Creation in Death (In Death #25)(11)

“Yes, but…” Morris set the smoothy aside before he pushed to his feet. “I regret that we’ll all come to know her quite well now.”

“She managed one of Roarke’s clubs. The Starlight down in Chelsea?”

“Is that yours?” Morris smiled a little. “I took a friend there a few weeks ago. It’s an entertaining trip back to an intriguing time.”

“Feeney’s on his way in.”

Morris shifted his gaze to Eve. “I see. It was the three of us over the first of them the last time. Do you remember?”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Her name was Corrine, Corrine Dagby.”

“Age twenty-nine,” Eve confirmed. “Sold shoes in a boutique downtown. Liked to party. She lasted twenty-six hours, ten minutes, fifty-eight seconds.”

Morris nodded. “Do you remember what you said when we stood here then?”

“No, not exactly.”

“I do. You said: ‘He’ll want more than that.’ And you were right. We learned he wanted more than that. Should we wait for Feeney?”

“He’ll catch up.”

“All right.” Morris crossed the room.

Roarke looked over, then he stepped over.

He’d seen death, bloody, vicious, violent, useless, and terrible death. But he saw, once more, Eve was right.

He’d never seen the likes of this.

3

SO MANY WOUNDS, HE THOUGHT, AND ALL washed clean. Somehow it might have been less horrid if there had been blood. Blood would be proof, wouldn’t it, that life had once been there.

But this…this woman he remembered as vital and brimming with energy looked like some poor doll, mangled and sliced by a vicious child.

“Tidy work,” Eve stated, and had Roarke’s gaze whipping toward her.

He started to speak, to let loose some of the horror he felt. But he saw her face, saw the anger was closer to the surface now however calm her voice. Saw, too, the pity. She had such pity inside her he often wondered how she could bear the weight of it.

So he said nothing.

“He’s very methodical.” Morris engaged the computer before offering Eve microgoggles. “You see these wounds on the limbs? Long, thin, shallow.”

“Scalpel maybe, or the tip of a sharp blade.” Though the wounds were displayed, optimized, on screen, Eve leaned down to study them through the goggles. “Precise, too. Either she was drugged or he had her restrained in such a way she couldn’t struggle enough to make a difference.”

“Which gets your vote?” Morris asked.

“Restraints. What’s the fun if she’s out of it, can’t feel fully? Burns are small along here.” Eve turned the victim’s left arm. “Here in the bend of the elbow, precise again, but the skin’s charred some at the edges. Flame? Not a laser, but live fire?”

“I would agree. Some of the other burns look like laser to me. And there, on the inner thigh where it’s mottled? Extreme cold.”

“Yeah. The bruising—no laceration, no scraping. Smooth implement.”

“Sap.” Roarke studied the bruising himself. “An old-fashioned sap would bruise like that. Leather’s effective if you can afford the cost. Filled with ordinary sand, it does its job.”

“Again, agree. And we have the punctures,” Morris continued. “Which are in circular patterns here, here, here.” The screen flashed with close-ups of the back of the right hand, the heel of the left foot, the left bu**ocks. “Twenty minute punctures, in this precise pattern.”

“Like needles,” Eve mused. “Some kind of tool…He could…” She curved her right hand, laid it on the heel of the body, pressed. “That’s new. We don’t have this wound pattern on record.”

“He’s an inventive bastard,” Peabody added. “Morris, can I get a bottle of water?”

“Help yourself.”

“You need air,” Eve said without looking at her, “go get some.”

“Just the water.”

“This pattern might be new,” Eve continued, “but the rest is consistent. More creative, maybe, a little more patient. You do what you do long enough, you get better at it. Longer, deeper wounds along the rib cage, over the br**sts. Wider burn areas, deeper bruising up the calves.

“Increases the pain, gradually. Wants it to last. Cuts and burns on her face. No bruising there. Sap her and she might lose consciousness. Don’t want that.”

The doors swished open. Feeney walked in, came straight to the table. He looked down. “Ah, hell,” was all he said.

“We’ve got one new wound type. Circular pattern of punctures. See what you think of it.”

Eve bent close to the ruined face, her eyes behind the goggles unflinching. “No bruising here that would indicate he gagged her—or not tightly. Nothing that would mar the skin. He has to have a place, a very, very private place. So she can scream. Tox back?”

“Yes, just before you came. There were small traces of a standard sedative in her bloodstream. Barely registered. She’d have been awake and aware at TOD.”

“Same MO. Puts her to sleep when he’s busy with other business.”

“There were traces, too, of water and protein in her system. The lab will confirm, but…”