Obsession in Death (24 page)

In the room stood a board – like Eve’s. Exactly like Eve’s.

Many faces there, so many. Two looked out with a thick red X across their faces.

Hastings should have looked through that thick red X tonight.

One day he would, yes, he would, and he’d suffer first. Because tonight had been a humiliation. Failure scarred. Failure burned.

But no matter, he’d have his day with justice. For now, there were others.

There were so many others.

And maybe it was time to be more bold. To make a bigger statement.

But first there was an apology to write. Sitting, the killer poured out regret and shame – and fury – in the words written to Eve.

13

Eve woke a little after five, groggy, blurry from dreams, and not surprised to find herself alone in bed. She lay in the dark, wishing for another hour’s sleep, knowing it wouldn’t come – and wondering, not for the first time, how Roarke managed on so little shut-eye.

She shoved herself up, staggered to the AutoChef to clear her brain and boost her flagging system with coffee. And reminded herself she wouldn’t have to visit the morgue that morning.

Coffee and a live witness – two live witnesses – made for a good start to the day.

To give her spirit a boost along with her system and brain, she turned on the bedroom Christmas tree – it would be gone for another year in just a few days, so why not enjoy those pretty, cheerful lights? For more warmth, more light, she started the fire.

She still had moments of amazement, and thought she always would, that she had this place, this home where she could enjoy the warmth and snap of a fire on a cold winter morning.

All because someone extraordinary loved her.

By the time she’d grabbed clothes from the closet, programmed her second cup of coffee of the morning, Roarke strolled in, the cat prancing at his heels.

He was already dressed in a king-of-the-business-world suit – black with faint, needle-thin silver stripes, black shirt, a tie that picked up the stripes.

He looked rested, awake, and gorgeous – and she only felt a small twinge of resentment.

“I’d hoped you’d sleep longer.” He kissed her furrowed brow.

“I know you’re not a droid, but I’d like a walk-through of your power-up system because nobody should look like you do on four hours of sleep.”

“Lifelong habit. If I could be up and out before my father or Meg stirred, I’d avoid the morning boot. And you’re not wearing that.”

She’d been thinking she’d once escaped into sleep when she could to avoid her father’s boot – or worse – and frowned at him. “What?”

“You may find yourself on screen again today, so you may as well dress for it.”

“I can’t be worried about clothes when —”

“I will.” He took the jacket and shirt she’d yet to put on. “The pants are fine – a nice rich caramel, classic, good fit. I’ll deal with this, you deal with breakfast. I’m past ready to eat.”

She’d have argued, but the deal gave her control of breakfast. And it sure as hell wouldn’t be oatmeal.

So in her support tank and rich caramel, classic, good-fitting pants, she went straight for the AutoChef.

She wanted waffles – that’s right – waffles in an ocean of syrup. She added sides of mixed berries because he’d make some comment about a balanced meal. Besides, she liked them.

When she turned with the tray, he had a vest the same brown as the pants, but with thin gold stripes, a crisp white shirt, and a jacket of deep, dark green with brown leather buttons.

Okay, she thought, it would look put together, but not fancy, fussy, or showy. She set the tray down on the table in the sitting area – which instantly perked up Galahad’s ears.

Roarke simply pointed a warning finger that had the cat shooting up a leg to wash as if a morning ablution had been his only intention.

Eve put on the shirt over the tank and the fat diamond pendant Roarke had given her the day he told her he loved her. She buttoned on the vest, then sat to flood her waffles with syrup.

“You could just pour a cup of that, drink it straight.”

“Not the same,” she said over soaked waffles. “What wheel were you dealing this early?”

“The village in Tuscany I told you about. We’re moving forward on that.”

“Huh.” She couldn’t say why it struck her so odd he’d buy an Italian village. He owned an island – where they were due to take their winter break if she ever caught this obsessed killer. He owned the lion’s share of an off-planet resort. And those didn’t even make a dent in what made up his empire.

