A dart, he realized, and looked across at the window. The finger size hole was plain to see. But why had the murderer tried to drug her victim first? That was out of pattern — and obviously hadn't worked, if the torn apart state of the kitchen was anything to go by. The victim had put up quite a fight before she'd succumbed.
He knelt next to Michaels. "Anything new?"
Michaels snorted softly. "Yeah, the whole method of killing. She's getting more violent each time." He pointed to the purple bruising around the woman's neck. "Strangled her until she was unconscious, and then stabbed her several times before gutting her. We're dealing with a very sick person here."
Or an extremely angry person. "How did the killer get in?"
"Glass door in the dining room."
"Forced?"
"No. Can you believe they'd left it open? In this day and age?"
He smiled. Michaels had obviously never made a similar mistake. "No tray of cigarette butts this time?"
"She barely had time to escape. She must have been going out the back door as the State coppers were breaking in the front door."
"Where's the second victim?"
"Upstairs bathroom." The com-unit Michaels held beeped. "ID confirmed on this one. Margaret Jones."
Hopeworth had no imagination when it came to names, that was for certain. "Adopted parents been notified?"
"Unit being sent there now."
He nodded and rose. Red droplets led away from the body of Margaret Jones, leading back into the entrance hall. There was a small cluster near the base of the stairs, as if the murderer had stopped, and looked up. Perhaps the second victim had come out to investigate the noise, only to see the bloodied killer and her knife.
But if that were the case, why retreat to the bathroom rather than heading for the nearest window? Even if she'd broken a limb in the jump to the ground, she might well have saved her life. The killer wasn't likely to come after her in the middle of the street.
He walked up to the first floor. There was another gathering of droplets at the top of the stairs, indicating the killer had stopped once again, perhaps to listen. Which in a sense contradicted Warren's theory that the killer was angry. Someone in the middle of a blood rage wasn't this cautious.
So why was she becoming more brutal with each murder?
He headed towards the first doorway. It turned out to be the main bedroom. The pillows bore the indentations of two heads, and the rumpled state of the queen-size bed gave evidence to the fact that not a lot of sleeping had been going on recently.
He moved on. The next room was another bedroom, which was in the process of being turned into an office. The bed still had a place but it was squashed in on corner while desks, chairs and filing cabinets, all new and still wrapped in plastic, filled the middle of the room.
The killer hadn't bothered to stop in either room. The droplets moved on, evenly spaced. He frowned. The killer must have injured herself in the fight downstairs. The blood was too consistent to be dripping from a knife.
He finally came to the bathroom, and he realized the second woman must have fled here because the door was lockable. The wood bore heel marks, and the catch had been torn from the frame. A second Crimecorder hovered in the doorway. Gabriel showed his ID and stepped past it.
Only to stop cold.
The second victim was his sister, Miranda.
* * * *
Sam dialed Gabriel's number. All she got was an engaged signal — something she'd been getting for the last half-hour. Frowning, she put the viaphone back in her pocket. Something was wrong. He wasn't in danger, but something was definitely wrong. There was an ache close to her heart — an ache that was his, somehow echoing through her.She studied the car's onboard computer for several seconds, wondering what she should do — go home, as he'd ordered earlier, or try to find out what was happening. And really, it was a no-brainer. How could she sleep knowing something was wrong? She punched Gabriel's address into the computer.
As the vehicle spun around and headed back to the city, she leaned back and watched the traffic roll by. That was the nice thing about these auto-drives. You could be as tired as all hell and it didn't matter. The auto-drive would get you to your destination regardless of the condition you were in. Of course, if the satellites ever malfunctioned, there was likely to be the biggest damn accident in recorded history.
She yawned hugely and closed her eyes. It seemed she'd barely gone to sleep when the car pulled to a halt and beeped softly.
She climbed out and looked up. There were no lights on in Gabriel's apartment. She climbed the steps and leaned on the buzzer for several seconds. No response. Frowning, she stepped back, staring up. If he was still at the murder scene, why wasn't he answering his phone?
She got back into the car, dug out the viaphone and tried his number again. Same result — engaged. Maybe his phone was charging. She dialed SIU. Christine answered on the second ring.
"Christine, Agent Ryan here. Can you check and see if A.D. Stern's viaphone is working?"