Faithless in Death (In Death, #52)(72)

“Okay, here’s Gayle Steenberg,” Eve began. “Age fifty-two, Caucasian, married to Carl Steenberg, age fifty-five, since 2034, two offspring, both male. And the residence listed for the last fifteen years is Natural Order’s Connecticut HQ. Employed by Natural Order as a domestic-slash-domestic trainer at an annual income of a hundred and twenty-five K.”

She caught the scent of pizza. Okay, fine, she thought, she could eat. And she had to bring everyone up to date before they could really dig in.

“Go ahead, set up the food. I’m going to start a deeper run. I want to find out when she joined the order, if her husband and offspring are members. Yancy, if you need to take off, you’re clear. If you want to stick, I’ll fix it.”

“I’d like to help find her—the first one. I’d like to know who she is. And there’s pizza.”

“You’ll earn it.” She went to her command center, set up the runs.

When Roarke came over, kissed the top of her head, she was too engrossed to be embarrassed. “Come, grab a slice with your team. You’ll be the better for it.”

“It’s more of a team than I figured on, and I think we’re going to need to add to it before this is done.”

While she worked, they set up a long table to hold several pies, the plates, the soft drinks, fizzies, coffee. They’d expanded the table where she and Roarke usually had dinner, brought in chairs.

He’d told her before they’d remodeled how it would work when she had a team at home. And, as usual, he’d been right.

Right now everyone talked at once while they stuffed pizza in their faces, guzzled drinks. And somewhere along the line, Roarke had shed his tie, his suit jacket.

He didn’t look like a cop, but he sure looked at ease with them.

She grabbed a slice, and, moving back to the board, took a bite before she began.

“I’m going to start with Ariel Byrd.”

Roarke watched her while she ate with one hand, gestured to the board when necessary with the other. Facts, evidence, timelines, names, and connections all laid out in brisk cop-speak.

Commanding, he thought, she managed commanding even with a half-eaten slice of pepperoni pizza in her hand.

He watched the others as well. Peabody, nibbling slowly on her slice to make it last while she listened. McNab, already on his second slice, tapped his airboots to some inner rhythm.

Yancy, whom Roarke assumed had come in only tonight, ate with one hand, took notes with the other.

And Feeney, taking a pull from a cream soda, kept his eyes on the board, ate absently as Eve did, putting things together, Roarke concluded, as Eve had.

She went back for more pizza as she moved into her interviews, beginning with Tribeca.

“My sense is that entire block, a good two dozen townhomes and duplexes, is occupied by members. We’ll verify that, and verify if the order itself owns the real estate.”

“They do.” Roarke glanced up from his PPC. “As I’ve just checked that for you. Those twenty-six residential properties—double that for occupancy, as each is a duplex—are owned by Utopian Estates, a real estate and development arm of Natural Order.”

“Gotcha another.” A tiny drop of sauce plopped on Feeney’s shit-brown tie as he ate and worked. “Just a quick scan, but I don’t find a single nine-one-one call, not for cops, medical, fire, on that block in the last twenty-four-month period. I can look back more, but it says something.”

“Yeah, it does,” Eve agreed. “It says if they have any problems, they handle it internally or tag up somebody from New Order to handle it.”

“Creepy,” Peabody put in. “The whole block had a seriously creepy vibe.”

“The Pipers pay three K in rent, which is very low for the location and square footage I see. Lawrence Piper, a vice president of the order’s social media division at their headquarters, has an annual reported salary of six hundred and thirty-two K. There’s more there,” Roarke added. “Unreported bonuses perhaps, considering the vehicle he owns, a vacation property and boat, and what I’m seeing here at—as Feeney said—a quick scan, a taste for the finer things.”

“Keep the rent low, keep them in line, hold the block. We had a different vibe, different take with Idina Frank in the East Village.”

She ran them through the interview. Roarke listened even as he did multiple runs and searches on his portable.

He added the Grimsleys to his list when she got to SoHo, but he’d already satisfied himself on a few points.

He’d refine them, considerably, he thought, with more time.

When she outlined the visit to Natural Order and the Wilkeys, the mood changed. McNab’s boots stopped tapping; Feeney’s face went cop blank.

Yancy paused in his note-taking to study the faces on the board as if to imprint them.

“I want to take a minute, if that’s chill.” McNab stood when she finished. “Can I open those doors?”

“Yeah, go ahead. I guess we can all use some air after that.”

“They start them at age five.” Yancy consulted his notes. “That’s what Idina Frank stated. At age five kids are required to attend an approved school and begin indoctrination.”

“Correct. It probably starts younger, but that’s official and regimented. We’ve got threads,” Eve continued, “leading from Byrd’s murder to Natural Order. A lot of threads but no strong knots to tie them to it. We’ve also got a federal agent who infiltrated and has gone dark, a missing person who, according to his sister, began gathering data to expose some aspects of the order. And we have Ella Alice Foxx, who, by all appearances, is inside those gates against her will, who had her identity wiped.”