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“A detective has been waiting since they took you up for your CT. Do you feel like talking to him?”
“I’ve already told you everything.”
“And now you can tell him.”
When Hayes had rapped at the door of Ebony Elegance, Destiny Westin peered out between two slats of the door’s blind and grunted. “Tall, dark, and handsome as hell?” She’d shot Reese a look. “Sure he’s not a pounder?”
It’d been difficult to convince Destiny that she wasn’t a victim of domestic violence. “No. He’ll help.”
Still, the stylist had watched suspiciously as Hayes probed gently at Reese’s head wound before pronouncing her well enough to ride to the hospital instead of calling an ambulance. “You did good,” he told the hairdresser, offering her a slight smile. “We appreciate it.”
“Uh-huh.” Destiny had snatched up one of her cards and pressed it into Reese’s hand. “You call me,” she said in an undertone, “if you need anything.”
The card sat on the stand next to the bed, smeared lightly with blood, a vivid reminder that sometimes you find heroes in the unlikeliest of places. Reese took a breath and battled back a wave of exhaustion. “Okay. Bring him in.”
He left for a moment, returning with a short, square man in a uniform with a graying buzz cut and heavy brows carrying a battered case that looked similar to a tackle box. “Reese Decody. Detective Sergeant Byron Jennings.”
“Ms. Decody.” The man set the case on the only chair. “Hayes says you had a physical struggle with your attacker. I’m going to swab for possible DNA.” He dug in the bag, withdrew a package of sterile swabs, and opened it, extracting one and moistening the tip with a small vial of water. The detective swiped it undereach nail on her left hand, then dropped the swab in an evidence bag and repeated the action with a fresh one. He labeled each and repeated the process on her other hand before packing them in the case and taking a recorder from it. Then he pulled a notebook and pen out of his sports coat pocket. “Just take me through what happened.”
Reese relayed the events that occurred after leaving Kervin, omitting what he’d told her about her brother. Jennings mostly let her talk, pausing to jot a few notes or to ask a question.
After she’d wound down, he asked, “And you’re sure you didn’t know the guy? Never seen him before?”
She caught herself as she would have shaken her throbbing head. “Positive. At first I didn’t see him at all. He hit me from behind. And when the trunk lid opened, I only got a glimpse of him. He had his face covered in one of those…” Her fuzzy brain failed her as she gestured ineffectually at her face. “Like the bandits wore in those old Westerns.”
“A bandana?”
“Yeah. Red.” She rested her head against the pillow for a moment, worn out by the retelling. “But I think I broke his nose when I hit him with the wrench.”
The man’s mouth twitched. “Good for you.”
“Later…after I jabbed him with the piece of plastic…I was running and looked back over my shoulder to see how close he was. He’d pulled off the mask and was using it to stop the bleeding on his wrist. It was just for a few seconds, but I saw his face.”
His interest sharpened. “Describe him.”
“Shorter than Hayes. Five-eleven or so. Two hundred twenty, maybe. Sloppy with it. He had a gut.” But he’d been brawny enough to wrestle her with little effort. For an instant, she thought of what would have happened if he’d managed to get her into that empty building he’d parked behind. A shudder ofrevulsion racked her. “Thinning brown hair. Receding hairline. Brown eyes…maybe. I guess I can’t be sure. Hard to say about his nose. But his lips were wide, stretched out. Like a fish.”
“Fish lips.” The man jotted it down. “Paints a picture. Tell me again everything you remember him saying to you.”
“There wasn’t much. But…” Reese replayed it in her mind, repeating everything she recalled. “Something changed after I fought back in the parking lot. He seemed to get a thrill from it. I don’t know what he’d planned before that, but it changed. He said, ‘I like the feisty ones.’” It was more than his words. Something else that cemented her certainty. “I think…there was a reason he wanted to get me alone. You may discover he’s hurt women before. Perhaps raped them.”
She saw Hayes tense, but shook her head at him. Then stifled a groan when the movement ratcheted up the hammering there. He reached down and picked up an item from the stand next to the bed.
“This is the shard of plastic she used on the guy.” At some point, he’d taken it from her, placed it in an evidence bag, and neatly labeled it. “The other bags hold her clothes. Maybe you can get some of his DNA.”
Jennings reached for the clear receptacle with the shard and brought it close to study it. “Looks like some blood on it. Hopefully, it’s his. Tell me again where you got this.”
Reese was fading fast. But she tried to rally because she wouldn’t put it past Hayes to stick her here overnight. She repeated the part about kicking out the taillight and trying to wave out of the opening when the vehicle paused. “I have another couple of pieces of plastic in my pants pocket in the container there. He didn’t touch them. But maybe you can use all of the bits to match to the vehicle, if you find it.”
“Which taillight did you break?”
“Left. I heard horns,” she concluded. “But I couldn’t be sure anyone noticed.”
“Oh, they noticed.” The detective took a marker from the case, and wrote something on each of the bags. “Nine-one-one took calls from a couple different motorists this morning around the time you described, both on the same street. So we’ve got a description of the car and a partial plate. I made some six-packs of possible owners of vehicles that would match. You feel up to looking at them?”
“Yes.”
He put the evidence bags in the box, and withdrew a file folder from it. Removing a sheet, he handed it to Reese. She scanned it, and then returned to look more carefully. “None of these.”