Echoes in Death (In Death #44)(50)

Eve stepped inside.

In the file, the walls showed a strong, tropical blue. Now they held a warm, quiet taupe. The bed with its elaborate chrome posts had been replaced with something more simple with a high padded headboard. Everything in the room spoke of the simple, the streamlined, all the tones read soft, soothing.

Eve noted the motion detectors, the alarms, the locks on the windows.

“The en suite also serves as a safe room,” Lori told them. “We can secure the door from the inside, bring down a steel panel over it. It has its own alarm and communication system. It’s a little over-the-top, but—”

“Nothing that makes you feel safe in your own home is over-the-top.” Eve responded.

Despite the changes, she could see it as it had been.

Just another pattern, she thought now. He worked on patterns.

“Do you still have the house droid?”

“No. After the police released it, we had it reprogrammed and sold it.” Ira draped an arm around Lori’s shoulders. “We hired a security team, and a live-in housekeeper with a background in security.”

“Okay. Thanks for the time and the access. Do you have any problem with us talking to Lilia Dominick?”

“Not at all,” Lori said. “Will you remember to give my information to Mrs. Strazza?”

“I’ll give it to her today.”

“Find him.” Ira tightened his hold on his wife. “Put him away.”

We will, Eve thought, but could only say, “We’ll do all we can.”

*

“Contact the border collie, see if she’ll come down to Central.” Because the predicted snow had started during their time inside, Eve dragged on her snowflake hat. “We’re going to go by, have another talk with Daphne, then we need to put this together.”

“All the victims in the same place, the same time, the same event? That means something.”

“Yeah. The killer was there, too. No way he wasn’t there. As staff, as a guest. He saw these people, and something started the wheels turning in his fucked-up head.”

As the snow fell thin and fast, Eve slid behind the wheel. “He’s going to be one of them,” she said as she pulled away from the curb. “That’s what my gut tells me. He’s one of the privileged—or he was. One or the other. He knows the lifestyle.”

“The caterer, the rental company.”

“Not a coincidence, because there aren’t any. He’s used them, or has been to events they worked. He knows someone—or someones—who work there. Well enough to pump one or more of them for information on his targets, which they give either inadvertently or incentivized by—”

Eve rubbed her thumb and fingers together.

“No matter how, we’ve connected the victims. They’re linked. It’s not random, never was. They’re specific targets who meet his specific requirements.”

She lapsed into silence, thinking, thinking, while Peabody talked to Lilia Dominick.

Peabody muted the ’link. “She says she’ll come in, if we need her, but couldn’t get there until after five today. She’s swamped. But her office isn’t far from here. If we can go to her, she’ll juggle things around. Sounds cooperative,” Peabody added. “And a little harassed.”

“Tell her we’ll be there within the hour.”

Eve pulled into the hospital lot while Peabody arranged the interview.

“She’s out of her office now,” Peabody reported. “She’ll be there within thirty.”

They made their way through the hospital to Daphne’s floor, passed the desk. Eve nodded to the uniform on the door. “Officer.”

“Lieutenant. Nobody but medical types in or out. She got some soup delivered from a place called Jacko’s. The doc said you’d cleared it. Big vat of soup. She said to send me out a bowl of it. Damn good, sir.”

The uniform shifted. “She asked me to come in a couple of times this shift, Loo. Wanted me to check the bathroom, under the bed, in the closet. Laughed about it, but the laugh was put on. You know?”

“Yeah.”

“It was after one of the nurses said something about how well she was doing and how she could probably go home tomorrow. She got freaked over it, but tried not to show it.”

“Okay. Take a break, Officer. You’ve got fifteen.”

Eve stepped in.

Daphne sat in a chair by the window, listlessly swiping a tablet. Her long hair lay in a simple braid over her left shoulder. The beauty the beating had masked shined through despite the bruises.

Daphne managed what passed for a smile.

“How are you doing?” Eve asked.

“Better. I’ve been up and walking, and it hardly hurts at all. They said I could sit here, or even go down to the indoor garden. I think I might do that. Go down there. But—”

“But?”

“Dr. Nobel said he would fix it so I could stay longer, but they’re saying I could go home tomorrow. I can’t go back there.”

“You don’t have to go back there.”

“I don’t know where to go.”

“You could stay with a friend.”

“I … I don’t have anyone I could stay with.”

“Your family,” Eve began. Daphne went stiff.