She set her cup aside now, and her gaze was sober when she looked at Eve. “There was you. These women are, in a sense, Roarke’s. You are his in every sense.”
Testing the idea, Eve frowned. “So he opts for this specific pattern because of me? I wasn’t primary on the initial investigation.”
“You were a female on the initial investigation, a brunette. Too young at that time to meet his requirements. You aren’t now.”
“You’re looking at me as a target?”
“I am. Yes, I am.”
“Huh.” Drinking coffee, Eve considered it more carefully. Mira’s theories weren’t to be casually dismissed. “Usually goes for long hair.”
“There have been exceptions.”
“Yeah, yeah, a couple of them. He’s been smart. This wouldn’t be smart.” Eve tipped the angle of it in her mind, shifted the pattern. “It’s a lot tougher to take down a cop than it is a civilian.”
“You would be a great prize, from his viewpoint. It would be a challenge, and a coup. And if he knows anything about you, which I promise you he does, he would be assured you would endure a long time.”
“Tough to stalk me. First, I’d click to it. Second, I don’t have regular routines, not like the others. They clocked in and out at fairly uniform times, had regular haunts. I don’t.”
“Which, again, would add to the challenge,” Mira argued, “and his ultimate satisfaction. You’re considering that he may have added Roarke as an element because he’s in competition with him. That may very well be true. But what he does isn’t payback, not on a conscious level. Everything he does is for a specific purpose. I believe, in this, you’re a specific purpose.”
“It’d be helpful.”
“Yes.” Mira sighed. “I imagined you’d see it that way.”
Eyes narrowed, Eve tipped the angle again, explored the fresh pattern. “If we go with this, and I could find a way to bait him in—to nudge him into making a move on me before he grabs another one—we could shut him down. Shut him down, take him out.”
“You won’t bait him.” Watching Eve, Mira picked up her coffee. “I can promise you he has his timetable already set. The only variable in it is
the length of time his victims last. He has the third selected. Unless he planned only three—which would be less than he’s ever taken before—the next won’t be you.”
“Then we have to find her first. Let’s keep your theory between us, just for now. I want to think about it.”
“I want you to think about it,” Mira said as she got to her feet. “As a member of this team, as a profiler, and as someone who cares a great deal about you, I want you to think about it very carefully.”
“I will.”
“This is a hard one for you, for Feeney. For me, the commander. We’ve been here before, and in a very real sense, we failed. Failing again—”
“Isn’t an option,” Eve finished. “Do me a favor. I know it’s a tough process, but take a look at the list Summerset generated. The female employees. Just see if any of them strike you as more his type. We can’t put eyes on all those women, but if there’s a way to whittle it down…”
“I’ll start on that right away.”
“I’ve got to get going.”
“Yes.” Mira passed her empty cup to Eve, brushed her fingers lightly over the back of Eve’s hand. “Don’t just think carefully. Be careful.”
Even as Mira left, Eve’s desk ’link beeped. Scanning the readout, she picked up. “Nadine.”
“Dallas. Any word on Rossi?”
“We’re looking. If you’re interrupting my day looking for an update—”
“Actually, I’m interrupting mine to give you one. One of my eager little researchers plucked out an interesting nugget. From Romania.”
Automatically Eve pulled up on her computer screen what she had on the Romanian investigation. “I should have the full case files from that investigation later today. What have you got?”
“Tessa Bolvak, a Romany—gypsy? Had her own show on screen. Psychic hour—or twenty minutes, to be accurate.”