Hot Rocks

in, after a date, maybe trolling the clubs. Could’ve brought somebody back with her, but it doesn’t look like that.”
    She gazed around the room while she put the pictures in her head. She wished, briefly, for Peabody. But she’d sent her former aide and very new partner home early. There wasn’t any point in dragging her back and spoiling what Eve knew was a celebration dinner with Peabody’s main squeeze.
    “She came back alone. If she’d come back with someone, even if he was going to kill her, he’d have gone for the sex first. Why waste it? And this isn’t a struggle. This isn’t a fight. One clean swipe. No other stab wounds.”
    She looked back at the body and brought Andrea Jacobs to life in her mind. “She comes back from her date, her night out. Had a few drinks. Starts upstairs. Does she hear something? Probably not. Maybe she’s stupid and she comes upstairs after she hears somebody up here. We’ll find out if she was stupid, but I bet he hears her. Hears her come in.”
    Eve walked out into the hall, stood there a moment, picturing it, and ignoring the movements of the crime-scene team working in the house.
    She walked back, imagined kicking off those sky-high heels. Your arches would just weep with relief. Maybe she lifted one foot, bent over a little, rubbed it.
    And when she straightened, he was on her.
    Came from behind the door, Eve thought, or out of the closet on the wall beside the door. Stepped right up behind her, yanked her head back by the hair, then sliced.
    Lips pursed, she studied the pattern of blood spatter.
    Spurted out of the jugular, she thought, onto the bed. She’s facing the bed, he’s behind. He doesn’t get messy. Just slices down quick, gives her a little shove forward. She’s still spurting as she falls.
    She glanced toward the windows. Drapes were drawn. Moving over, she eased them back, noted the privacy screen was engaged as well. He’d have done that. Wouldn’t want anyone to notice the light, or movement.
    She stepped out again, tossed the mask into her field kit.
    Crime scene and the sweepers were already crawling around the place in their safe suits. She nodded toward a uniform. “Tell the ME’s team she’s cleared to be bagged, tagged and transported. Where’s the witness?”
    “Got her down in the kitchen, Lieutenant.”
    She checked her wrist unit. “Take your partner, start a neighborhood canvass. You’re first on scene, right?”
    He straightened a little. “Yes, sir.”
    She waited a beat. “And?”
    She had a rep. You didn’t want to screw up with Dallas. She was tall, lean and dressed now in summer-weight pants, T-shirt and jacket. He’d seen her seal up before she went into the bedroom, and her right hand had a smear of blood on the thumb.
    He wasn’t sure if he should mention it.
    Her hair was brown and chopped short. Her eyes were the same color and all cop.
    He’d heard it said she chewed up lazy cops for breakfast and spit them out at lunch.
    He wanted to make it through the day.
    “Dispatch came through at sixteen-forty, report of a break-in and possible death at this address.”
    Eve looked back toward the bedroom. “Yeah, extremely possible.”
    “My partner and I responded, arrived on scene at sixteen-fifty-two. The witness, identified as Samantha Gannon, resident, met us at the door. She was in extreme distress.”
    “Cut through it. Lopkre,” she added, reading his name tag.
    “She was hysterical, Lieutenant. She’d already vomited, just outside the front door.”
    “Yeah, I noticed that.”
    He relaxed a little, since she didn’t seem inclined to take a bite out of him. “Tossed it again, same spot, right after she opened the door for us. Sort of folded in on herself there in the foyer, crying. She kept saying, ‘Andrea’s dead, upstairs.’ My partner stayed with her while I went up to check it out. Didn’t have to get far.”
    He grimaced, nodded toward the bedroom. “The smell. Looked into the bedroom, saw the body. Ah, as I could verify death from the visual from the doorway, I did not enter the scene and risk contaminating same. I conducted a brief search of the second floor to confirm no one else, alive or dead, was on the premises, then called it in.”
    “And your partner?”
    “My partner’s stayed with the witness throughout. She—Officer Ricky—she’s got a soothing way with victims and witnesses. She’s calmed her down considerably.”
    “All right. I’ll send Ricky out. Start the