quarters.
“It’s Tammy, isn’t it? What happened? Is she hurt?” Breathless, he raced to the back door.
“A neighbor heard screams.” Everett hated being the bearer of bad news.
“She called me, distraught. I heard a voice in the background.” Mason pushed open the door and charged into the kitchen.
Everett followed. Unwashed dishes sat in the sink.
“Tammy, where are you?” Mason ran through the living room, then rounded the corner into the foyer. Stopping short, he staggered to brace himself against the wall.
“No!”
Everett’s gut tightened. A woman lay sprawled at the foot of the stairs, her face contorted in death. Blood pooled under her head.
He felt her neck, knowing instinctively he wouldn’t find a pulse.
Mason fell to the floor and reached for his wife, a scream keening from deep within him.
“Don’t touch—” Everett couldn’t warn Mason fast enough.
The husband’s broken sobs echoed in the quarters.
Everett had been at too many crime scenes, but none as wrenching as Mason holding his wife’s lifeless body.
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and opened the front door. Frank stepped inside, face tight and eyes brimming with the same emotion Everett felt as they shook their heads with regret. Both special agents were aware of the significance of Mason’s arrival on-site. If he hadn’t been home, then someone else had argued with his wife. Someone who may have pushed or shoved or thrown Tammy Yates down the stairs to her death.
Everett raised his cell and called CID Headquarters. “Notify the military police. We’ll need a crime-scene investigation team, ambulance and the medical examiner.”
Frank patted Mason’s shoulder. “Come on, buddy. Let’s get you into the other room. The MPs are on the way along with the ME.”
Mason shook off the attempt to comfort him. “Tammy,” he moaned, pulling his wife even closer into his arms.
“You need to step away from your wife. Remember, we have to preserve evidence if we’re going to catch this guy. Come on, buddy. Let’s head into the other room.”
Mason shrugged out of Frank’s hold and glanced at the open doorway. His face twisted in rage.
“What’s she doing here?”
Everett turned to see the neighbor cover her mouth and muffle a cry of disbelief. Fear flared from her eyes.
“Ma’am, I asked you to remain in your quarters.”
She pointed a finger at Mason, the distraught husband holding his wife’s bloodied body, and screamed.
Natalie ran back to the Joneses’ quarters, unable to take in more of the death scene. The horrendous sight stuck in her mind, and she couldn’t erase the image of the woman lying at the bottom on the stairs.
Seeing who clutched the woman’s bloodied body was even more unsettling. She hadn’t expected Mason Yates to be the neighbor next door. Her stomach rolled, recalling his steely eyes and accusing glare that brought back memories she wanted to forget.
Locking the door behind her, Natalie raced to the downstairs half bath and ran water in the sink. Pumping a large dollop of liquid soap into her palm, she lathered her hands and tried to wash off the blood she kept seeing.
Although she hadn’t entered the Yateses’ quarters, she felt soiled and defiled. Scrubbing with soap and rinsing her hands in the hot tap water did little to change the feeling.
Her reflection stared back at her from the mirror. Black hair, still damp with rain, tumbled around her shoulders in disarray, and her eyes, puffy from her earlier sleep, appeared as anxious as she felt.
Worried about the baby, she dried her hands and raced upstairs, trying to keep her footfalls light. She felt vulnerable, knowing the men on the opposite side of the wall would hear her as she climbed the stairs.
Relieved to find Sofia still asleep, Natalie rubbed the back of her hand over the baby’s soft cheek, needing contact with goodness and purity after what she’d seen.
She shook her head and tried to calm her racing heart, but all she could think of was the woman who had died. Her mouth gaped open as if the scream Natalie had heard had carried down the stairs with her. Death was supposed to be peaceful, but the neighbor’s death had been anything but.
Blood was smeared along the wall and down the stairs, pooling under her head. The sights had brought back too many memories of another woman who had died in Germany. The similarity was frightening.
Hurrying downstairs, Natalie stopped in the foyer and shivered, realizing she was standing in the exact spot where the victim’s body lay in Quarters B. Sirens sounded in the distance, and flashing lights filtered through the gauze curtains.
She glanced out the window. Two military police squad cars pulled to the curb. An ambulance followed. The medical personnel were too late to save the woman and would, instead, transport her body to the morgue.
A knock sounded at the door.
Swallowing the lump that filled her throat, Natalie peered through the peephole. The CID special agent she’d spoken with earlier stood on the porch.
Needing to control her emotions, she ran her fingers through her hair and sighed, thinking of the tangled web into which she’d stepped.
If only she could turn to God, but He’d never taken an interest in her. Not in Detroit growing up, not with a mother whose care bordered on abuse, not with a father who liked the bottle more than he liked his only child. God hadn’t helped her then. He wouldn’t help her now.
Her breath hitched when she opened the door. Earlier, she hadn’t realized how broad the special agent’s shoulders were or the deep brown of his eyes. Even through the screen door, they appeared rimmed with concern. She couldn’t let down her guard, no matter how sympathetic the agent seemed.
She had to be strong and take care of herself.
She’d done it before. She could do it again.
At least, she hoped she could.
Plus, she couldn’t let anything or anyone harm Sofia. The baby’s needs came before her own, and Sofia’s safety was Natalie’s main concern for the next two weeks.
* * *
Despite the tragic crime scene Everett had just left, he couldn’t help but be taken in by the woman who answered his knock at Quarters 324-A. She was pretty, with dark brows and pensive eyes, a slender nose and full cheeks now pale and drawn, like her mouth. Even her shoulders seemed weighted down, no doubt from what she’d seen. Death was never pretty, and Mrs. Yates’s life had come to a traumatic end.
While
