“Eighth floor,” Ellie said. “Got it.”
As they made their way to the intensive care unit, Ellie nudged Rogan again. “So, Bandon gave you shit?”
Rogan shrugged. “It was nothing specific.”
“Max said it wasn’t too bad.”
“Max, huh?” Rogan said with a smile.
“ADA Donovan. Whatever. So it was bad?”
“Just the whole damn thing was messed up from the get-go. Bandon making us brief him so he can schmooze his ass all the way to the federal bench on Sam Sparks’s back.”
“The thought of his ass on Sparks’s back is pretty disturbing.”
“Damn, you are pissing me off right now. I thought you hated these two knobjobs at least as much as I did.”
“I don’t think
“Yeah? Well, some lame-ass-joke group has been calling for you.”
“Seriously, did it go all right or not?”
Another shrug. “Yeah, it was fine. Your boy Donovan made it cut-and-dried.”
“Hey, you managed to walk out of chambers without handcuffs and jail scrubs, so you clearly did better than me.”
“Sorry I’m PMSing. I’ll get over it. You run the show with this girl upstairs? You always do better with the young white girls.”
“That’s not what you said yesterday about Kristen Woods.”
Ellie immediately regretted making any further reference to the Sparks case. When the elevator doors opened, Rogan had one more comment. “You think Tucker gave us this callout to keep us from bothering Sparks?”
“Yep.”
“Any thoughts about what we can do about that?”
“Find out who the hell killed Megan Gunther and then get right back up Sparks’s ass again.”
Even in a hospital bed, with an IV in her arm and bruises on her face and neck, Heather Bradley was objectively attractive. Her sable-colored hair fell in loose curls past her shoulders. As a resident pointed a pen-size flashlight into her pupils, she blinked her almond-shaped green eyes, dark lashes contrasting against flawless pale skin.
“Excellent,” the resident announced. “Hard to believe that an hour ago we were worried whether you’d make it.”
Ellie tapped the open hospital room door.
“Yes?” the young doctor asked.
“We were told Ms. Bradley might be ready for a few questions?”
He looked to his patient for guidance, and Heather nodded. “Unless you think it’s better that I not.”
“It’s totally up to you,” he said.
“I want to help,” she said.
“Be quick?” the doctor said quietly as he passed them. “She’s a lot better off than we feared at first, but she’s still in shock and needs some rest.”
“Hi, Heather. I’m Ellie Hatcher with the NYPD. This is my partner, J. J. Rogan.”
“It’s almost funny,” Heather said. “I was about to say ‘Nice to meet you’ out of habit, but—”
“I know. Not exactly nice circumstances,” Ellie said. “How much do you know about what happened in your apartment this morning?”
“I know that Megan didn’t make it. I know that some crazy person forced the door open with a knife and began attacking me.”
“How did he force the door open?” Rogan asked. They had seen no damage to the girls’ apartment door.
“There was a knock. I just assumed it was for Megan. As soon as I opened the door, he pushed his way in.”
“Just one person?” Ellie asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you have any idea who it was?” Ellie already knew the answer to the question, but it seemed natural to ask. Heather shook her head. “What did he look like?”
Heather paused. “I don’t even know. He was wearing, like, this black ski mask thing. I’m pretty sure he was white. At least that’s how I’m picturing the skin beneath the mask.”
This was not good.
“What about his clothes?” Ellie asked.
Another pause. “Jeans, I think. And a long-sleeved shirt,” Heather said with more confidence. “That, I remember, because I tried to scratch at his arms, but all I got was fabric. I’m sorry. It just happened really fast, and I was thrashing around trying to fight him off. I didn’t see very much.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
Heather shook her head again. “He just came at me. It was…totally crazy. He was cutting at me and slicing me, and all I could do was try to get away or push him off of me. Then I decided to play dead, but then Megan opened her bedroom door.”
“And you—”
“Just laid there.” Tears welled in Heather’s eyes, and she dropped her gaze. “I knew I couldn’t help. I could barely get to the phone after he left. But I should have—”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” Ellie said firmly. “You did exactly the right thing. You
“But it feels so…wrong. Maybe if—”
“Did Megan talk to you about this problem she was having with a Web site called Campus Juice?”
Heather reestablished eye contact with Ellie and nodded. “Just yesterday. You think this had something to do with those postings?”
“We don’t think anything yet,” Ellie said. “We’re just running through all the possibilities. Did Megan have any idea who might have posted those things about her?
“No. She seemed really thrown off by the whole situation. And really scared. It seemed totally out of the blue, you know?” She seemed even more disturbed by the thought that she and her roommate might have known someone who would do this.
“How so?” Ellie asked.
Heather paused. “Like, you know, Megan was just the kind of person who minded her own business. School. Exercise. A couple girlfriends. She didn’t really seem the type to have, you know, trouble.”
There was something soulful about Heather Bradley’s face. If it hadn’t been for the high voice that depended on the word “really” like oxygen and ended most sentences with a question mark, she might have seemed older than her young age.
“What about boyfriends?”
“Megan? No, not really. I mean, there was a guy right when I moved in—Keith something—but that was a few months ago. They were already on the outs, you know? Like Megan told me a couple of times at the beginning that he wasn’t quite getting the hint, but that was it. At least as far as I know.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“He came around a couple of times, but I never got to know him.”
“Any idea where we might find him? Was he also at NYU?”
She shook her head. “Definitely not. I think that was part of the issue. He was like some really funky musician type. He’d wander around the city recording weird noises on his laptop and then mix it into dance music and stuff. It was a little whackadoo. Oh my God, you don’t think it was him, do you?”
“Like I said, we’re just considering the possibilities. What about you?”
