Obsession in Death (25 page)

She needed coffee, and got up to program a pot while Roarke read.

“It’s the same writer. The comp agrees with me, and the probability is ninety-four-point-six.”

“Nixie,” Roarke said. “That seems to have been the launching point.”

“Innocent, defenseless kid, loses her entire family, crawls through her mother’s blood? It got play. And I talked about it some to the media. About her being a survivor, about her courage. I probably mouthed off about getting justice.”

“It’s not mouthing off,” he corrected. “And you’ll annoy me if you try to find some handhold for responsibility here.”

She’d annoy herself, Eve admitted. “I think we should contact Richard and Elizabeth.” Roarke’s friends – hers, too, she supposed – were Nixie’s foster parents. Nixie’s family now. “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but I don’t want to be wrong and have done nothing. It wouldn’t hurt for them to be a little more careful.”

“I’ll contact them, because I agree with you. Better safe.”

“I’ve done a search on all the e-mails. No account currently exists. For any of them. We’ll dig there, contact the server, hold their feet to the fire, see if we can get any account information.”

“I can work with McNab for a bit, try to dig out the IP, triangulate. Someone this careful would do some routing, some bouncing, but if we can find a few threads, we might be able to weave a bit of rope.”

“I’ll take anything you can do. She gets more intimate, I guess you could say. Starts calling me Dallas in the third, then shifts to Eve by the sixth.

“No threats, no talk about killing anyone – that would have sent up a flag. It’s more subtle, and in the one where she started calling me Eve, she talked about lawyers – no mention of Bastwick – just talking about lawyers who feather their nest with blood money, who undo, or try to undo, all the work I do, trampling on justice, badgering good cops. Like that. Just a few lines, and again on the imposed limits of the system that hamper my duty.”

“Is there anything about her, any personal details?”

“She’s too careful for much. Somewhere in her head this was always the plan. But she says she knows what it’s like to grow up without family, to have to carve out your own place. To be unappreciated, disrespected. There’s several mentions of being overlooked, not seen, unappreciated. She doesn’t mention the foster system, or use any of the code words foster kids use. But maybe a state school, or some nontraditional upbringing.” Eve blew out a breath. “Or she hated her family and pretends they don’t exist.”

She sat on the desk. “I’m going to admit, right out loud, it’s fucking creepy. She’ll write something about hoping I enjoyed my vacation, and how relaxed I looked, or how mag I looked at the vid premiere – and wasn’t she proud when I took down a killer and closed a case at the same time.

“I should know when someone’s watching me. I haven’t felt it.”

“A lot of the watching may be on screen, on the Internet,” he pointed out. “And if she’s involved in law enforcement, it might be someone you see as a matter of course.”

“See but don’t see. Just like she whines about in her correspondence.”

He shook his head. “You see everything. It’s part of your talent. And I think, when you catch her, you’ll know her. Maybe not her name, but her face.”

“Maybe that’s creepier,” Eve breathed out. “The last contact was right after the Sanctuary case. She had a lot to say – young girls again, I think that’s a trigger. Could be something happened to her when she was a kid. That’s something to dig into. Maybe…”

She rose, circled her board. “The abuse. Maybe she senses it. She’s studied me, read about me, watched, extrapolated for her own means. And maybe she senses some of it because she experienced some of it. Young girls. Maybe.”

She blew out another breath. “Reaching.”

“Maybe not. We knew each other, you and I, didn’t we? On some level.”

“Two lost souls, you said.”

“She’s another, isn’t she? One who’s chosen murder instead of the law, or money, as we did, respectively. Choices we made because we refused to be victims. A choice you made – though I believe you were born a cop – to stand for victims. In her warped way, so is she. Standing for victims, and for you.”

“She’s creating victims. But yeah, I get you. Here they come,” she added as she heard the clomp and prance that announced Peabody and McNab’s arrival.

“They’ll want food.”

“Crap.” Eve started to snarl, then remembered it was barely seven in the morning.

