Calculated in Death (In Death #36)(50)

“I see.”

“It didn’t bother me, in the dream. It didn’t upset me or twist me up. I just told her to f**k off.”

Mira beamed at her as if she’d won a gold medal. “Perfect. Progress.”

“I guess. The thing is, her being there, it gave me that angle. I don’t know why exactly, except for the fact she never thought of me, never put me first—or anywhere. She not only didn’t protect me, she was one of the monsters under the bed. Mothers are supposed to think of their kids. You don’t have to say she wasn’t my mother in any sense but the DNA,” Eve said before Mira could. “I get that. I’m dealing with that. But it turned it on Marta. And I realized she thought of her kids, of her family. She’d copied the files to her home unit, but she didn’t tell her killers. They’d have gone after the husband, at least they’d have gone after the files. She knew that. I don’t know if she believed they’d kill her anyway or not. But I believe she’d have died before she put her family in the crosshairs.

“Anyway, it made a difference to me, when I woke up, when I came out of it. Thinking how Stella would have killed me herself if she risked so much as a paper cut. And how this woman would’ve died to protect her family. I slept easier, I think, knowing that.”

“You’re a resilient woman, Eve. Nothing Stella did will ever break you.”

“Dented me some. But I’m doing okay. I wanted you to know I’m doing okay.”

“I’m here when you are, and I’m here when you’re not.”

“I know. That helps me do okay. I’ve got to get back. Thanks for the time.”

Mira rose to walk her to the door. “I’m looking forward to the premiere.”

“Oh, man.”

With a laugh, Mira patted Eve’s shoulder. “I’m prepared to be absolutely dazzled by the celebrities, the fashion, the glamour. I made Dennis buy a new tux. He’s going to look so handsome.”

“He always looks good.” Eve’s soft spot for Dennis Mira smoothed out some of the anxiety over the event. “If I don’t close this before, you can get an up-front look at my suspects. Plenty of them are going to be there.”

“More excitement.”

“I guess.” A little surprised at Mira’s attitude, Eve headed out.

She decided to swing into EDD, check on McNab’s progress, and spitball it with Feeney if he had the time. She braced herself for the noise, the constant movement, the saturation of colors that looked as though they’d soaked in neon then baked on the rings of Saturn.

She found McNab chair-dancing in his cube, his bony butt bouncing, narrow shoulders jiggling as he talked to the vic’s office comp in the incomprehensible language of geek.

She tapped those rocking shoulders, half expecting him to jump as he was so obviously in his own world. But he only swiveled around.

“Hey, Dallas.”

“How’s it going here?”

“It’s up. I’m getting the same buried code as I did on the building security. Same guy hacked it, the same method. It’s like a fingerprint.”

“So you said. How can I use the fingerprint?”

“When I get done here, I figured I’d do some research, see if I can find out who wrote the code. It’s a style, you know. Like shoes.”

Shoes and fingerprints, she thought. E-style.

“Okay.”

“Here’s the thing. I’m not seeing any access of her outgoings. Me, if I’m hacking in, I’m hacking all, and looking through. But it’s like the job was get the files, compromise the unit, move on. I don’t think whoever did this bothered to find out she’d copied them. She did it from a disc, see?”

He gestured to the screen where she understood nothing at all.

“If you say so.”

“I totally do. It’s right there. I figure accountant types are anal types, right? Back up your backups, then make a spare copy in case the world blows up. So she backed up the files on the discs, then went ahead and copied to her home unit from the discs, one disc for each file. Me, I’d’ve put it all on one, just separate docs, but the one for each is careful to analyze.”

“Okay.”

“She probably had the backup with her in the briefcase. In fact, she pretty much had to have them with her with the analysis factor. So when they got them, they figured they were covered. You have to be anal to deal with analysis.”

That she got. “So, it’s reading to you like someone got an assignment, did exactly what that entailed. Nothing more. No ‘let’s just be thorough.’”

“That’s the zip. Most hackers are going to play around some, scoot around. Hey, you’re in there anyway. This one didn’t. Straight through, no detours.” McNab zoomed his arm through the air. “At least nothing I’ve found yet.”

“Good, it fits.”

She left him to his bouncing and rocking, wove her way through the prancing and dancing traffic of other e-geeks to poke her head in the door of Feeney’s mercifully calm, dull-colored, and motionless office.

He sat at his desk in a beige shirt. As he still wore a shit-brown jacket over it she assumed he’d come in from the field. He’d loosened his shit-brown tie but hadn’t pulled it off, so he might have planned to go back out again. His hair, a combination of ginger and salt sprang untidily around his sleepy basset hound face.