Page 5

FOUR

Ten minutes later, Josie was clad in her own Tyvek suit complete with booties and a skull cap. Brennan logged her into the crime scene and she slipped under the tape. Dr. Feist waited at the entrance to the tent. She waved Josie inside. The ERT had set up halogen lamps in the corner, casting the scene in a harsh, unforgiving light. Gina Phelan lay on her back, arms at her sides. Blood coated her hands, drying and flaking on her curled fingers. Her knees were bent, legs twisted to one side. Instead of the high heels Josie had seen her in when she appeared on television, her feet were encased in heavy brown work boots. They were scuffed and worn. Her head was turned, eyes hooded as though she was about to doze off. Silky strands of her long dark hair, threaded with gray, stretched along the asphalt at the back of her head.

She had swapped the feminine power suits she usually wore, with their tasteful blazers and form-fitting skirts, for a well-used pair of jeans, and a long-sleeved flannel shirt that hung open, revealing a white T-shirt underneath. Blood soaked through it, originating from two small, ragged tears in the fabric on the right side of her abdomen. One was just below the rib cage. The other was closer to the waistband of her jeans.

“No purse. Hummel said they found her phone on the sidewalk near where he believes the stabbing occurred, but it’s smashed to bits.” Anya knelt beside the body. “He also told me they’ve got the knife. It’s a folding knife. Four-inch blade. Partially serrated.”

The saw-like edges of serrated knives tended to do far more internal damage than straight-edged knives.

“Let’s hope the bastard who did this to her left prints and enough DNA to help us catch him,” Josie said.

She crouched across from Anya, studying the way the blood streaked down over Gina Phelan’s belt to her thighs. Droplets congealed on the tops of her boots. They wouldn’t know the angle of the attack until Anya completed her examination and autopsy, but the pattern of the bloodstains fit with Josie’s assessment of the scene. Gina was attacked half a block from the site entrance and somehow, she got away.

“She was bleeding out fast and she still managed to make it pretty far on foot,” said Josie.

Anya peeled the T-shirt up, trying to find the wounds. There were only two. Each one was no bigger than an inch, tiny seams split open to show a deeper, darker red than the blood smeared all around them. “You’d be surprised,” she said. “When I worked in emergency medicine, EMTs brought in a guy who’d been stabbed in the chest. He was DOA but autopsy showed the knife had penetrated the left ventricle, left atrium, and his aorta. Witnesses told police that he pulled the knife out of his chest and walked up a flight of steps before he collapsed. He bled out within minutes, but he kept going right to the bitter end.”

Josie wondered if that man had been under the influence or just desperate. Or both. Her mind conjured an image of Gina Phelan lurching along the sidewalk, hands pressed to her abdomen, trying to stem the flow of blood. Had she known that she had only moments left? If someone in the unruly crowd had noticed her immediately, could she have been saved? That wasn’t a question Josie needed to answer—her job was to find Gina’s killer and make him pay—but it was a question the Phelans would be plagued with for the rest of their lives.

Josie had her own collection of those types of questions. If only there had been one small variation of the scenarios in which her grandmother, or her first husband, or her colleague, Mett, died, they might still be here. That kind of wondering was a sickness. A madness. Under the layers of her professional armor, Josie felt a profound sadness for the Phelan family. Quickly, she pushed it away. She had work to do.

Gently, Anya picked up Gina’s wrist, turning it over and opening her hand. “Nothing here.”

Josie did the same on her side, finding Gina’s other palm empty except for the blood settled deep in the creases of her skin. She wore no rings. Small calluses were visible on the pads of her index and middle fingers, just above the first knuckle. Her fingernails were short and unpainted.

Anya arched a brow. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” Josie set Gina’s arm back on the ground. “Guess I expected expensive acrylic nails or something.”

“You mean a gorgeous manicure to go with the power attorney look? I did, too.” Anya looked at Gina’s face. “Not that she needed it.”

Anya was right. By most standards, Gina Phelan had been an attractive woman. Even the wrinkles creasing her neck and the laugh lines scoring her face—the natural by-products of aging—didn’t detract from her beauty.

“What do we have here?” Anya rose up on her knees, gloved fingers probing the skin around Gina’s neck. A thin red line marked her skin. The abrasion was fresh.

“She was wearing a necklace,” Josie said. “Someone tore it off.”

Had Gina’s death been the result of a robbery gone wrong? This certainly was the area of Denton in which it was most likely to happen.

Anya must have had the same thought. Shaking her head, she let out a heavy sigh. “So senseless. Why kill someone over something so meaningless?”

This was an almost daily lament in their line of work. It never changed. They fell into silence as Josie helped Anya continue her examination. They rolled Gina’s body over. There was nothing beneath her. Anya lifted her shirt to get a look at her back. They checked her pockets, finding one lip gloss and a key fob that Josie assumed was for her car. Then they checked her sleeves, her pantlegs, her waistband, searching for additional injuries or any evidence that hadn’t been visible.

“Detective Quinn!” Brennan’s voice sounded from outside the crime scene perimeter. “That footage is ready!”

“Go,” said Anya. “As soon as I’ve finished the exam and autopsy, I’ll get you my findings, though this looks pretty straightforward.”