Brotherhood in Death (In Death #42)(79)

Baby dolls, glamour dolls, smiling dolls, crying dolls. Dolls en pointe in tutus and dolls in swaddling clothes. Dolls with tiaras, dolls with fur coats, dolls in native costumes of every culture and land.

Dolls as small as her hand. Dolls the size of a healthy toddler.

Peabody liked dolls fine—had played with her share and never quite understood her partner’s deep phobia. But the sight of them, of hundreds of them, had her backing up a pace.

“I . . . think we should close the door.”

“I think we should lock it. I think we should barricade it. That one.” Eve pointed. Slowly. “That one over there on the horse thing. I think it blinked.”

Peabody cast a leery eye toward the cowgirl doll with her smiling face and pink hat. “She did not. You’re weirding me out.”

“You’re seeing what I’m seeing, and I’m weirding you out? Who does this? What kind of sick, twisted mind has a room full of dead-eyed little humans on display?”

“I don’t want to know.” Holding her breath, Peabody reached out—slowly, slowly—then pulled the door shut with a loud snap.

“That many of them?” Eve said. “Oh, they can get out if they want.”

“Stop it. Just stop it.” Peabody hustled down the hall, and kept her weapon out until she was two yards away. “Don’t say anything more about them. Nothing. Sex and murder. Let’s just think about sex and murder.”

Eve walked into the guest suite—cast one glance over her shoulder (just in case)—then got down to business.

“Frankie isn’t wrong. Betz was expecting sex company. Unopened champagne, two glasses, the strawberries, rose on the bed.”

She opened the drawer of the bedside table. “Vibrators, a variety, glides in various flavors. Condoms, also flavored. Nipple clamps—jeweled.”

“Ouch.”

“Some get off on the ouch. Velvet cuffs. And, some Erotica, some Stay Up, other chemical boosts. Illegal ones mixed in. But they never got up here. Took him out downstairs, easy and quick, I bet. Stun to the groin. No bashing him around here. They learned that the first time. Stun him, get him out of the house and into their transportation. He let them in. Maybe he had a double scheduled, maybe he thought he got lucky. Maybe they just caught him off guard, but he let them in, and they took him out.”

“If they took him last night, they took him while they still had Wymann.”

“Yeah, they’re the ones who had a twofer.” Eve thought of the big, gaudy chandelier in the entranceway. “They’ll want to string him up tonight.”

“Following pattern, they’ll bring him back here.”

“When and if they do, we’ll be all over them. We’re going silent on Betz. No chatter, no media, no alerts. Meanwhile, let’s see if we can find out the name of his date for last night.”

They started for the master suite, giving the doll room a wide berth. The doorbell pealed.

“I’ll take it—probably EDD.”

Peabody stopped dead. “You’re going to leave me up here? Alone? With them?”

“You’re armed. They probably aren’t. Check his nightstand, his closet, and his bathroom. If he’s hiding anything from his wife, those are likely the places they’ll be.”

She checked the screen downstairs, saw McNab with his long tail of blond hair under a big, wooly cap with striped earflaps. And to her surprise, her former partner and the captain of EDD. Feeney, his wiry ginger hair uncovered, and his hands deep in the pockets of the magic coat she’d given him.

She hit the locks, opened the door. “Didn’t figure I’d rate the brass.”

“Gotta get out in the field now and then, kid. And with you shooting for three in three days, you rate. What the hell kind of door is this?”

“Wild to the mega,” McNab said, “and deep into bizarro.”

“It’s just the entrance into bizarro. There’s a room upstairs that’d curl McNab’s hair.”

“S and M?” Feeney asked.

“Dolls. A zillion dolls.”

Feeney hissed through his teeth. “Sick fucks.” Hands still in his pockets, Feeney lifted his droopy eyes to the gold chandelier. “That’s where they’d want to hang him. Right over those weird fat fish. Good security. No forced entry on the other two, right?”

“None, and unlikely here. You can clear that, but here’s the rundown as I see it.”

While she briefed them, McNab went over the security on the front entrance.

“Crotch tattoos and sidepieces.” Feeney shrugged. “It’s a stretch to sex club—more a rape club. But you got two of them done the way they were done? Somebody’s really pissed off.”

“They start off stunning them in the balls, Feeney, and sodomize them using the ever-popular hot poker. That’s more than really pissed.”

“Can’t argue. It’s got sex all over it, and it don’t feel like any of that woman scorned crap. Me and the boy here will take the electronics. You got a club, you got a roster or rules put down somewhere.”

“Nobody came through the front without the codes,” McNab told them. “I’ll check the other doors, the windows. She-Body upstairs?”

“Yeah—no ass-grabbing. Like I said, he was expecting company, and it wasn’t the first time. We need to cross off breakin, but he let her in—or them. So he knew at least the one he was planning on sexing, but she didn’t worry him. He knew about Edward Mira, had to. But he wasn’t worried.”