Born in Death (In Death #23)(64)

She dipped her hands in her pockets. “Or he could’ve had a partner circling the blocks, and we’re screwed on this angle.”

Or they paid in cash, Roarke thought. Used a stolen vehicle. Eve would be considering those possibilities as well, he knew, so didn’t bother to comment. “If she was taken the way you’re theorizing, it was planned out, timed. Do you think she was stalked?”

“I’d say the probability of it being a random snatch is low, but I’m going to run it. Somebody knew her routine, her schedule, her routes. Somebody wanted her and/or the baby she’s carrying specifically.”

“Leans toward the father, then, doesn’t it?”

“High on the list. All I have to do is identify him.”

“I’d like to think that would mean he’d be less likely to hurt her or the child, but that’s probably not true.” He thought of his own mother, and what she’d suffered at the hands of his father, and tried to shake that off. “I’ve seen too much of what happens in these circumstances with the women at Duchas.”

“Primary COD in pregnant women is violence at the hands of the father.”

“That’s a bloody sad state of affairs.” He looked out over the street, over the people who rushed by in the cold, blowing air. But for a moment he saw the alleyways of Dublin, and the hulking figure of Patrick Roarke. “A bloody sad commentary on the human condition.”

Because she thought she understood where his thoughts had gone, she took his hand. “If he took her, we’ll find him. And her.”

“Before he does for her—or them.” He looked at her now, and she saw the past haunting his eyes. “That’s the key, isn’t it.”

“Yeah. That’s the key.” Eve shook her head as they continued to walk. “She told somebody who he was. Maybe not once she moved to New York, but back in England. Somebody knows who he is.”

“She might have moved to New York to get away from him.”

“Yeah, I’m circling that. So, let’s go home and try to arrow in.”

Tandy Willowby, age twenty-eight.”

Eve sat at her desk in her home office, reading the data Roarke had already run. “Born London. Parents Willowby, Annalee and Nigel. No sibs. Mother deceased, 2044. Tandy would’ve been twelve. Father remarried, 2049, to Marrow, Candide—divorced with one offspring from first marriage. Briar Rose, female, born 2035.”

She continued scrolling. “Willowby, Nigel, deceased 2051. Bad luck. But that leaves her with a stepmother and stepsister still alive and kicking. Computer, contact information for Willowby, Candide, or Marrow, Candide, and Marrow, Briar Rose, London. Use birth dates and identification numbers in file already running.”

Working…

“Eve, if you’re thinking of contacting them now, I’ll remind you it’s after one in the morning in England.”

She scowled, glanced at her wrist unit. “That’s such a pisser. Okay, we take that in the morning.”

The computer told her Candide now lived in Sussex while Briar Rose retained a London residence.

“Okay, back to Tandy. See here, she was employed over six years at this dress shop in London. Carnaby Street. Position, manager. Kept the same apartment there—”

“That would be ‘flat,’” Roarke interrupted.

“Why would it be flat? How can you live—oh.” She rubbed the back of her neck as she cued in. “Right, she’d call it a flat, which makes no sense to me. But she kept it, just like she kept the same employer, for more than six years. She settles in, she roots, she’s habitual. We’ll want to talk to the owner of the shop.”

Now she leaned back, stared up at the ceiling. “If she had a guy, I bet she kept him a good chunk of time, too. She doesn’t bounce around. But she relocates not just to another part of England, even of Europe, but goes three thousand miles. Gives up her longtime home, longtime job. That’s not a whim, not for someone like Tandy. That’s a big step, and one she would have thought about a lot, one she had to have a strong reason for taking.”

“The baby.”

“Yeah, I’d say it comes back to that. She put an ocean between someone or something and the kid. Strong reason, or she’d be nesting in her flat in London.”

“A creature of habit,” Roarke put in. “As were your other two victims.”

“Let’s hope Tandy makes out better than they did. I’m going to set up a board for her, and do a timeline.”

“All right. Unless there’s something specific I can do for you here, you might send me some of those blind accounts on the Copperfield/ Byson case. I’ll start looking at numbers.”

The fact was, he wanted to step away—at least for the time being—from the thought of a woman so completely vulnerable at the mercy of someone who wished her harm. Someone, he thought, she might have loved once.

Eve stopped for a moment, turned to him. “If I’d been in your place on that one, I’d’ve told Whitney to kiss my ass.”

“What?” He pulled himself back, into the now. “Ah, well, all in all, I’d rather have your lips in that vicinity than his.”

“Find me something useful, they might find their way there.”

“And my incentive keeps rising.”