by J. D. Robb
“Tomorrow. It’s not going to change tonight for anyone. And I’m going to take a pass on the residents—older, male. Maybe I’ll ring some bell.”
“Then I’ll play with Peabody.” But he drew Eve against him first, just held her. “It already rings bells, for both of us.”
“Yeah.” She closed her eyes a moment. Held on. “It could’ve been me. And cross the ocean to some building, it could’ve been you.”
“Were we just too smart? Or just too mean?”
“A little of both, but even the smart and mean can fall through a trapdoor. Still.” She lifted her face, kissed him. “Let’s stay smart and mean.”
“We couldn’t be otherwise.”
He went to his adjoining office, left the door open.
She went back to her desk, rubbed her hands over her face. And got down to it.
Within an hour she’d eliminated all but eighteen on the list. Some had gone on to lead what appeared to be normal, even productive lives. Others had served time, or were currently serving it as guests of various states or the feds. Some were dead, and everyone who’d died had done so violently.
Some of those eighteen, she imagined, had changed their names, forged IDs, and some had just dropped off the grid altogether.
She’d enlist EDD, or maybe Roarke, if she needed to hunt for them. But for now, she’d work with what she had.
Using the back of her board, she posted what she thought of as potentials.
She decided to copy DeWinter and the reconstructionist—maybe it would boost things there. Then she settled in to take a hard look at the male residents.
Children killed, she thought. Maybe not as often, rarely as cleverly as most of their adult counterparts. But they killed.
She’d done so herself at eight.
Not the same, she reminded herself. Stop pulling that into the mix.
She shook it off, started digging into the male residents.
She was on her second hit of coffee, had made her first dent in the list, when Roarke came back in.
“Peabody had a good start,” he began, “so we’ve got the lot done.” He laid a disc on her desk. “She’ll send your unit a copy, but I thought you’d want this as well for the file.”
“Tell me.”
“There are twenty-four who work or serve at HPCCY, on either a staff or volunteer basis, either full- or part-time. Six of them worked or served when it opened fifteen years ago, and four of them came to HPCCY from The Sanctuary.”
“Smaller staff at The Sanctuary, not as many to pull from.”
“Yes, and the bulk of ‘staff’ at The Sanctuary were volunteers, not paid staff. Of those—staff and volunteers from The Sanctuary on through HPCCY, or who’ve left that employment—criminal records are clean for all but five for between eight and twenty-six years.”
“Give me the five.”
“I thought you’d say that. Three illegals busts, with rehabilitation. One drunk and disorderly, again with rehab, and one vandalism. Estranged wife spray-painted obscenities on her husband’s vehicle—charges dropped. None of them have anything that shows violence against children or young girls.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not there.”
“It doesn’t,” he agreed. “A good portion who worked at The Sanctuary and who work at HPCCY have a sheet. All involve illegals arrests or arrests stemming from use. Of that faction a few have assault charges as well, but nothing on children. There were a few petty larcenies, shopliftings, petty thefts—all again connecting to illegals. And all who were hired or accepted as volunteers had completed rehabilitation, had a minimum of two years clean, and passed physical and psychiatric evaluations.”
“Things slip through.”
“They do.” He sat on the corner of her desk. “What I’m saying is, on the surface at least, it appears the heads of the former organization and the current did exactly what should have been done in hiring. We’ll be doing much the same for An Didean.”
“Your screenings won’t be surface.”
“They won’t, no.” He looked at the back of her board. “And those?”
“Eighteen who aren’t recorded as alive and well or deceased. We’ve probably got some living with fake identification, dropping off the grid, and it’s likely at least one or more is dead and hasn’t been found or ID’d. That’s the probability.”
She picked up her coffee again. “Eleven out of the eighteen came from physically abusive homes. Three were chronic runaways. The others were doing rehab for illegals and/or alcohol use.”
Since the cat knocked his head against Roarke’s leg, Roarke hefted the not insubstantial cat up to stroke him.
“Eleven out of eighteen. That percentage is a poor testament to the state of the world.”
“Some people shouldn’t be allowed to procreate. At least some of our remaining nine victims are there. It’s logical. As for the other residents, I’m hitting a lot of bad boys. And a lot of those bad boys went on to be bad men. I’ve run twenty . . .” She checked. “Twenty-eight. Nineteen of the twenty-eight served time as adults. Seven of those nineteen are either still serving out that sentence, or are serving for a second offense—one is a three-time loser. Could be the other dozen out of that nineteen learned their lesson, or got smarter.”
“Such a cop.”
She only shrugged. “One of the dozen wrote a book on being bad, the pain of incarceration, and the joys of living a clean life, and what it takes to do so. He’s on the lecture circuit. Pulls in ridiculous fees. I don’t like him.”
“As the killer?”
“In general.”
When Roarke set the cat on her desk, Galahad sprawled across it as if it were a patch of green summer grass in the sunshine.
Eve let it go—for now.
