14 - J. T. Ellison [61]
The inside of the house was dressed in a nearly sterile white. To the left of the entry foyer, white leather furniture with glass tables and lamps dominated a small living room, with white walls and white drapes. To the right, a kitchen with white marble floors and a white countertop completed the monochromatic decor. White Berber carpet led down a short hallway to three doors—Taylor could see a pristine bathroom at the end of the hall and assumed the two other doors led to bedrooms. She was right.
“Door number one,” Parks said, gesturing to the right. “And door number two.” He pointed left. “Take your pick, they’re nearly identical.”
Taylor chose the right side first. She stood in the doorway and looked into the room, running her Maglite over the dimness. She didn’t need the overhead to see the blood. Copious amounts of red, startling against the contiguous white theme, was very defining. From her vantage point at the doorway, she could see blood everywhere, cast off on the unmade bed and headboard, washed across the wall, soaking the carpet. In the middle of the bed, a dark-haired woman lay on her stomach, facedown on the sheets, which were nearly black. Exsanguination, her mind told her. The woman’s legs were akimbo, the left twisted under the right as if she’d fallen at an angle onto the mattress. Taylor couldn’t see her arms.
She switched places with Baldwin and Fitz, looking into the left-side room. The scene was virtually identical. A knot formed in her stomach. A double homicide, with both scenes indistinguishable at first glance. Fuck.
She heard talking, turned to see Sam striding toward her.
“Heard you had a bad day,” she said when she reached Taylor.
“Couldn’t be any worse than yours. You had Remy St. Claire fogging up your office. I’m just on my third and fourth bodies today and Baldwin’s former lover is in town with some kind of agenda.”
“A stellar day for us both. What do we have here?” Sam was dressed for the scene and obviously champing at the bit to get to work.
“Two dead, lots of blood, and a mess. I was hoping you could shed some light. They haven’t been turned, I want to see that. This feels a little too familiar, if you know what I mean.”
“Okay. Let me work. By the way, you know we’re supposed to go to dinner tonight. I might be running a little late.”
Taylor groaned. Yes, they were supposed to have dinner tonight, a joint bachelor/bachelorette evening. She’d forgotten.
“Yeah, well, I won’t die if we can’t do it.”
“Oh, come on, T. The boys are all excited. We’ll do dinner, then let them go to the VIBE. There’s a nice little bar next door, we’ll sit in there and drink. Unless you want to go to the strip club.”
“Baldwin’s excited to go to a strip club?” She looked over her shoulder; he was back out in the foyer of the house, talking on his cell phone. His brow was crinkled and she wondered who he was talking to.
“No, I think it’s more Simon is excited. He hasn’t gotten a chance to have a lot of male bonding since the babies came. We’ll let him and Baldwin, Fitz, Marcus and Lincoln watch the girlies dance and you and I will have a relaxing hour before they come back. I plan on getting ravished after that. So don’t spoil my fun, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. We’ll probably have to skip the dinner portion of our evening. What’s the name of the bar? I’ll just plan to meet you there later on. Between the shootings at Baptist and this double, I’m going to be up to my ears signing off on a shitload of paperwork tonight.”
Sam thought hard. “I think it’s called something like…Control, that’s it. Control.”
“Sounds like a gay bar, one of the ones up on Church Street.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t name it. And it’s not. Let’s get to it.” She went into the first room and did a thorough setup, taking her time. It was a good twenty minutes