Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(77)

“Not yet.” He smiled at her. “The day may come.”

• • •

She let her mind roll around possibilities, speculations, avenues while she pushed her body into a good, muscling-pinging sweat. Satisfied, she took the elevator from the gym back to the bedroom, and straight into the shower.

Roarke hadn’t come back by the time she got out, so she amused herself by hunting up the financial reports he habitually scanned in the mornings before she even opened her eyes.

She glanced down at the cat bumping his head against her leg. Suspicious, she hunkered down, sniffed.

“I know Summerset fed you. I can smell your kibble breath.”

He merely stared at her with his bicolored eyes, then butted his head lightly to hers.

Okay, so she was a sucker. Rising, she ordered up a saucer of milk—a small one—and set it out for him. While the cat happily lapped, she grabbed pants, a sweater, a jacket she was reasonably sure she’d never seen before. But she liked the dark chocolate leather trim at the pockets, and the cloud-soft rest of it.

She started to swing it on over her sweater and weapon harness, caught the label.

“Cashmere. Jesus, Jesus, why does he do that?” she demanded of the cat, who merely continued fastidiously washing himself. “Watch, just watch. I’ll get in a fight with some psycho and ruin in. Just watch.”

With those dark thoughts she put it on because, damn it, she liked it—and it was his own fault if she destroyed it on the job.

As he was still with Pluto or whoever, she considered the AutoChef, then made her choices for breakfast for two.

She was sitting, as he usually was, the financials on mute, as she went over her notes and drank coffee when he came in.

“It took longer than I thought it would,” he began, then stopped to smile at her, and the two plates, covered with warming domes, on the table in the sitting area. “You’ve done breakfast for me. What do we have?”

He lifted the dome. “Omelets, berries, toast, and jam. Nicely done.”

“I figured you’d stick me with oatmeal. Beat you to it.”

“An omelet does very well.” He sat beside her.

“How are things in Roarke World?”

“Satisfying at the moment. I’ve some meetings later—”

“My shocked face.” She opened her mouth and eyes wide.

Amused, he popped a berry in her mouth. “I can and will make time if you can use me for anything.”

“I thought I already used you this morning.”

“Aren’t you the clever one today.”

“Every day. I’ll let you know. If Sebastian doesn’t come through on DeLonna this morning, I may ask you to dig out his flops.”

“I like to think he’ll come through.”

“We’ll see.”

He gestured toward her PPC. “How are things in Eve World?”

“I shot off some more notes to Peabody, to Mira. Figured I’d work here for an hour or so as I’m getting going so early.”

She forked up some omelet—not bad at all.

“This will happen when you’re waked by a group of unhappy girls, then want sex.”

“I guess. It’ll give me a jump anyway. She was unhappy,” Eve said after a moment. “Not just pissed off and defensive. She picked up Linh somewhere along the line, but never took her to Sebastian’s. Going to take her to her place. Get a few supplies first, take her newest bud to the place she was making for herself. And he kills them both. Did she know? Was she aware enough to know? Now I’m going to be dead, and so’s Linh. I’m never going to have what I want. It’s not fair.”

She could picture that—the despair, the frustration, the guilt, the anger.

“It worked so well for him, he could do it again. Some, like Mikki, just walked right in, probably looking for Shelby. Others, he lured. Lupa and this Iris kid. A church-type thing for them, at least for them if not some of the others. Use what works? Vary it to suit. Or did he use the same basic ploy?”

It nagged at her, the not knowing. Shaking her head, she tried to focus on the food, but her thoughts kept circling.

She sat up. “The dog. Where’s the dog?”

“I don’t believe we have one. We have a cat.”

“No, the toy dog. The kid’s stuffed dog. She took it with her when she left The Club. It wasn’t with any of the remains. He had to take it, like their clothes, out of the building. Did he toss it?”

“I would think.”

“Maybe he kept it. A little souvenir. He might have other things. The jewelry we didn’t find, e-stuff, backpacks. Yeah, he might have kept some of it, to remind him.”

She shoveled in more omelet. “Something else to think about.”

• • •

When she walked into her home office, she frowned at the board, studied it, then muttering to herself changed the arrangement again.

She pinned Nash, Philadelphia, Shivitz on one side, with the victims in residence at The Sanctuary below—connecting them in turn to Fine, Clipperton, Bittmore, Seraphim Brigham in one group, Linh Penbroke offshooting from Shelby.

Sebastian headed the other section, the victims from his club ranged under him.

Cross-matched were victims connected to both groupings.