Obsession in Death (In Death 40)

Yet you continue to do what must be done, within the confines of the system. A system, I know as you do, that often fails to mete out just punishment.

I feel I know you, that we share many of the same values and goals, and could be good friends. For now know I’ll continue to give you my admiration, my respect, and my support. The law has boundaries that are too often senseless. My friendship has none.

A humble friend

A little over the top, sure, but not threatening, Eve mused. Not batshit crazy. There’d been a considerable outpouring of sympathy for Nixie Swisher in the media. A kid who’d survived a home invasion that had slaughtered her entire family? Strong story, and it had had some legs, if Eve remembered.

An e-mail like this? She’d have tossed it straight to public relations. Bu

t now, she thought—and the computer backed her up—maybe, just maybe, this was first contact.

She’d need to find out if they’d answered it. Maybe the e-mail address had remained valid then—as it was no longer.

[email protected]

She read through the next, the next, seeing the gradual escalation. Still, nothing that would have set off alarms, not individually. And as the e-mail addresses varied, no one—including herself—would have paid much attention.

She’d have paid none, Eve admitted, after the Icove blast hit, fall of ’59, because she’d tossed pretty much everything to public relations.

She glanced up as Roarke came in.

“I think I’ve found her—not who she is or where, but where she started contacting me. The first one—and it’s the first—is up on screen. There were three more in ’59, and there’s been nine this year.

“The searches matched all these on every factor. Same writer, different e-mails, but the same person wrote them.”

“Different e-mails—you’d never have noticed,” he commented.

“I probably didn’t read them, or most of them. Different e-mails,” she repeated, “and until the last three, different signatures. She’s settled on Your True Friend for the last three.”

She needed coffee, and got up to program a pot while Roarke read.

“It’s the same writer. The comp agrees with me, and the probability is ninety-four-point-six.”

“Nixie,” Roarke said. “That seems to have been the launching point.”

“Innocent, defenseless kid, loses her entire family, crawls through her mother’s blood? It got play. And I talked about it some to the media. About her being a survivor, about her courage. I probably mouthed off about getting justice.”

“It’s not mouthing off,” he corrected. “And you’ll annoy me if you try to find some handhold for responsibility here.”

She’d annoy herself, Eve admitted. “I think we should contact Richard and Elizabeth.” Roarke’s friends—hers, too, she supposed—were Nixie’s foster parents. Nixie’s family now. “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but I don’t want to be wrong and have done nothing. It wouldn’t hurt for them to be a little more careful.”

“I’ll contact them, because I agree with you. Better safe.”

“I’ve done a search on all the e-mails. No account currently exists. For any of them. We’ll dig there, contact the server, hold their feet to the fire, see if we can get any account information.”

“I can work with McNab for a bit, try to dig out the IP, triangulate. Someone this careful would do some routing, some bouncing, but if we can find a few threads, we might be able to weave a bit of rope.”

“I’ll take anything you can do. She gets more intimate, I guess you could say. Starts calling me Dallas in the third, then shifts to Eve by the sixth.

“No threats, no talk about killing anyone—that would have sent up a flag. It’s more subtle, and in the one where she started calling me Eve, she talked about lawyers—no mention of Bastwick—just talking about lawyers who feather their nest with blood money, who undo, or try to undo, all the work I do, trampling on justice, badgering good cops. Like that. Just a few lines, and again on the imposed limits of the system that hamper my duty.”

“Is there anything about her, any personal details?”

“She’s too careful for much. Somewhere in her head this was always the plan. But she says she knows what it’s like to grow up without family, to have to carve out your own place. To be unappreciated, disrespected. There’s several mentions of being overlooked, not seen, unappreciated. She doesn’t mention the foster system, or use any of the code words foster kids use. But maybe a state school, or some nontraditional upbringing.” Eve blew out a breath. “Or she hated her family and pretends they don’t exist.”

She sat on the desk. “I’m going to admit, right out loud, it’s fucking creepy. She’ll write something about hoping I enjoyed my vacation, and how relaxed I looked, or how mag I looked at the vid premiere—and wasn’t she proud when I took down a killer and closed a case at the same time.

“I should know when someone’s watching me. I haven’t felt it.”