“I skimmed some of the interviews he’s given,” she continued. “He’s got that pompous fucker vibe thinly covered with sticky humility. Lemont Frester. I’m going to track him down. He has a place in New York. His pied-à-terre he calls it, and that alone says pompous asshole to me.”
“I’ll be sure to refrain from using the term at any time.”
“Good. Of the nine who never served time. One’s a cop in Denver—he’s got a strong record, but I’m going to poke deeper. Two work in social services, another’s a lawyer, one’s an MT, one owns a bar in Tucson, and the others are in what you’d call your average mid-level job. The twenty-eight procreated . . .” She checked again. “Thirteen offspring—out of the twenty who so procreated. Of those, ten actually live in the same household as said offspring. And of the twenty-eight—whether or not they are currently incarcerated—nineteen have New York as their primary residence.”
“How many more do you have to go?”
“Triple it,” she said and pressed her fingers to her eyes.
“Put it on auto. No, it’s not that late,” he said before she could protest. “At least not in our world, but you can come back fresh to the new data in the morning. You’ve been at this more than twelve hours.”
“Without a single, solid lead.”
“But with reams of information, with three of the girls identified, with several eliminated either as victims or possible killer.”
“Okay.” She rubbed her face again. “It feels like nothing but data crunching at this point anyway.”
She needed to find more, eliminate more, she thought as she ordered her machine to continue the current tasks on auto. Talk to more people, look them in the eye, she told herself as she walked out with Roarke. Go back to the crime scene, go back to DeWinter’s sanctum, talk to Lupa’s aunt, track down the pompous fucker. And take a good, hard look at any male resident who was serving a long-term sentence that began after the murders.
You can’t keep killing young girls from a cage.
She started working the theory in her head while the cat st
reaked out of her office.
A boy, she speculated, a few years older—charismatic. Wouldn’t he have to be? Luring girls into that empty building. How?
Some, at least some, had to know him, trust him, maybe be attracted to him.
He gets them in there, subdues them.
How?
Drugs? So many of them had substance abuse problems, and the street smarts to score. Maybe he drugged them, then killed them.
How?
As much as she hated it, she had to wait for DeWinter to tell her.
Frustrated, she stepped into the bedroom.
The tree stood by the front window, as it had now for three holidays. The room smelled of pine, and the applewood that simmered in the fireplace.
The cat was curled up dead center of the bed—as if he’d been there for hours.
“We don’t have to do it tonight,” Roarke told her.
She looked at the stack of boxed decorations, shook her head. They’d done this tree together twice before. And they’d continue that tradition for a zillion years if she had her way.
“Tonight’s good. Tonight’s right.” She took his hand, squeezed it. “How about we pour some more wine and get that sucker dressed?”
“How about we pop champagne?”
“Even better.”
The first time she’d walked into the bedroom to see a Christmas tree had been a little overwhelming. Now it was simply tradition. The elves could take care of the rest of the house, drape it in lights and tinsel, put up a dozen trees—she wasn’t sure she’d ever counted all of them—but this was theirs.
So with the fire simmering, champagne bubbling, and hokey Christmas music playing in the background, they decorated their personal tree.
The cat uncurled, sat for a moment or two to watch. With a decided lack of interest he stretched—ears to tail—turned his habitual three circles, then settled down for another nap.
“The whole city’s like holiday on Zeus,” Eve commented. “And it’s only going to get worse. Then we’ll have the B and Es where, as traditional as Santa, the Christmas Burglar swoops in, snatches all the presents under the tree, and has them fenced by dawn.”
“Bah humbug.”
“Yeah, that’s his version of ho, ho, ho. Then there’s the shoplifting, the pickpocketing as the tourists flock in with their wallets practically jumping out into the pickpockets’ hands.”
“Ah, happy memories,” Roarke said. “December was always a busy month when I was a boy on the hunt for those jumping wallets.”
“I bet. Back when I was in uniform, you couldn’t keep up with the incident reports on muggings, purse snatchings, and lifted wallets in December.”
She hung a jolly Santa with an overflowing pouch. “Then it gets closer to Christmas and you start getting the domestic disputes, the drunk and disorderlies, the botched self-terminations, the murders, and the holiday favorite, murder-suicide.”
“My cop,” he said affectionately. “What cheerful thoughts she has on this festive occasion.”
“I like it.”
“Murder-suicide? Sorry, darling, I’ll have to disappoint you. Maybe next year.”
“No, Christmas. I didn’t used to. When I was a kid—after Richard Troy,” she qualified. “He’d go out, get plowed, and probably laid. That was a gift, come to think about it. Anyway, after it was always weird if I was in a foster house, and just fucking depressing in a group home, so it wasn’t high on my list of holidays.”
“It wasn’t roasted goose and plum pudding in my memories either. I’d usually go over to a mate’s or a few of us would go out, bang around.”
“Hunting more wallets.”
He sent her a cheerful look. “You have to celebrate somehow, after all.”
“Yeah, you do. I used to take the extra shifts, so cops with families could get the break. And after Mavis and I hooked up, we’d do something.” She studied a shiny silver reindeer. “Why are they reindeer? What kind of a name is that?”
