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the door, as though she were expecting someone to come in at any time.
    Lowering her voice, she explained, “From the blood trail, Sophie crawled about forty meters to the road from the house she was in. A neighbor out looking for his dog found her and called the paramedics. They worked on her all that time, but apparently the doctors here don’t give her much chance.”
    Anya knew the injuries had to be extensive and blood loss substantial if the girl had left a trail of blood that far. Protecting the neck meant either her airway was compromised, cervical vertebrae were broken or a wound was life-threatening.
    “Are you sure she was sexually assaulted? Was she conscious?”
    “No, but she was found naked below the waist and bleeding vaginally.”
    Anya thought of the poor man in the waiting room. The young woman sounded as though she had already defied all odds by surviving this long. “Is that the father outside?”
    Liz nodded.
    “He isn’t ready to be interviewed yet. He’s in shock. Whoever did this raped and murdered her older sister during the night. We found her body back in the house by following Sophie’s trail.”
    One daughter dead and the other in critical condition. Anya did not want to think about how their father might be feeling.
    “The girl is the priority,” she said. The surgeons have to do what they can to save her. You have to understand that collecting evidence comes second.”
    “I know that, but I want you in there. You understand about preserving anything that can help us. Photograph the wounds, get the clothes, do a rape kit. If you have to, follow them to the operating room.” Liz grabbed Anya’s arm. “Whoever did this needs to be found. What happened at that house was beyond horror. The sister was tied down and stabbed over a dozen times.” She let go and stepped back. “We have to find whoever did this before they attack again.”
    Hayden Richards opened the door.
    “The head doctor told the triage nurse you could go in now.”
    Anya stepped out of the room and tried not to look at Sophie Goodwin’s father.
    The triage nurse handed her a white gown, which she pulled on and tied at the back of her neck. “Gloves are on the wall inside.”
    “Thanks.” Anya took a deep breath to steel herself before pushing through double plastic doors. A male nurse carrying two bags of blood rushed behind the curtain to the first resuscitation bay.
    “Blood warmer’s coming. Group specific is still a couple of minutes away. They’re still working on the full cross-match.”
    “Hurry them up,” a male voice boomed. “She’s leaking like a sieve.”
    Two paramedics hovered near the central desk area, sipping from paper cups. Judging by their proximity to the cubicle, they were the ones who had brought Sophie in.
    Anya peered through the gap in the curtains but could see only the lower part of the girl. Heads and hands moved quickly, each with a specific role.
    Inside the cubicle she recognized Mike Monsoor, a surgeon she had trained with, and emergency specialist, Greg McGilvray. The hospital had quickly mobilized the acute trauma team.
    A small figure lay on the bed, naked, her flesh covered with mixes of dried and fresh blood. One gloved nurse put pressure on a blood-soaked bandage over the girl’s abdomen.
    A woman in blue surgical scrubs was at the head end, with a nurse, squashed between the bed and the wall.
    “Doctor Crichton, I heard you’d been called.” Dressed in a sterile procedure gown, Greg McGilvray held a plastic bone-gun in a gloved hand. The gun was used in the army for administering fluids to injured troops in the field. Instead of wasting critical time trying to find venous access, the plastic gun drilled directly into bone. Advocates claimed it could save large numbers of lives.
    Anya hoped Sophie Goodwin’s was one of them.
    “We’ve just lost the antecubital cannula. It’s tissued,” a younger doctor said, feeling for a groin pulse. “My concern with a