.
    ‘What’s bugging you, Joseph?’ she asked.
    ‘He had two X2s and cartridges. They’re only legally sold to cops and the military. Whoever did this was a cop, stole from a cop, or bought them on the black market, but he didn’t even make an attempt to gather up the AFID tags. It’s like he didn’t care.’
    ‘Maybe he was in a hurry,’ she said.
    ‘But he took the time to slit the throat of a man he’d already killed. Why? And how did Zacharias die? Unless he had a heart condition, the taser wouldn’t have killed him.’
    ‘And even then, it’d have to be one hell of a heart condition,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see any evidence of trauma other than the slit throat and the two pairs of electrodes.’
    That were still stuck In Zacharias’s thigh and abdomen. Joseph crouched, studying the victim’s knees. ‘His trousers are dirty. He crawled. He kept coming, even after getting tased.’
    ‘So the killer tased him again,’ Brodie said slowly. ‘Where are you going with this?’
    He glanced up at her. ‘Once he was down, he didn’t get up again because Ford and Kimberly are gone. He didn’t stop it. What kept him down?’
    ‘He died?’ Brodie asked, a touch of sarcasm in her response.
    ‘Lucky break for the killer,’ Joseph returned with equal sarcasm. ‘Even two taser blasts shouldn’t have kept Zacharias down that long. A few minutes at the outside and he would have at least been able to fight. There’s no sign of a struggle. No abrasions or ligature marks to indicated that he was restrained. He went down and stayed down, giving the killer time to get Ford and Kim to his getaway vehicle.’
    ‘At some point between going down and staying down and getting his throat slit, Zacharias died,’ Brodie said.
    ‘Exactly. Death by taser is less than one in a thousand. Maybe one in a hundred thousand. If it happened just when Zacharias’s killer needed it to . . .’
    ‘Then I want him picking my lottery tickets,’ she said.
    ‘Exactly,’ Joseph said again. ‘Then there’s Ford, the target. He’s a big guy and he would have been trying to protect Kim. I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one to drag him off, fully conscious, even if I’d cuffed him – especially if I was going for stealth.’
    A healthy, young man fighting for his life would put up a hell of a lot of resistance. If he was protecting his lover’s life as well, he’d be as unstoppable as a fucking freight train. Unless he’d been drugged. Then he’d be rendered as helpless as a newborn baby.
    This Joseph knew firsthand. The ropes had hurt. The blows he’d taken resisting hurt more. But the helplessness . . . That had been sheer agony. It still was.
    He cleared his throat. ‘If I’d been kidnapping Ford Elkhart, I’d have wanted him heavily sedated. I’d have come prepared.’
    Brodie leveled him a long look and Joseph wondered how much she knew about his past. She’d never mentioned it, in all the years she’d known him. To her credit she didn’t mention it now.
    ‘So let’s say Zacharias was drugged,’ she said. ‘Maybe his killer OD’d him. Maybe that’s why he was dead before his throat was slit.’
    Joseph rose, even more troubled now. ‘ODing on a sedative is a lot more likely than a heart attack from the taser.’
    Frowning, Brodie said what he was thinking. ‘Zacharias died. Is Ford dead too?’
    ‘That depends on why he was taken. I’m not going to borrow trouble till I have to.’
    ‘Agent Carter? Dr Brodie?’ The voice came from the alley entrance where ME tech Ruby Gomez was waving to get their attention. ‘You ready for me to take him?’
    Brodie motioned her in. ‘Come on in, Ruby. We’re done with him.’ She looked up at Joseph. ‘What will you tell Ford’s mother?’
    Joseph cringed at the thought of sharing any of this with Daphne. ‘As little as I can get away with. She doesn’t need to know how Zacharias died or that his throat was slit.’
    Brodie sighed. ‘Agreed.’

Chapter Six
    Tuesday, December 3, 1.20 P.M.
    J oseph