Kathryn Fox - Blood Born

The one with the computer offered Anya disposable gloves and shoe covers. She took them gratefully.

Despite the warmth of the midmorning sun, Anya felt a shiver as she crossed the threshold into the house.

Two crime scene officers swabbed separate patches of living room floor in silence. They looked up at the sound of footsteps on the polished wooden boards.

“Anyone from Homicide here?” Liz asked.

“Try the bedroom. Third door on the left.”

With a narrow frontage, the cottage was surprisingly large, extending down the block. Exposed wooden beams gave the place a country feel. Dried flower arrangements and wallpaper friezes at hip height were dated but homely. Anya suspected the mother had been crafty and, since her death, the daughters had kept things as she’d left them.

Until last night.

Broken mugs lay alongside the coffee table along with a pool of water and fresh flowers. The petals had been crushed, presumably by shoes. Anyone in bare feet or socks would have been cut by the shards of vase.

“Sophie was out here, we think. Her sister was in the bedroom.”

Either someone had smashed the items to scare the girls, or Sophie had fought her attacker. Judging by the strength the girl had shown by crawling for help, there might have been a significant struggle.

“We’ve bagged a small pair of underwear from under the coffee table,” offered one of the officers, “and a pair of jeans from just near the door. There are some smears of blood on the outside, so we assume her attacker removed them, then assaulted her. If the blood came from the older sister, then the younger girl was stabbed second.”

“We won’t know until we interview Sophie.” Liz moved further inside.

If she survives surgery and regains consciousness and remembers, Anya thought. The odds were still against her surviving, let alone recovering with full function.

The two women followed the corridor to the second bedroom. Inside, Doctor Jeff Sales leaned over the bed and Kate Farrer stood by his side.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Kate said. “Natasha Ryder said you were off color.”

The pathologist looked up from his task, clutching a pair of plastic tweezers.

Anya suspected her friend was being kind, giving her the option of leaving the scene. But having seen Sophie, she wanted to follow this through in spite of how she felt, physically and emotionally, after the trauma of yesterday.

“Just needed a good night’s rest,” Anya lied as she entered the room. “Cattle class from NY is a shocker.”

Violent deaths had their own distinct stench.

Immediately she was struck by the smell of body odor. Male sweat. Whoever had been here had left part of himself behind and it reminded her of fear and adrenalin combined. Then there was the almost metallic essence of blood.

“Hayden roped Anya in to examine Sophie Goodwin, our survivor. We’ve just come from the hospital.”

All eyes in the room turned to Liz Gould. “She’s alive but hasn’t woken up. What can you tell us so far? Do we still think the deceased is definitely Rachel Goodwin, Sophie’s older sister?”

“Going by the photos on the noticeboard, but we’ll have to get dental records to confirm it. The body is consistent with a woman in her early twenties. She suffered multiple stab wounds to her torso and abdomen while restrained. Judging by the amount of blood on the sheets, at least one of the stab wounds was severe enough to be fatal, but I won’t know which until the post-mortem. There are signs of pre-mortem sexual assault as well.”

If Sophie had lived through hell, her sister had died from it, Anya thought.

The body was naked and hands fixed to the rails of the bedhead with scarves. One side of the young face was bruised and swollen. Long black hair was tangled and knotted on one side. This woman had struggled on the bed, even with her hands bound.

A quilted cover lay beneath her, soaked in blood.

“Someone put a lot of love and time into that,” Liz Gould nodded toward the bed covering. “It looks handmade.”

Soft toys-a tattered rabbit and a rag doll-lay on the floor near the window.

Anya recognized the young male detective, Shaun Wheeler, standing nearby, pale and quiet.

“Remember Doctor Crichton?” Kate asked him. “She’s a pathologist and forensic wound expert.”

The constable nodded in acknowledgment and rocked backward and forward on the spot, hands behind his back. Anya suspected he had been told not to touch anything so, like a child, he was doing as he was told. Judging by the way he rocked and the paleness of his face, he was struggling to keep from fainting.

Kate’s eyes relaxed into a half-smile and Anya knew they were sharing the same thought.

“It’s pretty stuffy in here, how about you take a break. See what you make of the living room. We’ll be with you in a minute.”

Shaun Wheeler didn’t need convincing. He sidestepped the bed and was quickly out the door.

The odor lingered; chances were the killer had left more tangible evidence behind if he was nervous and high on adrenaline.

Jeff Sales was ready to turn the body. He removed a pair of clippers from his kit and snipped through the scarves, careful to leave the knots binding the wrists intact.

“Where are her clothes?” Liz Gould looked around the room.

“I think you’ll find the bra under here.” With a gentle movement of the body, Jeff removed a blood-soaked item from under the girl’s back.

Anya held the undergarment, hooks and eyes still clasped. The front had been cut through. She placed it inside double layers of paper.

The pathologist concentrated on the wrist marks while the detectives looked under the bed, then around it. Liz stopped at a teddy bear propped up in the corner on top of a set of drawers.

“There’s blood on the bear’s face,” she said, touching its ear.

If only it could talk, Anya thought. She pictured her own son having conversations with his soft Dalmatian puppy when he was supposed to be asleep. That dog had been with him for every milestone of his five years, whether it was tucked inside a kindergarten bag or snuggled in his bed.

This bear’s fur was well worn in patches. One arm and hand were particularly threadbare. It, too, looked as though it had been through a lot and for a while had been inseparable from its owner. The blood spatters across its fur made the scene suddenly even more vile.

Anya moved toward the wall. Above chest height, small stains marked the wall nearest the foot of the bed. Each series of fine droplets was splayed in vertical lines.

Kate’s gloved hands flicked through some magazines on the night stand and routinely tipped them up for notes or missing pages-any possible clue. “Has anyone located the panties?”

Jeff shook his head. “Not that I’m aware. Maybe they were taken as a souvenir.”

“Did someone mention missing knickers?”

Anya turned and looked up to see the grinning face of John Zimmer from the crime scene team. With his usual blue overalls and baseball cap, he held a digital camera around his neck.

“Guys, I’m serious. If they’re here, I’ll find them.”

Anya caught Liz rolling her eyes. Kate tensed her shoulders and jaw.

Doctor Sales looked up. “Anya, what’s caught your attention?”

The pair moved closer to the wall.

“It’s cast-off from the weapon. Can’t be arterial spurts, there’s not enough blood and the force isn’t strong enough. The droplets are too fine.”

She turned and faced the body. “My guess is that the killer was on the bed, probably straddled on top when he stabbed her.” She lifted her fist above her shoulder with a slightly bent elbow. “He used a lot of force because he’s pulled the knife out and up. The blood’s come from the knife and traveled backward through the air. And he’s done it more than once.” She looked over at the bear.