by J. D. Robb
“How are you handling it?”
“Dividing into sections—quadrants, you could say. Subdividing by types of structure, then by types of ownership. It’s bloody tedious work.”
“You asked for it.”
“So I did.” Watching her, he picked up a bottle of water, drank.
“There’s something else. The lab’s identified the soap and shampoo used to wash down the vic.”
“Quick work.”
“Yeah, Dickhead’s got his teeth in it. He worked the case before.”
“Ah.”
“He uses extremely high-end products. Very exclusive. Only one outlet in New York, two locations. It’s yours.”
“Mine?” He sat back, eyes cold and hard on her face. “And so was the sheet he used.”
“That’s right.” Now, simply because it was there and so was she, Eve took another bite of mystery-meat sub. “Someone less cynical might think coincidence, particularly since you manufacture or own big, fat chunks of everything.”
“But you and I aren’t less cynical.”
“No, and so I tagged Feeney and put you into the Missing Persons search he was running. You’re not going to like it.”
“Who is she?”
“Gia Rossi.” She picked up his water, took a gulp. “She’s a trainer and instructor at BodyWorks. Do you know her?”
“No.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes a moment, then dropped them. “No, I don’t believe so. Were there any of these connects, any of these overlaps in the previous investigation to me or mine?”
“No, not that I know of, and I started a check on the way back. He changed the products with this one. If you’re part of the reason, we need to figure out why. A competitor maybe, a former employee. We need to work that angle.”
“When did he take the second one?”
“She was reported missing yesterday. I don’t have the details yet—Feeney’s on it. I’ve got to go pull another chain now, but we’re going to dig into this. I know this is a kick in the ass, but it’s also a mistake. His mistake. There was nothing connecting the victims in any of the other cases. Now there is.”
“Yes. Now there is.”
“I’m sorry, I have to go do this.”
“Go on. I’ll stick with this for now.”
She didn’t kiss him, though part of her wanted to, just to give comfort. Instead she laid her hand over his, squeezed gently. Then left him.
She started back toward her office and crossed paths with Baxter. “Got nothing,” he told her. “Reinterviewed the sister, went to the club, talked to the vic’s neighbors. Big zero.”
“Ex?”
“Out of town for the weekend. Neighbor said he went snowboarding out in Colorado.”
“Why would anybody deliberately jump and flop around in the snow, on a mountain?” she wondered.
“Beats me. I like summer sports, where the women are very, very scantily clad. Snow and ice? No skin.”
“You’re such a pig, Baxter.”
“And proud of it. Do you want me to run down the ex? The neighbor thought he knew where the guy was staying. He’ll be back tomorrow night.”
“We’ll hit him once he gets back. Check with Jenkinson. See how far he and Powell have gotten going down the list of people interviewed in the other cases. You and Trueheart can help them run through it. Media’s out with this now, which means by tomorrow we’ll be buried in looney leads. We’ll have to follow up on them, so let’s clear this first plate today.”
Nadine was waiting, sitting in the visitor’s chair, legs crossed, examining her nails as she talked on her headset.
“You have to reschedule or cancel,” she said. “No. No. We agreed in writing when I took this that if and when I had something hot, something I felt it was necessary to pursue personally, it would take precedence over everything else. That was the deal.”
She looked over at Eve, rolled her clever green eyes. “That’s what assistants are for, and assistants to assistants. And as far as the piece, the reporter can reschedule. I know. I’m a goddamn reporter.”
She yanked off the headset.
“Heavy is the price of fame,” Eve said.
“Tell me, but I wear it so very well. Can I have coffee?”
Obligingly, Eve moved to the AutoChef. Her own system kept begging to sag. Coffee would put it back on alert. Nadine sat, saying nothing.
She did wear fame well, Eve supposed. The streaky and stylish hair, the sharp features, the camera-ready suit. But Eve knew: Though Nadine might have her own show, though Now’s ratings were reputedly higher than a souped-up chemi-head, the woman was exactly what she’d claimed—a goddamn reporter.
