Thankless in Death

“twelve-ounce protein shake, chocolate.”
    Received … Selecting …
    “AC mode? What AC mode?”
    “The one programmed into the system because my wife starves herself most days.”
    Delivering …
    He had to take off his seat belt, shift, reach through the seats to the back. She heard the quiet slide, little click, and frowned into the rear-view, but couldn’t quite get the angle.
    “Where is it? How is it?”
    “It’s in the backseat console. Just a mini,” he said as he handed her the shake. “It’ll only hold a few basics. A couple of shakes, coffee—”
    “Coffee?”
    He gave her a long look, dry as dust. “It must be love.”
    “Coffee,” she said again.
    “A few protein bars as well. You told me you’d read the manual.”
    “I did. Most of it. Some of it. A little of it,” she admitted. And because it must have been love, drank the shake. It didn’t suck.
    “Why aren’t you tired? Why don’t you have to have a protein shake?”
    “Because I had a decent lunch and a little tea with biscuits a couple hours ago.”
    “I was chasing a killer a couple hours ago.”
    “Maybe if you’d eaten something you’d have caught him.”
    “Would not. Lucky bastard. Who gets in and out of a health clinic inside thirty minutes? Nobody. But he does. It’s been breaking his way, but with this”—she jerked her chin toward the comp—“maybe it’ll start breaking mine.”
    She pulled up at the morgue.
    “If you don’t need me to come in, I’ll start working on that break.”
    “Yeah.” She started to get out, hesitated, then put her seat back. Reaching under, she tugged, then pulled out a candy bar with sticky tape crossed over the wrapper.
    “Clever girl.”
    “That damn candy thief can’t get into a shielded vehicle, so I keep emergency candy.” She broke it in half, handed him a share. “It is love,” she confirmed, then climbed out.
    Amused, and since he knew her feelings about candy, touched, he unwrapped it while he began the work.
    Interesting, he thought after his initial scan. And challenging, he added after a second, deeper one.
    He lost track of time with that interest and challenge, pausing only to make or take ’link tags if they were relevant or important enough.
    He came out of his work zone when Eve opened the car door again.
    She sat, put her head back, shut her eyes.
    So he set the work aside altogether, laid a hand over hers, said nothing.
    “Morris figures he had her for about eighteen hours. Taped andtied to a chair in her home office. He’d bashed her good, back of the head first. A bat again. She had a mild concussion, probably a blinding headache. She was severely dehydrated so it’s unlikely he gave her any food or water. Several blows to the face—hand, fist. Some of the blood and urine in her lap was canine. She had a little dog. He’d busted it up some, it’s at the vet. She’d torn her wrists, back of her hands, her ankles.”
    Ah, God, he thought, but said nothing.
    “She tore the skin off trying to get the tape loose. Dislocated shoulder. We think she did that right before or when he was killing her, smothering her with a plastic bag over her head. We think she managed to tip the chair over so it fell on his foot. He has a couple of broken toes and a hairline fracture in his foot. I think she did that. She didn’t let him stroll away. She made him pay a little. At least a little.”
    “Who was she?” Roarke asked quietly.
    “A good teacher, a good neighbor. A woman who loved her damn dog. I think he used that. Everyone said she loved the dog, the dog was her family. I don’t see her just doing whatever he wanted, but if he threatened to hurt what she loved, threatened her family, she probably would. At least try to stall him. And then hurt him when she knew she wouldn’t live through it.”
    “You’ll find him.”
    She glanced at the comp. “Will I?”
    “You will, yes. This part may not be quick, but it’ll be done. This unit wasn’t wiped by an amateur. It’s thorough and professional.”
    “He must’ve forced her to do it.”
    “When did she die? The time, I mean.”
    “Right about sixteen hundred.”
    “Then no. It was done shortly after.”
    “No way he could do it if you say it’s thorough and professional. He doesn’t have the chops. It’s … the droid,” she realized. “She had a droid, and she would’ve programmed it herself. He had the droid wipe the comps. There’s nothing there?”
    “There’s always