know.'
'I need to see her.'
'Listen to your wife, sir,' Faith coaxed. 'You'll get to see her soon. You just need to let us take care of her right now.'
Paul barked at Leo, 'Get the fuck out of my way.'
'Sir, I don't think-'
Leo took the brunt of his anger. Paul slammed him into the wall as he bolted up the stairs. Will ran up after the man, almost knocking into him as Paul stopped cold at the top of the landing.
He stood frozen, staring at his daughter's lifeless form at the end of the hallway. The girl was at least fifteen feet away, but her presence filled the space as if she were right there beside them. All the fight seemed to drain out of Paul. Like most bullies, he could never sustain any one emotion.
'Your wife was right,' Will told him. 'You don't want to see her like this.'
Paul went quiet, his labored breathing the only audible noise. His hand was to his chest, palm flat as if he was saying the pledge of allegiance. Tears brimmed in his eyes.
He swallowed hard. 'There was this glass bowl on the table.' His voice had gone flat, lifeless. 'We got it in Paris.'
'That's nice,' Will said, thinking that never in a million years could he imagine Paul in Paris.
'It's a mess up here.'
'There are people who can clean it up for you.'
He went silent again, and Will followed his gaze, taking in the scene. Leo was right about downstairs being worse than up, but there was something even more sinister and unsettling in the air up here. The same bloody shoe prints were here, crisscrossing the white carpeting up and down the long hall. Streaks of blood slashed across the white walls where either the knife or a fist had arced over the body, repeatedly punching or plunging into the flesh. For some reason, the most troubling part to Will was the single red handprint on the wall directly over the victim's head where her attacker had obviously rested his weight as he raped her.
'Trashcan, right?'
Paul Campano wasn't looking for the garbage. He had called Will 'Trashcan' when they were children. The memory put a lump in Will's throat. He had to swallow before he could answer. 'Yeah.'
'Tell me what happened to my daughter.'
Will debated, but only for a moment. He had to turn sideways to get past Paul and go into the hallway. Careful not to disturb anything, he stepped into the crime scene. Emma's body was parallel to the walls, her head facing away from the stairs. As he walked toward her, Will's eyes kept going back to the handprint, the perfect formation of the palm and fingers. His gut roiled as he thought about what the guy had been doing when he left the impression.
Will stopped a few feet from the girl. 'She was probably killed here,' he told Paul, knowing from the pool of blood soaking into the carpet that the girl had not been moved. He crouched down by the body, resting his hands on his knees so that he wouldn't accidentally touch anything. Emma's shorts were bunched around one ankle, her feet bare. Her underwear and shirt had been yanked out of the way by her attacker. Teeth marks showed dark red against the white of her breasts. Scrapes and bruises trailed up the insides of her thighs, swollen welts showing the damage that had been done. She was thin, with shoulder-length blond hair like her mother and broad shoulders like her dad. There was no telling what she had looked like in life. Her face was beaten so severely that the skull had collapsed on itself, obscuring the eyes, the nose. The only point of reference was the mouth, which gaped open in a toothless, bloody hole.
Will checked on Paul. The man still stood frozen at the top of the stairs. His big, meaty hands were clasped in front of his chest like a nervous old woman waiting for bad news. Will didn't know what exactly he could see, if the distance softened some of the violence or made it worse.
Will told him, 'She was beaten. I can see what looks like two knife wounds. One's just below her breast. The other is above her belly button.'
'She got it pierced last year.' Paul gave a strained laugh. Will looked back at him and Paul took this as a sign to continue. 'She and her best friend went to Florida and came back with…' He shook his head. 'You think shit like that's funny when you're a kid, but when you're a parent and your daughter comes home with a ring in her belly…' His face crumpled as he fought emotions.
Will turned his attention back to the girl. There was a silver ring looped through the skin of her belly button.
Paul asked, 'Was she raped?'
'Probably.' He'd said the word too fast. The sound hung in the stagnant air.
'Before or after?' Paul's voice shook. He was more than familiar with the dark deeds men were capable of.
The blood on her abdomen and chest was smeared, indicating someone had lain on top of her after the worst of the beating was over. Still, Will told him, 'The coroner will have to answer that. I can't tell.'
'Are you lying to me?'
'No,' Will answered, trying not to look at the handprint, to let the guilt eat him up inside so that he ended up being the one to tell this man the horrible truth about his daughter's violent, degrading death.
Suddenly he felt Paul behind him.
Will stood, blocking him. 'This is a crime scene. You need to-'
Paul's mouth dropped open. He slumped against Will like all the air had left his body. 'It's not…' His mouth worked, tears welling into his eyes. 'It's not her.'
Will tried to turn the man away from the sight of his daughter. 'Let's go downstairs. You don't need to see any more of this.'
'No,' Paul countered, his fingers digging into Will's arm. 'I mean it. It's not her.' He shook his head back and forth, vehement. 'It's not Emma.'
'I know this is hard for you.'
'Fuck you, with what you know!' Paul pushed himself away from Will. 'Has anybody ever told you that your daughter is dead?' He kept shaking his head, staring at the girl. 'That's not her.'
Will tried to reason with him. 'Her navel is pierced like you said.'
He shook his head, his words choking in his throat. 'It's not-'
'Come on,' Will coaxed, pushing him back a few steps, trying to keep him from contaminating the scene any more than he already had.
Paul's words came out in an almost giddy rush. 'Her hair, Trash. Emma's got longer hair than that. It goes down to her back almost. And she's got a birthmark on her right arm-Emma does. Look, there's nothing there. There's no birthmark.'
Will checked the arm. Except for the blood, the skin was a perfect white.
'Right arm,' Paul insisted, annoyed. He pointed to the other arm 'She's got a birthmark.' When Will did not respond, he took out his wallet. Receipts and papers fell onto the floor as he dug around inside. 'It's weird, shaped like a handprint. The skin's darker there.' He found what he was looking for and handed Will a photograph. Emma was much younger in the picture. She was wearing a cheerleading outfit. One arm was cocked to her hip, holding a pom-pom. Paul was right; the birthmark looked as if someone had wrapped his hand around her arm and left a print.
Still, Will said, 'Paul, let's not-'
'Abby! It's not her. It's not Emma!' Paul was laughing, elated. 'Look at her arm, Trash. There's nothing there. This isn't Emma. It's gotta be Kayla. They look alike. They trade clothes all the time. It's got to be her!'
Abigail ran upstairs, Faith fast behind her.
'Stay back.' Will blocked their way, holding out his arms like a crossing guard, physically pushing Paul back. The man was still smiling a fool's grin. All he was thinking was that his daughter wasn't dead. His mind hadn't made the next leap.
'Keep them here,' Will told Faith. She nodded, stepping in front of the parents. Carefully, Will walked back toward the dead girl. He crouched down again, studying the shoe prints, the spray on the wall. Crossing the dead girl's body was a fine arc of blood that caught his attention. It went just under her breasts like a finely drawn line. Will hadn't noticed it the first time, but right now, he would have bet his pension that the blood had come from the