“Who were you talking to during the briefing?”
“Who do you think?” Nadine countered.
Eve turned, offered the coffee. “Your research people to give you the pertinent details of the case from nine years ago.”
Nadine smiled, sipped. “Look who’s wearing her thinking cap today.”
“Some of the details on that investigation leaked.”
“Some,” Nadine agreed and the smile faded. “Some of the details on how the victims were tortured. I imagine there was a lot more, a lot worse, that didn’t leak.”
“There was more. There was worse.”
“You worked it.”
“Feeney was primary, I was his partner.”
“I wasn’t in New York nine years ago. I was fighting my way out of a second-rate network affiliate in South Philly. But I remember this case. I remember these murders. I bullied my way into doing a series of reports on them. That’s part of what got me out of South Philly hell.”
“Small world.”
Nadine nodded, sipped more coffee. “What do you want?”
“You’ve got that research department at your fingertips now, being you’re a big shot.” Eve eased a hip down on the corner of her desk. “I want everything, anything you can dig up on the murders. All the murders. Here, Europe, Florida, South America.”
Nadine blinked. “What? Where?”
“I’m going to explain it all to you, off the record, then you can put your researchers and your own honed skills on the scent. He’s already got the second one, Nadine.”
“Oh, God.”
“Can’t help her. Odds are slim we’ll track him fast enough to save her. I need to know everything I can know. Maybe we can save the one he’s hunting now.”
“Let me think.” Closing her eyes, Nadine sat back. She drank more coffee. “I’ve got a couple of smart people I can bully and bribe to keep the work and the results off the radar. I’m pretty damn smart myself, so that’s three.” Nodding, she sat up again. “You know I’d do this because I believe a life is worth more than a story. Marginally,” she said with a smile. “I’d do it because you and I are friends who also happen to respect each other to play it straight. No payback required.”
“I know that. Just like you know I’m going to pay you back.”
Nadine cocked a brow. “Being pretty damn smart, I’m not going to say no. A one-on-one exclusive with you.”
“After he’s bagged, not before.”
“Deal. A live appearance on Now.”
“Don’t push it.”
Nadine laughed. “By any member of your team you choose—with portions of that exclusive—and did I mention extensive—interview by you to run during the show. Recorded prior.”
Eve thought it through. “I can work with that.”
“Okay. To get details, I need details.” Nadine pulled out her recorder, cocked her head. “All right?”
“All right.”
There was something unnerving on some visceral level about working in a cop shop. It was an interesting experience, Roarke thought, but very, very strange for someone with his…colorful background.
He’d worked with cops—in addition to his own—a number of times now, had had cops in his home professionally and socially. But working in a war room in the core of Cop Central for the best
part of a day, well, that was a different kettle.
They came and went, he noted. Clipping into the room, clipping out again, communicating for the most part in that cop speak that was oddly formal, as clipped as their footsteps and somehow colorful all at the same time.
He was flanked by McNab whom he had great fondness for, and the dark, curvy, and sloe-eyed Callendar. They might sit, or stand and walk—almost dance—around as they worked. Slogging through data, searching for just one vital byte. Busy bees in their busy hive.
As for colorful, well, excepting their captain, it appeared the e-division went for the flashy. McNab with his bright yellow jeans, the turquoise shirt with what appeared to be flying turtles winging across it. He had his long blond hair sleeked back in a tail and secured with a thick yellow band. On either side of his thin, pretty face, his earlobes were weighted down with a complex series of hoops and studs.
Roarke wondered why, honestly, anyone would wish to have that many holes punched into his flesh.
But the boy had a way about him, and was damn clever at this job.
