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.Clear.It was a long way to the room, exposed all the way.No help for it.She left the elevator and started walking, constantly scanning the closed hotel room doors.Nothing stirred.She heard televisions from one, a hair dryer from another.Voices, muffled and indistinct.The room they’d been given was in the discreetly secured section, beyond a manned concierge desk and behind a key-carded door.The concierge’s desk was empty.The door clicked open.Beyond, the hallway was wider, and more opulently appointed, with antique hall tables and original artwork on the walls.And the lights were lower.No sign of the concierge here, either.She paused at the stairwell and opened the door.Jazz stepped out.“Any trouble?” she asked.“None.You?”“There’s a few blood drops on the stairs.Could be anything—a kid having a nosebleed.Or could be something.No way to tell.” Jazz, Lucia noticed, also had her gun out and ready.“Which one?”Lucia mutely nodded at the right door.They moved into position on either side, communicating silently, and Lucia knocked twice and said, “Omar? Open up.”No response.She held up the key card.Jazz nodded, all business, and shifted her weight to be ready to move.The card clicked in the lock, and the door opened at a touch, swinging back with silent ease.Lucia beat Jazz to entry by a split second, taking the low line, unable to see much for the shadows.The curtains were drawn.“Lights,” Jazz said, and hit the switch with her shoulder.In the blaze, the blood looked very, very bright.Omar lay on the floor, sprawled and lifeless, next to an overturned armchair.His throat had been cut.Lucia gasped in a breath, felt her body constrict with the shock.A wave of unreality swept over her.“Focus,” Jazz said softly.“Stay with me, L.”Omar was dead.The cut was deep, one slice, right to left.The standard for a right-handed killer facing him.She wanted to reach over, press her fingers to his neck, even though she knew it was illogical to feel for a pulse.This had been done at least a couple of hours ago.Omar’s lovely dark eyes were open, and dry.Gregory? It could have been, but even Gregory might find it in bad taste to come visiting a few minutes before killing her friend.No, she didn’t think so.Gregory wouldn’t have made this much of a mess.“Lucia!”She blinked and focused on Jazz’s stark, pale, set face.“I’m here,” she said.“Take the next room.” Her voice sounded far away, but normal.Jazz nodded and went into the bedroom.Lucia averted her eyes from Omar’s body and scanned the closets, the bathroom, under the furniture.She was almost convinced Susannah was gone, dead in a ditch, when she heard a stealthy hiss of breathing, quickly muffled.“Susannah?” She turned and looked at the far end of the room again.Nothing there.An elegant Queen Anne desk and chair, a big-screen plasma TV, the sweep of long maroon velvet curtains…It couldn’t be that easy.She couldn’t be hiding behind the curtains.Not even kids did that anymore, did they?And then she spotted it.It was tough to see, and designed to be that way, no doubt.A privacy screen of the same material as the wallpaper, blending seamlessly into the fabric of the wall.Lucia moved around, giving it a wide berth, and came face-to-face with Susannah Davis, huddled against the wall, trembling.Bruised face averted.“Got her!” she called, and reached out to touch Susannah on the shoulder.She had just enough reflexes to jump back out of range as the knife slashed wildly at her.Don’t shoot her, some part of Lucia’s mind screamed, in time to stop her finger from tightening on the trigger.She danced backward, holstered the gun as she went, and executed a perfect roundhouse kick that sent the knife flying out of Susannah’s hand to thud against the velvet drapes.The knife was bloody.Omar’s blood.Lucia lunged forward, batted aside Susannah’s flailing hands, and wrenched one arm up behind her back.Susannah cried out.She felt hot and damp with sweat against Lucia’s chest, and Lucia was overcome with a wave of disgust and anger that made her want to pull that arm up until it snapped.Instead, she kicked the backs of Susannah’s knees and got her down flat on her stomach on the carpet.“Jazz!” she yelled, and snapped handcuffs around one of Susannah’s wrists, then the other.“I’ve got her!”Jazz reappeared at the door, gazed down at Susannah coolly, and said, “I think you’d better take a look in here.”“Now?”“Now.Bring her.”Lucia removed her knee from the center of Susannah’s back and hauled her upright; the woman’s battered face was spattered with blood, pale where it wasn’t stained or abraded.Her eyes looked dim and shocked.The lights were on in the bedroom, and there was more blood.Not Susannah’s, obviously; not Omar’s, who’d unquestionably died in the next room.No, this was…Leonard Davis, Susannah’s abusive husband.He was facedown next to the bed.Hard to tell how he’d died, but Lucia bet it had been from the blade of some knife.Whatever wounds he had must be in the front; his back looked untouched, except for the fact that his pants were halfway down his pale butt.“What happened?” she asked, and looked at Susannah, who was staring at Leonard as if he might rise from the dead at any moment.“I don’t know how he got into the room,” Jazz said, “but I can walk you through forensics.He got the drop on Omar, probably by threatening to kill Susannah.I’m betting he had a knife at her throat.”She looked at Susannah, who didn’t even seem to know Jazz was talking.“Omar misjudged him, got too close—maybe he was trying to get her out of the way.One fast slash, straight through both carotid arteries.From the arterial spray in there, I’d guess Omar was standing when he was cut [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]