Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(71)

“Nose is thin, but not sharp. She had a stud in it at one time, I could just see the piercing. Right side.”

“Missed that,” Peabody murmured.

“You were on her left. Just a little wider on the nose. Yeah, that’s good. Wide mouth, wide with a full top lip, a slight overbite. Eyebrows, forgot the eyebrows.”

Eve closed her eyes, brought them back. “Thick, slight arch, medium brown—long lashes, medium brown. Ears close to the head, triple piercings on both. Two in the lobes, one up in the cartilage. Lobes a little longer than that.”

Roarke came in, silent as a cat. He caught the drift, said nothing, and continued to her command center to get his own coffee.

“Medium brown hair, length undetermined. She wore it pulled back, and from the thickness of the roll at the back of her neck, I’m going to guess about Peabody’s length, maybe slightly longer.”

Eve studied the sketch. “Bring the mouth in a hair, and a little fuller on the bottom lip, a little more narrow on the forehead.”

As Yancy made minute adjustments, Peabody shook her head. “That’s her. That’s excellent.”

Yancy looked at Eve. “Any changes?”

“No, that’s solid.”

“You make my job easy.”

“Not done yet. Second woman, Peabody. Take it.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Relax.” Yancy gave her his easy smile. “This won’t hurt a bit.”

Eve left them to it, and head-nodded Roarke into the kitchen.

“I’m going to go over all this when McNab gets here so I only have to say it once.”

“All right.” He leaned in, kissed her. “You’d object to that once we’re in cop mode.”

“I’m still in cop mode. I don’t know how long this is going to take.”

“Understood. Just tell me this before we begin. What did you think of Stanton Wilkey?”

Eve bared her teeth. “I want to bury the bastard.”

“All right then. Let’s get started on making that happen.”





15


When they stepped back out, Eve saw Yancy guiding Peabody through the process. Giving them room, Eve listened, nodded in approval.

Her partner rolled into it.

“Mirium Wilkey,” Eve murmured to Roarke. “Wilkey’s daughter. She said she had a place in the city. How about you find that for me?”

“Happy to. I’ll just use your command center, as you’re itching to add some details to Peabody’s description.”

Okay, maybe, but … “I want her to do it, and she’s doing better than okay.”

Roarke took her chair anyway as she began circling the board.

She heard McNab’s prance approaching, and stepped out of the office. He pranced beside Feeney.

“Didn’t expect you.”

“I gave the boy a ride, and I didn’t want to miss all this.”

“I sure as hell can use you. Peabody’s working with Yancy, so keep it zipped, Detective.”

“Got it.”

“Go get coffee, fizzies, whatever the hell. They’re close to finished.”

While they headed in and straight to the kitchen, Eve wandered to the table to look at the sketch.

“What have I missed?” Peabody asked her.

“Not much. It’s solid.”

“But something? Yancy really takes you back, but I feel like I’m not right there.”

“Her complexion’s a little more sallow, and she has some sag under the chin.”

“That! The sag!”

“The eyes are good, except she had little pockets—not bags, just little pockets—under them. And she got a deep line between her eyebrows when she concentrated on pouring the tea. It’s left a more shallow one from pulling her brows together over the years.”

“I keep reminding myself not to do that.” Peabody rubbed her fingers between her eyebrows.

“That’s her. That’s good. She’s about fifty—looks older by a few years. No work, no makeup, but about fifty if you factor that. You can run facial rec on this one, Yancy.”

“Not the younger one.”

“You can try it, but they wiped her data, so it’s next to zero you’ll hit anything. I want to see if they did the same with the older woman.”

“I’ll run it now. Nice working with you, Peabody. You got sharp skills.”

“I’ll brief everybody while that runs.” Rolling into what felt like real progress, Eve turned. “Everybody grab a seat.”

“You can brief over pizza,” Roarke said. “Your troops need a meal, Lieutenant.”

She wanted to object, maybe would have, but he’d said the magic word.

Pizza.

“Fine.”

“McNab, help me set up a table. Peabody, would you order up what suits?”

“I’m all over it and back.”

“Hit,” Yancy allowed, and had Eve moving back to him and looking over his shoulder.

“Let’s get it up on-screen.”

“I’m not on your system.”

To solve that, Roarke stepped over. “If you wouldn’t mind?” With Yancy’s assent, Roarke took his portable, synched it, and threw the data to Eve’s wall screen.