The girl, for she looked barely twenty, was an unknown. She had burnt honey skin, masses and masses of black curly hair pinned in a multitude of hanks with a neon rainbow of clips. Silver hoops he could have punched his fists through hung at her ears. She wore baggy, multipocketed pants in bleeding colors of lavender and pink with a snug green sweater that exclaimed E-GODS! across her rather impressive breasts.
She had long, emerald-colored nails, and when she went to manual they clicked against the keys like mad castanets.
She, like McNab, appeared to be tireless—brightly wrapped bundles of energy barely contained so that something on them constantly jiggled or bounced. A foot, a head, shoulders, ass.
Fascinating.
“Yo, Blondie-Boy,” she called out and McNab glanced over his shoulder.
“You talking to me, D-Cup?”
“You’re up. Liquid.”
“Can do. You want?” he said to Roarke. “Something to drink.”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Buzz or no buzz?”
It took Roarke a moment to translate, and in that moment he felt very old. “Could use the buzz.”
“On it.” As McNab bounced out of the room, Callendar sent Roarke a quick and pretty smile.
“So, you’re like absolutely packed, right? Doing the backstroke in the megawealth. What’s that like?”
“Satisfying,” he decided.
“Betcha.” With a push of her feet, she sent her chair skidding over so she could see his screen. “Wow. Multitudinous data with simo searches and cross. You got secondary recog going, too?”
This, he could easily translate. “I do. Checking like names, anagrams, cross dates. Lay it down for a spread, go deep for ancestry and other potential connects.”
“Smart. McNab said you were frosty in there. Serious mining.” She looked back at her own station. “All around.”
She slid back to her work, and jiggling her shoulders to some internal tune, went back to the task at hand.
Amused, he turned back to his own work, then stopped when Eve and Feeney came in.
Gia Rossi, he thought, as the name, the idea of her that he’d made himself set aside, pushed once again into the forefront of his mind.
His eyes met Eve’s, so he pushed back from the work to walk to her.
“We need to update the team regarding Rossi,” Eve said. “Those in the field will be briefed via ’link. We need to factor your connection in.”
“Understood.”
“Okay, then.”
Peabody came in, sent Roarke a quiet, sympathetic look. She crossed over to insert a new data disc.
“We have an update,” Eve announced, and the clacking, the bouncing, the voices, and shuffling ceased. “We have reason to believe a woman reported as missing since Thursday night was abducted by our unsub. Rossi, Gia.”
Peabody ordered the image and data on screen. “Age thirty-one, brown and brown, height five feet, five inches, one hundred and twenty-two pounds. She was last seen leaving her place of employment, a fitness center called BodyWorks on West Forty-sixth. Captain Feeney.”
“Rossi’s ex-husband,” Feeney began, “one Riley, Jaymes, notified the police at oh-eight-hundred Friday morning. Per procedure, she wasn’t formally listed as missing until the twenty-four-hour time limit had passed. The subject did not return home as expected on Thursday night where she was scheduled to meet her ex who, according to his statement, was there to drop off the dog they had joint custody of.”
There were a few of the expected smirks at this, and Feeney just eyeballed the smirkers until they faded away.
“Neighbors confirm the arrangement. Nor was Riley able to reach her via her pocket ’link. We’ve confirmed that he did, in fact, attempt to ascertain her whereabouts by contacting her coworkers, her friends. The statements given to the responding officer and to me have been corroborated. He is not considered involved in her disappearance.
“Habitually the subject exited the building on Forty-sixth and walked west to Broadway, then north to the Forty-ninth Street subway. We’ll canvass for witnesses in that area. Transit Authority security discs do not show the subject entering that station on Thursday evening, nor has her Metro pass been used since Thursday morning. Witnesses do verify the subject left the building at approximately seventeen-thirty on the night in question. She was wearing a black coat, black sweatpants, a gray sweatshirt with the BodyWorks logo, and a gray watch cap.”
He stepped back, looked at Eve. “Lieutenant.”
