Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(58)

“Using your face and body to shill products? Probably not on the approved list for women.” When they reached the garage, Eve gestured to Peabody’s PPC, took a look at the woman she hoped to interview.

“Yeah, she’s got the looks. It’s probably not approved to model half-naked, either.”

With sun-kissed red hair flowing to her waist, Marcia Piper wore nothing but strategically placed black straps as she posed—pouty lips, slumberous eyes, milk-white skin, and the slim, angular body models sold.

“Plug in the address,” Eve told Peabody as they got into the car.

After she had, Peabody continued to read about Marcia’s modeling career. “She traveled all over the world, and talked about moving into acting. Then bang, that’s that.”

Pondering it, she sat back. “I can see giving it all up if you just want to be a mom, or you burned out on all the travel and hype and all that. You fall in love, and everything changes for you. A lot of women choose that—men, too—and focus in on making a home, raising kids.”

“But she fits the pattern. Meet the guy, join the order, get married, give up everything outside that.”

“Yeah. I guess we’ll find out which it is.”

Peabody paused to glance at her signaling ’link.

“McNab. No texts, e-or v-mails, no calls or contacts on Gwen’s ’link after her texts with Merit Caine.”

“That’s looking like a rabbit hole. What about a tracker? Did he find anything?”

“He did, and he’s working on extracting it. The ’link’s chewed up some, and he doesn’t want to damage the tracker. He’s working on it.”

“Good enough,” Eve decided, and drove to Tribeca.

The Pipers had a skinny post-Urban townhouse in a row of skinny post-Urban townhouses. Someone had tried to cheer theirs up by painting the door a bold blue and adding window boxes full of flowers to the windows that flanked it.

At the moment, Eve could see someone in one of those windows spraying something on the glass and vigorously rubbing it.

With only a handful of cars on the block, she found a spot easily and pulled to the curb.

Regularly spaced trees, tall and slim, ran along the sidewalk.

“Not what you’d call a pretty or bustling neighborhood,” Peabody remarked. “But it’s really clean and really quiet.”

“Barely feels like New York.”

Eve saw another woman scrubbing her front stoop as if she would shortly dine on it, and another with a kid in a pack on her back carrying two bulging cloth bags into the house next-door to the Pipers’.

“What do you bet this whole block is members? It’s uniform, cleaner than clean. Nobody’s hanging out or strolling along on a really nice day.”

Peabody looked around and hunched her shoulders. “That would be just creepy.”

“Yeah, it would. I bet it is.”

The woman in the window stopped, stared when Eve and Peabody walked toward the blue door.

Distress ran over her face. Not curiosity, not irritation, clear distress.

And, Eve thought, she looked like the tired ghost of the woman in the black straps.

She wore an oversize striped shirt over black workout pants. She’d hacked off what seemed like a yard of that red hair. What was left she’d dragged back in a tail.

The bones were still there, Eve noted, that foundation of beauty, but rather than luminous, the skin looked pallid; instead of bold, the eyes carried shadows.

Rather than knock, since Marcia clearly saw her, Eve just held up her badge.

She saw fear first, then Marcia rushed from the window. The door, after several locks disengaged, burst open.

“What is it? What’s wrong? Did Larry have an accident?”

“No, Ms. Piper. I’m sure your husband’s fine. We’re here about another matter.”

“What do you want?”

“We’d like to come in.”

“Why? My children are upstairs napping. This is nap time, it’s nap time. I have housework to finish before they wake up.”

“We’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”

“I don’t let strangers into the house.”

“Ma’am, we’re the police. You can contact Cop Central and verify that.”

“I don’t know you. I’m not letting you into the house when my children are sleeping.”

“All right. Maybe one of your neighbors can answer some questions about you and your husband.”

Fear shot back. “I don’t want you talking about me and Larry with the neighbors.”

“We’ll talk to you, or talk to them.”

“Five minutes. Just five minutes.”

She struck Eve as nervy as a woman holding a hot wire. Jerky movements, anxious glances toward the stairs.

The living area was as shining, sparkling clean as the windows. Not a single toy in sight, not a trace of kid debris. The air smelled like an orange grove in full bloom.

And clearly, under the oversize shirt, Marcia was carrying number four.

Marcia gripped her cleaning solution. She didn’t invite them to sit. “What do you want?”

“We’d like to ask you some questions about Natural Order.”

“I don’t have to talk to you about that. We have freedom of religion.”