Obsession in Death (40 page)

“All good in Prague?”

“All very good in Prague. And here you are, the dutiful wife, making breakfast.”

“Here I am, the hungry cop, making breakfast. Why is it a Spanish omelet?”

“Is that what we’re having?”

“Yeah, but why? It could be an Irish omelet because it’s got potatoes.”

“I have no idea why, but it looks good.” He tugged her down with him. “Thanks.”

“I wasn’t sure how long you’d be in – where is Prague? Czech Republic?”

“You get an A in Geography this morning.”

“Geography’s part of the deal.” She picked up a slice of bacon. “It’s just a hunch about the UNSUB living in my old area.”

“A logical hunch.”

“Yeah, maybe. I’m going to go by that bar and grill when it opens, take the images in. But I’m running alternate searches now, tossing out the geography on one, closing it in a few blocks on another.”

“That explains the cursing.”

“I’m pretty tired of programming.” And in fact she’d already earned a low-grade headache from the morning session. “I don’t know how you geeks deal with it.”

“Hence the term ‘geek,’ a club you don’t belong to.”

“Fine by me. I’ve been looking over the pictures of potentials. I feel like a wit going through mug shots, and that’s a club I’d like to resign from really soon. Nobody pops for me, particularly.”

“Clearly it’s no one you know well or work with on a regular basis.”

“Agreed. But I had another thought. She showed some hair when she went for Nadine, so I’d say wig’s most likely because why show her own?”

Roarke nodded as he ate. “That would be careless, and she hasn’t been.”

“What we see of her shows her complexion is darker than Hastings said – and I don’t think he was wrong. He’s too tuned in to features, faces. So she could have lightened it for that, or darkened it for Nadine.”

“Or it’s neither because she could have worn subtle disguises throughout.”

“Yeah, exactly. So no matter what we’ve got, even when you work some magic and clean up the better look we got last night, it may not end up giving up a solid match.”

“As a charter member of the club of geek, I have to tell you the searches are set very broadly. It’s why you’ve got so many matches in the relatively small geographic area we put in, and why there’s so many variables in those matches.”

“At least you say it in English,” she replied. “I think, going with the odds and my gut, she went heavier on the disguise last night. She felt like she had to set the delivery ploy aside, the box she could rest on her shoulder to block her face from cams, and people. Why be that careful if you’d altered your look – the face part – that much? Some, I’m betting some because I think it’s more than careful. Obsessive again, anal about it.”

She went back to her coffee as the theory rolled through her head. “But last night, the face is going to be partially exposed. The cameras, the possibility – and that happened – of witnesses. She’d want to look less like herself. If she’s law enforcement, she knows we’re running these searches. Even if she’s not – but she is – she’s smart enough to know the basic process.”

“More than blending,” Roarke agreed. “More than going unnoticed by passersby.”

“Yeah, but we can extrapolate. Easier to darken skin than lighten it, so I’m going with her natural tone on the first two hits, or lighter. She went with dark brown hair last night, so I eliminate that hair color. Not going to use her own. She went with my eye color. Brown. So —”

“It’s more than brown eyes,” Roarke interrupted. “It’s your eyes, Eve. And there, it’s deliberate. Your eyes. She wants to see through them. And wants others to see you in her.”

“That’s Mira’s area.” Eve stopped, poked at the omelet. “But I don’t think you’re wrong, and it’s straight-out creepy, I admit it. I get through the creepy, I have to figure out how to use it. Because I will use it when I get her in the box. To get her there, I have to find her. Do you have time to play with the image from last night?”

“I began that.”

“Yeah, but can you tweak what you’ve got? Merge it, morph it, whatever it is, Hastings’s description? He’s going to be the most on target, from my take of it. Go with the shorter height, because that’s going to be closer, and the slimmer build, same deal.”

“I’ll give it some time.”

’Link conference with Prague, she thought, solar systems to buy. He’d already given her more time – and always did – than she could ever expect.

“When you run out of time, can you pass it to Feeney? I want his eye, his experience. He can let McNab and Yancy play some more if he thinks that’s the way to go. But I want his take first.”

“Of course.”

“One more thing.”

“Should I start taking notes?”