“They need the reins for Santa to navigate the sleigh.”
She slanted him a look. “Right. Anyway, with me and Mavis and Christmas, it usually involved a lot of alcohol.”
“We can serve that tradition.” He topped off her glass.
“She dragged me out ice-skating once.” She brought the memory back, laughed and—what the hell—drank more champagne. “We were both pretty trashed by that time or she’d never have talked me into it.”
“I’d pay good money to see that.”
“She zipped around pretty good. God, she had this pink coat with purple flowers all over it, and she’d done her hair in Christmas red and green.”
“That hasn’t changed. I’ve wondered how Mavis came to have that ugly gray coat you borrowed.” He drew out of his pocket the button he always carried, the one that had fallen off the unfortunate coat the first time they’d met.
“Holdover from her grifting days. A blend-and-be-dull deal, she called it.”
“That explains that.” He slid the button away again. “And how were you on the ice, Lieutenant?”
“It’s just balance and motion. I stayed on my feet. She would have, but she kept trying to do those fancy spins, and she’d face-plant or fall on her ass. She had bruises everywhere, but I still had to drag her off the damn ice after an hour or something. Ice is freaking cold.”
“I’ve heard that. We should try it sometime.”
“Ice-skating?” She gave him a look of genuine shock. “You? Me?”
“Which makes we. Brian and I and some others liberated some skates one winter. We must’ve been fourteen or fifteen, around that. We had a go at playing ice hockey, Dublin rules, which means none at all. And yes, my God, the bruises were majestic.”
“Hockey maybe.” She considered it as she hung another ornament. “At least that has a purpose. Otherwise you’re just strapping some blades to your feet and circling around on frozen water. I mean, what’s the point?”
“Relaxation, exercise, fun?”
“I guess we had fun, but we were drunk. Or nearly drunk. I think I remember we finished getting all the way drunk back at my place. Her place now, hers and Leonardo and Bella’s. That’s kind of weird when you think about it.”
“Life changes.” He paused to tap his glass to hers. “Or we change it.”
“I guess.” She realized she was just a little bit drunk now, and that was just fine.
“Here we are decorating the tree. They’ve probably got one over at their place, which used to be my place. She used to bring over this skinny little fake tree, every damn year, and nag me until I put it up. She always took it back because she was smart enough to know I’d dump it if she left it with me. But I guess she was right. It added something.”
Roarke draped his arm around her shoulders. “We should have them over, some preholiday drinks. Just the four of us. Well, five, with the baby.”
“That’d be good.” Leaning against him, she studied the lights, the shine, the symbol. “That’s good, too. We’re as good as the elves. We’re having a party, aren’t we? I mean, one of those bashes where a half a million of our closest friends come over to eat fancy food, drink enough to make them dance like lunatics?”
“We are. It’s on your calendar, the one you never pay the slightest bit of attention to.”
“Then how did I know we were having a party?”
“Good guess.”
Because it was, she just laughed and turned so they were face-to-face, her arms around his waist. “You know what all this makes me want to do? The decorating, the memory street—”
“Lane. Memory lane.”
“Street, road, lane, they all lead somewhere. All this, and the idea of having some big-ass party? It makes me want to punch you, and punch you hard.”
She hooked her foot around his, shifted balance so t
hey flopped back onto the bed. Galahad woke, gave them a hard stare of annoyance, and jumped off.
“How hard?” Roarke wondered.
“Really hard. Tell me when it hurts.”
She took his mouth—an exceptional place to start—a nip, a graze of teeth before she sank in, met his tongue with hers.
Here was all she wanted in the world.
She could shed the miseries and frustrations of the day, even the grief she couldn’t allow to surface and blur the job. Here, with him, the emotional fatigue that had dragged at her since she’d seen twelve young lives robbed of all possibilities and potentials lifted.
Here was happy, and she could take it, hold it, feel it bloom like roses.
The hard lines of his body under hers, his quick and clever hands already roaming. And one long, soul-searing kiss.
He felt her let it go, the tension, the worry that had dogged her even through her pleasure in the tree. The tether loosened, slid away, freed her.
Now just his Eve, just his woman, warm and eager over him. Drawing love in, pouring love out.
He tugged her shirt free from her waistband, wanting her skin under his hands—all that smooth skin on that long, narrow back.
And discovered neither of them had noticed she’d never taken off her weapon harness.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, shifting to find the release.
“Shit. I forgot. Wait. I’ll get it.”
“Got it.” He shoved it off her shoulders. Ignored her wince when it thudded on the floor. “You’re unarmed, Lieutenant.”
“You’d better not be.”
He laughed, rolled to reverse their positions. “Never with you around. My cop.”
Now he nipped at her lip as his fingers got busy on her shirt.
“You’ve still got all this suit on,” she complained, and fought off his jacket. “There are too many pieces.”
“No rush.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Is that the way of it?” Willing to oblige, he slid his hand down the trousers he’d opened, and shot her straight to peak.
When she cried out in shock and satisfaction, he lowered his lips to her throat. “Not as much of a rush.”