Secrets in Death (In Death #45)(88)

“Only three that hit the mark, and I transferred the results. You can look at them on screen here.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?”

“I had other things to say.”

She hissed out a breath, had to gnaw over his response. Was forced to see his point. “So we’re all fine and good, right? Let’s see what you got.”

“I’ll do just that. Eat your oatmeal.”

Eve rolled her eyes, but shoveled in more.





18

Roarke brought a half dozen names and ID shots on screen. Eve dismissed two instinctively.

“Take off the top left, bottom right.”

“Why?”

“She was vain, pretty seriously vain. I don’t see her using an ID that hits significantly older than she was. Both of those are.”

Though he wasn’t sure he agreed—clever concealment trumped vanity to his mind—he pulled the two off screen, enlarged the others.

Studying the four remaining, Eve ate her oatmeal without thinking about it. “Ditch top right.”

“Because?”

“Average looks.”

“That’s certainly scientific,” he said, but complied.

“That one, bottom right. Angela Terra. Terra’s not a planet, is it?”

“Earth.”

“A fancy name for Earth? Interesting.” She switched to bacon. “And possible. What about Juno? Carly Mae Juno.”

“Juno’s an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.”

“Hmm. Connected to Mars, so you’d think maybe. But it’s not big enough. Important enough.”

“You could take another angle. She’s the wife of Zeus. A goddess.”

“Goddess ranks high on the scale.” Not bad, Eve thought, then reading the data, waved the bacon at the screen. “An assistant manager of a twenty-four/seven? No way Mars would settle. And that one, Brite Luna—seriously?—the proprietor of Moonstruck Life Embracing Therapy? It’s just embarrassing.”

“Which leaves you with Angela Terra. I’m not a cop,” Roarke began. “But I have some experience with alternate identification.”

“Really?” Eve’s voice was desert dry as she picked up her coffee.

“In some cases, it’s strategic to create something close to reality, and in others it’s advantageous to go in the other direction, particularly if that direction is average, quiet, something that goes unnoticed. A low-level job, an unremarkable face.”

She wondered how many he’d used—how many times he’d become someone else to slip through the fingers of authority, to outwit a competitor or enemy.

“Maybe, but I don’t figure she’s using this ID for anything but establishing another residence, maybe some financials. It’s not for traveling, for daily use,” Eve pointed out. “See there, Terra’s the president and CEO of Terra Consultants. Top dog, that’s the style. Age thirty-six, put on a red wig and fiddle with some facial enhancements, Mars could pull off that face if she had to use the ID. Height and weight are in line. And check the address? It’s just a couple blocks from Du Vin, a location she used routinely.”

“You make some points.”

“We’ll check all of them. It’s easy enough. We do runs, we knock on doors. But I start with Angela Terra.”

Eve rose, walked to her closet while Roarke brought the six images back to study them.

“Who’d be second on your list?”

“The goddess,” she called out. “Because she might have gone for, what’s it? Irony. Maybe she amused herself with the twenty-four/seven clerk. I’ll start the runs in the car on the way, have Peabody meet me at the first address.”

“You could simply contact each of these by ’link.”

“Face-to-face is better. If there’s a face to—ha—face. If we hit, one of those faces is in the morgue and unavailable for interview. Why are there so many clothes in here? It makes me clothes-blind.”

He got up, walked to where she stood in a pair of slate-gray trousers and a support tank and a look of baffled frustration. Tapping a drawer on one of the built-ins, he glanced at the contents, pulled out a sweater with a modest V-neck.

“Try this.”

She stared suspiciously. “I was working toward black.”

He tossed the aubergine cashmere to her. “Shock the world and go for a bit of color.”

“You should talk.”

“I might be wearing red boxers as we speak.”

“Yeah?” She dragged the sweater on. “Let’s see.”

Smiling, eyebrows arched, he reached for his belt buckle. “Well now, there’s plenty of room in here, isn’t there?”

“Never mind.” She stared at the line of jackets in the gray section, decided to just save time. Waved her hand at them.

Roarke stepped over, plucked one out that had thin cuffs of leather that matched the sweater. She might have bitched, but she had that weakness for leather, and he knew it.

He strolled to the boots, lifted a pair the precise color of the sweater. Then laughed at her horrified expression.

“It was worth it. If you never wear them, it was worth having them made just for the look on your face.”