Her partner and the e-geek she loved came in.

“Get what you want out of the kitchen,” she said before either of them could speak. “And make it snappy.”

“Score!” McNab, still holding Peabody’s hand, dragged her along on his dash to the kitchen.

And all but blinded Eve with the blur of the kaleidoscope of stars decking his electric-blue shirt tucked into the screaming green of his cargos.

“I’ll leave you to fill them in while I finish up some work,” Roarke told her. “Then I can give you about an hour.”

“Appreciate it. Who was the sizzly French skirt?”

Roarke looked blank for a moment, then smiled. “You mean Cosette – Cosette Deveroix. Chief cyber engineer, Paris office.”

“What’s a cyber engineer?” she wondered, then held up a hand. “Never mind. I wouldn’t understand anyway, and don’t need to since I’ve got you. And him,” she added, jerking a thumb at McNab as he came out, shoveling in pancakes.

“Howzit going?”

“I’ll tell you both when Peabody gets the hell out here.”

“I meant more like how was Christmas and stuff.”

“Good, and done. Does that shirt run on batteries?”

He grinned around more pancakes, a man with a pretty face, clever green eyes, and a long tail of blond hair, all topping a skinny build. “Body heat. I get revved, they really shine.”

He turned his head, the spiral of silver rings along his earlobe sparkling as Peabody came out. She carried a plate holding a small scoop of scrambled eggs, two strips of bacon, and half a piece of unbuttered toast.

“Sorry, it took me a while to figure out what I wanted versus what I should have, and I compromised. I shouldn’t have the bacon, but… it’s bacon.”

But distracted, Eve continued to stare at Peabody’s feet. Not the pink cowboy boots, but still pink – hard-candy-pink boots that hit about mid-thigh with a thick fluff of snow-white furry stuff that glittered. The inch-wide soles were lime green.

“What do you have on your feet?” Eve demanded.

“These are my rain, snow, sleet, cozy toes boots. My boyfriend gave them to me for Christmas.” She batted eyes at McNab. “The soles are Sure Grip, so they’ll handle the ice. You need that today. It’s a skating rink out there.”

“What kind of murder cop wears pink boots with glittery white fuzz?”

“She-body,” McNab said, batting eyes right back.

“Christ.”

No point in bitching, Eve reminded herself, especially since the fuzz-topped boots matched the damn pink coat.

Why had she let Roarke overrule her on the pink?

McNab wore the McNab tartan airboots Roarke had had made for him, so in some weird way, she’d contributed to the madness of both of their wardrobes.

“Rundown,” she began. “What I believe is the first communication from the UNSUB is on screen.”

Pink boots, shiny stars aside, both Peabody and McNab turned toward the screen with the eyes of cops.

By the time they’d finished their breakfast, drunk Eve’s coffee, she’d brought them up to date with her current theory, and sent McNab off to Roarke’s comp lab.

“Kid in a candy store. He’s always juiced about working in Roarke’s lab,” Peabody added. “They’ll find something if something’s there, Dallas.”

“She’s smart, and part of her planned this from the start. Why do you send an e-mail to someone if you don’t leave them a way to respond?”

“Here I am.” Peabody spread her hands. “That’s all. Just here I am, now you know I’m out here, that I’ve got your back. No credit necessary, not between friends.” Peabody lifted her shoulders. “That’s how I read it.”

“That’s a good read.”

“There’s more – to me. You don’t have sisters, so you maybe don’t pick up on the really, really subtle, passive-aggressive bullshit. It buzzed for me a few times, here and there. It’s this: Oh, you’re restrained by the rules, the system, so you can’t really finish things off. And how people disrespect you – it’s implied you take it. Maybe have to take it. Those rules again.”

“Where does she say that?”

“Implied,” Peabody repeated. “Like…” She scrolled through the e-mails until she found what she wanted.

