“Did you touch them? Disturb the crime scene in any way?”

“No, sir. I did everything by the book. Cleared the house, checked for a pulse, and then radioed dispatch. Nothing will come back to bite us on the ass. You have my word on that.”

Kelly’s features relaxed a bit.

“The reason I asked to see them again,” Ellie said. “Sir, I think I know who they are.”

CHAPTER 5

POLICE COMMISSIONER KELLY was looking at her with renewed interest. Not in the admiring way you looked at someone who could help you, but in the suspicious way you looked at someone you suspected was holding important information from you.

“I only saw a quick glimpse of them when I was in the house,” Ellie explained, which was true. When she had entered the bedroom down the hall, she’d found the victims, a male and a female, both in their late teens or early twenties, tucked underneath the covers as though sleeping. Her first thought was that they were, in fact, asleep—and drugged. They had to have been drugged, because that was the only logical explanation as to how they’d slept through the gunfire.

Then she saw the backs of their heads and knew what had happened to them.

“If I could take a closer look, I believe I could identify the victims.”

She had a personal and completely selfish ulterior motive for not wanting to share the victims’ names right here, right now, with Commissioner Kelly. If she told him, he would dismiss her and then head into the house and share the names with Detective Alves, the head of the Blood Unit. Maybe Kelly would tell him who had given him the names, maybe not. For the past few hours, she had been mulling over ideas of how she could use this information to her advantage. The way she figured it, if she could find a way to get inside the bedroom, take a look at the bodies, and then share her findings, she could show Detective Alves what a valuable asset she could be on Blood Crimes. Now that the commissioner was involved—even better. Identifying the victims might very well be her ticket into a spot on BCU.

First, she had to convince Kelly to let her inside.

“The two vics,” Ellie said. “I’m pretty sure they’re carriers.”

“Names?”

“I need to take a closer look to be sure, but if I’m right, they’ve been missing for . . . well, a good amount of time.”

“How long?”

“Years,” she said.

Kelly stared at her, Ellie feeling the weight of his gaze. She said, “When carriers are abducted, you either find them drained and dumped or you don’t find them at all. This is the first time, as far as I know, that carriers have been found inside a residence.”

“You’re right about that.”

“Let me see if I can help you ID them.”

Kelly nodded his head toward the house, signaling for her to join him.