Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(39)

“How many more do you have to go?”

“Triple it,” she said and pressed her fingers to her eyes.

“Put it on auto. No, it’s not that late,” he said before she could protest. “At least not in our world, but you can come back fresh to the new data in the morning. You’ve been at this more than twelve hours.”

“Without a single, solid lead.”

“But with reams of information, with three of the girls identified, with several eliminated either as victims or possible killer.”

“Okay.” She rubbed her face again. “It feels like nothing but data crunching at this point anyway.”

She needed to find more, eliminate more, she thought as she ordered her machine to continue the current tasks on auto. Talk to more people, look them in the eye, she told herself as she walked out with Roarke. Go back to the crime scene, go back to DeWinter’s sanctum, talk to Lupa’s aunt, track down the pompous f**ker. And take a good, hard look at any male resident who was serving a long-term sentence that began after the murders.

You can’t keep killing young girls from a cage.

She started working the theory in her head while the cat streaked out of her office.

A boy, she speculated, a few years older—charismatic. Wouldn’t he have to be? Luring girls into that empty building. How?

Some, at least some, had to know him, trust him, maybe be attracted to him.

He gets them in there, subdues them.

How?

Drugs? So many of them had substance abuse problems, and the street smarts to score. Maybe he drugged them, then killed them.

How?

As much as she hated it, she had to wait for DeWinter to tell her.

Frustrated, she stepped into the bedroom.

The tree stood by the front window, as it had now for three holidays. The room smelled of pine, and the applewood that simmered in the fireplace.

The cat was curled up dead center of the bed—as if he’d been there for hours.

“We don’t have to do it tonight,” Roarke told her.

She looked at the stack of boxed decorations, shook her head. They’d done this tree together twice before. And they’d continue that tradition for a zillion years if she had her way.

“Tonight’s good. Tonight’s right.” She took his hand, squeezed it. “How about we pour some more wine and get that sucker dressed?”

“How about we pop champagne?”

“Even better.”

8

The first time she’d walked into the bedroom to see a Christmas tree had been a little overwhelming. Now it was simply tradition. The elves could take care of the rest of the house, drape it in lights and tinsel, put up a dozen trees—she wasn’t sure she’d ever counted all of them—but this was theirs.

So with the fire simmering, champagne bubbling, and hokey Christmas music playing in the background, they decorated their personal tree.

The cat uncurled, sat for a moment or two to watch. With a decided lack of interest he stretched—ears to tail—turned his habitual three circles, then settled down for another nap.

“The whole city’s like holiday on Zeus,” Eve commented. “And it’s only going to get worse. Then we’ll have the B and Es where, as traditional as Santa, the Christmas Burglar swoops in, snatches all the presents under the tree, and has them fenced by dawn.”

“Bah humbug.”

“Yeah, that’s his version of ho, ho, ho. Then there’s the shoplifting, the pickpocketing as the tourists flock in with their wallets practically jumping out into the pickpockets’ hands.”

“Ah, happy memories,” Roarke said. “December was always a busy month when I was a boy on the hunt for those jumping wallets.”

“I bet. Back when I was in uniform, you couldn’t keep up with the incident reports on muggings, purse snatchings, and lifted wallets in December.”

She hung a jolly Santa with an overflowing pouch. “Then it gets closer to Christmas and you start getting the domestic disputes, the drunk and disorderlies, the botched self-terminations, the murders, and the holiday favorite, murder-suicide.”

“My cop,” he said affectionately. “What cheerful thoughts she has on this festive occasion.”

“I like it.”

“Murder-suicide? Sorry, darling, I’ll have to disappoint you. Maybe next year.”

“No, Christmas. I didn’t used to. When I was a kid—after Richard Troy,” she qualified. “He’d go out, get plowed, and probably laid. That was a gift, come to think about it. Anyway, after it was always weird if I was in a foster house, and just f**king depressing in a group home, so it wasn’t high on my list of holidays.”

“It wasn’t roasted goose and plum pudding in my memories either. I’d usually go over to a mate’s or a few of us would go out, bang around.”

“Hunting more wallets.”

He sent her a cheerful look. “You have to celebrate somehow, after all.”

“Yeah, you do. I used to take the extra shifts, so cops with families could get the break. And after Mavis and I hooked up, we’d do something.” She studied a shiny silver reindeer. “Why are they reindeer? What kind of a name is that?”

“They need the reins for Santa to navigate the sleigh.”