“I think you’ll remember. Do me a solid, Roarke, and be extra careful today. Don’t drive yourself anywhere today. Please,” she added, before he could say anything. “Last night had to make her crazy – crazier. And pissed. If she wants to hit at me where it hurts most, it would be you. Strap on one of the weapons you’re not supposed to carry.”

“Darling Eve.” He leaned over, kissed her. “I always have one of the weapons I’m not supposed to carry. You’re not to worry about me.”

“That’s the same bullshit as me telling you not to worry about me.”

“Fair enough. So you’ll take care of my cop, and I’ll take care of your criminal. Reformed.”

“Semi-reformed. Since you break the law every time you go out packing.” She hissed out a breath. “Take a clutch piece, too.”

He patted her hand, went back to his eggs.

He always had a clutch piece.

She could’ve worked at home. In fact, it might have been more efficient, but she wanted to be visible. So she had Peabody meet her at the lab. She’d make the rounds.

She harassed Dickhead because it was routine, and if anyone was watching, she wanted her to see routine. She flashed the sketch around – Roarke’s take, fully clothed.

She took it in to Harvo, asked the queen of hair and fiber to post it on her board. Then made the trip upstairs and tracked down Garnet DeWinter over skeletal remains.

Today’s lab coat was turquoise to match stacked-heel boots. DeWinter pushed her microgoggles up into her explosion of caramel hair, where they were all but lost.

“Dallas, Peabody. I’m in the middle here, so if it’s not urgent —”

“Recognize her?” Eve pushed a copy of the sketch under DeWinter’s elegant nose.

“I can’t say I do. She looks… ordinary, and in need of a makeover. Good bone structure, good potential, unrealized.”

Bone structure, Eve thought, inspired. “What can you tell me about her?”

DeWinter glanced at the bones on her table. Sighed. “Let me have that.”

She took the sketch, angled it toward the light. “It’s a composition, so it’s complete speculation. I can say, easily, she needs a better hair color and style.”

“Don’t care.”

“Everyone should and it would be a more attractive world.” She looked over the sketch at Eve. “This would be your UNSUB.”

“It would.”

“If this is accurate – the bone structure, the shape of the face, the mouth? Mixed race, but I find myself influenced by the tone of her skin. If I had her skull on the table —”

“I’ll try to arrange that.”

“I wouldn’t blame you,” DeWinter countered, frowning at the sketch. “I wouldn’t be surprised to find Greek in the heritage. Possibly Turkish descent, but not recent. Diluted, as so many of us are, Western Europe – some Anglo-Saxon blood. Her body appears well proportioned. And all of that’s guesswork – most probable conclusions, based on a sketch.”

“I’ll take it. Keep that. Give it a glance now and then, and show it to your people. She’s going to be ordinary, someone who disappears into the scenery. But smart, bright, good at the work, whatever the work is. She has solid e-skills, patience. She’s obsessive, organized.”

“You’ve just described about half the people in this facility.”

So Eve went with the gut. “She probably doesn’t have friends. Even her coworkers don’t think of her when it’s time to go out, have a drink. She’s single, no romantic relationship. She knows my cases inside and out.”

“That narrows it a bit more. There’s a nice camaraderie here. It’s often ugly work we do, so that camaraderie makes it bearable.”

DeWinter studied the sketch again. “I can’t think of anyone, but I will think more. Is it true Nadine was attacked last night?”

“An attempt on her. She’s fine.” And thanks to whatever soother Summerset had talked her into, Nadine had still been out when Eve left the house.

“I don’t know her well, but I like her. I’m glad she’s all right.”

“She’s covered. Anything pops, anyone comes to mind, however out of orbit, I hear it. And… I don’t know you, really, but we’ve worked together. She’s going after people I know. You should watch yourself.”

“Well, that’s… harrowing.”

“You’re low on the list. You just haven’t been here long enough. But watch yourself anyway.”

“Happy New Year,” Peabody added as they started out.

“Thanks bunches.”

“Let’s hit Dawson,” Eve said, “then we’ll go by the morgue, run it through with Morris.” She checked the time as they walked. “That bar’s not going to be open for hours. We work the searches back at Central until. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

Dawson had a desk twice the size of Eve’s. It occurred to her when she noted all the glass vials holding insects, bone fragments, soils, stones, and what might have been a decimated fish of some sort she’d never actually been in his office before.

