Dark in Death (In Death 46)

Which one, she wondered. Which one of the women she’d spent a big chunk of her day talking to was the target? All of them fit the basic outline of the book’s victim.

“How do you pick, Strongbow? Or does it even matter? Is this opportunity mixed in? Who’s available when it’s time to make your move?”

No, she thought, and got up to pace. That didn’t fit the pathology. It would be more specific.

“She weeded it down, weeded all but one or two out. And one—maybe two—through the culling, the research, the opportunity, becomes Bliss Cather. One of them has to die.”

They’d caught a break with the bartender, but it was a damn sure bet she’d trolled other clubs. Watching, observing the one or two she’d picked out.

Eve went back to the board, studied the faces of the women Brad called rocker chicks. It wasn’t looks, she thought, not when they were all so much of a type.

Behavior? They all lived on the edge, all actively pursued and embraced the same sort of lifestyle. Illegals, booze, indiscriminate sex, no healthy friendships or relationships, no actual jobs. Lives lived at night, reflected celebrity.

So what …

She stopped.

“The ex. It’s the ex. He’s the determining factor. To kill she has to love. Who does she love?”

She dived back to her desk, called up the names of the lovers, ex-lovers.

Which one? Which one most closely matched the one in the book?

On the first pass, she dropped two names down to low probability. One was firmly hooked with an actress and spending a lot of time in New L.A., the other on tour in Europe.

You had to see what you loved, Eve thought.

She studied the others, found them much the same, like their female counterparts.

She needed the book again, she decided. Something might pop for her—just as it had for Strongbow.

She grabbed her things, stopped by Peabody’s desk on the way out.

“I’m working from home—you can do the same. You’ve got a copy of Dark Deeds?”

“Yeah.”

“Go through it, make notes on the ex—on the motive. What is it about him? Compare with the list we have from the women we’ve talked to. Something had to click with Strongbow. Something about him. Let’s find it.”

“Not the victim, the motive. I’ll start on it here, take it home when McNab gets off. I’ve got the audio function. You know, I’ll program it for his scenes, listen to it. Listening might make something jump.”

“Try it. She fell in love with one of them. That’s her reality now, especially now that she’s living in that book. The others are over. It’s time for Dark Deeds.”

15

Little pellets of ice pinged on the windshield as Eve pushed through skittish, sliding, angry traffic. She spotted a couple of pedestrians with tiny icicles dripping from umbrellas and decided as bad as it was, at least she was traveling in a heated car.

Stopped at a light, she watched a pair of beat cops in pursuit of some guy—early twenties, mixed race, flapping brown overcoat—who loped like a gazelle down the sidewalk.

Until he hit a slick spot, went airborne. His feet flew up, his ass crashed down. Before he could scramble up again, the beat boys had him.

Score one for Team Blue, she thought as the light changed.

Once she drove through the gates, she could appreciate the fanfare of icicles shimmering on the bare branches of trees, enclosing the shrubbery in glitter and gleam, all forming a fairy-tale foreground for the stone, the towers, the turrets, the glass all spreading and rising under that angry bruise of a sky.

She appreciated more actually getting in the house without falling on her own ass. The cat rose from his perch at the base of the steps, stretched from head to tail, then padded over to wind and snake between her legs like a well-fed boa constrictor.

“Did I beat him home again?” She tossed her coat, hat, and scarf over the newel post, crouched down to give Galahad a scratch and rub.