Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(76)

Walking to the AutoChef, Mira programmed her flowery tea. “He makes her—to his eye—beautiful, then lays her near a playground, a child’s center. Because there’s love. But he does all of this because there’s also hate, and there’s rage, and pain. Who can cause us more pain than the people who brought us into the world?”

Mira took her tea, and, turning a chair around, sat facing Eve and the board. “The child wants love—for her and from her. The man feels the rage and the pain. He can’t stop himself from this quest to re-create her, as he wishes her, and the women he takes can never be who he wishes.”

“What are Covino’s chances?”

Like Eve, Mira studied Covino’s ID shot. “She may prolong the inevitable. The illusion may hold awhile, but it will shatter. When it does, he’ll kill her.”

“He wants to kill her as much as he wants to re-create her. He’s punishing the mother every time he chains one of these women up, every time he kills.”

“Yes,” Mira agreed. “Create and destroy, that’s the cycle. The man can look back at who she was—at this age—and judge her. Bad Mommy. Whatever disappointments, failures, difficulties he’s experienced in his life all, to his mind, come from that. Something, and something traumatic, happened at this particular time in his life and hers. So now, after something related to her, to that, to them happened and caused this psychic break, he’s compelled to go back to that time. Or rather just before. Before the trauma. With this second victim, the pattern’s very clear.”

“The map.” Eve gestured so Mira turned in her chair to study the screen. “The highlighted locations are the two crime scenes, the victims’—including Covino’s—residence and workplace. Dotted lines are their routine routes to and from work—or in Covino’s case, the subway.

“Computer, highlight properties from first list of same generated by Roarke, mark those eliminated. You see private homes and other properties that fit the parameters,” she told Mira. “Owned, rented, and/or occupied by single males. We’re doing door-to-doors, and have eliminated those so marked.”

“A considerable amount of legwork,” Mira commented.

“That’s why cops have legs. Computer, highlight properties from the second list generated by Roarke. We expanded,” Eve explained. “Single occupancy, but owned or occupied—on record—by a female, couples or families, or a group or a company. We’re starting more door-to-doors.”

“I absolutely agree this is his hunting ground. He lives or works there, perhaps both.”

“I think—” Eve broke off as Nadine walked in, along with Quilla, her teenage intern.

“Nadine, we’re in the middle of a consult.”

“So I was told when I asked in the bullpen.” Nadine shook back her sleek and streaky hair. “We’ve got something that’s going to add to that.”

Eve knew Nadine well enough to recognize the smug. She had a moment’s tug-of-war regarding Quilla, then let it go.

“You got something on the unsub’s mother.”

“I got her.” Nadine reached into her ten-gallon bag and pulled out a disc.

“Son of a bitch. Peabody.”

Peabody hustled over to take the disc.

“I expect coffee, and not the bullpen sludge,” Nadine told Eve. “And my young apprentice prefers Coke.”

“Just wait a damn minute.”

As she spoke, Jamie swaggered—no other word for it—into the conference room. “Score! Hey, Dr. Mira.”

“Scored what?”

“Got your tattooed mom.” He held up a disc.

“Jesus. Peabody.”

“Got it, got it. I can run simultaneous, split screen. Need a second. Holy shit,” Peabody said.

“Hi, Nadine Furst, right? Really like your books. The vid topped it out,” Jamie gushed.

“Thanks. Quilla, this is Jamie Lingstrom. Captain Feeney’s godson.”

“Hey,” Jamie said in response. “The hair’s chill.”

Quilla reached up, skimmed fingers through the oak brown with its candy-pink bangs and crown. “Thanks, I’m, ah, Nadine’s intern.”

“Yeah? Also chill. I’m interning up in EDD.”

“About that coffee.”

“Just wait!” Eve snapped. “I don’t know how to get it from my AC to this one, and Peabody’s busy.”

“I can do it. What? You want Dallas’s high-test?”

“Yes, please, with a little cream,” Nadine said to Jamie. “And a Coke for Quilla.”

“Coming up.”

“How did you find her?” Nadine asked him.

“Well…”

Dallas gave him points for not blurting it out, but looking to her for guidance.

“Go ahead. She found her, too.”

“Yeah? Good work. Took some doing with the thin data to pull on. Had to go back to 1994.”

“Busted for solicitation at age sixteen, Arcadia, Tennessee. Expunged and sealed after completion of court-mandated counseling and community service.”

When Quilla rolled off the data, Jamie offered her a Coke and a grin.

“She already had the tat,” he continued. “And this little bumfuck town actually preserved the records from the way back.”