Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(27)

“Are you certain you saw a male?”

“A male? Oh, a guy.” Rameriz bit her lip, crinkled her eyes. “Well, I don’t know, but I thought guy.”

“How about the vehicle? Ever notice it before? Maybe when you sat in the open window?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. It was a car or maybe a van, black maybe. I only noticed the guy—probably a guy—because he’s just standing in the rain.”

Eve took her through it all again to try to nudge out some details. She let the sympathetic, cajoling Peabody have a shot.

By the time they left she had a vague headache, but knew where the killer had parked his (most likely his) car/van/AT. That was maybe black or just dark.

“Closer to the building than I thought,” Eve decided as they stopped at the area Rameriz approximated. “The timing? He’s parked, and waiting, just before she’s off shift, he gets out of the vehicle. To wait for her. He could watch through the windshield, but he’d need to keep the wipers on to see through the wet. Maybe he just got out to be ready.”

“If Rameriz had stayed where she was another few minutes, she might’ve seen the grab.”

“Yeah. Even with the dark, the rain, the distance, she might’ve seen enough to give us something to pull. But she didn’t. Let’s have some uniforms do another canvass of the building, and the others in this area. Maybe somebody else they missed on the first rounds was looking out at the rain. Notify Norman.”

“I’ll get it started. You know, Dallas,” Peabody continued as they walked, “one A.M.’s a world away from two-thirty. If it hadn’t been raining, if it had been a nice night, there might’ve been—likely would’ve been—more people out, more windows open.”

“Yeah. Option One, he took advantage of the weather, moved up his schedule to grab her on an early closing night at Mike’s. Option Two, he wanted her enough to take the risk. And the option that combines both? Lauren Elder wasn’t working out the way he thought. One thing’s clear. He’s got her, and he’s had her for a week.”

Since they’d already passed end of shift, Eve decided to take the work home. After a detour.

She drove to Mavis’s strange new house, and found relief when the gate stayed securely closed.

“I got it!” Nearly bouncing in her seat, Peabody took out her ’link, tapped in a code. “We’re going to have your ride tagged for entry when the security’s complete,” she said as the gate slowly opened. “Can’t do Roarke’s because he’s got a zillion rides.”

The first thing Eve noticed was the grounds that had been neglected, overgrown into a tangle of God knew what, had been cleared. On either side of the drive green sprouts poked up through what looked like piles of straw.

“Landscapers seeded the lawn, after they cleared out the overgrowth. Had to take out some trees—just dead—but we’re going to plant others, and more, and have a veg garden out back. Leonardo bought a lawn tractor.”

“A lawn tractor.”

Eve visited a strange image of the fashion designer with his shining braids and one of his flowing outfits plowing a field.

“For maintenance,” Peabody explained. “Mowing the grass, sucking up leaves. And we’re going to expand the little garden shed. And see, see? They already tore up and redid the flooring on the front porches. It wasn’t safe. Doing the back next, we hope.”

The house still looked strange and rambling to Eve’s eye, but not as strange since it no longer looked as if it grew up inside some urban jungle.

The minute she stopped the car, Bella ran out the open front door.

The kid wore pink overalls over a flowered T-shirt, little pink work boots, and had a hard hat—pink of course—over her spill of golden curls.

“Das! Pee-oddy!”

“‘Pee-oddy’?”

“She’s getting closer.” Peabody popped out, snatched Bella up for a hug and a toss.

Mavis bounced out—and Eve hoped she’d keep her hair that shade of purple for a while. Just in case. She wore a snug white tee that said NUMBER TWO! with an arrow pointing down at her tiny baby bump. Rather than work boots she wore blue skids with yellow, calf-skimming skin pants.

“You made it!” She all but flung herself into Eve’s arms. “We have grass!”

“Yeah, I see. It’s green and everything.”

“Come in, come see!” She grabbed Eve’s hand to drag her forward. “Roarke and McNab are here. They’re upstairs doing something with the security and the communication and entertainment and all that. The inspector’s coming in the morning.”

“Oh God! Are we ready?”

“Everybody says so. Right, Job Boss?”

Bella grinned, tapped her hard hat. “Oss!”

“Ba-ba-ba-boss.”

“Bababa! Oss!”

“We’ll keep working on that,” Mavis said as Bella laughed like a lunatic and leaped toward Eve.

She grabbed Eve’s face in both hands, babbled madly.

“She’s juiced up,” Mavis told her.

“When isn’t she?”

“She’s juiced because … Ta-da-de-da!”

Mavis spread out her arms, twirled in circles.