The In Death Collection, Books 21-25

by J. D. Robb

  She continued scrolling. “Willowby, Nigel, deceased 2051. Bad luck. But that leaves her with a stepmother and stepsister still alive and kicking. Computer, contact information for Willowby, Candide, or Marrow, Candide, and Marrow, Briar Rose, London. Use birth dates and identification numbers in file already running.”

  Working…

  “Eve, if you’re thinking of contacting them now, I’ll remind you it’s after one in the morning in England.”

  She scowled, glanced at her wrist unit. “That’s such a pisser. Okay, we take that in the morning.”

  The computer told her Candide now lived in Sussex while Briar Rose retained a London residence.

  “Okay, back to Tandy. See here, she was employed over six years at this dress shop in London. Carnaby Street. Position, manager. Kept the same apartment there—”

  “That would be ‘flat,’” Roarke interrupted.

  “Why would it be flat? How can you live—oh.” She rubbed the back of her neck as she cued in. “Right, she’d call it a flat, which makes no sense to me. But she kept it, just like she kept the same employer, for more than six years. She settles in, she roots, she’s habitual. We’ll want to talk to the owner of the shop.”

  Now she leaned back, stared up at the ceiling. “If she had a guy, I bet she kept him a good chunk of time, too. She doesn’t bounce around. But she relocates not just to another part of England, even of Europe, but goes three thousand miles. Gives up her longtime home, longtime job. That’s not a whim, not for someone like Tandy. That’s a big step, and one she would have thought about a lot, one she had to have a strong reason for taking.”

  “The baby.”

  “Yeah, I’d say it comes back to that. She put an ocean between someone or something and the kid. Strong reason, or she’d be nesting in her flat in London.”

  “A creature of habit,” Roarke put in. “As were your other two victims.”

  “Let’s hope Tandy makes out better than they did. I’m going to set up a board for her, and do a timeline.”

  “All right. Unless there’s something specific I can do for you here, you might send me some of those blind accounts on the Copperfield/ Byson case. I’ll start looking at numbers.”

  The fact was, he wanted to step away—at least for the time being—from the thought of a woman so completely vulnerable at the mercy of someone who wished her harm. Someone, he thought, she might have loved once.

  Eve stopped for a moment, turned to him. “If I’d been in your place on that one, I’d’ve told Whitney to kiss my ass.”

  “What?” He pulled himself back, into the now. “Ah, well, all in all, I’d rather have your lips in that vicinity than his.”

  “Find me something useful, they might find their way there.”

  “And my incentive keeps rising.”

  She swiveled away from the screen, looked him in the eyes. “Are you all right on this? The Tandy thing.”

  Foolish, he admitted, to believe she didn’t see, didn’t know. More foolish, he supposed, for him to try to block it from her, or from himself. “I’m not, actually, not completely. It resonates a little too deep for me. I don’t know if it’s anger or grief I’m feeling. It must be both.”

  “Roarke, we don’t know Tandy’s in the same kind of situation as your mother was.”

  “We don’t know she isn’t.” Idly, he picked up the little statue of the goddess Eve kept on her desk. A symbol of the female. “He waited until after I was born to murder her, my mother. But she was trying to protect me, do what she thought best for me. As I expect Tandy is doing, whoever has her now.”

  He set the statue down. “I just want my mind off it for a while.”

  He so rarely hurt, she thought. So rarely let himself, she corrected. “I can take this one back to Central. Keep it out of here.”

  “No.” He moved to her then, taking her face in his hands. “That won’t do, not for either of us. What once was made us who we are, one way or another. But it can’t stop us from doing what we do. They’ll have won then, won’t they?”

  She put her hands over his. “They can’t win. They can only screw with us.”

  “And so they do.” He leaned down, pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll steep myself in numbers for a while. They always clear my head.”

  “God knows how. I’m going to make coffee. All around?”

  “If I had some cake to go with it. I got shafted on that end of the deal.”

  “Cake?” Her mind circled around. “Oh, right. Mavis. I think there was some left. Those women were like vultures when something had icing on it. Maybe the Dark Shadow stocked some of the leftovers in the AutoChef. I could probably choke down a piece myself.”

  And thinking that sugar and caffeine kept the blood moving, she made it a large piece along with strong, black coffee. He’d be all right, she told herself, because he wouldn’t let himself be otherwise. But she’d keep a finger on the pulse, and if she didn’t like the beat, she’d move the Tandy investigation out of the house.

  For convenience, she set Tandy’s board next to the one she’d already started on her other case. And on the side with a slick white surface began to handwrite a time line.

  She made lists of names. People she’d already spoken with on one side, those she would contact in the morning on the other. She tacked up Tandy’s ID photo.

  Her first step was to call the contact number of the parking lot. As she expected, she was transferred to an endless menu of choices, and quickly selected operator before the droning litany could bore her into a coma.

  “Courtesy Messaging Service.” The voice was nasal as a trombone and dense with Queens.

  “This is Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD,” Eve began and gave her badge number. “I need information on the Park and Go, Fifty-eighth Street.”

