The shooter had pressed the muzzle into the man’s eyes and pulled the trigger. Both rounds had punched through the back of his skull, drawing brain matter out like a vacuum and splashing it against the wall.

Worse still, he was a lot younger than she first thought. She could see it now. Low to mid twenties.

She leaned closer and checked his nostrils, but found no visible sign of white powder. As her eyes drifted off his face, she noticed a large bruise on his neck. Similar bruises tattooed both arms. When she spotted the scabs on his knuckles and his clean fingernails, she took a moment to think it over. The kid had been in a fight sometime within the past week or two, the cuts and bruises in various stages of healing. But nothing she saw indicated that he had a chance to defend himself tonight. The shot he took in the stomach knocked him to the floor. From the amount of blood puddling around him, the round struck an artery. The two shots in the eyes came after that. He would have been alive, maybe even conscious when the killer approached. But he would have been bleeding out. He would have been docile and unable to fight back.

The shot in the stomach was enough to ensure the kid’s death. The shots to the eyes were about something more than the murder. Something psychotic. A killer overdosing on rage.

A memory surfaced—a movie she had seen more than ten years ago. A western. The Comanches believed that without eyes a victim couldn’t enter the spirit world. Without eyes, the victim would be forced to wander between the winds forever. She thought the scene might be from John Ford’s The Searchers, but wasn’t sure. It was too far back in her history and too late at night. Still, as she forced herself to take a second look at the kid’s broken face, she couldn’t help but wonder if his soul was lost between the winds.

After a long moment, the wonder vanished and she finally lowered her gaze. She didn’t recognize him. Not without his eyes and through all the blood masking his face. She doubted anyone could.

She climbed to her feet, checking the floor for shell casings but not finding any. When she looked up, she saw Sanchez and Rhodes standing beside Barrera. She hadn’t heard them enter, and for reasons she couldn’t explain, Barrera seemed to be holding them back. It didn’t really matter.