Ceremony in Death (In Death #5)(83)

“You called Forte.”

“He’s my mate.” Isis lifted her chin. “I have no secrets from him, and I depend on him.”

“He’d have been angry.”

“No.” Eyes level, she shook her head. “Concerned, yes. We cast a circle, performed a rite for protection and for purification. We were content. I should have seen,” she continued, with regret shimmering in her voice. “I should have seen that Alice was their goal. Pride made me believe they would turn on me, that they wouldn’t dare touch her while she was under my protection. Maybe I wasn’t as honest with you as I might have been, Dallas, because without my pride blinding me, I know Alice might still be alive.”

Guilt was there, Eve decided as she drove off to pick up Peabody. And guilt could lead to retribution. Frank and Alice had been killed by a different method than Lobar and Wineburg. The deaths were connected, she was certain, but the connection didn’t mean they’d all been committed by the same hand.

She wanted to get back to Central, run a probability scan. There was enough data for it now. And if the numbers warranted it, she could go to Whitney and request the manpower for a twenty-four-seven watch on both groups of suspects.

Damn the budget, she thought as she fought traffic. She’d need a high probability ratio to wangle the expense of time, money, and manpower. But Peabody and Feeney weren’t enough to keep round-the-clock tabs on everyone involved.

Including Jamie, she thought. The kid was looking for trouble. She believed he was smart enough to find it.

Peabody hopped in when Eve swung to the curb at Seventh and Forty-seventh. Across the sidewalk, the rowdy noise and computerized warfare of a VR den spilled out of the open doorway. It nicked the ordinance on noise pollution, but Eve figured the proprietors were willing to risk a fine or two in order to lure in tourists and the bored.

“He in there?”

“Yes, sir.” Peabody looked hopefully at the rising steam from a glida grill. She could smell fresh soy burgers and oil fries. It was near enough to lunch to make her stomach yearn and her heart sink at the thought of facing the slop served at the Eatery back at Central. “Do you mind if I grab something from this cart?”

Eve shot an impatient look out the window. “Aren’t you supposed to starve a cold or something?”

“I never could keep that straight. Anyway,” Peabody took a long deep breath through her nose, “I feel great. That tea did the trick.”

“Yeah, yeah. Make it quick, and eat it on the way.”

“Do you want anything?” Peabody asked over her shoulder as she pushed out of the car.

“No. Snap it up and let’s roll.”

Drugs, sex, Satan, and power, Eve mused. A religious war? Hadn’t humans fought and died for beliefs since the dawn of time? Animals fought for territory; people fought for territory as well. And for gain, for passion, for beliefs. For the hell of it.

They killed, she thought, very much for the same reasons.

“Got two of everything,” Peabody announced and set the thin cardboard filled with food on the seat between them. “Just in case. If you don’t want it, I can probably choke it down. It’s the first time I’ve had an appetite in two days.”

She bit into the loaded burger while Eve waited for a break in traffic. “The kid led me on quite a route. Walked off his mad for ten blocks, caught an uptown tram, got off, headed west. And talk about appetite. He hit a cart on Sixth and downed two real pig dogs, and a mega scoop of fries. Hit another a block down for an orange Freezie, which happens to be a personal favorite of mine. Before he went into the VR den, he tagged this guy for three candy bars.” “Growing boy,” Eve commented, and shot out like a bullet when she saw a slim gap in traffic. Horns bellowed in protest. “As long as he’s eating junk and playing VR, he should stay out of trouble.”

Inside the whoops and whistles of the arcade, Jamie sneered at the holograms battling on his personal screen. He listened to the exchange in Eve’s car, courtesy of his earpiece, and the micro recorder and location device he’d planted.

Yeah, it had been worth the risk, he decided, diddling with the VR controls with his mind wandering. Of course, it hadn’t been that much of a challenge. Not only was the cop car a rolling heap of refuse, but its security system was rinky. At least when it came up against the skills of the master of electronics.

Dallas wouldn’t tell him what was going on, he thought grimly and destroyed the holo image of an urban tough. He’d just keep tabs on things his own way. And he’d deal with things his own way.

Whoever had killed his sister had better prepare to die.

Eve ran the probability program with mixed results. The computer agreed, by a ninety-six percentile, that the four cases were connected. The numbers dropped ten points when it came to tagging different perpetrators.

Charles Forte scored high on the index, as did Selina Cross. For Alban, she continued to run up against insufficient data.

Frustrated, she buzzed Feeney. “I’ve got some data I want to download on you. For a probability scan. Can you see what you can do with the numbers?”

He wiggled his brows. “You want them higher or lower?”

She laughed, shook her head. “I want them higher, but I want it solid. Could be I’m missing something.”

“Shoot it over, I’ll take a look.”