Page 147 of Obsession in Death

The sister had been twelve.

Eve shifted her gaze from the data, back to the image.

“Hello, Lottie.”

•••

Dawson slogged through paperwork. He wanted to get it done, get out, get home. He’d all but sworn to his wife in blood he wouldn’t miss her sister’s bash tonight.

But people just kept killing each other, regardless of party plans. And he was two field techs short. Still, with some luck, maybe nobody else would get murdered on his shift. Or at least, nobody would find the DB until tomorrow—after the hangover he was bound to have had passed.

“Yo! Got the vic’s shirt processed and sent up to Harvo.”

Dawson grunted at Mickey, one of the rookie techs. He didn’t need chapter and verse. He needed to finish the paperwork.

“How come you got this drawing of Lottie hanging out here?”

Irritated, Dawson barely glanced up. “The what?”

“The picture of Lottie. Different ’do, but it looks like her. Sort of.”

“Lottie? Lottie Roebuck?”

“Well, yeah. Or her cousin maybe.”

Something ugly sank into his gut as Dawson shoved away from his desk, stepped out to where he’d stuck up the sketch. “It doesn’t look like... Get my microgoggles,” he snapped, and leaned in, squinted, leaned out, squinted.

“Goddamn eyes. Who has time to...” He snatched the goggles, pulled them on.

His vision blurred so he reached up, began to adjust them until he got clarity.

Lottie? It didn’t exactly look like her unless... Change the hair, he thought, rounder at the chin. Put her in a sweeper’s suit.

“Oh fuck me.” He grabbed for his pocket ’link, and it beeped in his hand. He started to hit ignore, saw the readout.

“Dallas. Listen. It’s Lottie, Lottie Roebuck, one of my field techs. This is her.”

“I know. Where is she?”

“She took a personal day. First time in... I don’t know. She’s not here. Jesus, Dallas, she’s one of mine. She’s one of my people.”

“Check your log-in, make sure she’s not there. Contact Berenski, DeWinter. All department heads. Lock it down, Dawson, until you hear different.”

In her office, Eve broke transmission, grabbed her coat.

“We’ve got her,” she said to Peabody as she rushed out.

“What?”

“Lottie Roebuck. She’s a sweeper. She worked the scenes, Bastwick, Ledo, Hastings. Baxter, Trueheart, you’re with me. Grab vests. Uniform Carmichael, Hannigan, same goes. Peabody, tag McNab. I want eyes and ears on her building. We don’t go in until we’re sure she’s there. Then we take her, quick and quiet.”

She turned, ready with more orders. The woman, a strange, blurred mirror image of herself, stepped in.

Eve drew her weapon. “Stop right there, hands up,” she snapped, as every cop in the room surged up, weapons drawn.

“I wouldn’t.” With her left hand, Lottie opened her coat, revealed the suicide vest. “This is a dead man’s switch in my right hand. If you stun me, I release it and we all go. We all go now.”

“Nobody has to die here.”