Death Calls. Caridad Pineiro

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      “Forensics will be able to confirm whether you did or not, Mr. Rodriguez. You may as well tell us now.” Peter moved to the table.

      Raul snarled at the detective, “I did not kill my wife. I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. She was my life. Mi vida.” He jabbed at a spot above his heart to emphasize the point.

      The sincerity in his words convinced Diana. She touched Raul’s clenched fist. “I believe you.”

      He slumped into his chair. “Gracias, Diana.”

      She glared at Peter. “I want to see all the reports. Anything you have.”

      “You’re not assigned to this case. If the suspect hadn’t asked for you—”

      “I would have found out and—”

      “You don’t have jurisdiction here.”

      He was right. Taking a deep breath to control her anger and frustration, Diana nodded and followed Peter out of the room. Peter wouldn’t refuse if she asked. So she did. “Ask me to help. I need to know what happened to my friend.”

      Peter gave her a long look. “Unofficially and…whatever I say goes on this one. I’m the lead.”

      “You’re the boss, Detective Daly.”

      Peter let out a soft chuckle. “Right, Reyes. As if that will ever happen with any man in your life.”

      “May I see the evidence, Detective? Pretty please?”

      Peter chuckled again and shook his head. “Cut the shit, Di. You don’t do submissive very well.”

      No, she didn’t, come to think of it. Maybe that was part of the reason her situation with Ryder troubled her so much. What she felt for him made her weak, made her surrender a piece of herself. She wasn’t good about not being in charge.

      “Okay, so I’m asking straight-up. Show me what you’ve got.”

      He motioned down the hallway. “CSU is processing most of it. But we can head to the M.E.’s to see the body—”

      “Don’t call Sylvia that.”

      Peter sighed and dragged a hand through his ragged sun-bleached hair. “I’m sorry. But you need to get perspective.”

      “I will deal with it. But if it were Samantha—”

      “Low blow, Reyes,” he said, his tone filled with anger at the idea of harm coming to his lover—who had sired Ryder more than a century earlier.

      Ryder.

      Like the intertwined strands on a web, everything in her life inevitably led back to him. Could she ever be truly free of him? Or would she be forever ensnared in that web, trapped by what she felt for him?

      Had once felt for him, she reminded herself. As for those emotions and anything connected to them…she had to put them aside and focus on what was most important now—avenging her friend’s death.

      Diana let out an exasperated breath and laid a hand on Peter’s sleeve. “I’m sorry. I will try to handle it better. Let’s go see Sylvia. Por favor.”

      She would do what needed to be done to find Sylvia’s killer. And when she located him…

      Living with vampires for two years had shown her just what she was capable of—fierce, swift action with no hesitation. Justice without the complicated rules of the human world.

      She pitied Sylvia’s killer when he, too, found that out.

      Chapter 4

      Just a few weeks ago, the swell of Sylvia’s pregnancy had been a sign of hope for good things to come. Today, as Sylvia lay on the shiny metal of the medical examiner’s table, it was a grotesque reminder of promises that would never be fulfilled.

      Diana stood by patiently as the M.E. went over the details of the evidence. Bullet entry and exit wounds. Proximity of the muzzle—a close-contact kill with a large-caliber weapon, straight to the heart. Sylvia could never have survived the trauma. The delay in getting help had sealed the fate of the baby.

      Gunpowder burns and stippling marked Sylvia’s pajamas and skin. The bullet had gone straight through her and into the mattress below. CSU had recovered the bullet, but no casing. Ballistics was already attempting to link the bullet to the gun found and to any other crimes recently committed.

      “Do you know if your friends owned a gun?” Peter asked as he picked up the .45 caliber revolver in an evidence bag.

      “In law school Sylvia lobbied on behalf of the Assault Gun Ban. What do you think?”

      With a quick nod, he held the bag out for the M.E. “Any prints?”

      “Palm print as well as four fingers. We’re running them now against the suspect.” The M.E. reached into a tray holding more evidence and extracted a bag containing clothing. “Mr. Rodriguez’s pajamas tested positive for blood in various locations, as well as high-velocity blood splatter along the right sleeve.”

      A possible inconsistency suddenly occurred to her. “Palm and fingerprints. Right or left hand?”

      The M.E. flipped the bag containing the gun back and forth and examined the fingerprint powder residue. “Right.”

      “Raul’s a lefty. Sylvia was always getting him those silly gadgets for lefties.”

      “That doesn’t rule out that he used his right hand,” the M.E. said.

      Diana went over the M.E.’s earlier report on the entry and exit wounds. “He was lying on his side, facing her, when he did it.”

      The M.E. bobbed his head up and down. “That would explain the lack of defensive wounds. He could get the weapon in place and fire without her noticing.”

      “Or someone could put the gun in his hand, hold it in place and pull the trigger. Especially if Sylvia and Raul had been drugged. What about gunshot residue?”

      “We haven’t tested him for GSR yet. Before you arrived, he clammed up and asked for a lawyer,” Peter said.

      Years of experience had taught her that the innocent rarely felt the need for a lawyer, but then again, being married to an attorney might make Raul hesitant to provide assistance without legal advice. He had probably heard his share of horror stories from Sylvia about how things got twisted into something other than what they really were.

      “The GSR test would confirm whether or not he was close to the gun when it was fired,” Peter said.

      “But not whether he was the one who actually pulled the trigger,” Diana reminded him. “The blood splatter pattern, however, might tell us.”

      With an annoyed sigh, likely at the prospect of doing additional work, the M.E. said, “Special Agent Reyes, you can’t actually believe the husband didn’t do it? The case is almost airtight.”

      “Airtight? СКАЧАТЬ