  “For information, please call Customer Service between the hours of eight A.M. and—”

  “I need information now, and I don’t want to talk to some hand-patter at Customer Service.”

  “Well, jeez. This is a messaging service, you know, for, like, twenty businesses in Manhattan alone. I don’t have information about a parking lot.”

  “Put me through to the owner.”

  “I’m not supposed to bother the client with—”

  “Maybe you should give me your name and location. I’ll send a couple of uniforms to pick you up, and you can tell me how you’re not supposed to bother the client when you get down to Cop Central.”

  “Well, jeez. You gotta wait a minute.”

  Eve was put on wait mode while music sweeter than the icing on her cake tinkled in her ear.

  During the ten minutes it played—with periodic computer-generated bulletins assuring her that her call was important—she began a series of probability runs.

  By the time an actual human came back on, she was drinking her second cup of coffee and studying the results.

  “Lieutenant, is it?” The man looked slick and sounded same.

  “That’s right. And you are?”

  “Matt Goodwin. You’re inquiring about the Park and Go on Fifty-eighth?”

  “That’s right. Do you own it?”

  “I represent the corporation that does. What seems to be the problem?”

  “I’m investigating a possible crime in which this lot may be involved. I need the security discs as well as the logs for Thursday last, between eighteen and nineteen hundred hours.”

  “What possible crime?”

  “It’s a Missing Persons matter. I need the discs and the logs as soon as possible.”

  “I believe those discs are dumped every twenty-four, Lieutenant. As for the logs, I assume you have a warrant?”

  “I can get one.”

  “Well, when you do—”

  “And when I do, I’ll see it includes logs for an entire week, as well as a search into the lot’s—and the corporation that owns it—standards and practices. I’ll have to bring you and your client into Central fo
r questioning. Or, you can get me the logs for that single hour of that single day.”

  “Of course my client would want to cooperate with the authorities.”

  “Good for your client.”

  “I’ll have to contact my client, and with their permission, arrange to have the logs you specified copied and made available to you.”

  “You do that. Relay to me at this number where the logs can be picked up. By nine A.M. tomorrow morning.”

  “Lieutenant, it is the weekend.”

  “I’ve heard that. Nine A.M., or I get that warrant.”

  She clicked off, went back to studying her probability results. Even with the sparse data at her disposal, it was running in the mid-nineties that Tandy Willowby had been target specific.

  Tandy had no criminal record on either side of the Atlantic, no known association with criminal elements. She had a small, tidy nest egg that jibed with someone who lived carefully on the salary she’d pulled in since the onset of employment. Her parents were dead, and from the basic data Eve could access without a warrant, her stepmother and stepsister had no wealth. Middle-income salaries.

  There were no suspicious deposits or withdrawals in Tandy’s accounts that indicated blackmail on either side.

  On the surface it appeared the only thing of true value Tandy owned was what she carried in her womb.

  Playing a hunch, she contacted the owner of the White Stork.

  “Lieutenant Dallas. You’ve found Tandy.”

  “No.”

  “I just don’t understand this.” Liane Brosh was a youthful sixty, with a face strained with concern. “She must have just taken a weekend away. Maybe a quick trip to a spa to rev up before the baby comes.”

  “Did she talk about doing that?”

  “No, not really. I suggested it a couple times, but she always said she was already revved.” Liane smiled weakly. “We had a little shower for her here at the store, and I gave her a gift certificate to a day spa in the city. She said she was saving it until after the baby. But I’m sure she’s fine. Maybe she just wanted to get out of the city for the weekend.”

  “Does that strike you as something she’d do?”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Liane sighed. “It doesn’t sound like her at all. I’m so worried.”

  “Can you tell me if anyone came into the store to see her specifically, to speak with her?”

  “Tandy worked with several expectant parents. All the staff is available for personal shopping, for helping with registries, decor, layettes.”

  “How about someone she might’ve worked with, or who might have frequented your shop whose expectations weren’t realized. Miscarriage, for instance.”

  “It does happen. I can’t think of anyone offhand, but I can certainly check the records, ask the other girls.”

  “I appreciate that. Did she ever speak about the baby’s father?”

  “In general, and vaguely. No specifics, and since she didn’t want to talk about it, I didn’t press.”

  “If you think of anything, even if it doesn’t seem important, I want you to contact me. Twenty-four/seven.”

  “I will. We love Tandy. All of us will do anything we can to help.”

  Eve tried another hunch and contacted Tandy’s midwife.

  “This is Randa.”

  “Randa Tillas, Lieutenant Dallas.”

  “Tandy.”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “Well, damn it.” She was a striking black woman with the faintest hint of the islands in her voice. Her rich brown eyes filled with concern. “I contacted members of her birthing circle, in case she was spending a couple of days with one of them. But no one’s heard from her since Wednesday.”

  “Any member of that circle have a problem pregnancy?”

  “I’ve got one with high blood pressure and another on bed rest, but nothing major, no.”

  “Maybe a birthing coach who’s had trouble conceiving, or carrying to full term.”

