Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(42)

“He wouldn’t last a couple,” McNab muttered.

“Exactly.”

“You were staring.” He scowled at Peabody as they trooped downstairs. “When he was naked.”

“Well, duh. Naked. And built. If he’d been a girl, you’d have been staring.”

Eve cast her eyes to the ceiling, quickened her pace from a walk to a jog down the steps. But she could still hear them.

“I bet he bought that body.”

“He got a really sweet deal if he did. But I like yours, right down to your bony ass.”

Eve didn’t have to see – thank God – to know Peabody gave that bony ass a squeeze to highlight her point.

“Total skeeze.” Apparently McNab couldn’t give it up. “And he totally hit on you, Dallas. Roarke would squash him into skeeze juice.”

“If he was worth being squashed, I’d have squashed him myself.” She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, bringing both of them up short. “A skeeze (she kind of liked the word), a f*ckhead, a dickwad. He’s all of that and a bag of rice cakes.”

“Chips. It’s a bag of chips,” Peabody told her.

“Chips are good. Rice cakes are crap. He doesn’t get chips.”

“Oh.” Peabody frowned over it before she nodded. “That makes sense.”

“And the point is he doesn’t know or care where Jayla Campbell is. We don’t know, either, but we do care. Forget him. We’ve got about a three-block hike to where I’m parked. Considering the weather, I’m going to pull in some beat droids, shoot them Jayla’s ID shot, have them canvass the area between the party and her apartment, using the most likely route that would take her through where she texted her roommate.”

“I can do that.”

“Then do it,” she told Peabody. “And you, put the locations together. The first snatch, the first dump, and the last known location of Campbell.”

She pulled out her ’link when it signaled, saw Baxter’s ID, and pushed her way out into the world of snow. “Dallas.”

“Hey. You’ve got a Deputy William T. Banner out of someplace called Silby’s Pond, Arkansas, in here. He wants to talk to you about our spree killers. I checked, and he’s legit – been with the sheriff’s office there for five years. I put him in the lounge since he’s pretty firm about talking to you first.”

“Silby’s Pond?” She tried to remember if she knew the name, but there had been so many on the choices of routes. “I’m on my way in from Greenwich Village. We’ve got another missing. Take this data, get the wheels turning.”

“Shoot it at me.”

“Jayla Campbell,” she began, and filled him in.

She drove through abominable traffic with the scent of McNab and Peabody’s roasted chestnuts and the hot chocolate they helped themselves to from the backseat AutoChef.

Snow and homey scents were one thing during the holidays, she thought, but those were over. Why couldn’t they be done with it all now?

By the time she pulled into her slot at Central, she felt as if she’d trekked across the Arctic Circle.

“Why are they even out there?” she demanded. “The people, especially the people who can’t drive? NY tag number Echo-Charlie-Charlie-eight-seven-three. Issue an auto ticket.”

“An ‘auto ticket’?” Peabody repeated as they all climbed out.

“That’s what I said. Didn’t you see that idiot woman? Creeping along at twelve miles an hour?”

“Um. Well, it sort of pays to be cautious when —”

“While she was slapping on lip dye with her vanity mirror down, so she’s looking at herself instead of the damn road – and babbling on her ’link while she’s at it. Could’ve put it on auto if she needed to admire herself instead of f*cking drive, but no, she’s creeping and weaving and doing her christing makeup.”

“Oh. Well. Do you really want to fine her? I always felt sort of crappy issuing autos when I worked Traffic.”

“Get over it. Slap her with driving while stupid.”

With McNab giving her butt a pat for support, Peabody issued an auto-citation while they took the elevator up.

“They don’t stalk the vics,” Eve said, shifting gears. “There’s not enough time for that. It’s luck of the draw. It doesn’t matter who – rich, poor, young, old, male, female. If the pattern holds we’ve got two days to find them before they finish Jayla Campbell.”

“The weather’s helping them now,” McNab commented. “Cold, wind, snow, sleet. People spring for a cab or take public. Or stick close to home. They’ve just got to find a solo walker in a relatively quiet spot.”

“Right now they’re two for two in New York.”

As the elevator began to stop and start floor-by-floor with cops and civilians piling in, Eve pushed out.

“Odds are they boosted this dark all-terrain or van they’re using. Peabody, run a search for stolen vehicles fitting that, try New Jersey and Pennsylvania. And, yeah, it’s a general type in a big area,” she said before Peabody could point it out. “But we start, and maybe whittle it down before they decide to switch again. They may have taken it from another victim.”