Eve spent the next three hours picking through the deaths of the desperate and disenfranchised. They ranged in age from seventeen to ninety-four. Street LCs, unlicensed sex workers, addicts, runaways, the homeless, the nameless.
And none of them offered any element of similarity with her victim.
She read Peabody’s results as they came in, found the same.
She started to reach for coffee, realized she’d had her fill. Instead she rose, walked to the glass doors of the little terrace.
The rain had long since stopped, and she could see a few stars, a stingy slice of moon, the lights of the city that never stopped moving.
Kent Abner had been the first. She’d run the probability and the results matched her own gut.
She didn’t hear Roarke come in—the man moved like a damn cat (Galahad excepted)—but sensed him before his hands came to her shoulders to knead at the tension.
“There’s nothing there,” she told him. “Peabody hasn’t quite finished her share, but there’s not going to be anything there, either. You’ve got your stabbings, bludgeonings, strangulations, your ODs, suicides and accidentals, but nothing remotely like Abner.”
“Then you’ve tied off that thread.”
“Yeah.” But she didn’t feel much better about it. “How about you?”
“Ponti’s got some debt—it costs to get a medical degree. He and his wife make ends meet. I’d say they’re reasonably careful about what they spend. Nothing tucked away in a dark corner. No major income or outgo. As for knowledge and skill that applies here, he was a middling student. Not stellar, but good enough. She, on the other hand, excelled. Educationally her work in chemistry—organic, inorganic, pharmaceuticals, biology, her lab work—all exceptional. She did a well-received paper on chemical poisonings in her senior year of high school.”
Intrigued, Eve turned to face him, said, “Huh.”
“From what I can surmise, nursing was her long-term goal, and OR work became her focus in college. She appears to excel there as well.”
“So she’s smart, goal-oriented, would have to be controlled to work in the OR. She has the knowledge. And Abner got her new husband written up.”
“You’ll have a conversation with this Cilla Roe, I take it.”
“Oh yeah, we’ll have a conversation. She was, according to Ponti, home waiting for him at the time of the drop. Poison’s generally a woman’s weapon.”
“Sexist.”
“Statistics,” she countered. “Yeah, we’ll have a conversation.”
“Tomorrow. You’ve done what you can for tonight, and so have I. Let’s put the cat to bed.”
Eve glanced back at her sleep chair, where Galahad sprawled. As if sensing the end of the workday, he opened his bicolored eyes. Yawned hugely, stretched every tubby inch.
Then he leaped down, trotted out of the room.
“He’ll be on the bed before we get there. What a life.”
“Let’s follow suit.” Roarke slid an arm around her.
* * *
When she woke, the cat had deserted the bed for Roarke’s lap in the sitting area. With the usual morning gibberish muted on-screen, Roarke played with one of his tablets.
She grunted at him, followed morning routine. Coffee, always coffee. Shower. Brain engaged.
Clothes. Sometimes she actually missed the days when she just put on a damn uniform.
But not very much.
Afraid black might still be out, she went for brown trousers and a navy shirt, grabbed a jacket and boots.
When she came out, Galahad had been banished across the room. Roarke had plates covered on the table, and continued to work on his tablet. She caught a glimpse of the screen, and what was clearly a bar backed with a brick wall and a number of shelves. Backless stools in front of the bar, booths, a few high tops, a good-size screen, lights with dark green shades.
It came off simple, uncluttered, and somehow warm.
“Is that Nowhere?”
“It could be.”
She sat next to him, took a closer look. While she watched, he tapped something and added toe-kick lights to the bar, changed the floor to match the shades.
“How did you do that?”
“Which that?”
“All of it.”
“There are programs, darling. I’ve designed a few myself.” He leaned over to kiss her. “What do you think?”
“It looks like a bar. A decent bar.” She lifted the cover from her plate, spotted waffles. “Score!”
She immediately smothered them in butter and syrup.
He couldn’t hold back the wince. “Well now, that should keep you going.”
“Good,” she said over the first bite. “Because I need to have that conversation with Cilla Roe. They could have planned this out together. Revenge is always a good one. And I want to go back to the scene, take a good look at the eyeline from the windows. Maybe one of them, if it’s one of them, kept an eye on the place to make sure the plan worked.”
Happily, she shoveled in more waffle, then stabbed a plump raspberry.
“If not one or both of them, maybe the anonymous mad scientist wanted to document the results of the experiment. It’s worth a look. I want to check on Abner’s memorial. Wouldn’t part of the experiment be the collateral damage? The killer may want to be there. Someone who knew him wouldn’t be out of place.”
Fascinated, Roarke tapped a finger on the side of her head. “Your brain’s been busy in sleep.”
“I guess.” She glanced at the tablet he’d set aside. “Yours, too.”
“But mine’s a great deal more fun.”
“Murder cops make their own fun.” She ate more waffle.
When she finished, she rose to strap on her weapon harness, then reached for the rest of her belt and pocket business.
Roarke lifted an eyebrow as she reached for a handful of credits and cash. “Is that all the money you have?”
She shrugged. “It’s enough.”
“It’s barely enough to buy a cart dog and a bag of crisps.” He stood, pulled a clip out of his pocket, peeled off some bills.
“I don’t want your money.”
He eyed her, saw the flickers of temper; ignored them. “And that would be something you make clear at every opportunity. Regardless, you’re not leaving the house with less in your pocket than a careless teenager might have.”
“It’s my pocket.”
Just as irked, he simply stuffed the bills in that pocket. “And now it holds sufficient to see a professional through a workday. Don’t be more of an arse about it than necessary.”
She might have yanked the bills out, tossed them back at him. But that would make her feel like an arse.
Ass, damn it.
Instead she marched over, pulled open a drawer, and dug out a memo cube. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, owes Moneybags Roarke … How much is it?”
Unsure now if he was amused or annoyed, he angled his head. “Five hundred. That’s USD for the record.”
“Five hundred dollars. American.” She tossed the cube on a table. Then shrugged the jacket over her harness. “I’ve gotta go.”
“See that you take care of my irritable cop.”