Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Colletion_ Books 6-10 - Laurell K. Hamilton [677]
The blood was brighter than movie blood, a cherry red. They’d gotten to this scene before the blood had started to dry.
I spoke without turning around. “How did the police find the bodies so quickly in this house? The blood is still fresh.”
Edward answered, “The husband’s parents were supposed to meet them for an early breakfast, before work.”
I had to look away from the picture, at the floor. “You mean his parents found him like this?”
“It gets worse,” Edward said.
“How could it possibly get worse?” I asked.
“The wife told her best friend she was pregnant. The breakfast meeting was to tell the husband’s parents they were about to be grandparents for the first time.”
The rug swam in my vision, like looking at it through water. I reached back for a chair and eased my way into it. I put my head between my knees and breathed very carefully.
“You all right?” Edward asked.
I nodded without raising up. I waited for Olaf to make a sarcastic remark, but he didn’t. Either Edward had warned him off or he thought it was horrible, too.
When I was sure I wasn’t going to throw up or faint, I spoke with my head still between my knees. “When did the parents arrive at the house? What time?”
I heard paper rustle. “Six-thirty.”
I rested my cheek against my knee. It felt good. “When did the sun come up?”
“I don’t know,” Edward said.
“Find out,” I said. Gee, the rug on the floor was kind of pretty.
I raised up slowly, still practicing nice even breaths. The room did not swim. Good. “The grandparents-to-be arrived at six-thirty. It takes what, ten minutes, less, for them to recover enough to call the cops. Then uniforms arrive on the scene first. It could take thirty minutes or an hour, more, for a crime scene photographer to arrive, and yet the blood is still fresh. It hasn’t dulled yet, let alone started to brown.”
“The parents nearly walked in on it,” Edward said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“What difference does that make?” Olaf asked.
“If dawn was close to six-thirty, then the critter can be out in daylight, or it went to a hole close to the murder scene. If it wasn’t close to dawn, then it may be limited to darkness.”
Edward was smiling down at me like a proud parent. “Even with your head between your knees, you’re still thinking about the job.”
“But what does it gain us,” Olaf said, “if the creature is limited to darkness or daylight?”
I looked up at him. He was looming over me again, but I kept sitting down. Wouldn’t look very macho if I stood up and fell down. “If it’s limited to darkness, then it may help us figure out what kind of critter it is. There really aren’t that many preternatural creatures that are limited exclusively to darkness. It would help narrow the list.”
“And if it holed up near the first murder scene,” Edward said, “we might find some traces.”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“The police tramped over that area within an inch of its life,” Olaf said. “Are you saying you can find something that they can’t?” His arrogance was showing.
“With the first murder, especially, the police were looking for a human perpetrator. If you’re looking for a human being, you look for different things than if it’s a monster.” I smiled. “Besides, if we didn’t all think we could find things that the police couldn’t, we wouldn’t be here. Edward wouldn’t have called us in, and the police wouldn’t have shared the files with him.”
Olaf frowned. “I have never seen you smile like this, Edward, unless you are pretending to be Ted. You look like a proud teacher whose pupil is doing well.”
“More like Frankenstein with his monster,” I said.
Edward thought about it for a second, then nodded and grinned, pleased with himself. “I like that.”
Olaf frowned at both of us. “You did not create her, Edward.”