Devoted in Death (19 page)

“Then, look what we did, together. Wasn’t that exciting? Wasn’t that a
rush
?”

Oh, it played, Eve thought as it ran through her head. It played like a big, fat violin at the opera – and just as tragically.

“His blood’s on them. Bashing heads will do that. The smell of it, the feel of it, the look of it, all warm and red and wet. It just gets them going.”

“Together.” Mira nodded. “It cements their relationship, takes it to this new level. He – the victim – becomes the enemy they defeated for each other. And sex is a reward. It then becomes a goal. And it requires more. More time, experimentation. This, if this was the first, or at least one of theirs, was quick and brutal, and not necessarily premeditation.”

“Jansen was their happy accident,” Eve said. “So they think, What if we planned it out, what if we set it up and did it again, knowing how it’s going to make us feel? It works for me.”

“Just like that.” Banner looked around with a kind of wonder.

“No, not just like that. Santiago, Carmichael, you’re going to – Where the hell is this?”

“Closest would be Monroe, Arkansas, not far from the Oklahoma border.”

“You’re going there.”

“Yee-haw,” Santiago said.

“Dig into it. At some point there was a second vehicle. Find it. Peabody, do a full run on this vic, talk to his people, get a good sense of him – and pull all salient reports and files. He could be the first, it works. They didn’t really mean it, but it felt so damn good. Mel Little, look at the route. He could’ve been the next – more planned out. Not refined yet, but more planned. Maybe we’ll find another between, but not more than one. Oklahoma?”

She signaled for Peabody to bring up the map. “If this is the first, they probably came from Oklahoma. Maybe that’s their origin – it’s likely, it’s logical. We’re going to do an IRCCA search on stolen or highjacked vehicles moving back. Maybe they started out stealing cars, using a network to strip them, chop them, sell them. Working the back roads, the small towns. This area – they’d need to be familiar with the area for that. So Oklahoma’s where we start. Grab some gear,” she told Santiago and Carmichael. “I’ll get you a shuttle, and a vehicle at destination.”

“Road trip.” Carmichael pushed up, pumped a fist. “I drive first.”

“Damn it.”

Ignoring them, Eve pulled out her ’link, wandered a few paces off. Clock’s ticking on Jayla Campbell, she reminded herself. She’d use whatever resources she had to save time.

She’d thought to tag Roarke’s brilliantly efficient admin, Caro, but his face slid onto her screen.

“Lieutenant.”

“Hey. I need a favor.”

“Didn’t I just receive payment for one of those?”

“Let’s start fresh. I need a shuttle, fast.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re not. Santiago and Carmichael are going to Arkansas. We’ve got a lead. I need them there as fast as possible, with a vehicle – nothing fancy – waiting for them on the other end.”

“I can do that. I’ll have Caro send you the appropriate data.”

“Thanks. I can squeeze the standard fees out of the budget.”

“I prefer other methods of payment. Have you found their first victim, as hoped?”

“It looks good for it.”

“Then I’ll get this ordered. Caro will pass on the docs and numbers. And I’ll take my fee later.”

“Ha ha.” She clicked off. “Shuttle in the works,” she told the room, and kept going. “I’m going to clear the paperwork. Carmichael, Santiago, get that gear and be ready to move. Peabody, look after Banner. Mira, I could use a quick meet before you leave for the day.”

So saying, she strode out.

Banner let out a long, long breath. “Does everything always move so fast around here? Does
she
always move so fast?”

Peabody considered, smiled. “Pretty much.”

11

Mira poked her head in Eve’s office. “I’ve got about ten minutes before I have to start a session.”

“Great.” Eve swiveled around from her desk. “We’ve got two days – some under that now – but you’d agree that’s the pattern.”

“It’s unlikely they’d shorten the time. There could be unforeseen events that would shorten it, but the torture is the thrill, and the bond. The killing is necessary, the end goal and the final release, but prolonging it sweetens that release.”

“They need a place.”

“Yes. Private.”

“I’d lean toward a private home, or a building with low security. So far the abandons and vacants haven’t panned out. Not a flop – not private enough. Not a hotel, and they just don’t strike as the type that can afford to rent a nice roomy brownstone. Anything like that, they’d need to pass some sort of security check first, have the damage deposit. A basement unit, maybe, in a low- to mid-level building. Or… they snagged somebody who already had what they wanted.”

