Cut to the Bone(17)

“So you’ve lived here a while?” she asked.

“Oh, gracious, many years. Nine at least,” Donna said.

Emily smiled to herself. That was a lifetime in Naperville. Unlike her old Chicago neighborhood, where your neighbors were your neighbors till you joined the great bowling league in the sky, the population here turned over every couple years from corporate upsizing, downsizing, re-orgs, and transfers. Moving vans were as every bit a symbol of this white-collar city as the Riverwalk.

“Zabrina moved in two years ago,” Donna continued. “She and Barry were ideal neighbors. Thoughtful and hardworking, always ready to lend a hand. My husband admired Barry’s ambition to succeed, and we girls got along famously.” She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, listen to me! I’m no girl anymore.”

“It doesn’t show,” Emily said.

“Thank you,” Donna said, touching Emily’s hand. “That’s sweet of you to say. It’s all because of this marvelous facial moisturizer I found . . .”

They chatted about that for a minute, then Donna started reminiscing about fun times with “Bee and Zee.” Emily took notes.

“So Zabrina had no enemies,” she said, wrapping up. “No one you can imagine killing her.”

“Not in a million years,” Donna declared. “Not that darling young woman.”

“How about her family? Did she ever mention any enemies they might have?”

“No,” Donna said, crossing one leg over the other. Emily envied their shapely slimness. “Zabrina invited us to dinner once when her parents and grandmother came to visit from Milwaukee.”

“Her dad’s mother?”

“Maternal grandmother,” Donna said.

Emily tried recalling the name from the rushed background reading she’d done before beginning the canvass. “Was that Myla?”

“Leila,” Donna corrected. “Leila Reynolds. She died just last year. Very classy, with perfect manners and an engaging spirit. Cassie and Zabrina clearly inherited those genes. The father was just as nice. He was senior vice president of a Chicago bank, but didn’t put on a single air. Believe me, Detective Thompson, those people have no enemies.”

Emily kept writing, not surprised at the response. Every single person they’d interviewed had nothing but good to say about-

“Not here, anyway,” Donna said.





8:47 p.m.

“The judge signed a no-knock warrant,” Annie radioed a low, crisp voice. “We go in unannounced and grab the target. Everyone copy?”

A dozen double-clicks from her SWAT entry officers confirmed they were primed.

“I’m moving to point.”

The point position, Emily knew, meant Annie would be the first cop through the door of the dilapidated house on Burlington Avenue, on Naperville’s Far East Side. First to know if Devlin Bloch would throw up his hands or toss a grenade. She leaned to Annie’s helmeted ear.

“You get killed,” she whispered, scared down to her boots that her best friend wouldn’t emerge from this whole, “I’ll quit buying you daiquiris.”

Annie grinned, slapped Emily’s raid jacket.

Then she pulled the Springfield Armory .45 XD Tactical from her thigh holster. She preferred a high-capacity handgun on point. It was handier in small spaces than shotgun or rifle, and its wide-body bullets dropped bad guys like anvils on Wile E. Coyote. She confirmed her chamber was loaded, and headed for the front door.

“Green light,” Annie grunted when she arrived. She loved point. The more danger, the more alive she felt. “Launch on my five-count. Five, four, three-”

“Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.”

The call from the spotter on Bloch’s front window meant the suspect was running.

“We’re blown. Assume he’s heading for weapons,” Annie radioed, signaling her demolitions expert. “Green light, repeat, green light. Take him.”





8:52 p.m.

Front, back, and garage doors disappeared. The demo man danced a one-second jig, then rushed to his secondary position. Black-clad SWATs tornadoed into the smoke, shouting, “Police! Search warrant! Don’t move! Don’t move!”

Emily gripped and released her thighs, praying nobody got hurt. Especially not Devlin Bloch, the multiple-felony ex-con who lived here.

Because he could be Zabrina’s killer.

Marty stared through binoculars. Branch monitored radio traffic. Nobody said a word. Emily couldn’t if she wanted - her throat was too constricted.

Four minutes later, a flash of blond ringlets appeared.

It was Annie, helmet off.

Everyone started breathing.

“He’s not here,” she radioed, her voice tight. “We looked everywhere, including attic and basement. Bloch’s gone. You guys can come in.”