New York to Dallas (In Death 33)

“I’ll send you the files,” Roarke said. “It’s actually three accounts. He’s not an eggs-in-one-basket sort.”

“Thanks.” Nikos pulled out her ’link, turned, and walked away.

“I can delay the data transfer, maybe an hour with a bit of a glitch in the routing.”

“Do that.” Eve nodded. “Yeah, do that. I’ll push harder if the feds opt for the freeze, because it’s the wrong move. For now, we set it up—you should get Feeney in on that.” She took the field kit. “I have to finish this.”

He laid a hand over hers on the handle. “I can do this. You could assist with the search. You’ve a better sense of McQueen than anyone here.”

“You know I can’t. She’s mine now, whether I want it or not.”

She opened the kit, hunkered down again. And taking her mother’s hand, checked prints. “Victim is identified as Sylvia Prentiss, which has been determined to be falsified ID. Victim will be listed as Jane Doe until true identification can be verified.”

She fit on microgoggles, said nothing when Roarke stooped down beside her, took out gauges. Instead, she examined the fatal wound.

“ME to confirm. However, primary investigator’s on-scene examination indicates a single cut, left to right with a sharp, smooth-edged blade. Both the angle and the blood-spatter pattern indicate the attack came from behind. He yanks her head back, slices. She slides down. He’d get some blood on him, on that shirt he tossed down there. Note to the sweepers to check all drains. He’d have washed up.”

She sat back on her heels again when Roarke read off the time of death. “That’s less than thirty—closer to twenty—before we had cops on the building. Yeah, like Laurence said, he had to hurry. TOD’s about twenty-five minutes after she broke out of the hospital. So she was dead before we knew she was out. But . . . can you run a program, determine travel time from the hospital to here?”

“All right.”

She pulled out an evidence bag, sealed the syringe for evidence.

“Factoring in the most usual traffic patterns for that time of day, it would take about fifteen minutes.”

“Couple less,” Eve decided. “She’d be driving fast, taking chances. But you have to factor in the time it took her to steal the car, the time it took her to get into the building from the lot—and on that bum ankle. We’ll know more when we look at the ’link in the stolen car, get the time and location of her transmission to him. But putting it together, even though he’s got to move, he takes at least four or five minutes with her. He doesn’t just do her when she walks in. He lets her sit down, he gives her a fix. He talks to her.”

She fit the microgoggles on again, studied what she could of the face, the hands and wrists. “I’d like to roll her, but I’d better wait for the ME. But the way it looks, he doesn’t hurt her. He doesn’t give her a good belt for fucking things up. He’s going to kill her, and that’s enough. He’s got that strange sense of proportion, and he’s got the control. He could have loaded that syringe with enough to kill her, but see, that’s not enough.”

“It’s too impersonal, too simple for her.”

“Yeah, exactly. When he kills, and he kills selectively, he wants to feel it. He likes the blade, the way it feels cutting flesh, the way the blood spurts. He doesn’t mutilate. It’s too messy, and it lacks the class he believes he has.”

She looked toward the room where he’d held Melinda and Darlie. “With the girls, he likes to torture. It’s part of that control and power game, part of the training. He’ll take a lot of time with them—they matter. But with the partner? It’s like taking out the garbage. You just get rid of it.”

“You have enough now,” Roarke said quietly. “You know how, when, who, even why. It’s enough now, Eve.”

“We need the ME to confirm, and to run the tox. Because if McQueen gave her more than a little buzz, if he gave her enough to put her under before he killed her it means something different.”

“Lieutenant Dallas?”

“Yeah.”

One of the crime scene investigators offered her a memo cube. “McQueen left this for you. You’re going to want to hear it.”

“Thanks.”

She activated it.

Hello again, Eve. I hope I can call you Eve now, after all we’ve been through together. I’d planned to have a nice, long chat with you today, but plans change, and this will have to do.

Welcome to my home—former. I wish I could be there to offer you a glass of wine in person. I know you enjoy a glass now and again—the photographs of you in Italy sampling the local vintages were really quite fetching. Marriage agrees with you.

As you can see, I left a bit of a mess behind. But then I know you like tidying up those little misadventures, and I’m a bit rushed. I had hoped to entertain you here, to put you up for a few days. I so looked forward to some Isaac and Eve time. But we’ll do it very soon, just the two of us.

You’re probably wondering why I left the steadfast Melinda and the adorable Darlie alive. You know, I’m wondering that myself. Perhaps I like knowing how well they’ll remember me. No one likes to be forgotten, to be ignored. Don’t think for a minute I’ll do either with you.

You’re in my thoughts, day and night. I’ll see you soon.