Imitation in Death (In Death #17)(60)

"It used to hold more appeal for me. Before I had a wife who invited me to nail her on the kitchen floor.".

She smiled, but he knew her too well. "What's troubling you, Eve?"

She nearly told him about her dream, her memory, but pulled back from it. The subject of mothers had to be sensitive for him yet. Instead she used work. It wasn't an evasion. Work did trouble her.

"My gut knows who he is already, has from the first time I saw him. But I can't see him, so I don't know for sure. Not in my head. He changes, and he'll change again, so I can't see him. Not his type, or even his mind. Because that changes, too. He's good at what he does because he changes. Because he assumes the personality of what he imitates. I don't know if I can stop him."

"Isn't that what he's hoping for? That he'll frustrate you by assuming a different personality, different method, different victim type, all of it?"

"So far, mission accomplished. I'm trying to separate him from, let's say, the cloak he wears. To see him as he is so I'll know if my gut's right. So I can move from instinct to evidence to arrest."

"And what do you seem'

"Arrogance, intelligence, rage. Focus. He has excellent focus. Fear, too, I think. I'm wondering if it's fear that makes him imitate others, instead of striking out in his own way. But what does he fear?"

"Capture?"

"Failure. I think it's failure. And maybe that fear of failure has its roots in the female authority figure."

"I think you see him more clearly than you give yourself credit for

"I see the victims, she continued. "The two he's killed already, and the shadow of the one who'll be next. I don't know who she'll be, or where, or why he'll choose her. And if 1; don't figure it -out, he'll get to her before I get to him."

Her appetite was gone, as was the euphoria of good sex. "You're a busy guy, 'Roarke,". she said.

"Got a lot on your plate"

"I prefer that to an empty one. So do you."

"Good thing for us. I need to look into my list of suspects. I- need 4o find this female authority figure, because when I do, I find him. I could use a hand."

He took hers, squeezed it. "I happen to have one available." The most practical way to begin, she thought, was alphabetically. And, though it still scraped the pride a bit, to let Roarke man the computer.

He may have gotten spanked by a barbecue grill, but on a desk unit, he was king.

"We'll start with Breen," she told him. "I want everything I can get on Thomas A. Breen and his wife, without tram pling on privacy laws."

He sent her a pained look as he sat at her desk. "Now, what fun is that?"

`Keep it clean, ace."

"Well then, I want coffee. And a cookie."

"A cookie?"

"Yes." The cat leaped on the desk to bump his head against Roarke's hand. "You have a cookie cache- in here. I want one."

She stuck her hands on her hips, tapped her-fingers. "How do you know I have a cache?"

He stroked the cat and smiled at her. "Unsupervised, you forget to eat half the time, and when you remember, you go for the sugar."

She took some exception to the "unsupervised remark, but had another priority. Eyes slit, she came closer, watched his face as keenly as she would a -prim suspect. "You haven't been sneaking into my office at Central and riffling my candy stash?"

"Certainly not. I can get my own candy."

"You could be lying," she said after a moment. "You're pretty slippery."

"And so you said in the shower."

"Har-har. 'But I don't see you skulking around Central lifting my chocolate just to drive me buggy."

"Not when I can easily find more convenient ways to do so. Where's my, coffee?"

"Okay, okay. Thomas A. Breen."

She went into the kitchen off her home office, felt the cat ribbon around her legs despite the fact he'd had a slice of pizza. She programmed a pot of coffee, got down mugs, then-sending a cautious glance toward the office-went to the small utility closet and dug into the space behind the cat food for the bag of triple chocolate chunk cookies.

She started to take one out for Roarke, decided she could go for one herself. Then thought, what the hell, he was helping her out. They'd blow what was left in the bag.

Sensing dessert, Galahad went into serious purr-and-rub mode. She poured a handful of cat treats into his bowl, watched him pounce on them like a lion on a gazelle as she loaded the coffee and cookies on a tray.

'"Initial data's up, though I assume you already have the basics," Roarke said. "More's coming. Why are you looking at Breen?"

"First, it's standard to run anybody I interview during an investigation." She set down the tray. "I'm going deeper because he flicked my switch. Don't know why, exactly."

She walked toward the wall screen where Roarke had already brought up the standard data.

"Thomas Aquinas Breen, age, thirty-three,. married, one child, male, age two. Writer and professional father. Decent reported income. He makes a solid living, and appears to be on the track to making more. One bust for illegals-Zoner-age twenty-one. College smoke, nothing surprising. Native New Yorker, NYU grad: -fine arts with post-grad work in criminology-I like that one-and :creative, writing. Earns his living writing magazine articles, short stories, and the two published nonfiction books to date, both substantial best-sellers. Married five years, both parents living and in Florida."