Delusion in Death (In Death #35)(66)

She hadn’t expected him to say it, hadn’t expected to see it. She spoke to him now as she would to a victim. “This isn’t a movement or a war. It’s a man with a weapon who wants your fear, your attention. I think I know him, that I’ve spoken to him, that I’ve looked in his eyes. I’m going to stop him.”

“I believe you will. I have to believe it.” He took a slow breath, sipped again. “The details of his apprehension after the attack in Rome aren’t just buried. Much of the data was destroyed. What I learned can’t be confirmed. Menzini created the substance, but did not, in fact, deliver it personally. He created it, selected the two targets, gave the order, but he used two women—girls. His own children, if you will, sent by him on a suicide mission. Each took a vial of the substance into the location, released it, and under his orders remained so they were also infected.”

“Girls. You’re sure?”

“It can’t be confirmed.”

“You know if it’s true?”

“I believe it to be true.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

“You said you knew him. What is his name?”

“I said I think,” she corrected. “I have three suspects, viable to me—if I’m pursuing the right angle. Even if I’m right, I can’t prove it. I’m missing essential connections.”

“You know which of the three. I want to know his name. I want his name in my head so I can say it when you stop him.”

“His name’s Lewis Callaway, but—”

“That’s good enough for me.”

He tossed her own response back at her so casually, she couldn’t think what to say. When her pocket ’link signaled, she considered it a reprieve.

“It’s Nadine. I need to take this upstairs. Dallas,” she said in answer. “Wait.” She thought of what she probably should say. “Lewis Callaway,” she repeated. “He’s a coward. It used to surprise me how many killers are cowards. We’re going to stop him. Everything you told me yesterday, everything you told me now is going to help us make the connection, make the case that’s going to put him away for every minute he has left in his sick, cowardly life. So you can forget him. Macie Snyder, Jeni Curve. Those are the two women he used to do his killing, and not under his orders. They didn’t even know. If you need to have a name in your head, put theirs in it. They’re the ones who matter.”

She turned, switching her ’link off hold as she went. “Nadine. Go.”

Roarke rose, topped off Summerset’s wine. “This may be a record.”

“What would be a record?”

“You and Eve having an actual conversation without sniping at each other, two days running.”

“Ah well.” Summerset let out a sigh. “I expect the lieutenant and I will be back to normal shortly—to our mutual relief.”

“You need food and rest.”

“I believe I do. I’ll get both shortly. I believe I’ll have the cat as well for a while. I could use his company. Go, see that your wife eats a meal. I’m surprised she didn’t starve to death before she had you putting food under her nose.”

“It pleases me to do it.”

“I know it does. You were an interesting boy, always so bright and clever, so thirsty for more—of everything. You made yourself an interesting and clever man. She’s made you a better one.”

“She’s made me more than I ever thought I could be.”

“Go feed her. I expect the pair of you will work late tonight.”

Alone, he sat with the cat sprawled over his feet, the wine in his hand. A fire simmered in the hearth of the beautiful room of gleaming wood, sparkling crystal, rich fabrics, and art. The room where the pain, the loss, the fear of long ago tried to haunt him.

Macie Snyder, he thought, Jeni Curve. Yes, he’d remember those names. The lieutenant was right. The innocent mattered.

13

Roarke found Eve in her office, circling her board.

“Nadine’s pretty damn good,” she told him. “She came up with some of the same data Summerset gave us. Not as much detail—she’s not that good—but enough I’ll have two sources when I hit Teasdale with questions on Menzini. And between Nadine, Callendar, and Teasdale, I’ve got a good long list of abductees from back in the day. Separated into recovered, and not recovered.”

“What does that tell you?”

“Can’t be sure. Callaway’s too young to have been taken during the Urbans. But one of his parents? Grandparents somehow involved? Possible. Gotta dig into that. Fucker’s not a scientist so there has to be a connection, a way he got his hands on the formula.”

Roarke handed her the wine she’d left downstairs. “You never had this.”

“Right.”

“Or food.”

She looked back at her board.

“You can talk it through while we eat. I’m under orders to feed my wife.”

Her shoulders hunched, then released again. “He’s okay?”

“It’s hard—as you’d know better than most—to go back, look close at traumatic past events. He said more tonight about the horrors of his experiences than he has to me in all the years we’ve been together. I don’t know, not really, who he was before he saved me, took me in.”