There. Under his leg.
“I’m going to get my cell phone, Senator.” She placed a comforting hand on the woman’s shoulder and grimaced at the bloody fingerprints it left behind.
“Why hasn’t someone called this in?” The woman shook her head in bewilderment. “Surely someone heard that gunfire.”
“This place is a fortress.” Eliza gestured to the massive brick and concrete façade of the mansion. “It’s got this entire block to itself. And even if it didn’t, the firefight was likely drowned out by the city noise.”
“There was nofightabout it.” The senator’s voice shook with rough emotion. “It was a massacre.”
“I know.” Eliza refrained from comforting the senator further because one bloody handprint on the woman’s shoulder was plenty.
Bethany Chastain shook her head, her bouffant of yellow hair—no doubt thanks to a talented stylist—still looking unbelievable tidy. “I can’t believe it. John was right. This proves it.”
Eliza frowned. “Right about what?”
The senator blinked up at her. “He didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Apprehension had the hairs on the back of her neck standing at attention. What was the senator saying? What didn’t she know that she was supposed to?
Senator Chastain opened her mouth to speak, but her husband moaned then, his eyelids fluttering rapidly and the fingers on his left hand twitching spasmodically.
The senator’s cryptic words fell out of Eliza’s head as urgency gripped her. Time was running out for the professor. “Just give me a minute, Senator, and I’ll have help on the way.”
The return journey across the patio was even more horrific than the initial trip.
A nearby streetlamp cast its light across the garish scene so that the wounds pocking the bodies stood out in harsh relief. The blood glistening on the ground looked darker,wetter. And already there was the smell of decay.
Bile crashed and burned up the back of Eliza’s throat, igniting the length of her esophagus. Hot tears filled her eyes and left warm tracks down her cheeks. But she fought off the urge to go sit in a corner and scream at the senselessness of it all. At theunfairnessof it all.
There was work to be done.
She was the only one who could do it.
Kneeling beside Charlie’s body, she avoided looking at the mess that’d been made of him. Instead, she focused on the corner of her clutch peeking out from under his leg.
Gripping it with her thumb and forefinger, she tried yanking it free. It didn’t budge. He was too heavy, and she couldn’t get a good grip.
Closing her eyes, she blew out a shuddering breath. The thought of moving him, of watching all his once vibrant brawn and bulk shift lifelessly, filled her with dread. But there was no other way.
“Sorry, Charlie,” she whispered, placing one hand on his hip and the other on his shoulder. After firmly planting her feet against the flagstones, she gave him a solid shove.
Just as she’d known would happen, his body flopped over, limbs loose as cooked noodles. The sound of his arm landing in a puddle of his own blood with asplatwas something she’d relive in her nightmares.
But that was for Future Eliza to worry about. Current Eliza had more urgent things to accomplish.
She pulled her clutch into her lap. Her fingers were so sticky with blood that she struggled with the clasp. But eventually she was able to snap it open and pull her cell phone from the dark interior.
Autopilot had her pulling up her contacts list and her finger hovered over Fisher’s name. But she scolded herself for the ridiculous impulse and instead quickly keyed in 9-1-1.
2
Northwestern Memorial Hospital, 251 East Huron St.
“I think I’m going to throw up.”
Just as Fisher reached for the kidney bean-shaped plastic container the nurse had left on the rolling tray beside the hospital bed, Eliza changed her mind.
“No. I think I’m going to pass out.” She pressed a hand to her chest as if doing so could stop her lungs from working like bellows.
