The detective tightened her lips, about to say something else, but didn’t. Instead she gave way and let the girl through, Peter in tow.
Thankfully, Katelyn Thorsen no longer lay in a crumpled heap. She was still on the floor, but she’d been rolled onto her back and covered with a bedsheet. The top of it was splotched with red where it covered her face and chest. The carpet was soaked with congealing blood. Orange evidence tape dotted the walls, noting where rounds had penetrated. KT’s laptop and phone were on the floor beside more evidence markers. Each device had been hit by multiple rounds.
Before Peter could say anything, Ellie released his arm, stepped forward, and bent to pull back the sheet. Nobody had cleaned orotherwise prepared the body. Her mother lay with blood on her Minnesota sweatshirt and two bloody holes in her face. Her head seemed strangely flat. The back of it was gone.
Ellie’s mouth worked silently. A prayer, Peter hoped. Although they had never worked for him.
“Goodbye, Mom,” she finally said. Then, with great care, she raised the sheet back to where she’d found it and returned to Peter’s side. “Let’s go.”
Peter turned to Kitzinger. “I need Ellie’s things, her toiletries.”
The detective pointed toward the connecting door. “In the next room.”
He walked past the splintered wood and saw the girl’s things in the corner beside his duffel and coat. Peter said to Kitzinger, “Thanks for your accommodation here. I really appreciate it.”
She nodded an acknowledgment. “Captain Durant’s outside. He’s taken a personal interest in this one. He wants to see you.”
With great deliberation, Ellie put on her mother’s jacket. Peter pulled on his own raincoat, then picked up their bags, and they went out into the drizzle. Durant stood in the parking lot, outside the tent sheltering the broken corpse of the dead shooter. Water dripped from the brim of his hat. His black coat flickered with the stuttering brightness of the photographer’s flash. He came to meet them, took Ellie’s arm, and steered her away from the carnage. “Detective Kitzinger, please take Ms. Thorsen to the office to wait. The social worker is on her way.”
Ellie, looking tiny in her mother’s orange raincoat, shook her head and stepped close to Peter. “I’m not going anywhere without him.”
Peter said, “I’ll be right here, Ellie. Also, Detective Kitzinger is going to find your dad.”
Her whole body seemed to clench. “My dad’s anasshole. He doesn’t even want totalkto me. I haven’t seen him in, like, five years. He lives in China or something. He doesn’t even answer emails.”
Kitzinger put her hand on Ellie’s shoulder. “Let’s just go meet the social worker. Work all this out.”
Ellie ducked to slip her grip, then stepped close to Peter and grabbed his arm again. “No. I’m staying withhim.”
The legal system was brutal with regard to minors, Peter knew. Without the father or other blood relatives, the best option was KT’s close friends, and June hadn’t thought she had many of those in town. The parents of Ellie’s friends would be the next step, but after four violent deaths, would any of them want to take in the girl and put their own family at risk, even with police protection?
Barring sainthood, probably not. And Peter didn’t blame them.
Which meant the girl would almost certainly end up in temporary foster care until somebody agreed to be her guardian. The guardian would have to pass a rigorous background check and numerous site visits. That process could take months. And none of it would help her cope with the fact that two people had tried to kill her, and one of them had killed her mother.
Peter looked at Durant. “We talked about this. She’s coming with me until we know what the hell is going on.”
“That’s not how it works,” Durant said. “Until we learn what her mother intended for her daughter and find a suitable guardian, Eleanor Thorsen is a ward of the state. You just killed a man, so you’re not exactly a prime candidate for guardianship. But before you object, she’ll have protection until we wrap this whole thing up.”
“She was supposed to have protection tonight,” Peter said. “Look how that turned out. In fact, as far as I can tell, the cops were the only people who knew we were at this damn motel. Somebody told Enderby how to find us. What if there’s somebody else out there?”
The captain’s face was impassive. “I don’t like it, either, but that’s how it’s going to be. The social worker will find her a bed and stay with her. I’ll detail multiple officers to stand guard, twenty-four seven.”
Ellie’s face was pale, as though she was about to be sick. Her grip on Peter’s arm was strong enough to bend steel bars.
“We had a deal,” Peter said. “You were going to run interference with the bosses. So I could keep Eleanor safe.”
“I said we’d talk about it,” Durant snapped. “This is a homicide. Minors without relatives go with Child Protective Services until a long-term solution is found. She’s a ward of the state. The rules don’t change just because some civilian wants them to.”
Peter frowned. KT would have used her journalistic muscle to leverage the higher-ups. But KT was dead. He had no leverage against Durant and the cops. He knew from his eight years in the Corps that trying to force institutions to change usually just made things worse. Orders were orders, even the stupid ones.
But he was no longer a Marine. He didn’t need to follow orders anymore.
He tipped his chin toward the wet parking lot. “I need to talk with Ellie. Give me a minute?”
“Don’t be long,” Durant said. “And before you forget, you’d better give Detective Kitzinger the keys to Enderby’s pickup.”
Peter fished out the keys and handed them over. He remembered that he still had the cheap phone in his cargo pocket. He’d intended to hand that over, too.