“You think there might be another victim?”

“The timing’s tight, but they have to have a place. So either they set it up on their way here, hit on one pretty much right after they got here. Or they scoped somebody, along the route, in New Jersey maybe, or locked one in after they arrived. If that’s how they’ve worked it, they took some care disposing of the body, or kept the vic alive so we can’t track them through the vic.

“My question. Are they smart enough for that? Smart enough to plan that out, to case a location, a building, and grab a vic who could give them access?”

“Yes, I think so. They’ve had months on this spree. If, as you believe, New York was the destination, they’d plan. They’ve gotten better at their hobby. It’s not a mission,” Mira said when Eve lifted her eyebrows at the term. “It’s not their life’s work. It’s entertainment for them, and that bonding.”

“People get tired of hobbies, and give them up.”

“Yes, they do, and, yes, at some point they may. Right now, it’s much too exciting, and they’ve had success. Factor in we believe this is a couple, romantically and sexually, as well as a killing unit. Couples have… spats, disagreements. They fall out of love. If that happens…”

“They could turn on each other,” Eve speculated. “Or separate. We have to hope they stick. Separating or one doing the other? That changes the pattern, and it would change the MO.”

“As long as they’re bonded, as long as they love, they’ll not only work as a unit, they’ll protect each other. If/when you find them, they’re still bonded, it’s possible – probable – they’ll die together rather than allow themselves to be taken – and separated.”

“Yeah, I’ve already considered the suicide-by-cop angle. Catching them comes first, not giving them the satisfaction of going out together in a fucking carved heart is next on the list.”

She pushed up, paced. “What’s your impression of Banner?”

“Committed to this, a little wide-eyed, but solid. I suspect he’s taken a lot of rejection – the FBI, other law enforcement – through his investigation. He hasn’t given up, and giving up, putting it aside, would’ve been easier.”

Eve nodded as she moved around the room. “He doesn’t strike me as someone who’d go rogue. If he did, I’d cut him loose. Okay, thanks.”

She dropped down in the chair again, looked over at her board. “She’s in pain, and she’s scared. ‘Why is this happening to me?’ That’s what keeps going through her head. She wants to see her family and friends again. She wants it to stop, just stop. If we find out anything from Arkansas, if I can work the location – because it has to be downtown – and if she’s tough enough to hold on, we’ve got a chance of getting her out of this.”

“If there’s anything else I can do, you’ve only to let me know.”

Eve shifted around. “When the remains get here from the two vics we’ve got coming in, it would help if you either worked it with DeWinter and Morris or reviewed their reports. The shrink angle’s an angle. I don’t want to miss any of them.”

“I’ll make sure of it.”

Alone, Eve set up another missing-persons run looking for any individual or individuals reported missing since the previous August with a residence or business in New York.

When her ’link signaled she noted Garnet DeWinter’s readout, answered.

“Dallas.”

“You might have asked.”

“Asked what?”

“If I had the time to examine and report on two sets of exhumed remains. It may be you don’t fully understand what we do here, or the fact I currently have on my table bones from two subjects recently discovered buried in concrete footings after the demolition of a building.”

“How old are they?”

“Approximately one hundred and twenty years.”

“Then they can probably fucking wait. Jayla Campbell,” she snapped and turned so the ’link showed the board and Campbell’s photo. “She has maybe thirty-six hours – with luck – before the two lunatic lovers who are currently torturing her end it by slicing her across the belly from hip to hip and letting her bleed out, probably while they have hot sex.”

The insult on DeWinter’s striking, sharp-featured face faded. On a sigh, she ran a hand over her sleek-for-work hair. “You might have given me some background.”

“I’m in a little bit of a hurry considering Campbell is only the last of at least twenty-one confirmed victims. And I have four more probables, including the remains heading your way.”

“If you’d given me some background, I might have been able to use some influence to get the remains here quicker.”

“How?”

DeWinter aimed a cool look out of sharp green eyes. “I have connections, and ways to use them. Which I’ll be doing right now. I’ll need a full report on this investigation, the profiling, and the previous victims.”

