Dark in Death (In Death 46)

“Let’s flag that one.”

“There’s more—it’s a fairly lengthy rant. She asks: Isn’t it past time to add some realism? For both Dark and Hightower to fail, and the villain to triumph? To have real impact, to gain immortality, fiction has to reflect life, the writer must make sacrifices and take risks to achieve greatness.”

“Okay, androgynous first name, claims to be a writer, some key words, and a pretty steady series of bitch slaps. It rings.”

Roarke wound his finger at Eve for another hit of coffee. “And on the next with this name—coming in July—a different e-mail address. The first—I checked—opened and closed the day the e-mail was written. I’ll run that down in a bit,” he said as Eve dumped more coffee into both of their mugs. “This one did the same, and claims to have it from very reliable sources that DeLano uses ghosts and gullible, even desperate, aspiring writers to do the bulk of the writing, and cheats the public. Again demands DeLano admit this and reveal the names of the ghosts. Even with them, DeLano is incapable of creating a villain who doesn’t make sloppy mistakes that lead the somewhat inept protagonists to his doorstep.”

He glanced over at Eve. “It ends with: You, Blaine, are a thief and a liar as well as a panderer to your undemanding and unsuspecting fans. Remember, sometimes the villain wins.”

Eve drummed her fingers on her knee, frowned. “You’re hogging all the luck tonight. Let’s run them with Strongbow’s for syntax and style.”

“Done,” he said with a faint smile. “Eighty-three-point-four probability they were all written by the same person.”

“Yeah, hogging the luck. Can you use what you’re hogging to get me anything from the accounts?”

“We’ll see what we can do.”

If there was something to find, she thought, he’d find it. She opted to multitask, increase her odds of snagging some of that luck. She ran the Strongbow names on auto while she ordered a search for any communication matching syntax and style with the two Roarke found with an above fifty percent probability.

“Hit. Another eighty percent plus probability. Letter, not e-mail, no return address. Jesse Oaks. Wait.” Eve closed her eyes a moment. “Bundy—Ted Bundy, twentieth-century serial killer. Oaks—Stan K. Oaks, twenty-first-century serial killer.”

“I sense a theme,” Roarke murmured.

“Yeah. Killing’s part of that religion now. Still harping on Sudden Dark. Going on about inconsistency of voice in the book, and claiming it as proof DeLano doesn’t write solo. Demands she reveals the name of her cowriter. Pushes harder on the Dark character here, saying the character is obviously an extension of DeLano’s own ego, and thereby unrealistic. And a reprise of the villain as superior theme. ‘Realism demands Deann Dark/your ego face an adversary who triumphs. Only then will the character created from your limited understanding and need to inflate your own vanity truly comprehend the complexities of the killer, and embrace the villain within and without.’ ”

“That’s the next step, isn’t it?” Roarke commented. “Conflating Dark and DeLano. DeLano is now the character, Strongbow the adversary.”

“Rewrite the scenes, book by book. I need to send these to Mira. She’s got one bat-shit crazy head to shrink.”

“Crazy it may be, but, as you said, it’s sharp as well. The e-mails came from a mobile device, and my conclusion is a clone. Unregistered, but no flag by CompuGuard, which tells me she cloned it. Most likely picked up a couple of drop ’links on the street, cloned one to the other, which takes some skill. Opened the account, sent the e-mail, closed the account, and shut down the ’link—most likely to rework it so the second e-mail appears to be sent not only from another account, but from another ’link.”

“That’s a lot of trouble,” Eve mused. “If she bought two unregistered, why not just use each one, toss it after use?”

“Cheaper this way, if you’ve got the patience and the savvy. You could, potentially, rework the two endlessly. If one’s flagged, you’ve altered it before it can be traced. But you have to be good, and fast, to do that. Easier to shut it down, wipe it, then you’ve time to switch components. And if you’re very clever, you’ve picked up a couple of universal repair kits and you work in those parts.”

“Sounds like experience talking.”

Comfortable, he sipped his coffee. “Well now, there was a time when I had to watch my pennies, so to speak, so the time and effort were easier to come by than the scratch. There are far easier ways to avoid a flag or a trace, but this would be the most economical.”

“Which indicates she needs to economize. A couple of decent drop ’links? It’s an investment.”

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; “It is, which is why I, watching those pennies, preferred stealing them.”

She let out a sound between a laugh and a snort. “You just liked stealing.”

“Ah, so I did. Very much.”

“The last thing you stole, and when.”

“Other than your heart?”

Rolling her eyes, she poured more coffee. “Professionally. For profit.”

“That would be a strange and fascinating little still life by an underrated painter named Andre Mendini who, in despair at being underrated, leaped into the Seine and drowned in 2027 or ’28—I’m not quite sure now. In any case his fame subsequently rocketed, and his paintings became of great interest to collectors in the decades following. Persimmons by Candlelight—”

“Now you’re just bullshitting.”