Delusion in Death (In Death #35)(26)

“The notifications are complete, in person or via ’link for those outside of New York. Interviews with next of kin give us a few things to check out. Bad breakups, troubled marriages or relationships, family or employment tensions. We’ve got two vics who fairly recently filed for restraining orders—both on spouses citing abuse, and in one case spousal rape.”

“You don’t think it’s anything like that. A jealous boyfriend, an abusive husband, an angry sister or daughter.”

“Probability’s low, but everyone has to be checked out. The whole thing could have been a cover for a single target.”

Who would do that? she wondered. Kill dozens for the one?

Then shaking her head, she answered her own question. “People are f**ked up, Roarke. Your spouse leaves you, or has you tossed in jail for smacking her around? Go big. Take her out, and take her friends or her new lover out, too. Take a shitload of people out, and more, you’ve got a way to make them do it to themselves.”

“Striking or raping your mate doesn’t say controlled to me.”

“Sure, it can be. My father was controlled, in his way. He kept me isolated and afraid for the first eight years of my life. He did whatever he wanted to me.”

“You were a child.”

“Not the point. It’s not,” she insisted. “He controlled Stella, too, again in his way. Convincing her to get pregnant, give birth, deal with me. If Mira were to profile him, he’d fit this pretty well. Except there’s no payday here—not that I can see, and that was the driving force with him.”

“He’s on your mind,” Roarke stated. “Him, McQueen, Stella.”

“Not up front. They destroyed lives, and these are a lot of lives destroyed. So … I thought of Cassandra, too, how that group targeted New York landmarks, taking out innocent lives in the bargain. That was obsession as much as terrorism. And this doesn’t strike me the same.”

Understanding how she worked, Roarke gave her a springboard. “How is it different?”

“He wants blood, but he doesn’t want to get bloody. He wants death, but doesn’t want to kill—not directly. He doesn’t need to watch the lights go out, to smell the fear, to taste the pain. Playing God, yeah, but playing God with science.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“No, but some insist they are. Like God’s all, zip, pow, and creates an orangutan out of thin air.”

“I simply adore your mind.”

“Well, that’s the nutshell from one side, and the other far end’s all, no, uh-uh. No higher power out there. What happened was basically a giant fart in space, and boom.”

“Absolutely adore it,” Roarke repeated. “A space fart to orangutans?”

“Eventually. But there’s a big middle ground who mostly figure God and science can coexist just fine. Like maybe he even created it. So it’s fun to play God with science. That’s what a formula is, right? Science. That’s how they came up with stuff like LSD. Science. So …”

She did another circle around the board. “Does he have some background in science, or some connection to someone who does? And what’s the trigger? Why that place at that time? Why now? It’s a big statement. So there’s a reason he made it now, made it there.”

“If it’s connected to the Urban incidents, he may be military, or have been. Or works, has worked, for whatever agencies have the files.”

“Yeah, I’ve got that, but it doesn’t feel military. Cassandra, that felt military—or para. Big target, threats, taking credit, issuing warnings. This is personal. It’s people, not things. Not symbols. There’s something personal about this, and that’s what I have to find.”

She rocked on her heels. “One step—rule out money as motive, or don’t. We check financials, see if any of the vics had a big, fat insurance policy, or bank account. And if so, who gets it? Another kind of gain. Power or position. A lot of the vics had high-end careers, and were climbing the corporate ladder or worked for those who do and are. So who goes up a rung or two if their associate or competitor falls off the ladder?”

She turned to him. “You can start with money, power, and position since that’s your deal.”

“All right.”

“I’ll take jealousy, personal gripes, and the rest.”

“Because that’s your deal?”

She shrugged. “If you cheated on me, I wouldn’t kill a bar full of people. Just you,” she said with a big smile. “And I’d do it myself because that’s how much I care.”

“I’m touched.” He moved to her, cupped her face. “Don’t work yourself into a stupor. You have to take your own power and position at your eight o’clock briefing.”

“I’m good.”

“Stay that way.” He kissed her lightly before returning to his office.

Pumped with more coffee, she dug for spouses, cohabs, lovers—former and current. She pored over family members. She scanned for official complaints or civil suits, picked through for criminal records, cross-referenced with any education, experience or employment within the military or that had connections to drugs, labs, added in medical, practice or research.

Like slogging through knee-deep mud, she thought, aligning, realigning bytes of data.