She started up. “Quiet. Quick. Confident, but excited, too. Especially this time because it’s been so long. The partner goes out first, clears the hall.”
Roarke obliged.
“And they walk the vic right in,” Eve said, stepping out, using her master to uncode the police seal.
“Melinda, straight into the holding room. But Darlie, into the bedroom.” She crossed to it. “Put her down a little deeper, secure her hands to the headboard. It’s a form of paralytic. The vic is aware, but immobilized. He can’t have her squirming around when he does the tat. He’s a perfectionist.”
She visualized it. Stripping the girl, touching her—but just a little, not too much now. Removing his clothes, putting them away. Neat and tidy. Then the tools, the tat.
“Camera’s in the closet.” She walked over, opened it. “He took the brown shoes,” she noted. “The ones Melinda remembered. He took time to select what he’d pack. Nothing rushed or spur of the moment. Nothing carelessly discarded. Except the shirt with his partner’s blood on it.”
She studied the ties again, the duplicates, thought of Melinda’s statement. Just stood there—indecisive.
Considering, she fingered the sleeve of a jacket, a shirt. “Nice. Nice material. He must’ve hated leaving some of this, especially since he couldn’t have had time to wear a lot of it. He’ll want replacements. Will he wait until New York? I don’t know. Can’t say.”
She stepped out of the closet.
“Dallas at their feet. If he means the city, he’s got a place posher than this. He’s tired of the middle-class scene. He bought too many swanky clothes to suit this neighborhood. Not just a few select pieces like before. So, he’s planning, he’s thinking it’s time to move up, where he belongs. He’ll need to bring me there now, so it’s either set up for that or he needs to do it.”
She walked into the bath, stood there, studied, moved out and on, back into the living area where her mother’s blood stained the floor.
Did she believe herself unaffected by it, Roarke wondered. Didn’t she realize she looked at everything
“He spends a lot of time out here. He likes the space. A cage is so confining. He can watch Melinda, then Darlie on the monitor, or catch up with some screen, listen to music, read. But he’d get itchy. He needs to be out and about. He needs the city. He’ll go out, seek out places with people. Shops, restaurants, galleries, clubs. After he sends the partner away, he’d go out. He’d want to go out, get the smell of her out of his nose. Put on a new persona, sit at a bar or a table in some trendy club. Strike up conversations, flirt with some woman. If he could run a game, so much the better. Then he’d come back, lock up, check on his ‘guests.’ Maybe have a drink while he counted up his take. Then he’d sleep like a baby.”
She walked to the kitchen, checked the AutoChef, the friggie, the cabinets. “He left a lot of this behind, and you know, there’s a lot of duplication here, too. Does anybody need a half-dozen jars of stuffed olives?”
“Hoarding?” Roarke suggested.
“Yeah, maybe.” But she wasn’t so sure of that now. “He has to leave a lot behind because it’s too annoying and time-consuming to repack food. He can get more. Check gourmet food shops, that should be on the list. And clubs, the trendy ones. If we can find out where he went the nights he abducted Melinda, then Darlie, we’d know what he’s looking for in late-night entertainment.”
“He wouldn’t go back. He’d look for fresh,” Roarke said when she turned and frowned at him. “And wouldn’t go back on the off chance whoever he played as a mark came in as well.”
“You’re probably right. Good thought. So if we can find, we eliminate. But we’d have a style.”
She walked to the window, looked out, looked down.
Dallas at our feet, she thought again.
“He talked about staying in a hotel penthouse. High life. Upper floors, higher price, higher life. If he changed his MO with this second location, we’re looking for a top level, good view. Big windows, maybe a terrace. Lots of open. More, I think, in the center of things. The rest applies. At least two bedrooms, on-site garage.”
She shut her eyes, trying to think. “One of those corporate apartments, maybe, or a long-lease rental? Or —”
“You’re clutching now because you’re tired. You’re tired, Eve, and trying not to think you’re standing a foot away from where your mother bled out hours ago. But you are thinking it. This isn’t the place for you to think clearly or well, and you need to accept it.”
“I think,” she said slowly, deliberately, “he left food, wine, clothes, equipment behind. But he took some of everything with him. I think he carefully selected the best of each category. I think he did that because he was moving to a better location. And, I think, if we focus on high floors—even top floors of more upscale buildings, more urban center areas, more luxury accommodations, we’ll find him.”
“Then you should pass that on to your associates here so they can begin to do that.”
“I am. I will.”
“Good. You do that while I contact Mira. She can join us for a drink back at the hotel.”
“I don’t want—”
“It’s past that. You need to do this for yourself. If you won’t, then do it for me. I’m asking you, please, do this for me.”
She pulled out her ’link, but she didn’t look at him, or at the blood. She contacted Ricchio as she walked away from the crime scene.
19
Roarke understood her silence. It didn’t matter that she’d agreed to talk with Mira, even acknowledged she needed to. He’d forced her hand—made her stop her forward motion and her focus on the crimes, the perpetrator, the victims, the questions and answers. Stopping the forward motion meant facing the past—her past.
Dealing with her feelings about her mother’s life, and her mother’s murder.
He could accept her need, and her ability, to turn her reluctance into resentment aimed at him. In her place he’d likely have done the same.
What a pair they were.
He expected, and accepted, her reaction when the elevator opened. And Mira turned from her place by the windows. The single glance Eve spared him, one ripe with the shock of betrayal stabbed him right through the heart.
“I’ve been admiring your view,” Mira said.
“It’s good to see you.” Roarke walked over to greet her. “How was the flight?”
“Very smooth.”
“And your room here?”
“It’s lovely.”
Behind them, Eve’s silence was a roar of fury.
“Why don’t we have some wine?” Roarke began.
“You two go ahead with your social hour,” Eve interrupted in a tone like cracked ice. “I need a shower.”
She stormed upstairs, had nearly slammed the bedroom door. Then she saw the cat sitting on the bed, blinking at her with bicolored eyes.
Pressure thudded into her chest, burned in her throat, behind her eyes as she rushed forward, dropped to her knees by the bed.
“Galahad.”
He bumped his head against hers, purred like a cargo jet.
“He had her bring you.” She rubbed her face against his fur. “He had her bring you for me. God, God, I’m a mess.”
She sat on the floor, braced her back against the bed. Comfort flooded her when the cat jumped off the bed, padded into her lap. And circled there, digging thin claws into her thighs.
“Okay. Okay,” she murmured, giving him a long stroke down the back. She closed her eyes, and holding the fat, purring cat, tried to find her center again.
