Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(42)

“Someone she trusted, or someone she thought she could manipulate. Like she did Clipperton.”

“Looking to score. Yeah, it could’ve been.”

She glanced over to the sitting area where the screen ran its financial reports on mute. “Been up long?”

“A bit.”

“I better catch up. Thanks for the coffee service.” She rolled Galahad over, gave his pudge of a belly a rub, then slid out of bed.

When she stepped out of the shower, warm from the drying tube and the cashmere robe, she found him on his pocket ’link with two covered plates and a pot of coffee on the table—and the stream of numbers and symbols still scrolling by on screen.

The man was the god of multitasking, she thought.

She sat beside him, cautiously lifted the dome over the plate. Then did a little butt-on-cushion dance when she found thick slices of French toast and a pretty bowl of mixed berries instead of the oatmeal she’d feared.

She popped a raspberry, poured more coffee—and he ended transmission.

“I thought a morning mind f**k deserved the French toast.”

“It might be worth waking up with one every day. Did you just buy a solar system?”

“Just a minor planet.” He passed her the syrup, watched her drown the bread. “Actually, just a quick conference with Caro, some schedule juggling.”

His über-efficient admin could juggle schedules while balanced on a flaming ball. “You don’t need to shift your stuff around for mine.”

“I wanted a little more time this morning. You’ll be starting in your home office, I assume.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Mine’s to do the same. Things can be rescheduled further if I can be useful. We can’t resume work on the building until you close the case,” he added. “And on a less practical level, I couldn’t begin it until you close the case. These girls aren’t mine, Eve, as they’re yours. But . . .”

“You found them.”

“And need to know their names, their faces, see their killer dealt with as much as you. What we hope to accomplish in that place is to keep the young, the vulnerable, the wounded safe. Those twelve girls epitomize the purpose.”

She wanted to give him the closure, she realized, almost as much as the dead and those they’d left behind.

He wanted to build something good and strong and needed. She wanted to give him those names, so he could.

“It’s going to be someone who lived or worked there. That’s playing the odds, but they’re good odds. It’s not that big a pool. Added to it, it stopped—if DeWinter and Dickhead are right on the estimates, and the remains were all sealed in there approximately fifteen years ago. So the focus starts on someone who lived or worked there who died, relocated, or was put in a cage shortly after that time.”

“Or moved his burial grounds.”

“I thought of that.” She ate while the cat watched her with a mixture of hope and resentment. “But why? It’s working. It’s locked up, no buyers, no plans. And it symbolizes the girls. It’s where those vulnerable and wounded came. He knows how to access it, it’s familiar. Why find another place that’s not so well suited?”

“I hope you’re right about that.”

“If he had to relocate, for some reason, he would’ve found a place in his new area. But so far I haven’t found any like crimes. And damn if I think he could create another mausoleum.”

No, she thought, he didn’t pull this off a second time.

“This one basically fell into his lap,” she pointed out. “There can’t be that many opportunities like it.

“Still, there are spaces in that theory,” she admitted over a mouthful of syrupy toast. Take Lemont Frester. He’s made some money, travels all over. If he’s a sick-f*ck predator he could be carrying on his sick-f*ck predatory ways all over the world—and off it.”

“Happy thought.”

“I’m taking a look at him, but for anyone to pull this sort of thing off for this long? And someone like him, who puts himself in the public eye? It’s hard to swallow it. Not impossible, but it doesn’t go down easy.”

“You’ll interview him today.”

“On my list. Along with nagging DeWinter and her team, notifying Lupa Dison’s next of kin, and getting what I can there, maybe another pass through HPCCY and blah blah blah. Top of the list is ID the nine we have left. So I better get started.”

She rose to go to her closet.

“The black jean-style trousers. The snug ones,” he added, “with the black jacket, the cropped one with the leather trim and the zippers on the sleeves, black tank with a scoop neck, and the black motorcycle style boots. Wear the pants inside the boots.”

She’d paused at her closet to listen to him as he reeled off the wardrobe.

“You’re telling me to wear all black? You’re always trying to paint me up with color.”

“In this case it’ll be the lines and the textures, as well as the unrelieved black. You’ll look just a little dangerous.”

“Yeah?” She brightened right up. “I’m all about that.”

“I’ll be in my office when you’re done.”

She grabbed what he’d listed, dressed, then curious, glanced in the mirror. Damned if he hadn’t hit it again, she thought. She did look just a little dangerous.