“IT MIGHT BE NADINE.”

Abby watched Luke pale at the words, but he said nothing as they waited for the next call.

The phone rang a few minutes later. Abby told him it was Woody before she answered.

“Sorry to get you up, but I got a call about a woman down at Hotel Pacific, and wouldn’t you know it —it’s that runaway we talked about last week, Nadine Hoover. She’s been beat up good. This may be a homicide before morning; she’s circling the drain. I went through dispatch because I want this to be official if you want to respond.”

Abby took a deep breath and worked to keep her reaction calm with Murphy’s steady gaze focused on her. “I’m not on call this week.”

“I know. I had dispatch call Jacoby before they called you. He put the ball in your court. If you want to respond, it’s your case.”

“All right. Is the scene secure?”

“Yep. I thought she was dead when I got there, so I buttoned everything up tight. I’ll let them know you’re on the way.” He gave her the address and the names of the officers on scene.

Abby’s mind churned, and she began to pace again, ignoring Murphy for a minute. Evidence gathering in the first hours after a murder was crucial. Nothing would be different with a living victim. “I can be there in about twenty. Woody, was a weapon used?”

“No, it looks like fists.”

“Sexual assault? Defensive wounds?”

“Not apparent on the first. She was fully clothed. . . . Uh, some wounds, though, yeah. She fought back.”

“Do me a favor —if they haven’t cleaned her up, bag her hands. I’ll try to get the lab tech over there as soon as I can to scrape under her nails.”

“You got it.”

She faced Murphy. “They found Nadine severely beaten in a hotel room on the west side.”

“But she’s alive?”

“Right now.” Abby picked up Bandit and headed for the door.

Murphy grabbed her arm. “I want to go with you.”

She hesitated for a million reasons, but not wanting him to come wasn’t one of them. The warmth that spread through her whole body from his touch, the hazel eyes that missed nothing, and the realization that she wanted to keep the connection she’d felt during their discussion all conspired to cause her to fumble for words.

Murphy obviously thought she didn’t want him along.

“Look.” He released her arm and crossed his. “You’ll call me anyway and you know it. Besides, I can get ahold of her mother —”

The words finally formed. “Yes, you can come.”

“What?”

“Just hurry. I have to drop Bandit off on the way, so there’s no time to lose.”

“Great. I’ll just be a second.”

Luke hadn’t felt so tense and off-balance since the day he arrived home from overseas to see his injured little girl in the hospital and to bury his wife.

He’d hopped into Abby’s car after giving his mom the news. Abby had a police radio in her car, and she turned it on so they could listen for any traffic related to Nadine’s call.

“She was found at a room in the Hotel Pacific,” Abby told him.

“Will Bill be there?”

“We’re not on call. I’ll have to see what’s going on and call our lieutenant to see if Bill is approved to respond.”

The detective then clammed up. They stopped at her house, which Luke thought fit her, solid lines and no-nonsense. She jogged in with the dog and jogged out a few minutes later with a thick briefcase Luke guessed was her crime scene field kit. She had her cop face on, and Luke found that it inspired him with confidence; they’d catch whoever did this to Nadine.

Hotel Pacific was very near the house that had brought Abby into Luke’s life, he thought as they exited the freeway on the west side of the city. He and Bill had walked by the tired hotel several times during their fruitless search for Nadine.

Flashing lights of several police cars lit up the night in front of and along the alley beside the Pacific.

Luke unhooked his seat belt as Abby parked behind a black-and-white.

“I have an extra Windbreaker in my trunk. Wear it, and I hope I don’t have to tell you not to touch anything.” She faced him, hands together in front of her chest. “And you will not, under any circumstances, give any statement to the press, unless approved.”

“Of course not.” Luke wondered where that came from but didn’t pause to debate the point. He reached across the car and grabbed her arm as she opened the car door. She turned and he saw something indefinable cross her face briefly and then the cop face was in place. “Thanks for bringing me along.”

“Sure.”

Luke released her arm, and both of them got out of the car, stopping at the trunk, where Abby handed Luke a Windbreaker with Police stenciled on the back. He put it on as they walked toward the hotel room with the open door and the obvious police presence.

The first thing that caught Luke’s eye when he could see through the open door —and the thing that compressed his chest —was the pink-and-green backpack he’d seen Nadine carrying a thousand times. Her teen girl giggle resonated in his memory, and he prayed that despite the evidence to the contrary she’d be okay.

It looked as though the contents of the pack had been dumped out and strewn over the bed. A furious struggle had obviously taken place. There was blood spatter on the wall behind the bed with more blood pooled on the floor. Luke guessed that was where the girl ended up. The one nightstand in the room was knocked over and the cheap lamp broken.

“Who called?” Abby asked the uniform handling the scene.

“Hotel manager. Apparently there were complaints from several other hotel occupants.” He rolled his eyes, and Luke got the hint that that was likely because the other rooms were rented by the hour.

“He didn’t act on the first complaint, which was —” the officer checked his notes —“around eleven. It took two more complaints for him to check on the room and then call us. By the time Woody got here, the suspect was gone and the girl had been pounded. We interviewed as many people as we could. All we got was they heard noise but did nothing.”

Another officer stepped forward. “Detective, there was one guy who got involved, a john. He apparently saw what was happening —the door was cracked open —and confronted the assailant. Got slugged for his trouble; then he fled. His, uh, ‘date’ was still here when we arrived. Woody talked to her.”

Luke watched Abby biting her lip as she considered this.

“A good lead?” he asked.

“It could be if we can ever talk to the Good Samaritan. Odds are it was a married man having a tryst with a hooker, and the last thing he’ll want to do is be a witness. I’ll bet Woody knew the working girl because this is his beat. I hope he has more for us when we get to the hospital.”

She stepped inside the room and motioned for Luke to stay in the doorway. Even from there the smell hit him. Old pizza and sweat. He could see leftover pizza and old fries in Destination X wrappers on the bureau. From the trash strewn about, he bet Nadine had been holed up here for a while. Coins and one or two bills comingled with the trash on the floor. So this was no ordinary robbery.

He concentrated on watching Abby and started when someone tapped his shoulder. He stepped aside for the lab tech.

“Two weeks in a row on call?” she asked Abby.

“Long story.” Abby turned an intense gaze to Luke. “Do you recognize anything here? Step inside for a minute.”

“The backpack is hers, and some of the clothes I recognize as probably hers.” He did a slow sweep of the room. “I don’t see her phone. She had a neon-green case for her phone.”

Abby folded her arms and turned back to the lab tech. “When you finish with the pictures, I’d like all the stuff that looks like it belongs in the backpack in an evidence bag. I’ll take it to the hospital on the off chance the victim can tell us if there is anything that doesn’t belong to her. Process the backpack yourself. I’m hoping you’ll get some evidence off of it. If the suspect was angry and if he’s the one that emptied it, maybe we’ll get lucky with saliva —”

“How’d you get a live one?” the lab tech asked.

Luke jerked back in her direction. “Live one.” Abby was homicide. Would that be how Nadine would eventually be classified?