Born in Death (In Death #23)(87)

“Maybe I should.”

She came around the desk, and they held onto each other. She could stand on her own—God knows she’d proven it. But it was an amazing gift to have a man you could lean on without either of you thinking you were weak.

“I postponed that winter holiday deal we were planning a couple of times now.”

“Hmm.” With his eyes closed, he swayed a little with her, drawing in the scent of her hair, her skin. “Things came up.”

“They’ll always come up. As soon as Mavis pops that kid out, and we’ve done our duty, we’re going.”

“Are we?”

“You got my word.” She drew back to look him in the eye. “I need you, the just you and me time. I don’t know why I let myself forget that. Besides, I’m thinking after the doing-our-duty deal in the fun house that is the birthing room, we’re really going to need to go somewhere where we can stay zoned on alcohol and sex for a few days.”

“You just had to bring that up.”

“What? Sex?” She lifted her hands, patted both of his cheeks. “It’s wormed its way into my brain like a tumor. If I have to think about it, so do you.”

“I always think about sex.”

“Funny guy.” She pressed her lips to his just as his computer signaled his task complete. “That my data?” She pulled away, grabbed up the hard copy that spit out.

“So ends a charming interlude.”

Ignoring him, she scanned various properties, holdings, addresses, then zeroed in on one that made her smile spread, saber-sharp. “And look here, Madeline has herself a pied-à-terre on East End Avenue, off of Eighty-sixth.”

“I take it we’re about to pay another Sunday call.”

“I can handle it on my own if you want to hang here.”

“With the ticking bomb of explosive hormones? No, thank you.”

When they stepped back into Eve’s office, Leonardo sat alone at the auxiliary unit, brows knit as he studied the screen.

“Mavis?”

“Oh, peeing. Again.” He smiled. “She has the cutest little bladder these days.”

“Adorable. Tell her I’ve got to follow up this lead on the homicides while it’s hot. I’ll be back as soon as I can. If you hit on anything that seems familiar, even like a maybe, earmark it. We’ll give it a push when I get back. Peabody and McNab get back first, give it to them.”

“We will. Dallas, Roarke, would it be all right if we stayed here tonight? She’ll just want to come back tomorrow, or sit down at Central if you’re working there. I hate to have her going up- and downtown when she’s so worn down.”

“You’re always welcome,” Roarke told him. “Why don’t you ask Summerset to fix her a soother? He’d know what was safe for her and the baby.”

“You ought to take one yourself,” Eve added. Then because she knew he loved her friend, she stepped to Leonardo, gave his wide shoulder a squeeze. “Tell her Tandy’s in my head. I do some of my best work there.”

“She believes in you. That’s getting her through this.”

But no pressure, Eve thought wearily as they headed out.

“You drive,” she told Roarke. “I’m going to do some of that work in my head.”

She tipped back her seat a few inches, closed her eyes, and brought Tandy into focus.

Young, healthy, single, pregnant, no close family ties. Relocated. Why not keep in contact with friends/coworkers back home?

Hiding?

From what? From whom?

Father of the baby? Possible, but unlikely. No bitching to new coworkers or new pregnant pal about the lousy bastard who knocked you up.

Eve thought of Tandy’s apartment. A nest, Peabody had said. Not a hidey-hole. Hiding, maybe, but not obsessively. More like the fresh start angle.

The like crime victims had been similar there, too. Relocation—at least initially on the other Brit vic. New job, new place, new life. So maybe it was more getting away than hiding.

Getting away from what? From whom?

One woman dead, two missing. She’d get a doctor—Louise or Mira, or maybe Mavis’s midwife—to look over the autopsy report on the Middlesex vic. If the vic was injured, dead or dying, the killer might have tried to carve the baby out.

And God, that was gross.

No attempt to hide the body. Dump it instead near the vic’s home base. Away from where she’d been held, Eve thought. Away from the killer’s location.

But Belego never surfaced, alive or dead. Take the baby? Dispose of the body? Logical, she mused. Cops are looking for an abductee, pregnant or with infant. Or a runaway. Changed location once, change again.

They’re not looking for a nice healthy baby newly placed with some nice couple. In the country maybe, well away from the location of the abduction.

Healthy baby, priority one. Can’t put a woman that far along on a shuttle or any air transpo. Mavis said she couldn’t travel after her—what had it been—thirtieth week?

“She’s still in New York,” Eve mumbled. “Unless they drove her outside the city. Not far, though. They wouldn’t want to put any more stress on her than necessary. Any stress on her is stress on the fetus. And she’s still alive.”

“Because?”