pivoted and strode quickly to the nearest EMS van. A tiny uniformed technician moved to intercept him, her dark eyes snapping.
“We need to get her to the hospital,” she said. “Now.”
Jarek nodded. “Do it.”
As the tech climbed into the ambulance, he swung in after her and crouched down next to the victim.
Young. Blond. Pretty. Or she had been, before the attack. She was swaddled in blankets, an IV running into her arm.
Jarek put his head down close to hers. “Honey, can you hear me?”
She opened dull blue eyes. Whimpered.
The tech reached around him to moor the cot.
Jarek tried again. “Honey, do you know who did this to you?”
“Police,” she whispered.
His heart nearly broke for her. She was really young. Maybe eighteen? “Yeah, I’m with the police,” he said gently. “You’re safe now. Did you see who hurt you?”
“We’ve got to go,” the tech interrupted.
Jarek’s jaw set. He started to crawl out of the ambulance.
“Lights,” the girl on the stretcher volunteered suddenly.
Jarek leaned back in the open door. “What, honey?”
“The car that stopped me.” She licked cracked lips. Blue eyes met his and then slid away. “Red lights. Like police.”
Jarek felt as if he’d just been thumped in the stomach with his own nightstick.
Red lights. Hell.
He stood like a block while the female tech slammed the doors and the van drove away, its turret lights flashing. On Jarek’s home turf, in Chicago, the police were identified by blue flashers. Ambulances and fire trucks operated with red. But in Eden and for most of Illinois, all official emergency vehicles were identified by red flashing lights. Only volunteer firefighters used blue.
And the victim in his most recent case had just identified her assailant’s car as showing red lights. Police lights.
Jarek swore again, silently, viciously. And then he turned and stalked back to the officers clustered around the white car.
Tess still waited too close to the yellow tape, her usually animated face soft and serious.
Her absorption in the scene hit him like another slam in the gut. He had a red light assault on his hands and a reporter underfoot. What a godawful mess.
Routine, he reminded himself. Do the job.
He looked down the row of police faces. “Anybody get pictures before the body was moved?”
“This isn’t a homicide,” Sweet objected. “The girl’s alive.”
Jarek lifted one eyebrow. “And are we sure she’s going to stay that way?”
Sweet’s red face got redder.
Jarek dismissed him. “Lewis, take photos now. I want someone to go with the ambulance. Is Baker on?” Laura Baker was the department’s only female officer.
A patrolman shifted in the line. “She’s out today.”
Sweet tugged on his gun belt. “This isn’t Chicago. We don’t have the manpower to waste on an ambulance run.”
Jarek held on to his temper. “I don’t see a shortage of manpower here. I want an officer with the victim at the hospital.”
She needed police protection. Jarek frowned. Unless she needed protection from the police.
He did a rapid mental review of his department. Who could he trust? Who the hell did he know, really?
“Call Larsen in,” he ordered. “Tell him to make sure that they do a rape kit in the E.R. And I want all nonessential personnel cleared off this scene. Have you called the state police yet for crime lab support?”
Sweet scowled. “We work with the county.”
“Not on a possible homicide,” Jarek pronounced. “Call. Johnson and White, I want you to move all vehicles out of here. See my car? I don’t want anything parked closer than that. And recordon the crime scene, divert traffic to—what’s the nearest parallel road?”
“Green’s just west of here,” Clark volunteered.
Jarek turned back to the rookie patrolman. “Right. Green it is. You found the victim?”
“Yes, sir. I—” The young officer swallowed hard. “She didn’t want to talk. I tried to get a description of her assailant, but… Anyway, I finally just wrapped her in a blanket and left her alone.”
A compassionate action that had effectively wiped any trace of the son of the bitch who attacked her from her skin. Hell.
“All right,” Jarek said. “Did she give you her name?”
“No, sir.”
“How about her purse? Do we have an ID?”
“Her wallet’s missing. I ran the plates,” Bud Sweet said. “Car’s registered to a Mr. and Mrs. Richard Logan of Evanston. So the car could be stolen.”
“Or she could be their daughter,” Jarek said grimly. “Find out. And find out what she was doing up here.”
“She was a student at Bloomington,” Tess said from behind him, her voice flat. “Taking a break from exams.”
His gut tightened like a fist. He turned. Tess had moved to this side of the crime tape, but he couldn’t object to her presence now. He wanted to protect her from the ugliness of the scene. He needed to protect his department from the force of her determination, from those wide golden eyes that saw too much. But this wasn’t Chicago, where he could canvass half-a-dozen surrounding buildings for witnesses. If Tess knew something, he had to talk to her.
“You know the victim?”
Tess’s slightly crooked teeth caught her lower lip. “Her name is Logan? Carolyn Logan?”
“I don’t have a first name. Can you describe her?”
“Oh…” Tess frowned in concentration. “Medium height, nineteen years old. Blond, shoulder-length hair. Her eyes were blue. Or maybe gray?” She shook her head. “Light, anyway.”
Okay, so her being a reporter wasn’t a total loss, Jarek thought. It was a good description. And, for good or bad, it fit the battered girl in the ambulance.
“How do you know her?”
“I don’t know her,” Tess corrected him. “I met her last night.”
“Tell me.”
