Page 87 of Fury In Death

She went back for an evidence bag.

“Looks like a black-market stunner. Illegal. Bagging for evidence. My bet is we’ll find the vic’s prints on it. Redman doesn’t need one, and he wouldn’t have left it behind anyway.”

She glanced back at the body. “Didn’t help you, did it?”

She worked her way around the scene. “Smashed furniture, lamps, shattered glass table. Some damaged in the altercation, some likely destroyed by Redman. Shelves bookending the fireplace, all items but one smashed.”

She picked up the framed photo, turned it around. “Cap-and-gown photo, looks like high school. Young male, likely the son. Fits pattern.

“He let you crawl a little, but you couldn’t have had much left. Then he finished you where you lay. Some of the injuries will be postmortem because you were done, gone before he could stop.

“You’re not going to stop, Steve. You’re not going to stop until we stop you.”

She crossed over to answer the door again, and let in the morgue team.

The lead man, one she figured had seen more ugly death than she had, sucked air between his teeth.

“Teenage Jesus on an airboard, Dallas, how many more of these you giving us?”

She wished she knew. As she watched the sweeper van pull up, she thought it again. She wished she knew.

After she spoke with the sweepers, after the uniforms rounded back to tell her what she’d expected—no one saw anything, no one knew anything—she started up the stairs.

Roarke came to the head of them.

“I’m done here,” she told him.

“You’ll want to come up. A panel in the office,” he said as she continued up the stairs. “A clever and tricky mechanism, but I’m clever and tricky.”

“No argument.”

He gestured her in.

Inside the now-open panel, she saw another black-market stunner, a long-range weapon, two handguns, two over-the-limit knives, and a number of handmade boomers. With them, stacks of cash in what she noted were several types of currency.

She walked closer, noted another stack. Passports. Lifting one, she saw the victim’s photo, but not his legal name. Beside that stack, another with official-looking IDs.

“Looks like he traveled for work.”

“I’ll wager he has another place, off property, where he keeps his tools and supplies for that work.”

“Yeah, the boom squad will take that. I’ll have all this confiscated. I found another stunner on scene, like that one.”

“It didn’t help him, did it now?”

“That’s what I said.”

“I found his books for his more lucrative work. It lists clients and targets as well as payments. The clients and targets are recorded by code, which I’m very confident Feeney and EDD will break in time. I can take it on myself if you want.”

“Feeney will want it. How far does it go?”

“Three years. Likely the older ones are on disc files, stored at one of his other properties. You’ll find them.”

“Damn right we will. I’m going to call this in, tag Feeney so he knows where we are. And don’t say it’s too late to tag him tonight.”

“It’s barely ten, Eve.”

How could it be barely ten? How could it not be three in the fucking morning?