Dark in Death (In Death 46)

“And the killer?”

“Obsessed fan of the rocker, female, same age group. Rumor is the vic and the rocker may be getting back together. Rocker’s out of rehab, clean, and obsessed fan kills his ex to protect him from her. I need to read it,” she muttered as she came back to her desk. “But I really need to find the victim before she is one. How many badass ex-girlfriends of trash rockers are going to be living in New York? Maybe don’t narrow it to trash rock. Successful rockers, any subset thereof, to start. All the killings are in New York, killer lives in New York, so it has to be … Christ.”

“More than you thought?” Roarke asked when her search results came up.

Her eyes wanted to bleed. “I can narrow it,” she mumbled. “I will narrow it.” But she felt obliged to skim through first. “Double Christ! Nadine’s on here.”

“Nadine?” Roarke stopped his work. “Our Nadine?”

“Wait. Wait. There are a couple articles on gossip sites. Blah, blah, Jesus. Photos, too. Stuff about her having dinner or going to a concert with Jake Kincade. That’s that guy in that band.”

“I know who he is, and Avenue A as well. Strong, innovative rock musicians. Strong and innovative enough they’ve stayed at the top of their game over two decades. And Nadine’s seeing him?”

“Yeah, she is—according to this stuff. He was performing, like Mavis, at Madison Square the night of the massacre. He was backstage, hanging with Nadine when I got back there. He called her Lois.”

“Lois?” It only took a moment. “Ah, as in Lane. Clever. And if you’re worried, I wouldn’t be. Kincade has a reputation for being a hardworking musician, and one with a reasonably clean lifestyle. Nadine doesn’t fit the victim here.”

“No, they don’t fit the characters, and Nadine’s not going to hang out in a sex club … Well, the Down and Dirty, but that’s different. She never mentioned she was banging a rocker.”

“And dinner, a concert, equal banging?”

“They’re grown-ups. Unattached grown-ups. Banging ensues. Anyway.” She narrowed her search parameters. “Younger, toss in the rehab …”

She looked at the notes she’d written earlier.

“Victim made her living charging for interviews, taking kickbacks from clubs, selling data to gossip reporters and blogs. And brokering illegals. Consumed same.”

Bit by bit Eve fed it in until she got down to a half dozen potentials.

“Better, I can work with that.”

“I’m through this,” Roarke told her. “Do you want me to take some of those?”

“No, I’m going to run them on auto for now. I need the books. This one, and the Sudden Dark one. Hell, I need them all.”

“Two library visits in one evening. Why, it could become a habit.”

He went with her. “I’ll take one, you the other?” he suggested as they walked through the house.

“You take the, what is it, Dark Deeds—with the rocker. I skimmed the murder scene, but you may catch something I missed. I want to see what the hell there was in Sudden Dark that snapped this woman, get a better sense of it before I talk to DeLano again. And her mother,” Eve said. “The mother’s probably got a better sense of the communications.”

She stepped into the library, unsurprised to find it ordered. Dishes cleared, wineglasses whisked away, books they’d been reading neatly stacked on the bench table.

Because he knew her, Roarke headed to the cabinet first. “Coffee time’s passed at this point. I believe I’ll have a brandy.”

Knowing her opinion on brandy, he brought her water.

She considered arguing, then considered if she won said argument—doubtful—she’d probably be awake until it was time to get up again.

She took the water, pulled Sudden Dark off the shelf.

Once again she sat beside Roarke with a book, with the fire simmering. The only thing missing was the cat, and she imagined they’d find Galahad sprawled over the bed when they got there.

She didn’t have to hunt up the first murder, as the book opened with it, from the killer’s point of view. Male, a sexual predator who abducted women—first victim age twenty-four—kept her for thr

ee days, raping, torturing, and eventually drowning her in a bubble bath. After which he applied makeup to her face, styled her hair, and dressed her in a business suit.

He added pearl studs to her earlobes, kissed her tenderly, and called her Britina. Then, in the early hours of the morning, he transported the body to a location in Little Italy and dumped it on the sidewalk in front of a restaurant called Lucia’s.