“Why?” Eve demanded. “If you quit, you can’t run a streak, and a streak rules.” Pushing up, chugging Pepsi, Eve scanned the board, then paced to her skinny window to look out at the city. “Set factors—if we go with the mad scientist—a male of Abner’s race, age, height, weight, health, and fitness level. It’s the physical elements that would be important.”
She watched the people below, going busily on their way.
“Troll gyms,” she speculated, “running parks and paths. It would take some time, but what’s the hurry?”
She turned back. “Combine them. Mad scientist experiment, target-specific assassination. Abner’s the target—the subject—because he fits the requirements for the experiment, for whatever reason. And because the killer knows him. Doesn’t have anything against him, at least not particularly. But he can get to Abner, knows his habits—maybe he has to dig into them a little deeper, maybe not. He needs someone, and Abner fits the bill. If it’s really random, why not pick someone who wouldn’t be missed, someone you could bring into a lab—a controlled area—record the results?”
“Maybe he doesn’t have a place private or controlled enough.”
“Right, no kill zone available.” Possible, Eve thought. Possible. “But unless we have deaths that match—and we’re going to check into that asap—Abner was the first target. Cold blood, scientific, why not select someone you know? Add the possibility of some resentment playing in. Good-looking, successful, respected—even revered—doctor. Long marriage, kids, nice home. Everybody likes Kent. Could piss you off a little. Why not use him?”
“Add really healthy and fit. Wouldn’t you want a healthy subject? Yeah, yeah, if you select someone you don’t really know, you can’t be sure he doesn’t have a secret drinking problem or illegals addiction, some congenital condition.”
Eve could see it, pulled it along. “You’d want prime. But let’s check poisonings, unexplained deaths, misadventures. Sidewalk sleepers, street LCs, runaways, Jane and John Does. We’ll go back a year.”
“Gonna be a bunch.”
“Yeah. Round them up, shoot me half. It’s an angle,” Eve decided. “Let’s work it.”
“Here or home?”
“Why would…” The question had Eve checking the time. “Shit, how does that happen? Round them up here, work them at home. I’ve got paperwork crap I haven’t dealt with in two days. Head out once you do the run.”
“On it.” Peabody started out, glanced back. “I feel like maybe this isn’t just an angle. Maybe it’s the angle.”
Maybe, Eve thought. And maybe if they worked it right, no one else had to die.
* * *
By the time she got home, her mind stunned by forty minutes of brutal paperwork and two quick roundups with her detectives on active cases, an ugly drive home, as April decided to rain again, Eve decided she wanted ten solid minutes of quiet.
And she wanted them in water that wasn’t rain.
A few laps in the pool would do the trick before she tackled her share of the list of dead.
She walked inside, where Summerset loomed, bony in black, and Galahad padded his tubby self over to greet her.
“Barely late,” Summerset commented. “No visible blood or bruises. Has death taken a holiday?”
“I wouldn’t risk it, so you don’t want to go out there,” Eve said as she shed her jacket. “There’s some lightning with the rain, and with that steel rod up your ass, you’re a prime target.”
Satisfied, she tossed her jacket over the newel post, and headed up. The cat jogged up with her, then settled on the bed to watch while she took off her weapon harness, emptied her pockets.
Moving to the intercom, she checked to see if Roarke had beaten her home.
Roarke is in the dojo.
She decided on some martial arts instead of the swim, and changed into yoga pants, a sports bra.
She took the elevator down, slipped into the dojo to see Roarke in a classic black gi, working with the hologram of the master. His movements managed to be both flowing and powerful as he executed the complex kata.
A battle dance, Eve thought, precise, disciplined. She could hear the crack of the gi with the elbow jab, the side kick. And see, in the quiet light he’d chosen, the faint sheen of sweat on his face.
The master might have stood quiet as the light, his hands folded, his face inscrutable, but he pushed you to work, and work hard.
She still considered the gift of the dojo, the lessons both live and holographic, the best Christmas present ever.
When the kata ended, and Roarke shot out his fists in salute, the master nodded.
“Your form and focus are good, show improvement. There is room for more improvement. You require more time and practice to reach your true potential.”
“You’re not wrong.” Roarke walked over, grabbed a towel to mop his face. “But I’m grateful, Master, for the time I have under your instruction. Program end.”
He started to reach for his water bottle, spotted Eve.
“Not bad,” she said as she moved into the dojo. “How long were you at it?”
“I gave it thirty, as my cop wasn’t yet home.”
“Now she is, and you should be pretty warmed up.” She planted her feet, fisted her hands, saluted.
“Seriously?”
With a smirk, she repeated the salute.
“Bloody hell.” He gulped down some water, set the bottle aside. And, moving back to her, returned the salute.
They both crouched into a fighting stance.
She went straight at him, spinning into a chest-high kick, coupled with a backfist. He blocked, would have swept her legs out from under her if she hadn’t been quick and agile.
Their forearms slammed together on the next block, but she whipped in a fist that stopped a breath from his face.
“My point,” she said as they stepped back.
They circled.
He feinted; she blocked, and barely avoided his follow-up. He went under her fist, pivoted, slapped away the jump kick, shifted his weight. And his foot from a side kick stopped just short of her midsection.
“And that would be my point.”
Circling, striking, she crouched into a snake pose, lured him in. Flipped back, used the pump of her arms to shoot her legs up.
“Must you always go for the face?”
She smiled. “It’s so pretty I can’t resist. My point.”
After five sweaty minutes, though she nearly took him down on the move, he scored with a backfist.
She could hear his breath laboring a bit, as hers was, over the soothing tinkle of the waterfall.
When he moved, she saw his guard drop slightly, sprang into a flying kick. Her point.
But he was also agile and quick, reengaged. She blocked, pivoted. And she spun back to find his fist a breath from her face.
“My point.”
Before she could step back, he grabbed her.
“And I’m calling a draw.”
“Maybe I’m not done yet.”
“I didn’t say anything about being done, did I now?”
She knew that look, answered with one of her own. “Seriously?”
And with a smirk, he took her mouth.