In Death 20 - Survivor in Death

and were now dead.
    She gave the room a quick glance, saw a pricey man’s wrist unit on a dresser, a pair of woman’s gold earrings on another.
    No, not burglary.
    She stepped back out just as her partner, Detective Delia Peabody, came up the steps. Limping--just a little.
    Had she put Peabody back on active too soon? Eve wondered. Her partner had taken a serious beating only three weeks before after being ambushed steps outside her own apartment building. And Eve still had the image of the stalwart Peabody bruised, broken, unconscious in a hospital bed.
    Best to put the image, and the guilt, aside. Best to remember how she herself hated being on medical, and that work was sometimes better than forced rest.
    “Five dead? Home invasion?” Huffing a bit, Peabody gestured down the steps. “The uniform on the door gave me a quick run.”
    “It looks like, but we don’t call it yet. Domestic’s downstairs, rooms off the kitchen. Got it in bed, throat slit. Owners in there. Same pattern. Two kids, girl and boy, in the other rooms on this level.”
    “Kids? Jesus.”
    “First on scene indicated this was the boy.” Eve moved to the next door, called for the lights.
    “Records ID twelve-year-old Coyle Swisher.” There were framed sports posters on his walls. Baseball taking the lead. Some of his blood had spewed onto the torso of the Yankees current hot left fielder.
    Though there was the debris of an adolescent on the floor, on the desk and dresser, she saw no sign Coyle had had any more warning than his parents.
    Peabody pressed her lips together, cleared her throat. “Quick, efficient,” she said in flat tones.
    “No forced entry. No alarms tripped. Either the Swishers neglected to set them--and I wouldn’t bet on that--or somebody had their codes or a good jammer. Girl should be down here.”
    “Okay.” Peabody squared her shoulders. “It’s harder when it’s kids.”
    “It’s supposed to be.” Eve stepped to the next room, called for lights, and studied the fluffy pink and white bed, the little girl with her blonde hair matted with blood. “Nine-year-old Nixie Swisher, according to the records.”
    “Practically a baby.”
    “Yeah.” Eve scanned the room, and her head cocked. “What do you see, Peabody?”
    “Some poor kid who’ll never get the chance to grow up.”
    “Two pair of shoes over there.”
    “Kids, especially upper income, swim in shoes.”
    “Two of those backpack deals kids haul their stuff in. You seal up yet?”
    “No, I was just--”
    “I have.” Eve walked into the crime scene, reached down with a sealed hand, and picked up the shoes. “Different sizes. Go get the first on scene.”
    With the shoes still in her hand, Eve turned back to the bed, to the child, as Peabody hurried out. Then she set them aside, took an Identipad out of her field kit.
    Yes, it was harder when it was a child. It was hard to take such a small hand in yours. Such a small, lifeless hand, to look down at the young who’d been robbed of so many years, and all the joys, all the pains that went in them.
    She pressed the fingers to the pad, waited for the readout.
    “Officer Grimes, Lieutenant,” Peabody said from the doorway. “First on scene.”
    “Who called this in, Grimes?” Eve asked without turning around.
    “Sir, unidentified female.”
    “And where is this unidentified female?”
    “I ... Lieutenant, I assumed it was one of the vies.”
    She glanced back now, and Grimes saw the tall, lean woman in mannish trousers, a battered leather jacket. The cool brown eyes, flat cop’s eyes, in a sharply featured face. Her hair was brown, like her eyes, short, choppy rather than sleek.
    She had a rep, and when that icy gaze pinned him, he knew she’d earned it.
    “So our nine-one-one calls in murder, then hops into bed so she can get her throat slashed?”
    “Ah . . .” He was a beat cop, with two years under his belt. He wasn’t ranking Homicide. “The kid here might’ve called it, Lieutenant, then tried to hide in bed.”
    “How long you had a badge, Grimes?”
    “Two years--in January, Lieutenant.”
    “I know civilians who’ve got a better sense of crime scene than you. Fifth victim, identified as Linnie Dyson, age nine, who is not a fucking resident of this fucking address. Who is not one Nixie Swisher. Peabody, start a search of the residence. We’re looking for another nine-year-old girl, living or dead. Grimes, you idiot, call in an Amber Alert. She may have been the