screamed at him. “Do you want to get us both arrested?”
He heard the words but didn’t care. Her taste still lingered on his lips.
It was sublime.
Now he knew that all the rest of his victims had been contaminated, even Catherine. He’d known Catherine wasn’t pure, had known it for some time. He had actually told Daniel about it.
And it turned out he was right.
This woman, she was the real thing. Completely pure, her blood touched by the divine. A mere taste of it could perform miracles. Not just for him. He wasn’t the only one who needed help, after all.
“Drive east, to the lake,” Daniel said. “We’ll find an abandoned beach, handle her there.”
“No,” he said, his voice thick with certainty. “We’re taking her home.”
CHAPTER 45
Friday, October 21, 2016
Logan Square’s streets were dark and silent, sunrise still a few hours away, the residents enviably asleep. But as O’Donnell turned onto North Spaulding Avenue, the atmosphere changed. Flickering red and blue patrol car lights, multiple silhouettes of cops moving briskly throughout the street. Many houses had their lights on, figures standing behind windows, watching a true crime show that none of them had asked for.
O’Donnell parked her car and stepped out, hunching her shoulders against the night’s chill, her breath expelling a cloud of mist. She flipped her badge at a cop who approached her and brushed past him. She’d already spotted Lieutenant Samuel Martinez.
He talked on the radio, looking sharply around him. He saw her and motioned her over, still talking on the radio.
“The tech crew is still not here,” he was saying.
The radio crackled. “Bravo twelve, this is dispatch. They’re on their way. They’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Copy. Get them on the phone, and tell them to turn on their damn radio.”
“Bravo twelve, copy.”
Martinez glanced at O’Donnell, the squad car lights reflecting on his spectacles. “O’Donnell, thanks for coming.”
“What’s going on?”
“It’s an abduction case,” he said. “Twenty-nine-year-old Rhea Deleon was snatched from the street. Several witnesses said she was dragged into a black van by two men wearing hoodies at a quarter to three.”
O’Donnell glanced at the time. Ten past four. “Any descriptions?”
“Well, like I said, they wore hoodies, one black, one gray. People only got glimpses through their shades, so most of them didn’t give us a lot more than that. Caucasian, average height. But we have one witness whose house is right across from where they grabbed her. She got a good look at one of them. That’s why I called you.”
O’Donnell tensed. She already knew what was coming. “What did she say?”
“She said he was very thin, and pale, and that he seemed a bit familiar. When I pressed her for details it came back to her. She said he was the guy she saw in the newspaper.”
“Rod Glover.”
“Listen, I don’t know if it’s him. At first she said she wasn’t sure, he looked kinda different; then she said he had the same look in his eyes, which sounds like bullshit to me. But I thought you should have a word with her.”
Both of them stopped talking as a uniformed cop strode over to them with an evidence bag in his hand. “Found this under one of the parked cars,” he said.
Martinez took the bag from him and peered through the translucent plastic. He then showed it to O’Donnell. The bag contained a key chain with several keys.
“Maybe belonged to the victim,” Martinez said. “We found her handbag; that’s how we have a possible ID. But it had no keys in it.”
O’Donnell studied the keys closely. One of the keys seemed speckled with reddish-brown dots. “Lieutenant, I think there’s blood on one of the keys.”
“You’re right.” Martinez turned to the cop. “Put those keys in a paper bag, or it might damage the DNA sample.”
Another vehicle showed up, the headlights momentarily blinding O’Donnell.
“Finally,” Martinez said, turning toward the van, which parked on the sidewalk. Crime scene technicians.
He was about to walk away, and O’Donnell quickly grabbed his arm. “Where’s the witness?”
She was a middle-aged woman in a turquoise robe, her blonde hair tangled, eyes puffy and red. A white cat sat on her lap, its tail swishing, eyes narrow in pure feline rage. She was petting it distractedly as she talked to O’Donnell, words pouring in a torrent that only stopped for the occasional sob.
“Maybe I should have shouted at them to stop, but I was afraid. That poor woman—she’s the local vet, you know? She does Dana’s vaccines.”