Clara gritted her teeth. “Yes, sir,” she said.
The deputy marshal had come in through the main door of the loft and walked right through the one splash of blood in the entire place. Malvern had been careful not to spill a drop from most of the victims, but when she forced her way in she had attacked whoever came to the door first and there had been a short struggle. Clara was 100 percent certain that the blood’s type would only match one of the corpses in the room— Malvern had no blood of her own to spill, even if an unarmed human opponent could somehow injure her—and therefore the blood evidence was probably useless. There was no such thing as a forensic specialist, however, who could watch someone walking all over a clue and not wince.
“A change in her modus operandi,” Fetlock said, putting his hands on his hips. He looked very pleased with himself. “That could be good. It could be the break we’ve been waiting for.”
Laura Caxton had fought vampires successfully by doing things most people considered suicidal. She had gone into their lairs at night. She had sprung their traps just to see what would happen. Somehow she had survived and the vampires hadn’t, because she was a warrior, a throwback to the time when vampire hunters had tracked their prey with swords and crossbows. Fetlock, on the other hand, was a very modern bureaucrat. He believed in doing every last thing by the book—which included disciplining anyone who broke protocol.
It also meant he made sure none of his people ever got in harm’s way. Clara was one of his people, so she could appreciate that. Up to a point. It hadn’t been lost on her, however, that in the time Fetlock had been tracking Malvern, a lot of innocent people had died. A lot more than Caxton would have felt comfortable with.
“I prefer your first theory about what we’re seeing here. It’s desperation. Malvern is running scared. She knows we’re close,” Fetlock said. He bent down next to one of the victims and closed her eyelids with two fingers. Clara winced again. Now he was touching bodies that hadn’t even been documented properly. “All we need is one good clue. One mistake on her part. One lucky break.”
“All we need,” Glauer said, folding his arms across his chest, “is Caxton back on the team.”
Fetlock didn’t even look at the big cop. “Not going to happen. She’s in prison. End of story.”
Clara tried not to say anything. She knew it was futile. Fetlock had been the one who’d arrested Laura in the first place.
Worse than that. Laura had freely confessed to her crime and said nothing in her defense at her trial—she had pleaded guilty and let her lawyer go through the necessary motions. When it came time for the sentencing, the judge had asked if anyone had an opinion on what the sentence should be. Fetlock had actually stood up and asked for the maximum sentence allowed by law. After all, he claimed, Caxton had been a cop and should have known better than anyone the consequences of her actions. She had a duty not just to uphold the law, he had argued, but to epitomize it. Clara had started hating him that day, and yet… she had felt a certain grudging respect, as well. Because she knew if he was the one being sentenced, he’d still have asked for a maximum penalty. Fetlock was a by-the-book bureaucrat, but at least he had utter faith in his own convictions.
If Clara had spoken up then, and made an impassioned plea to have Laura brought back onto the team, she knew Fetlock’s first counterargument would be that Clara had been Laura’s girlfriend. That meant she couldn’t be objective about this. So there was no point in opening her mouth. And yet—
—Glauer was right. She knew it. She knew for a fact that the only person in the world who could catch Malvern at this point was Laura Caxton.