  “I don’t have full medical on coaches, but that sort of thing usually comes up during the class. I’d try to discourage coaching by anyone who might be in a dark place. It wouldn’t be good for them, or the mother.”

  “Did she ever talk to you about the baby’s father?”

  “Some, yes. It’s important for me to know as much as the mother is comfortable telling me. For a single mother, more so. Especially one, like Tandy, without family support.”

  “Can you tell me what she told you about him?”

  “I’m treading a line here, but I’m worried enough I’m stepping over it. He was someone she dated for about a year back in London. I think she was very much in love with him. The pregnancy was unplanned, and wasn’t something he wanted or was looking for. She decided it was something she wanted, so she broke things off and moved to the U.S.”

  “Long way to go.”

  “I thought so, but she said she’d wanted everything fresh, and it seemed reasonable. I’d say she’s very resolved to have this baby and to raise it on her own, with no murky feelings toward the father. She was very spare on the details about him, but she did slip once or twice and call him by name. Aaron.”

  “That helps. Thanks. Anything else, contact me.”

  “I’m going to go through my file on her, and ask the other members of the team if she spoke to them about anything that seems important. We all want her and the baby back, safe and healthy.”

  14

  SHE WENT OVER THE DATA PEABODY SENT TO her computer on like crimes. IRCCA had popped a few for her. Abductions, abduction/murders, rapes, rape/ murders. Abductions where the baby had been delivered then stolen, and the mother left behind.

  Alive or dead.

  In the majority of the abductions, the woman had known her kidnapper, or had had previous contact.

  Eve separated them into known or unknown, into family strife, cases where the abductor had been mentally ill, and those done for profit.

  She culled out the rapes into a separate file.

  Then she worked them geographically.

  There had been cases in New York with similar elements, and those involving family members of the victim she separated out again. She set aside those cases where the perpetrator was doing time, earmarking those to check other family members, and any possible contact with Tandy.

  She outlined Missing Person cases where the investigator found the woman had gone into a shelter to escape an abusive relationship, or simply walked out. And others where neither mother nor child had ever been found.

  Because Tandy had come from London, Eve moved there next. A smattering of like cases again, but none that had any outward link to hers.

  So she branched out to Europe.

  The most interesting was a case, still open, in Rome where the missing woman had walked out of her regular OB exam in her thirty-sixth week, and poofed. Like Tandy, earlier in the pregnancy she had relocated to another city, moving from Florence three months before she went missing. She was single, had no family in that area. She’d been healthy, and lived alone. Unlike Tandy, this woman had applied for and received paid maternity leave during her second trimester.

  A struggling artist, she had been in the process of finishing a mural of a fairyland on the walls of the nursery she’d outfitted in her apartment.

  Or was it ‘flat’ in Italy, too? Eve wondered.

  Sophia Belego had been missing for nearly two years. Gone without a trace.

  After making a note of the investigator’s name, Eve stewed over the time difference. Italy was another place she couldn’t contact yet.

  “Lieutenant.”

  “What? Huh?”

  “It’s now after two in the morning. New York time.”

  “What is it in London?”

  “Too early.” Roarke laid his hands on his wife’s shoulders, dug at the rocks that had taken up residence there. “And time for both of us to recharge.”

  “I’ve got more in me.”

  “You’ll have more yet after a few
hours of sleep.”

  “I’m working something from the data Peabody got from IRCCA.”

  “And how much further can you take it tonight?”

  Nowhere really, she thought. But still. “I haven’t written it all down. I need to put it into a report for the file, and copy MPU.”

  “Which can wait until morning.”

  “If she got snatched, she’s going on better than fifty hours missing. I need the damn data from the parking lot. And I’m not going to get that until morning,” she argued when he only looked at her. “Okay, a couple hours down.”

  Because she was looking glassy-eyed, he moved to the elevator with her.

  “You got anything for me?” she asked him.

  “Nothing concrete. It’s going to take longer without names. With them, I could do more thorough excavating.” And, he thought, make use of his unregistered equipment and avoid CompuGuard’s beady eye if he went down a bit deeper than was technically allowed. “I’ve left a couple of programs running. We’ll see what we get in the morning.”

  “I have to do some digging myself on that.” She pushed her tired brain from possible abduction into murder. “Cavendish to Bullock to Robert Kraus to Jacob Sloan—maybe three generations of Sloans—and from there to my vics. Something there. I think if I squeeze Cavendish right, he’ll spurt.”

  As her mind shifted between two investigations, she undressed. “Why does a firm with that kind of—what is it—panache—use a guy like Cavendish to head up its New York branch? Nepotism, maybe, because he’s not as smart as he could be. Bruberry, his admin, she’s smart. But she’s not blood, so you put his name on the letterhead, and let her run it behind the scenes? That’s how it feels.”

  Eve slid into bed. “Copperfield said she was offered a bribe. If I can show contact around the time of the murder between her and Cavendish’s office, I could squeeze from that angle. Or—”

  “Too much coffee for you.” He drew her close. “Turn off that head of yours and go to sleep.”