Names, locations, tasks, techs, investigators – including her – covered his board. A wide shelf under a glow light held several odd-looking plants.

He raised his face from a scope, noted the direction of Eve’s glance. “Carnivorous plants. A hobby of mine.”

“You have meat-eating plants in your office?”

“Frrrosty,” was Peabody’s take as she moved closer to study them.

“Can’t have them at home. My wife laid down the law on it. It’s not like they eat people.” He smiled broadly. “Yet. I’m playing around with a hybrid.”

“I’ll remember that should I have to arrest you for aiding and abetting homicidal vegetation. Recognize her?”

She handed him the sketch.

“This is the one who did Bastwick, Ledo. Heard she tried for Nadine Furst last night. Word travels.” He held the sketch out at arm’s length. “Haven’t gotten in to get my eyes fixed.”

He squinted at it.

“Looks like a lot of anybodies.”

She repeated the routine she’d done with the others. Single, ordinary, bright, organized, and so on.

“You’re not bright, organized, and a little obsessive, you don’t stay on my team for long. I know my people pretty good, Dallas. And that bleeds over to the other departments.”

“Anybody particularly interested in my cases?”

“See that board? We cover every-fricking-body. Not to say we don’t dig in. The one you worked with DeWinter? Everybody got invested in that.” He swiveled gently in his chair, obviously comfortable with his decimated fish and carnivorous plants. “You find the remains of twelve kids? I don’t work with people who don’t get invested in something like that.”

“Think about it,” she asked him. “Post that where people can see it.”

Where, Eve thought,
she
can see it if she’s here.

She wasn’t there, or at the morgue, or in a cube or on a crime scene.

She’d taken a personal day – the first in more than two years. The work she did now, the most important work she’d ever done, ever would do, needed the time. Needed her focus.

She worked through the pain, leery of blockers. But she coated her burned wrist with ointment, carefully wrapped it.

Pain was nothing, really, but the body’s reaction, even a warning. Purpose outweighed pain.

True, she’d broken down twice in tears. The pain in her body, the pain in her heart. Fear that eked in through the purpose. But the purpose stiffened her resolve, dried the tears.

Everything ended. She knew that, accepted that. Life was a cycle, one that couldn’t refresh until it ended.

So she would end it. Purge, purify, destroy to rebuild.

Careful of her wrist, she shrugged into the combat vest she’d worked on for most of the night. It fit well – heavy, of course, with the charges she wired in.

Still work to be done, but for what else she needed, it had to be Central. She knew just how to get through, get the rest, get it done. In just a few hours, she thought, and turned to the mirror.

She’d added one set of lifts to bring her height up to match Eve’s. She’d had her eyes done professionally, and would no longer need the dulling contacts for work.

That part of her life was already over.

She’d done the hair herself, and it was good. Short, shaggy, brown with lighter tones blended in. Just like Eve’s. All her sources said it was natural, that color. It hadn’t been easy to duplicate.

For over a year, she’d worked out rigorously, building muscle, killing fat. She’d been soft once, in another life. Now she was hard and strong.

Like Eve.

“We’re the same. You’ll understand that soon. There has to be payment for betrayal. Justice must be served. You can’t pay unless I pay. We’re the same. You’ll see.”

For now, she put on the dark brown wig, the blue contacts. Everything she needed was packed in the evidence box.

She put on her coat, hefted the box. She took the time to look around. The photographs, her equipment, her case board. Her life.

She’d never see it again.

It had been a kind of cocoon, she realized. A place where she transformed, in quiet, in safety.

Now she was ready to spread her wings and fly.

22

Eve stepped into the bullpen at Central.

“Listen up! I’ve got grunt work for anybody not on an active and hot, anybody who’s got some time.”

“We make time, LT,” Jenkinson said.

“Grunt work,” she repeated, “so I don’t want it pulling anybody away from a hot.” She nodded toward the handmade banner over the break-room door. “Stick with the motto. Anybody’s free enough, Peabody’s got the data.” She glanced toward Baxter’s empty desk. “Baxter catch one?”