Thankless in Death

danced lightly over her weapon as they climbed. “Are you shielded and armed like your latest toy?”
    “Always.”
    She could hear the throbs from entertainment screens, and someone’s bright laughter before a door cut it to a muffle.
    She nodded at Nuccio’s door, stepped to it, pressed the buzzer.
    The locks remained engaged; the peep remained shielded.
    She buzzed twice more, then banged on the door with the side of her fist. “Lori Nuccio, this is the NYPSD. We need to speak to you.”
    The door stayed shut; the one across the hall opened. “You’re back.”
    “Yeah. Ms. Crabtree, do you know if Ms. Nuccio’s in?”
    “Yeah, she got home about quarter to seven. Thereabouts anyway. I gave her your card.”
    Her gaze shifted over to Roarke as she spoke, and Eve saw the look in Crabtree’s eyes she’d seen in a variety of women’s eyes when they got an up-close load of him. She thought of it as a kind of ocular sigh.
    “Anyway. I figured you’d come by before this or wait until tomorrow.”
    “She didn’t contact me.”
    “Damn it.” Crabtree’s gaze zipped back to Eve. “She said she would. She was pretty upset, wouldn’t let me fix her tea or anything. Just wanted to be alone and quiet, she said. I guess she needs to brood some.”
    “She’s not answering.”
    “I didn’t hear her go out. The elevator makes a racket, but she could’ve taken the stairs. She didn’t look like she wanted to do anything but hunker down. Maybe she took a sleeping pill.”
    “I’m going to access this apartment. I don’t have a warrant, but—”
    “Wait, wait. I don’t think that’s right. She wouldn’t like that.”
    Then she should’ve contacted me, Eve thought.
    “I’m concerned for her welfare. I’m accessing it.” Eve nodded at Roarke, then shifted to block Crabtree’s objections—and view—while he picked the locks.
    “She’s just hunkered down,” Crabtree insisted. “You can’t just walk into her place like this. It’s not right.”
    “Then you can file a complaint.”
    “Done,” Roarke murmured.
    Eve turned. “Record on.” Though her fingers itched for her weapon, she simply opened the door, called out.
    “Lori Nuccio, this is the NYPSD. We’re entering this apartment.”
    She barely crossed the threshold when she smelled it—blood and death.
    Even as she cleared her weapon, Roarke did the same with his own. “Lights, on full!” she ordered. “You, stay back,” she snapped at Crabtree. “Stay back.”
    She swung left first, then straight ahead. And she could see the death on the bed behind the colorful beaded curtain. “Clear it,” sheordered, moving fast through a space small enough to see almost every corner.
    And behind her Crabtree let out a choked scream.
    “I need you to stay back. I need you to go inside your apartment.”
    “But—but—”
    “Roarke.”
    “Ms. Crabtree, you need to come with me now.”
    She was weeping as he drew her out, and leaning against him when he closed the door behind them.
    Eve holstered her weapon, moved to the curtain.
    More than rage here. This was payback, too, and he had taken some time with it. Rage, revenge, a need to humiliate, to engender fear.
    No, not in a vacuum, she thought. Not an LC or a pickup at a bar. He’d found just who he’d wanted to brag to, show off to.
    “Victim is Caucasian female, early twenties, reddish hair, blue eyes. She’s been bound, ankles and wrists with cord, more cord wound around her torso. She’s gagged with tape. Her clothes have been removed except for shoes. They’re new—soles are unscuffed. Facial bruises, cuts indicate blows, more bruising on the abdomen, along ribs most likely from more blows. Blood around the cord evidence of struggle. Her hair’s been chopped off. A lot of hair scattered on the bed, the floor. Cord around vic’s neck evidence of strangulation. He tied it in a nice fucking bow.”
    She recorded the room, the ruined clothes, waiting, knowing Roarke would bring her field kit. And waiting, contacted Peabody.
    “He got to her.”
    “What? Shit? What?”
    “I’m standing in Nuccio’s apartment looking at her body. Get here, and call it in.”
    “On my way. Damn it, Dallas.”
    “Yeah.”
    Clicking off, she stepped back, studied the apartment. She saw the debris of food, containers, bottles on a tiny table, more littering the kitchen counter.
    No comp again, she noted. Easiest thing in the world to liquidate.
    She walked back to the door, studied the