“I thought we might visit there next summer,” Roarke continued, enjoying his less saturated waffles. “There should be considerable progress on the villa’s rehab by then.”

Eve glanced toward the window where the falling sleet looked bitter and just a bit toothy. She could barely imagine summer, and sunshine and heat.

“Miserable, isn’t it?” But he said it easily – and why not, she thought, since they were eating waffles in the warmth with a fire snapping and a holiday tree sparkling.

What was the killer doing? she wondered. Sleeping still? Did she – it was damn well a woman – have a job that allowed her to sleep until the sun, what there would be of it today, rose?

Did she dream, as Eve had dreamed, of blood? Of eyes blindly staring that still held a brutal accusation?

“I’m going to work here this morning,” she decided. “They can’t drag me on screen if I’m here. I can have Peabody come in – McNab, if Feeney can spare him. We’ll have more matches by now in the lab, and still with the new parameters, it’s a smaller grouping.”

“I’ll send a car for them.”

“What?” Genuinely appalled, she gaped at him. “Why? The subway —”

“Eve.” He gestured toward the window, the ugly, frigid sleet.

“Cops are supposed to freeze their asses off,” she told him. “You spoil them.”

“And why not?” he countered. “They’ll get here faster, and drier.” He rubbed a hand on her thigh. “What is it – under it all?”

“Dreams,” she admitted. “Just ugly dreams. Ledo playing pool with a broken cue, with the other half stuck in his chest. Reminding me I broke the cue in the first place. Reminding me he helped me on the dead sleeper – Snooks, the sleeper went by Snooks. Not a lot of help, but he did give me a little. And Bastwick, pounding at me on the witness stand again.”

Eve shook her head, went back to coffee.

“And the killer. She looked like me – sort of. A reflection, I guess, smudged. I guess that came from Hastings talking about her eyes being something like mine. And I get the shrink-wrap of that,” she added. “We’re sitting there, drinking wine. Or she’s drinking it. There’s a big, bubbly pizza on the table between us. Like we’re sharing a friendly moment, you know? And she’s making her case. Just how many murderers, rapists, pedophiles, spouse beaters would Bastwick have gotten off if she’d lived? How many people would mug or steal or kill to get the scratch to buy what Ledo sold? Couldn’t I see the greater good here? Wasn’t it about that? About protect and serve? About justice? About respect for the law and the people who enforce it?”

She fell silent a moment, but he knew she wasn’t finished. She was working up to the rest.

“I said something like killing, taking a life, wasn’t respecting or enforcing the law. That’s when she leaned over, and it was all blood then. The wine, the pie. Just blood. She’s looking at me, and she says I did the same. I killed my father. She’s smiling when she says it, like we’re just a couple of pals having a friendly chat.”

She needed another moment, just one more. “In the dream, I felt panic. She can’t know that. She shouldn’t know that. I said she didn’t know anything about it, but she just kept smiling, told me she knew everything. Everything about me.”

To soothe, Roarke lifted her hand, kissed it. “She doesn’t know anything about you.”

“It felt like she did. ‘You killed Richard Troy,’ she said to me, ‘because he needed killing.’ That I knew what it was like, same as her, to do what needed doing, and to like it.”

“Bloody bollocks to that.”

“I know it.” She pushed up, had to stand, walk it off. “I was eight, and he was raping me – again. And so crazy drunk he might’ve killed me. I believed he would. That little knife on the floor, then in my hand, then going into him. It’s not the same, not the same as killing someone who poses no threat, not to you or anyone. It’s not even in the same universe.”

She shoved her hands through her hair then made herself sit again. “I know that,” she said, calmly now.

Still, he put an arm around her, drew her closer. “You don’t believe what she said in this dream, but you think she does – or would if she knew.”

“Yeah. She’d see it as something that makes us more alike. She sees us as alike, and this would cement it. She needs to convince me, that’s what I think. She needs to show me how right she is, and how it’s all a kind of partnership. She could pick anybody, right, but she needs to pick people she sees as against me, who’ve hurt or offended me in some way. To her twisted mind. Jesus, if a cop isn’t hurt or offended every other day, she’s not doing the job.”

