Page 21 of Not Quite Dead Yet

‘The doctor said I was hit three times,’ she said, bending it up into a question.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s what the evidence shows.’

‘What else does it show?’

Jack chewed his tongue, checked over his shoulder.

‘Please, Mr Finney. I need to know.’

Jack sighed, lowering his voice. ‘The blood-spatter evidence, there.’ He pointed to the fireplace in front of the pool of blood, markers13, 14, 15.‘Suggests that you were hit twice while you were still standing, in the back of the head.’

Jet could have told them that. She heard it again: the crunch of her skull, an echo that reverberated inside her head. She should take more painkillers soon.

‘And the third hit? This one?’ She gestured to the dressing on the side of her head, above her ear. The blow that had stolen her words.

Jack pointed to another set of markers –7and10 –almost subsumed by the hungry pool of blood. Jet squinted, could make out small dashes of red just beyond its boundaries.

‘The blood spatter there suggests you were on the floor when you received the final blow, the one to the left side of your head. The attacker leaning over you.’

Jet swallowed, picturing it, because she’d already been gone by then, couldn’t remember the third crack. ‘Definitely wanted me dead, then.’

Jack rubbed his eyebrow, nodding to a forensic tech who’d just strolled into the room, a camera in his hand. Jet waited for him to leave, out toward the kitchen.

‘Does the blood spatter tell you anything else?’ she asked. ‘I’ve watched someDexter, you know. Shit ending.’

Jack’s eyes shifted.

‘No one’s listening,’ she pressed. ‘Please.’

He spoke low and fast. ‘Trajectory of the spatter and the cast-off suggests that the attacker was using downward strokes. Which tells us that they are taller than you.’

Jet sighed. ‘I’m five foot three – it’s not hard. Anything else?’

‘Right-handed,’ he said. ‘The blow was only to the left side of your head because that’s the way you were facing when you fell. The attacker is right-handed.’

‘So, right-handed and taller than me?’ Jet said. ‘Doesn’t really narrow it down. Like, at all.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Anything else I should know?’

Jack looked around the room. ‘We don’t have all the findings from the search yet. Hairs have been collected. Fibers. Fingerprints. But, as this is a room with a lot of visitors, and there was a lot of activity after – from the first responders, the paramedics, Billy finding the scene – it’s hard to know if any of it will be relevant.’

‘Do you know what time it happened?’

Jack pulled a small notebook from the chest pocket of his uniform, flicked through the pages. ‘We don’t know the exact time of the attack. But we have a range, from canvassing the neighbors, asking witnesses.’

‘Witnesses,’ Jet said. ‘They saw something?’

‘No. They heard something. The dog. Screaming.’

Jet’s heart inched a little higher, reaching for her mouth. She’d heard the scream too, right before she’d heard nothing at all. She never knew dogs could scream.

‘Did you hear?’ she asked Jack. He was their closest neighbor.

‘I wasn’t home,’ he said. ‘Was still out after escorting Andrew Smith back to his apartment. I was in the car when the call came through the radio. I can’t tell you what that felt like, when I heard it was this address.’ He paused to clear his throat, to rub his nose. ‘Anyway. The doorbell cam shows Billy approaching the door at 11:05 p.m., drawn by the sound of the dog, so we know it was before then. The Thomases in number 6 think they heard the dog from about 10:40. But Mrs Elliott in number 12 believes it was later than that, more like 10:55 p.m. So, the attack happened sometime roughly between 10:40 and 11:00 p.m.’

Jet nodded, raking over his words again, committing those times to memory. She’d write them down later. ‘So, the killer probably didn’t hang around much after, knowing that the sound was going to draw at-t-at …’ Fuck. What was that word? The word for when people noticed something. Fuck it, she’d go around it. ‘That people were going to notice the sound. So, the killer would have panicked, right? They left Reggie alone, but must have taken my phone and the weapon and ran?’ Jet’s eyes left the living room, darting into the hallway beyond. But she stopped herself, corrected herself. ‘Butnot through the front door, because they would have shown up on the doorbell camera, and they didn’t. Which means they must have known we had one. So how did they get out? And in?’

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