“Agent Aiden Flynn,” hereintroduced himself, showing his badge and offering her a gentle smile. “Youare Mr. Vega’s wife, I take it?”
She nodded. “Taylor, please,” shesaid. She was about three years younger than her husband, blonde and pretty,still slim. Zoe felt something in her stomach tighten. She couldn’t think aboutShelley. Not now.
As Carlo settled himself into theremaining empty armchair, Flynn looked between husband and wife, his voicequiet and friendly as he spoke. “Can you tell me if Mrs. Vega had any problemsthat might have led to someone wanting to take revenge? Any enemies, neighborlydisputes, rivals at work?”
Carlo shook his head vehemently,one-two-three quick as a whip from side to side. “No. My mother was a goodwoman.”
“She really was,” Taylor put in. “Iknow all of the old jokes about mothers-in-law, but I got lucky. She was calmand kind. Dedicated to her work and her son. That’s all.”
Flynn nodded. “I understand. Buteven within her work, you can’t think of anyone who might have been jealous orangry with her? Maybe a theory she managed to disprove, or someone who wastrying to get to certain observations first?”
Carlo and Taylor exchanged puzzledglances, both shaking their heads. For a moment, Zoe was lost in the hypnoticrhythm, the way they shook their heads toward each other and then away inunconscious tempo. Timing in sync. “She was respected in her field,” Carlosaid. “She was getting older. She planned to retire within the next few years.Why would anyone want to take her out now when they could simply wait?”
“A few years is a long time,”Flynn pointed out.
“Not in astronomy,” Carlo said,with a light chuckle in spite of the tragedy of the circumstance. “Do you knowhow often comets come around? Some events take hundreds of years to repeat. Andthe solar system out there is there forever, or at least for long enough thatnone of us will be remembered by the time it is no more. A few years inastronomy is the blink of an eye. Mom always said that.”
Zoe didn’t need the numbers tohelp her count what was going on here: zero leads. Not a single one.
She pulled her focus together toask a question of her own, sensing that Flynn was beginning to flounder. Hislast pause had gone on for eight seconds—too many; not the result of a naturalpause in conversation. “Does pi mean anything to you, in connection with yourmother?” Zoe asked. “Do you know if she was working on anything to do with pi,or saw any particular significance in it?”
Carlo frowned, looking at his wifefor confirmation; her expression was blank, if a little puzzled. “I don’t know.Pie? Like what you eat?”
“The mathematical symbol,” Zoeclarified.
There was a momentary widening ofCarlo’s eyes, which Zoe measured and leaned toward, thinking this was a sign ofrecognition, of understanding. There was going to be a reveal now, that pi wasat the center of all of this and Elara Vega was specially chosen as a target,and everything was going to fall into place and they would be on the plane homeat the end of the day.
“I can’t think of anything likethat,” Carlo said, shaking his head slowly. His eyes had returned to theirnormal size, then even narrowed in a squint. “What does that have to do withanything?”
Beside Zoe, Flynn made animpatient noise and shifted. The symbol carved into the bodies was part oftheir holdback for now; information that only the killer and the investigatorsknew. If someone came forward and confessed, or brought up the carving somehow,they would know that it was the killer for sure. But Zoe knew from experiencethat they could only keep it to themselves for so long. Sooner or later,probably sooner, it would be smart to put the full details into a report forthe national database, which would make quick matches to any similar cases inother states. Serial killers didn’t often respect boundaries and state lines.In fact, most of them were smart enough to know that crossing those lines woulddelay the investigation.
“It’s nothing,” Flynn said, wavinga dismissive hand in the air. When Zoe looked at him, he was shooting her anannoyed glance from the corner of his eye. “If you can think of anything thatmight be suspicious—anything in your mother’s behavior that changed recently,any bad blood, even from years ago—please do get in touch. Anything may help,no matter how small.”
He was holding out his card—shinyand new, his name and contact details next to the FBI logo, looking as if theyhad been printed just yesterday. Crisp and white, all of the corners stillprecise and sharp angles, not worn down and rounded out from weeks or evenyears of sitting inside a business card holder in pockets and suitcases. He wasending the conversation, cutting it off. Zoe would have pressed the issue andasked more, if it hadn’t been for the fact that she could see in their facesthat they knew nothing. But he hadn’t asked her, had plowed right through herquestions, and that was irksome.
At any rate, she wanted to be outof there as soon as possible—away from the distracting counting of tchotchkeson surfaces, measurements of picture frames, analyzation of the people in them.Zoe rose as he did, taking some balm to her wounded pride in the fact that,older than him as she was, she could straighten her spine faster and to a moreperfect line than he could.
Flynn was shaking Carlo’s andTaylor’s hands, and Zoe did the same with mechanical instinct. Then she wasanalyzing grip strength, and by the time she was satisfied with her analysis,they were walking back out to the car, and the rookie’s phone was beeping out aconsistent and rhythmic pattern from his pocket, and he was answering the call.
Zoe concentrated on bringingherself back to the present moment enough to get into the car, grabbing hold ofthe blister pack in her
