Dark in Death (In Death 46)

Still smiling, Mira slipped the ’link back in her jacket pocket. “It’s nice when the man you’ve been married to for decades still thinks you’re pretty.”

“You are pretty.”

“Thank you. It takes considerably more work than it once did. I know you have to get back, and I have another consult, but I think this is another key factor. Female victims. It may be yet another reason the killer focused on this series—and one written by a female. Women may be seen as weak or competition. He may be impotent. She, if it’s a she, may be jealous of what she sees as female power. But female victims, female protagonist, female creator. I doubt that’s insignificant.”

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“It won’t be. I appreciate the time. And I’d appreciate hearing about it if Mr. Mira has any more insights.”

“He’ll be thrilled.” Mira rose, walked Eve to the door. “Good luck. I’ll send you a formal profile.” Then she turned to her admin as Eve left. “Would you download the novel Dark Falls by Blaine DeLano? And the book that follows in the series. To my tablet, please.”

Eve contacted Peabody. “Grab my coat and stuff, meet me in the garage. We’ll take the victim’s residence, then the theater.”

She aimed for an elevator, jabbed the call button as she calculated working in a visit to DeLano’s ex, work or home. The door opened to reveal a pair of uniforms struggling with a guy with mad tufts of hair, unlaced knee boots, and a flapping topcoat covered in what appeared to be weird symbols drawn on with some sort of metallic marker.

He actually had tinfoil capped and peaked on his head.

“They’re coming!” He screamed it, eyes bulging in Eve’s direction. “They eat your brains while you sleep. They look like us, but they’re not. Only the Sign of Umberto can protect you. Don’t sleep! Don’t sleep!”

Eve opted for the stairs.

She still beat Peabody and had time to lean against her car, check the victim’s address, the theater’s, check Craig Jefferson’s home and work on his official ID.

She took a minute to study him. What most would call good-looking—a good head of styled hair, a smooth face. And a smug look in his eyes she’d have noticed even without knowing he was an asshole.

A marketing executive for some company that made health food, vitamins, supplements.

For the hell of it, she looked up his current wife. Younger than DeLano, she noted, by six years, but the man had a type. Same coloring as wife number one, same build. First marriage for her, and a listing as professional mother.

She put her PPC away when she heard Peabody’s boots.

Eve swung on her coat, stuffed the scarf and hat in pockets for later, and got behind the wheel. “Diaz?”

“Was happy to help. She comes off genuinely fond of DeLano, and rates the ex as low on the murdering bastard list. She pegs him as more of a sniveling, abusive coward with a massive ego and a hard-on—in the nonsexual way—for women. Unless they’re, in Diaz’s term, of the Breed and Bake category. Outside that, they’re bitches. She’s happy to put the word in with her former LT, ask him to share her case file on the Jefferson arrest. She says he broke pretty fast once they put him in the box—hence the sniveling. But coated it with badass attitude.”

“I lean toward her take, but we’ll look at him because the killer likely has that same hard-on for women.”

She filled Peabody in on the consult with Mira as they shoved their way to the victim’s theater district apartment.

“I should’ve flipped to it,” Peabody said. “The female angle. The writer, the central character, the primary vics throughout the series. I think it’s a solid angle. And you can take it further. The writer lives in a female household. Her mother and two daughters.”

Peabody glanced over. “You’ve already gone there.”

“It’s in the mix. We can look at it two ways: either the killer’s male with that hard-on for women, or the killer’s female to keep it consistent. That doesn’t narrow it down.”

When Eve spotted a street slot within a block of her target, she considered it her lucky day. She hit vertical, ignored Peabody’s muffled squeal, zipped over traffic, and dropped between a bunged-up rattle-trap and a filthy sedan, with a couple inches to spare.

“I would’ve been all right with walking,” Peabody managed. “I would’ve been all right with it.”

“Good, because you score a slot like this, you keep it. We’ll hike it to the theater from here after we check out the apartment.”

“It’s because I bought that Danish on the way into Central. I wasn’t going to, I told myself not to. But it was right there, all glossy and full of the gooey yumness. McNab ate two, but does his skinny ass care? No, it does not.”

“I thought you had loose pants.”

“I took them in as an incentive.” Peabody checked her waistband as they hoofed to the building. “Maybe I should’ve left them loose as a reminder.”

“Your ass is smaller.”