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“Sarah?”
“Eloise?” Sarah stretched up on tiptoe and waved a hand at the officers. “Do you know what’s happening?”
“I—” She choked on the words, not able to tell them that Kim was dead. She could barely see the body now, surrounded by uniformed officers as they waited for homicide investigators to arrive, but it wasn’t just a body to her. It was her friend. Their friend. How could she tell them both that someone they all loved had been murdered? She couldn’t and she turned away, moved a few steps closer to the parking lot as she tried to push down the guilt and the sick feeling of loss that threatened to choke her. If she’d come sooner, instead of lingering at the house with Jackson and David …
She didn’t look back until she heard voices coming closer and found Chloe and Sarah were both being led over to stand beside her next to the cop car. They stared curiously at the body as they walked by, but Eloise didn’t see any recognition on their faces and she realized they must have covered her, probably to preserve evidence against the rain.
“Are you okay?” Sarah wrapped an arm around Eloise. “That cop told us someone had been murdered? I can’t believe it.” She looked around with wide eyes, taking in activity around them as she pressed a hand to her stomach. “I guess we’re supposed to stick around until the homicide detective gets here, in case he wants to ask us any questions?”
“Not like we know anything,” Chloe grumbled. “It was probably Dwayne. People are so sick of him, I bet half of Sarah’s department have thought about doing him in.” It was a dark joke to lighten the fear in the air, and she bumped Sarah with her shoulder and smiled thinly.
“It wasn’t Dwayne.” Eloise put a hand on Sarah’s arm. “It was Kim.”
“What?” The look of curiosity on Sarah’s face faded, replaced by anger. “That’s not funny. Why would you say that?”
“It’s true,” Eloise said, barely more than a whisper. “I found her.”
“You’re lying,” Chloe said. She reached for her phone and started tapping the screen. “I’ll call her, and she’ll answer and then we’ll see. You shouldn’t play around about that kind of shit.”
“I’m not,” Eloise insisted. “I wouldn’t do that. I found her and?—”
They all fell silent when Kim’s phone began to ring. The sound floated on the breeze, muffled by the light rain that was still falling, but clearly coming from the vicinity of the body. Chloe went green in the face when the truth of the situation hit her, and Sarah rushed over to the edge of the sidewalk to throw up in the bushes.
“She can’t be dead, I just talked to her.” Chloe reached for Eloise’s hand, her fingers cold and wet where they gripped. “They said someone was murdered. Was she …?”
“There were bruises.” Eloise laid a hand against her own throat and Chloe’s eyes followed, tears forming on her lashes. Were they both wondering what it had felt like? The fear Kim must have gone through in those last moments. “She was cold when I got here. So stiff and blue.”
“We didn’t know she was even coming.” Sarah wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “We didn’t know either of you were coming.”
“I wasn’t.” Eloise wished she’d agreed to stay and have dinner with Jackson and David. Someone else would have found the body. She wished she’d left her house sooner. Kim wouldn’t have been alone and maybe she wouldn’t be dead at all. “I just came up to deal with that paperwork you called me about earlier.”
“This is so sick. I can’t believe it. Do you think we’re going to be suspects now?” Chloe was staring at Kim’s body, her hands clutched in front of her as she spoke. There was a wild, terrified light in her eyes. “That’s what all the true crime shows say, right? They always look first at the people that found the body? The people that were at the scene? We all knew her and we were all here.”
“We don’t know when she …” Sarah shook her head and swallowed hard, “When it happened but we were here all afternoon. We didn’t come down till the power cut back on because we knew we couldn’t get out of the building.”
Eloise leaned against the car; the breath knocked out of her again at the thought. “I was alone when I found her. I’m the one that called the police. The cameras were probably out just like the doors so there’s no way to prove she was dead when I got here.”
“This shit is supposed to have a backup power supply.” Sarah ran a hand through her hair, leaving it tousled and untidy for the first time in Eloise’s memory. “How long have we been complaining about the system not working right? It’s bad enough that the power goes out when it rains. The least this fucking company could do is make sure the security systems still work.”
“It’s too late for that now.” Chloe’s face was still a little green and there was a thin line of vomit down the front of her shirt. “I can’t … This can’t be happening. She can’t be dead. Christ, what if we all go to jail because the power was out and there’s no way for us to prove we were inside and …”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Eloise rubbed a hand over Chloe’s arm to calm her. She was irritated at the selfishness of Chloe’s concerns—their friend was dead, after all—but hadn’t she run to her own car to hide instead of doing CPR? Kim was gone and there was nothing they could do about that. There would be time to grieve and she was sure they would each have to deal with that loss. It didn’t stop them from wondering how it would change their own lives and the kinds of danger they might be in now.
“Just answer the questions honestly when the detectives show up and I’m sure everything will be fine,” Sarah said, but the look on her face was worried and uncertain enough that Eloise knew she didn’t fully believe it herself.
Sixteen
Eloise had never realized how busy a crime scene actually was. The front of the building had been so calm and quiet when she’d arrived but within a few short minutes it was overrun with indistinguishable beat cops in matching uniforms, EMTs packing up their equipment, medical examiners with apathetic faces, and homicide detectives in cheap suits holding clipboards and asking questions.
Everyone was busy doing a job, but Eloise’s stomach revolted as she watched them move around with such apathetic efficiency. This was routine to them, crossing paths with death simply something they did between cups of shitty work coffee, but Eloise had never stared down at the shell a person left behind, especially not a person that she’d known personally in life.
Would they have examined her body with such curious indifference if they’d seen her while she was still alive? Seen those incredible eyes of hers bright and shining on a summer afternoon and not dull and glassy and staring endlessly up at a cloudy, rainswept sky?
“And you’re sure you didn’t see anyone else around when you arrived, Ms. Mason?” The detective, whose name Eloise had already forgotten, was watching her closely as she wrote down the answers to each of the questions she’d asked Eloise so far. She seemed young for a homicide detective, small and thin and with the faintest edge of a Chinese accent, but there was a calm look of determination in her eyes. She didn’t look like the type to let off of a goal once she’d set her mind to it, which Eloise supposed was useful in her line of work.
“No one,” Eloise confirmed. “It was raining, and I wasn’t really looking around. I was watching the sky because there was some lightning and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get into the building.”
“And the body was exactly as it is now when you found it?”
