Vendetta in Death (In Death 49)

McNab all but flew back in, had the grace to stop, send Eve a sheepish smile. “Um, need any help here, Dallas?”

“Go be a geek.”

“Born one, live one, die one. You in, Roarke?”

“Go be a geek,” she repeated, this time to Roarke when she heard the sirens. “I’ll send the MTs down for Brinkman.”

“If you insist.”

Alone, Eve let in the MTs, directed them. She contacted Reo, then Mira. Yeah, a long night, she thought, as she watched a cab drive through the gates. A long night for everyone.

“Miss Eloise?” Donnalou said as she jumped from the cab.

“Upstairs. She’s been sedated.”

“You sedated her!”

“No. Darla did, probably shortly after you left. She’s sedated her routinely so Eloise wouldn’t know what she was doing in the basement.”

“What was she doing in the basement?”

“Killing men.”

Donnalou took a staggering step back. “That can’t be true.”

“Tell that to the man currently being treated by MTs down there because we were in time to save him. I’m going to need to talk with Eloise.”

“I need to check on her. I need to—” She stopped, seemed to draw herself together layer by layer. “Do you know what she was given?”

“No, but I imagine she kept the drugs downstairs. I’ll let you know.”

Donnalou went up, Eve went down. And found all the e-geeks huddled around workstations, gadgets, and droids.

“Peabody?” she asked, and Callendar pointed left. Before she headed in that direction, Eve walked over to Brinkman and the MTs.

“Mr. Brinkman.”

“He’s a little loopy,” one of the MTs told her. “We had to give him something. We’ll take him in, probably they’ll keep him tonight, treat these burns, the lacerations. You’re gonna get more out of him once he settles down.”

“Okay, it can wait.”

She went toward Peabody’s direction just as Peabody started in hers. “Dallas, you need to see this.”

“Did you find Brinkman’s clothes, the rest of his things?”

“Yeah, she’s got a damn warehouse. I started flagging what looks like the previous victims’ clothes, ’links, wallets, and all that, then I got curious, and looked around more. The place is huge.”

Peabody stopped, pointed. “Warehouse. Vic stuff organized over there, and her, well, wardrobe over there. It’s like a costume department.”

Wigs, about a dozen in various styles, displayed on a counter. The counter with a lighted triple mirror, a chair, dozens of drawers, held, Eve saw, facial enhancements, eye dyes, implants, face putty, temp tats, temp skin coloring. An array of clothes from business suits to evening wear, shoes, bags, hung neatly on rods and posts. Jewelry glittered in clear drawers in a clear stand.

Another full-length triple mirror, a board holding photos showing Darla in various outfits—no, Eve thought, costumes. Another board matched those costumes, those personas with victims—those she’d killed, more already targeted.

“Why don’t you go up, get the sweepers in here? I need to find where she kept the drugs.”

“Then you better come through here. I sort of don’t want to go in again, but …”

Peabody led the way into another area. A comp—more house monitors. A glass friggie holding bottles of medication, clear drawers of syringes.