I
DON
’
T
KNOW
HOW
YOU
TAKE
THE
WAY
SOME
OF
THESE
PEOPLE
GET
IN
YOUR
FACE
,
DISRESPECT
YOU
SO
BLATANTLY
. I’
D
NEVER
BE
ABLE
TO
TOLERATE
IT
. 

“You can read that,
why
do you take that shit? You ought to stand up for yourself, and since you don’t, I guess I have to.”

“Read between the lines,” Eve noted.

“Yeah. She says that sort of thing in different ways. And then there’s how she keeps hammering how much you have in common – and how strong and brave and smart you are. How important you are.”

And reading between the lines, Eve nodded. “Because she wants to feel that way, wants that reflected back on her.” Eve thought of the dream, the blurry reflection, and understood she’d already gotten to that in some part of her brain. “If she’s a cop, she hasn’t climbed the ranks. If she’s periphery, she’s competent, likely considered a solid asset, but doesn’t draw a lot of attention.”

“Or accolades,” Peabody added. “She wants them, don’t you think? But she’s too afraid to push herself out there? Maybe?”

“I need to talk to Mira. Again.” She checked the time. “If she could come by here, or I could go by there before she goes into Central, I think we could add to the profile. Use the auxiliary, Peabody. Start going through the names the rest of the team sent in. For now, just the women.”

“If you’ve zeroed in, they won’t find her in your correspondence.”

“Maybe she slipped up. It would only take once.”

Eve sat down to contact Mira, annoyed when an incoming e-mail interrupted. She started to ignore, then checked the sender’s address in case it applied to the investigation.

DLE
#1@
SYSTEMWIDE
.
COM
. 

She clicked it open, hit copy, reached for the house ’link.

“I’ve got a fresh one, just came in, forwarding to you,” she told Roarke.

“It’s coming through now. Starting the trace.”

She read as they worked, said nothing as Peabody jumped up to read over her shoulder.

Eve,

I failed. I failed you, failed myself. I hope you can forgive me. I know you will, but it will be harder to forgive myself. He should be dead, with his ugly eyes destroyed.

He should be dead.

You would ask, as I do, what a woman like Matilda is doing with such a vicious, violent man? Some women are weak, some women almost ask for mistreatment, abuse, disrespect. Her weakness saved his life. My miscalculation saved him.

I know you see some redeeming quality in him. That’s your compassion, I suppose. Or is it a weakness? I hate to think that. But is it, Eve, is it a weakness in you, a flaw in what I so want to see as perfection? Is this why you tolerate disrespect from those so unworthy? Is this why you follow the rules that too often protect the guilty and ignore the innocent, the victim?

I don’t want to believe it. I want to believe that justice is your god, as it is mine. I want to believe you celebrate with me on the death of two people who not only abused you but were responsible for injustice and rewarding the guilty.

I’ve begun to doubt this is true. Are you one of them after all, Eve? Calling for justice while subverting it?

We have to think. We have to be sure. I’ve killed for you, and now I find myself wondering if you’re worthy of the gift, of my friendship and my devotion – something you rejected publicly.

How that hurt me, to hear you say, so coldly, “inaccurate.”

Have I let you down, Eve, or have you let me down? I have to know. For now, I struggle to remain

Your true friend.

Peabody laid a hand on Eve’s shoulder. “She’s turned on you.”

Nodding slowly, Eve felt the faint sickness she’d carried since she’d read the first message burn away. “About fucking time.”

14

“Smart, she’s a smart girl,” Roarke murmured.

At his station he worked on the trace manually while McNab stood at another station, tick-tocking his hips while he ran an auto-trace.

“Got chops,” McNab agreed. “Got flex. Bounce and swerve, echo it, pass on, bounce again. Got a fence line here, too, and a wall behind it.”

“I see it, yes. And the bloody pit beyond it.”

“Watch the three-sixty,” McNab warned. “Virus.”

“Aye, but a distraction’s all it is. Does she think we’re a couple of gits? She’s set a Dragon’s Tail under it, Ian.”