Creation in Death (In Death #25)(10)

She could’ve left this for morning—at least a decent hour of the morning. But she knew, had their positions been reversed, she’d want this knock on the door.

She’d have been damn pissed if she didn’t get the knock.

When he answered his face was sleep rumpled, making it more lived-in than usual. His hair, a gingery scrubbing brush mixed with silver, was standing straight out. As if the air around him had been suddenly ionized.

And while he might’ve been wearing a tattered robe in the surprising color choice of purple, his eyes were all cop.

“Who died?”

“Need to talk to you about that,” Eve told him. “But more how than who.”

“Well.” He scratched his jaw, and Eve could hear the rasp of his fingers on the night’s growth of beard. “Better come on in. Wife’s asleep. Let’s go on in the kitchen. Need coffee.”

It was a homey place. Lived in, Eve thought, like Jaycee’s had been, if you added another decade or two. Feeney’s kids had grown up, and there were grandkids now. Eve was never quite sure of the number. But there was a good-sized eating area off the kitchen, with a long table to accommodate the lot of them at family dinners.

Feeney brought in coffee, scuffing along in slippers Eve would bet a month’s pay were a Christmas gift.

On the middle of the table was a strangely shaped vase in streaky colors of red and orange. Mrs. Feeney’s work, Eve determined. The wife had a penchant for hobbies and crafts, and was always making things. Often unidentifiable things.

“Caught a case,” Eve began. “Vic is female, brunette, late twenties, found naked in East River Park.”

“Yeah, I caught the report on screen.”

“Found nude. She’d been tortured. Burns, bruising, cuts, punctures. Her wrists were slashed.”

“Fuck.”

Yeah, he had it already, Eve noted. “Vic was wearing a silver band on the third finger of her left hand.”

“How long?” Feeney demanded. “How long did she last? What was the time he carved into her?”

“Eighty-five hours, twelve minutes, thirty-eight seconds.”

“Fuck,” he said again. “Motherf*cker.” Feeney’s hand balled into a fist to rap, light and steady, on the table. “He’s not walking again, Dallas. He’s not walking away from us again. He’ll have number two already.”

“Yeah.” Eve nodded. “I figure he’s got number two.”

Feeney braced his elbows on the table, scooped his fingers through his hair. “We’ve got to go through everything we had nine years back, what data there is on him from the other times he went to work. Put a task force together now, at the get. We don’t wait for the second body to show up. You get anything from the scene?”

“So far, just the body, the ring, the sheet. I’ll get you a copy of the records. Right now, I’m heading to the morgue to see what Morris can tell us. You’re going to need to get dressed, unless you’re wearing purple terry cloth to work these days.”

He glanced down, shook his head. “If you saw the one the wife got me for Christmas, you’d understand why I’m still wearing this one.” He pushed to his feet. “Look, you go on, and I’ll meet you at the morgue. Going to need my own ride anyway.”

“All right.”

“Dallas.”

In that moment, Roarke realized neither he nor Peabody existed. They simply weren’t a part of the reality between the other two.

“We have to find what we missed,” Feeney said to Eve. “What everybody’s missed. There’s always something. One piece, one step, one thought. We can’t miss it this time.”

“We won’t.”

R oarke had been to the morgue before. He wondered if the white tiles through the tunnels of the place were meant to replace natural light. Or if they had merely been chosen as an acceptance of the stark.

There were echoes throughout as well—the repeat and repeat of bootsteps as they walked. More silence, he supposed, as the staff would be on graveyard shift. So to speak.

It was still shy of dawn, and he could see the long night was wearing on Peabody a bit, with a heaviness under her dark eyes. But not on Eve, not yet. The fatigue would rush up and choke her—it always did. But for now she was running on duty and purpose, and an underlying anger he wasn’t sure she recognized as vital fuel.

Eve paused outside the double doors of an autopsy room. “Do you need to see her?” she asked him.

“I do. I want to be of some help in this, and if I’m to be of any help, I need to understand. I’ve seen death before.”

“Not like this.” She pushed through.

Morris was inside. He’d changed, she noted, into gray sweats and black and silver skids she imagined he kept on the premises for working out. He sat, and continued to sit for a moment, in a steel chair drinking something thick and brown out of a tall glass.

“Ah, company. Protein smoothy?”

“So absolutely not,” Eve said.

“Tastes marginally better than it looks. And does its job. Roarke, good to see you, even though.”

“And you.”

“Vic worked for Roarke,” Eve said.

“I’m very sorry.”

“I barely knew her. But…”