“The subject fits the established pattern. Probability runs exceed ninety-six percent that she was taken and is being held by the unsub. Her disappearance and other information gathered today add another element to the pattern. Both York and Rossi were employed by an arm of Roarke Enterprises. Given the breadth of that organization, that factor alone scores low on the probability scale for a connect. However, the soap and shampoo identified by brand by the lab has been determined to be manufactured and sold through subsidiaries of that organization, as was the sheet used with York.”
Roarke felt the eyes on him, and the speculation. Accepted them.
“The probability is high,” Eve continued, “that there’s a connection on some level between the unsub and Roarke Enterprises. To this point, no connection, no central point has ever been determined. Now we have one, and we’re going to use it. The hair and body products are extreme high-end and have limited outlets. He bought them somewhere. McNab, find out where.”
“On it.”
“Callendar, take the sheet, cross-reference purchases with McNab’s data. Roarke.”
“Lieutenant.”
“Employee lists. Find and pull out individuals who fit the pattern and work or live in the city. He takes them from the city. He will, in all likelihood, move on number three within a matter of days. We need names.”
“You’ll have them.”
“Jenkinson, I want a full and detailed report from you and Powell by nineteen hundred. Baxter, the same from you and Trueheart. I’ll be available twenty-four/seven, and expect to be notified immediately should any new data come to light. We’ll brief again at oh-eight-hundred. That’s it.”
She pulled off her headset. “Peabody.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Log and copy, then go home and get some sleep. Feeney, can you look over the e-work to date, send me a basic rundown?”
“Can and will,” Feeney confirmed.
“Roarke, go ahead and log and copy what you’ve got so far, then shoot additionals to my unit here and at home. When you’re done, I need you in my office.”
Eve walked out, contacting Mira’s office on the way. “Put me through to her,” she ordered Mira’s overprotective admin. “Don’t give me any crap.”
“Right away.”
“Eve.” Mira’s face swam on, and instantly her eyes registered concern. “You look exhausted.”
“Second wind
blew out, I’m waiting for the third to blow in. I need a sit-down with you.”
“Yes, I know. I’ll clear any time that works for you.”
“I want to say now, but I need that wind before I start digging through the psychology of this. And there’s more data that needs to be factored in from your end. Peabody’s sending you a copy of the update right about now.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“After the eight-o’clock briefing.”
“I’ll come to you. Get some sleep, Eve.”
“I’m going to factor that in, somewhere.”
She went into her office, programmed more coffee, and considered popping one of the departmentally approved energy pills. But they always made her jittery.
She drank, standing at her narrow office window, looking out at her slice of the city. Commuter trams were crisscrossing the sky, lights beaming against the growing dark.
Time to go home, time to have dinner and kick back, watch a little screen.
Below, the street was thick with traffic, with people thinking just the same as those who chugged along above their heads.
And somewhere out there was a man who really enjoyed his work. He wasn’t thinking about kicking back.
Did he take a dinner break? she wondered. Have a nice, hearty meal before he went back to the business at hand? When had he started on Gia Rossi? When did he start the clock?
Forty-seven hours missing, Eve thought. But he wouldn’t start it ticking until he got down to it. Number two always started after number one was finished.
She didn’t hear Roarke come in, he had a skill for silence. But she sensed him. “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” she said. “Maybe he won’t start on her until tomorrow. We’ve got another angle to work this time, so we could get lucky.”
“She’s gone. You know it.”
Eve turned. He looked angry, she thought, which was probably a good thing, and just a little worn around the edges, which was a rare one. “I don’t know it until I’m standing over her body. That’s the way I’m dealing with it. We’re going home. We can work from home.”
He closed the door behind him. “I looked her up. She’s worked for me for nearly four years. Her parents are divorced. She has a younger brother, a half brother, a stepsister. She went to college in Baltimore, where her mother and younger brother still live. Her employee evaluations have been, consistently, excellent. She was given a raise three weeks ago.”