She poked at the waffles on her plate. Shame to waste them, she thought, but her appetite had dropped out. “She asked if I wanted to pick the next one.”

“She thinks she knows you, that’s true enough in dream and reality. But she couldn’t be more wrong.”

“I don’t know her – that’s the problem. Just pieces. But I will, I’ll know her, and all of it. I’m going to wake up Peabody,” she decided, and got up again to do just that.

Once she’d verbally dragged her partner out of a warm bed, Eve headed straight to the computer lab. She brought up the next batch of results, gave them a quick scan.

A pattern here, she decided – definitely a pattern starting to form. She ordered the results on her own comp, started for her office. She could leave any e-nudging to McNab, if Feeney cleared him for her.

With the door connecting her office to Roarke’s open, she heard him on the ’link, and a sizzly female French accent speaking back to him.

Eve listened for a minute, realized despite the sizzly French it was all geek speak. The same, as far as she was concerned, in any language. Incomprehensible.

She went directly to her desk, began to sort and order the latest results with the ones she’d sorted and ordered late the night before.

She ran probabilities, re-sorted, re-ran.

Considered, then wrote up a summary of her conclusions, sent it all to Whitney, to Mira, and for good measure to Feeney as well.

Then sat back and began to read the correspondence she’d highlighted, beginning with the earliest. August of ’59, she mused. Before the Icove investigation. So that… notoriety hadn’t set it all off – if she was on the right track.

The interest – no, obsession – hadn’t rooted there.

Dear Lieutenant Dallas,

You don’t know me – yet – but I’ve been following your career for some time, and with admiration and great respect. Up until now, I couldn’t find the courage to contact you, but the tragedy of the Swisher family, and the bravery of young Nixie compelled me. If an orphaned child has the courage to be heard, why can’t I?

You risked your life to bring the Swishers justice, as you have before and will again. You inspire me, and challenge me to work for justice, to take risks, to do what must be done.

It pains me to know how often those you seek to protect and serve give you no thanks, give you no respect. I know, too well, what it’s like to be unappreciated, not respected.

Yet you continue to do what must be done, within the confines of the system. A system, I know as you do, that often fails to mete out just punishment.

I feel I know you, that we share many of the same values and goals, and could be good friends. For now know I’ll continue to give you my admiration, my respect, and my support. The law has boundaries that are too often senseless. My friendship has none.

A humble friend

A little over the top, sure, but not threatening, Eve mused. Not batshit crazy. There’d been a considerable outpouring of sympathy for Nixie Swisher in the media. A kid who’d survived a home invasion that had slaughtered her entire family? Strong story, and it had had some legs, if Eve remembered.

An e-mail like this? She’d have tossed it straight to public relations. But now, she thought – and the computer backed her up – maybe, just maybe, this was first contact.

She’d need to find out if they’d answered it. Maybe the e-mail address had remained valid then – as it was no longer.

YOURFRIEND
@
GLOBALLINK
.
COM
. 

She read through the next, the next, seeing the gradual escalation. Still, nothing that would have set off alarms, not individually. And as the e-mail addresses varied, no one – including herself – would have paid much attention.

She’d have paid none, Eve admitted, after the Icove blast hit, fall of ’59, because she’d tossed pretty much everything to public relations.

She glanced up as Roarke came in.

“I think I’ve found her – not who she is or where, but where she started contacting me. The first one – and it’s the first – is up on screen. There were three more in ’59, and there’s been nine this year.

“The searches matched all these on every factor. Same writer, different e-mails, but the same person wrote them.”

“Different e-mails – you’d never have noticed,” he commented.

“I probably didn’t read them, or most of them. Different e-mails,” she repeated, “and until the last three, different signatures. She’s settled on Your True Friend for the last three.”