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MURDER WAS ALWAYS AN INSULT, AND HAD been since the first human hand had smashed a stone into the first human skull. But the murder, bloody and brutal, of an entire family in their own home, in their own beds, was a different form of evil.
Eve Dallas, NYPSD Homicide, pondered it as she stood studying Inga Snood, forty-two-year-old female. Domestic, divorced. Dead.
Blood spatter and the scene itself told her how it must have been. Snood's killer had walked in the door, crossed to the bed, yanked Snood's head up—probably by the mid-length blonde hair, raked the edge of the blade neatly—left to right—across her throat, severing the jugular.
Relatively tidy, certainly quick. Probably quiet. It was unlikely the victim had the time to comprehend what was happening. No defensive wounds, no other trauma, no signs of struggle. Just blood and the dead.
Eve had beaten both her partner and Crime Scene to the house. The nine-one-one had gone to Emergency, relayed to a black-and-white on neighborhood patrol. The uniforms had called in the homicides, and she'd gotten the tag just before three in the morning.
She still had the rest of the dead, the rest of the scenes, to study. She stepped back out, glanced at the uniform on post in the kitchen.
"Keep this scene secure."
"Yes, sir, Lieutenant."
She moved through the kitchen out into a bisected space—living on one side, dining on the other. Upper-middle income, single-family residence. Nice, Upper West Side neighborhood. Decent security, which hadn't done the Swishers or their domestic a damn bit of good.
Good furniture—tasteful, she supposed. Everything neat and clean and in what appeared to be its place. No burglary, not with plenty of easily transported electronics.
She went upstairs, came to the parents' room first. Keelie and Grant Swisher, ages thirty-eight and forty, respectively. As with their housekeeper, there was no sign of struggle. Just two people who'd been asleep in their own bed and were now dead.
She gave the room a quick glance, saw a pricey man's wrist unit on a dresser, a pair of woman's gold earrings on another.
No, not burglary.
She stepped back out just as her partner, Detective Delia Peabody, came up the steps. Limping—just a little.
Had she put Peabody back on active too soon? Eve wondered. Her partner had taken a serious beating only three weeks before after being ambushed steps outside her own apartment building. And Eve still had the image of the stalwart Peabody bruised, broken, unconscious in a hospital bed.
Best to put the image, and the guilt, aside. Best to remember how she herself hated being on medical, and that work was sometimes better than forced rest.
"Five dead? Home invasion?" Huffing a bit, Peabody gestured down the steps. "The uniform on the door gave me a quick run."
"It looks like, but we don't call it yet. Domestic's downstairs, rooms off the kitchen. Got it in bed, throat slit. Owners in there. Same pattern. Two kids, girl and boy, in the other rooms on this level."
"Kids? Jesus."
"First on scene indicated this was the boy." Eve moved to the next door, called for the lights.
"Records ID twelve-year-old Coyle Swisher." There were framed sports posters on his walls. Baseball taking the lead. Some of his blood had spewed onto the torso of the Yankees current hot left fielder.
Though there was the debris of an adolescent on the floor, on the desk and dresser, she saw no sign Coyle had had any more warning than his parents.
Peabody pressed her lips together, cleared her throat. "Quick, efficient," she said in flat tones.
"No forced entry. No alarms tripped. Either the Swishers neglected to set them—and I wouldn't bet on that—or somebody had their codes or a good jammer. Girl should be down here."
"Okay." Peabody squared her shoulders. "It's harder when it's kids."
"It's supposed to be." Eve stepped to the next room, called for lights, and studied the fluffy pink and white bed, the little girl with her blonde hair matted with blood. "Nine-year-old Nixie Swisher, according to the records."
"Practically a baby."
"Yeah." Eve scanned the room, and her head cocked. "What do you see, Peabody?"
Copyright © 2005 by Nora Roberts
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The newest in the number-one New York Times-bestselling In Death series featuring Lieutenant Eve Dallas and Roarke. Nora Roberts writing as J. D. Robb returns to the New York City of 2059--where Dallas will struggle to solve the murder of a seemingly ordinary family and to protect one small, terrified survivor. The members of the Swisher family were murdered in their beds with brutal, military precision. The state-of-the-art security was breached, and the killers used night-vision equipment to find their way through the cozy, middle-class house. Clearly, Dallas is dealing with pros. It seems the only mistake they made was to overlook the nine-year-old girl cowering in the darkened kitchen. Now Nixie Swisher is an orphan-and the sole eyewitness to a seemingly inexplicable crime. Kids are not Dallas's strong suit. But Nixie needs a safe place to stay, and Dallas needs to solve this case. With her partner, Peabody, back on the job-and her husband, Roarke, providing the kind of help that only he can give-Lieutenant Eve Dallas is running after shadows, and dead-set on finding out who's behind them.
