Brotherhood in Death (In Death #42)(107)

“A ghrá.” He urged another sip on her. “I’m with you.”

She pressed her face to his shoulder, let a few tears spill when he drew her to him. “Every day,” she murmured. “However we got here, however and whyever you’re with me, I’m grateful. Every day.”

She drew back, brushed her lips over his cheek. “I’m sorry we have to do this.”

“There’s no sorry, not for this, not between us. Let’s find at least one of them still breathing, so we can have the satisfaction of that cage.”

“All right.” She pushed away tears with the heels of her hands. “Let’s do that.”

He slipped an arm around her waist as they walked back to her office. “You should have something—a little soup.”

“I don’t think I could keep it down right now. Later, okay?”

“All right. You’ll watch that obscenity again.”

“Yeah, I have to. But later.” She stopped, studied the board. She’d update that, the book, her notes. She needed to check her incomings. Maybe Harvo—Queen of Hair and Fiber—had some hits. Maybe Yancy had some luck.

“I’ve got three names. There are five women, two yet unidentified. If one of the three we have has other property—I’m leaning toward private home, old building, warehouse—a place they could . . . do this work—I need to find it. And I need to find Betz’s other property. All I’ve got is what I think is the street number. And a probability that we’re looking at the Bronx.”

“He had a bank and box there.” Roarke nodded. “Why go there for that unless there was another connection. I can start on both of those, but it would go faster, this sort of wide-range search, on the unregistered. More corners can be cut without CompuGuard watching, or having to avoid that annoyance.”

By agreeing to the use of the unregistered, she’d be cutting corners.

She thought of the girl gang-raped in a basement, and the forty-eight who’d come after her. Sometimes, she thought, corners needing cutting.

“Okay. If you could get started on that, I’ve got some things here I need to do. Then I’ll come work in there with you.”

“Fair enough.” He ran a fingertip down the dent in her chin. “No coffee.”

“What?” She hadn’t thought anything more could appall her that day. “Did you lose your mind between here and the bathroom?”

“You lost your lunch—or whatever passed for nutrition,” he reminded her. “If you need the caffeine, go with a Pepsi. Ginger ale would be better, but I suspect you won’t settle for it.”

“My brain can’t function on the ale of ginger. I don’t even know what it is!”

“Pepsi then—as if you know what the hell’s in that. And a bit of broth to start when you feel more ready for it.”

“Yes, Mom.”

So he kissed her forehead, as a mother might. “Be a good girl, and there may be candy later. I’ll get started.”

“I can copy you a disc with all relevant data.”

He gave her a pitying glance. “Please. As if I can’t hack it out of your comp in less time.”

When he strolled off, she had to admit he was probably right. Then she pressed a hand to her belly. Her brain said: Coffee, please. But he was right again—damn it—her system said: Do that, and I boot.

So she got herself a tube of Pepsi, cracking it as she sat to check her incomings.

She hissed at the number of them, opening one from Yancy first.


Dallas, we hit two high probables on the younger subject. I’m sending you both, but want to add I lean toward hit number two. Elsi Lee Adderman, age twenty—at TOD. Self-termination last year on September nine. Details in attached article. Primary on the investigation was your own Detective Reineke, with Jenkinson on board, so you can get their report, and their take. She went to Yale. Other hit did not.

Still working on the other subject. I’m going to take my pad on this date thing, see if there are any more details to work in and refine the search.


Yancy

“Good work. Damn good.” She ordered the ID photo he’d attached on screen.

Young, she thought, and very, very pretty with wide green eyes and long, wavy brown hair.

Quickly, she scanned the data. Born in Crawford, Ohio, both parents living, and still married—to each other. Two younger siblings, one of each. Exemplary student, entered Yale on partial scholarship. Taking the track toward medicine—course work, extracurricular. And moving right along the track through her first year and nearly through the second.

All more than good until the previous spring, when grades took a dive.

“Like MacKensie,” Eve murmured.

Dropped out, moved to Manhattan, worked as an aide at New York Hospital.

“Never reported a rape, but . . .”

Eve yanked out her communicator, tagged Reineke.

“Yo, boss.”

“Last September you caught one—a suicide. Elsi Lee Adderman. Early twenties, mixed race, green and brown. East Fourth, off of Lex.”

“Ah, wait a sec . . . Yeah, yeah. I got it. The Bathtub Lament. Slashed her wrists. Soaked about twenty-four, if I got it right, before one of the women she worked with—hospital work—talked the super into opening the door. Girl had missed two shifts, didn’t answer her ’link or her door. We caught it. Nothing hinky about it, Dallas. Straight up self-doing.”