Desperation in Death (In Death #55)(20)

“Thirteen. Both of them. I don’t know the status of the other as yet. I wasn’t expecting to see you until I got home.”

“I was in the area.”

“That’s happening a lot.”

“A project,” he said vaguely. “Am I seeing this correctly? The second girl’s blood found on the first’s body? You don’t think one child killed the other.”

“I don’t. Not that it can’t and doesn’t happen, but not here.” And since he was here, why not use him? “Tell me what you see when you look at them—the ID shots.”

“Lovely young girls. Exceptionally lovely. Different types, certainly. The second looks defiant, a little angry, while the first seems happy to pose for the ID.”

“I think the exceptionally lovely plays in. Mina Cabot was abducted last November—early November—on her way home from soccer practice. Devon, Pennsylvania. Nice, affluent neighborhood. I think Dorian Gregg—Freehold, New Jersey, the hard side of town, abusive, neglectful asshole of a mother—ran off. She had a history of it—then got grabbed. I don’t know where or when, but I think the two of them got out from wherever they were being held together.”

Considering her time, she filled him in quickly.

Even before she’d finished, he took her by the shoulders. And the worry in his eyes had those shoulders going tight.

“Eve, working a case like this? Young girls, abductions when you’ve barely come off another abduction investigation. Add the high probability of rape, abuse, trafficking. I can already see it’s wearing on you.”

“I can handle it. I am handling it.”

“Don’t ask me not to see it wearing on you. Don’t dismiss that.”

She heard the edge, and stepped back from him. “I’m not.” Bullshit, she admitted. “Fine, I am, because I have to work the case. I don’t have time to delve into my psyche. I don’t know Dorian Gregg’s status. Did she get away, get caught? Is she alive, is she dead? I don’t know, and until I do, I’ve got two victims.”

His voice stayed absolutely, perfectly, infuriatingly calm.

“It never occurred to you to assign another team to this, or give Peabody the lead?”

She didn’t know exactly what hackles were, but she knew when hers rose, hard and sharp.

“No. You need to back off because I don’t have time to get into this with you right now. I have the family coming, then the second girl’s useless excuse of a caseworker. I’ve got some threads to pull, and I need a consult with Mira, and she’s probably going to be gone for the day before I get through the rest.”

“Invite her and Dennis to dinner.”

Annoyed and cruising toward pissed, Eve shoved at her hair. “I don’t want to socialize with her. I need a consult.”

“A working dinner,” he countered in that same even tone. “I’ll grill some steaks. I’ve got the hang of it now. Summerset can take care of the rest. You’ll have time to do what you need to do.”

“And you—” She knew him. “You’d see what the shrink thinks about how I’m handling it.”

“Yes. If you don’t think I’m entitled to that, you’re wrong. It’s probably even somewhere in your bloody Marriage Rules. I’ll stop by her office and take care of it.”

“Good luck getting past her dragon. Her admin,” Eve said when he looked blank.

Then he smiled, and she hissed out a breath. “Never mind. You won’t have any trouble there. But I haven’t said this works for me.”

“You want me to back off? Make it work. I’ll see you at home.”

Pissed at her, she thought when he walked out. A little bit—maybe more than a little—pissed at her. And damn it, if anyone should be pissed, it was her. Nowhere in her Marriage Rules did it say he could walk into her office and question her competency on a case.

Nowhere.

And they’d get down and dirty on that one the minute she had time.

She started to sit, to take two minutes to clear her head, when Peabody signaled from the bullpen.

“The Cabots are here, Lieutenant.”

“Take them to the conference room. I’ll be right there.”





5





The Cabots sat at the conference table with their son between them. A unit, Eve thought when she walked in, bound together by grief. Each carried the pallor of the exhausted, and the stricken eyes of the shattered.

She saw Oliver Cabot reach for his wife’s hand when Eve approached the table.

“Dr. and Ms. Cabot, Ethan, I’m Lieutenant Dallas. Again, I’m very sorry for your loss, and appreciate you coming in to speak with us.”

Eve took a seat next to Peabody. Instinct had her speaking to the mother first. “This is hard, and the questions we’ll ask may make it even harder. I promise you, they’re necessary for us to find who hurt Mina.”

“Nothing you can say or do could make this harder than it is.” Rae Cabot, her bright hair drawn severely back in a tail, held Eve’s gaze with her devastated eyes. “All these months we believed—had to believe—we’d find her and bring her home. Now that’s gone, and Mina’s gone. Nothing can make it harder.”