He caught her as she would have slid past him. He muttered a curse. “Be careful. All we need is another victim in the mix. I would have come to you.”
She was gazing down at the blackened, smoking car. “Another victim? Elena Delaney was in that car?”
“They can’t get close enough to determine that,” he said. “But they should know soon. It’s almost a foregone conclusion. They’ve searched the slope and rocks, and she wasn’t thrown from the car.”
“They’re sure it was her car?” Margaret said as she came to stand beside them.
“They found the license plate. It was blown over on those rocks when the gas tank exploded. Half-melted but readable.” He looked back at Eve. “It looks as if Walsh found her.”
Eve nodded as she looked down at that charred wreckage. She felt a wrenching pity. She knew little about Elena Delaney, but she had risked her life to save that little girl. She didn’t deserve to have that monster do this to her. “Terrible.”
He nodded. “But the question is, did this happen before or after he found her?”
“What?”
“Did he fake this accident after he found out what he wanted to know from her? Or did she go off the road while she was in a panic, trying to get away from him?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m not thinking too clearly. My first thought was that Walsh did it.”
“And probably the right one. I’m so frustrated, I’m grasping at straws. I don’t want him to get what he wanted.” He said through clenched teeth, “I wanted him.”
So had Eve.
This can’t happen again, Jenny had said. It’s all wrong.
But it was happening, and Eve hadn’t been able to stop it.
She looked back down at the wreckage. “We should know soon enough if he managed to chalk up another victim.”
“She won’t be down there in that car,” Margaret said quietly.
Eve’s gaze flew to her face. “What?”
“I think that Nalchek is probably right, and he faked the accident to stall us.”
“Why do you think that?”
She lifted her gaze to the sky and pointed. “Because they’re flying over that hill on the other side of the road.”
Eve’s gaze followed Margaret’s.
Vultures. Black vultures wheeling in wide circles in the sky.
“Shit!” Nalchek whirled to face Margaret. “Could they be sensing death or injury in that car?”
“Not likely. They have extraordinary smell, but that car was burning, and smoke would have masked the death scent.” She looked back at the vultures across the road. “They think that their meal is up there somewhere.”
“Shit!” Nalchek started running up the slope at top speed.
Eve and Margaret were right behind him.
“She’s dead?” Eve asked. “Is that why—”
“She may not be dead yet,” Margaret said. “But it must be close. Actually, they think she’s alive. Movement. That’s why they’re still just hovering. They won’t go in until they believe there’s no fight left in the victim. That’s the way they prefer it.”
“Then we have a chance of saving her.” They had reached the road, but Nalchek was already on the other side and entering the woods. Eve ran after him. “There’s a chance.”
“Eve…” Margaret was running after her. “Don’t get your hopes up. Those vultures smell it.”
Smell death.
Eve ignored her and tried to catch up to Nalchek. He was glancing on either side of the trail as he climbed the hill.
No sign.
He reached the top of the hill.
He stopped, gazing at something below him.
Eve had a cold, sinking feeling.
It didn’t have to be bad.
But Nalchek was just standing there.
She caught up to him. “Do you see—”
A small, slender woman was lying crumpled near the bottom of the hill. She looked like the description they had of Elena Delaney. Midthirties, brown hair with a pink streak …
Or was that blood?
Her white T-shirt was soaked in blood.
She looked … broken.
White bones were sticking out of those thin arms. And her neck was at an odd angle.