“I sent it to you about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Oh.” This time DeWinter huffed out a breath. “We really need to learn how to communicate better.”

“Right. I’ll get on that.”

“If you do, I will.”

Eve struggled back an impatient retort, mainly because DeWinter had a point. “Fine. Review what I sent you. Any questions, tag me. Morris will be working with you, and Mira’s going to make the time. I need to know everything I can know about the two vics. The feds don’t group them in with this. I do. Prove me right.”

“I prove you right, you buy me a drink.”

“Sure, whatever. I’m pressed here.”

“So am I now. I’ll get back to you.”

Eve took a moment, pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. Thought: Coffee.

She started to rise when Peabody’s pink boots clomped toward her office.

“I’ve got data on Jansen – our potential first vic.” Her gaze flicked to the board where Eve had already added his photo.

“Based in Columbus, Ohio. He was an efficiency expert. Businesses hired him to come in, give them advice on, well, efficiency. Where to cut expenses, where to add stuff. Age forty-three, divorced, no kids. Nobody had reported him missing for about a week because he worked independently for the most part, and had just finished a job in Fort Smith. He was on his way to Bentonville, and had a few days off in there. He’d rented a pewter Priority sedan in Fort Smith. 2060 model, Shining Silver exterior. That’s apparently in the wind. A lot of traffic bumps, no criminal. Made a good living, had a good rep, spent about thirty-six weeks a year on the road, and apparently liked it. More colleagues and clients than friends – my take – and boxed a little in college. Kept in shape.”

“Put up a fight, more than expected. You see a guy in a nice car, traveling alone. You want the nice car, and don’t figure to have much trouble. He gives you trouble, ends up dead. More colleagues and clients than friends,” Eve mused. “Less likely to stop for a couple or another man. So the woman still leads my theory there. I’m betting she’s got some looks. He got out of the car. If she’d been hitching, or just flagged him down, no need to get out.”

“A breakdown, or she pretends she’s hurt so he gets out to help her.”

“Breakdown leads. They had to get to where they were, and it’s not easy walking distance to anywhere much that I can see. Did anyone know what he might have had on him, with him?”

“Luggage – an efficient packer, as you’d expect. Two good suits, some shirts, ties, underwear, toiletries, workout gear. Two pair dress shoes, two pair running shoes. A tablet, a PPC, two ’links, some cash – he’d withdrawn eight hundred from the autobank in Fort Smith the afternoon of his departure. His immediate supervisor said they all carry a decent amount of cash for tips. Good tips, apparently, lead to more efficient service. Business credit card and two personal. None have been used since he left Fort Smith. He had a good wrist unit. I’ve got the make and model, and started a search. Same for his electronics.”

“Get sizes.”

“Sorry?”

“On the clothes, the shoes. If they didn’t sell them, and likely within a few days along the projected route, then they used them. If they used them, we’d have a body type, a shoe size.”

“Huh. Who’d have thought of that?”

“I thought of that. Get the sizes, see if one of those colleagues or clients can zero in on descriptions of the clothes he’d have packed. If not, try his hotels. He’d have used laundry service somewhere.”

“On it. Ah, Dallas?”

“What? I need to finish updating Whitney.”

“I got a civilian liaison to show Banner around – and told him about The Eatery, such as it is.”

“Okay, great. Go away.”

“Dallas, he doesn’t have anywhere to stay – in New York.”

“There are a zillion places to stay in New York.”

Peabody’s puppy-dog eyes should’ve warned her, but Eve was distracted.

“Yeah, he asked if I could recommend a hotel, maybe close to Central. He’s been going for about thirty hours straight now, and, well, he’s on his own nickel. I get the impression deputies in Silby’s Pond are more underpaid even than detectives in New York.”

“Christ, Peabody.” Realization and twangs of guilt hit at once. “I see where you’re going, and you’re going to want to do a fast U.”

“Just hear me out first, okay?” Peabody waved her hands in the air as if to ward off any boot aimed at her nose. “If you put him up, he’d be right there. Anything breaks anywhere on this, he’d be right there. And I was thinking, McNab and I could bunk over – same reason,” she said quickly. “And we could keep him occupied so you wouldn’t have to, if necessary. Carmichael and Santiago are already on their way west. Something could break tonight.”