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Understandably so. “So you hit him? With a bat?” Anyone who knew Allye knew she was feisty, but he had trouble wrapping his mind around her taking a bat to someone.

Allye cringed. “Yes, but it didn’t take him down. I think he would have come at me again if Cornell hadn’t shown up.”

“Was he armed?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see a weapon, but like I said, I’d just woken up and didn’t have my glasses. Besides, it was dark, and I was more focused on trying to get away.”

“All right.” He clicked his pen. “How about you run through what happened from the beginning?” He should have just started with that.

She told him about falling asleep in the living room, being awakened, running, and the intruder grabbing her shoulder. For her sake, he struggled to keep his face expressionless, but he wanted to pummel the guy.

Her eyes widened, and her mouth formed an O.

“What?”

She’d obviously remembered something.

39

“I stabbed him.”

Eric blinked. “You what?” Not much surprised him, but Allye was doing a good job of it tonight.

“With my knitting needle. I had it beside me and grabbed it when I heard him coming in. I didn’t exactly plan to, but when he came after me...” She swallowed.

What would a knitting needle wound look like? He pictured the sticks he’d seen her pull out on multiple occasions. Sometimes he’d seen her work with short wooden ones, other times with a long metal version that he’d estimate at about a foot long. Neither was an ideal weapon, but they could inflict some damage—especially the long ones.

“Where did you stab him?”

The color drained from her face again. “His chest or maybe his shoulder? It happened too fast, and like I said, I didn’t plan it.”

“What did he do then? How did he react?”

“He yelled. But he let go of me, so I ran.”

“Did you keep hold of the needle?”

“No, I just ran. I think it stuck there, but I heard it hit the floor after I took off, so he must have pulled it out.” Her pale cheeks took on a greenish tinge.

“Allye, you were protecting yourself. It’s okay.” He didn’t mind pressing a criminal, but a victim was a different story—especially Allye. But he needed to wrap this case up fast. Before she really got hurt. He cleared his throat. “Where were you when that happened? I’ll need to take the needle as evidence if he left it behind.”

“Near the doorway between the living room and kitchen. Can you—can you get DNA from it?”

“We’ll try, but no guarantee it’ll go anywhere. DNA often doesn’t.” If it penetrated or even scraped the skin, they might have enough for a DNA test. He wouldn’t hold his breath on the results, but there was always a chance their guy would be in the system. The wait time was a serious pain though. And if the guy wasn’t in the system, it would be a dead end anyway.

Her hopeful expression faded, and he hated that he’d dampened that hope. “Maybe we’ll get lucky though. If we can get a good sample and he’s in the system, it’ll show.” Regardless, he’d do his best to have her intruder behind bars long before DNA results could come back. “All right.” He stood and pulled on gloves. Time to see what evidence was left behind. “Walk me through.”

She led him back to the living room and leaned against a bookshelf while he surveyed the space. He found the knitting needle and slipped it into an evidence bag.

He eyed the coffee table and shattered glass. “This happen when he came after you?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe he ran into it when he was running from Cornell?”

Or he’d flipped it in hopes of slowing Cornell down.

He moved on to the door. “He entered by the front?”

“Yes.”