Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(74)

The image surprised a laugh out of Eve. “Yeah, it is. I wonder if she knows it.”

“I suspect she did when she started experimenting with hair color, eye color, the clothes. Now? It’s who she is.”

He turned in the gates, toward the big, handsome house. “She didn’t recognize Iris from The Club?”

“I didn’t have an ID photo to show her. No Missing Persons ever filed on Iris Kirkwood, no alerts, not here, not where the mother died. She slipped through the cracks. Yes, the system fails sometimes, some of the worst times, but teaching adolescent girls how to run Take the Candy isn’t the solution.”

“I’ve never heard of that con.”

“I made it up. I want some candy.”

He parked in front of the entrance, smiled at her. “Let’s go get some.”

She went in with him, tossed her coat over the newel post.

“What do you intend to do with the addresses Sebastian gave you?”

“Send out some uniforms to canvass and dig up residents and merchants who were around when the girls went missing, show them photos. Poke, prod, pry. It only takes one person,” she continued as they went upstairs, “just one to have seen one or more of the vics with someone. They’ll have been friendly with him, trusted him. She had a secret,” Eve murmured. “Iris.”

“You believe she’s one of them.”

“She sneaks out of the place that’s been her home, where she feels safe, takes her stuffed dog, and never comes back? They never find her, because I believe him when he said they looked. Somebody snatched her or lured her, and/or killed her.”

Eve looked at the board as they walked into her office. “So she goes up. The question mark comes off Merry, and onto Iris. But it won’t be a question mark for long.”

“You’ve only two more.”

“Yeah, maybe one of the last two hold the key. Or DeLonna. She poofed, too, but not until she was about sixteen and pretty clear of the system. But she’s alive according to Sebastian.”

“And well.”

“I’ll judge that when I talk to her—and I will talk to her,” Eve said as she hunkered down beside her desk chair. “If he doesn’t come through by tomorrow, I’ll have to squeeze him.”

“Which you wouldn’t mind doing just on principle.” She took a candy bar out of the desk drawer.

“In here? Really? I didn’t know you kept a stash at home.”

“It’s not hidden from you. and I’ll even share this time.” She broke the bar neatly in two.

“Here’s to that,” he said and tapped his half to hers.

• • •

The chocolate gave her a boost—especially with the coffee she pumped in after it—so she worked until midnight.

Spinning wheels, mostly, she admitted. Covering and recovering the same ground. But sometimes you spotted something when you backtracked.

Someone they knew. And most if not all of them knew each other. Some lived together, or ran together. Same basic turf.

If Sebastian was to be believed, he hadn’t forged Shelby’s docs. Say he told that straight, Eve thought as she propped up her feet to study the board.

Could she have done them herself, catching on to how Sebastian did forgeries? Picking it up, as he’d said, because she knew how to pay attention?

Possible. Possible.

Eve brought Shelby’s picture on screen, studied it.

Smart girl, tough girl, hard girl. But loyal. A born leader—and I bet you liked being in charge—who didn’t like the rules. Not with the do-gooders, not with the grifters. Wanted your own.

“And didn’t the place, the perfect place, drop into your lap when The Sanctuary pulled up stakes? That’s what plays. It plays. It’s familiar. It’s empty. You know it top to bottom.”

She rose, walked closer to the screen as Roarke stepped back in.

“I half expected to find you snoring at your desk.”

“Caffeine works. I don’t snore.” Eve pointed at the screen. “She’s the key.”

He turned to study the screen with her. “Which is she?”

“Shelby.”

“Ah, the leader, the one who walked out of the new facility with forged documents.”

“Exactly. She knew the ropes, had an agenda. And she had a connection with somebody who knew how to forge.”

“I don’t see why Sebastian would deny doing so, at this stage.”

“She could’ve done them herself, picked up the basics from him, just like he said. That would explain the misspellings, and the really bad attempt at forging Jones’s signature. That data came through from the analysis,” she added. “It’s way off from Nashville Jones’s signature.

“So . . .” Turning from the screen, she circled the board. “She’s learning, planning, and Bittmore drops the bountiful in The Sanctuary’s lap. Hey, kids, we’re moving to big, pretty new digs! Pack it up.”

“And she realized it’s just the right time.”

“Perfect time. Everybody’s going to be busy, running around, distracted. More, she’s smart enough to know what goes on, and what goes on is the old building’s going to be empty. At least for a bit while the bank gets its act together, and that’s already been hanging for months.”