Indulgence in Death (In Death #31)(82)

She paced back and forth, remembered she hadn’t had coffee in much too long. “I need a hit.”

“I’ll get it. I could use one myself.”

“What time is it in Africa now?”

“An hour later than the first time you asked,” he called back.

“I could contact them now.” She paced again. “No, write it up, shine it up, get it all down to the steps, the patterns.” Add onto the board, she thought. All the other victims, the data on them. Then she’d start with Africa, expand the picture, and work her way right up to now.

“Thanks.” She took the coffee Roarke offered, gulped some down. “I’ve got them. It’s going to take some work, some finessing, but I’ve got enough to start pushing. You saved me a lot of time tonight.”

He skimmed his knuckles down her cheek. Pale with fatigue, he thought. “And you’ll thank me for that by working several more hours.”

“I’ve got to lay it all out so I can pull it all in, so I can talk Reo into talking a judge into giving me search warrants on two really rich men from really important families who have alibis on alternate homicides. I have to convince her, and Whitney, that all this plays—and that I can make it stick. If I can’t make it stick, we can’t go with it. Not yet. And—”

“Someone’s clock is ticking down.” He leaned in to brush her lips with his. “I know. I can update your board with these new victims. Don’t look so surprised. I know how your mind works.”

“I guess you do. But . . . I have to do it.”

“Superstitious, are you then?”

“No. Maybe. Probably. Anyway, I have to do it. It’ll help me get it set in my head.”

Because they were hers now, too, he thought. That was yet another kind of intimacy.

“I’ll tackle some work of my own for a bit.”

“This is going to take a couple hours. You should go to bed whenever you—”

“I like going to bed with my wife, whenever possible. I can fill a couple hours.”

Though he expected, as he went into his own office, she would be longer than that.

She forgot what time it was in Africa by the time she contacted the hunting club, but she knew damn well she’d hit two in the morning in New York.

She considered finessing—lying—then decided against. If one of the guides or the owners or anyone else chose to contact Dudley or Moriarity and tell them of her interest, that was fine.

She was ready to give them something to worry about.

When she’d finished, she looked down at her notes. The guide had been cautious at first, then more and more open. He’d been fond of Bristow, and that had come across clearly.

Never understood how or why she would stray so far from camp.

Never understood how or why she would cross into known hunting territory for the female lion.

Could never reconcile in his mind why she would have been so careless or why she would have set out before light.

Dudley a braggart, rude to staff. Demanding, impatient. Suspected he’d brought illegals into camp.

Moriarity cold, aloof. Rarely spoke to staff except to order or demand.

She tried her luck with the local investigators next, and managed to flesh out—a little—what she’d pulled out of media reports.

She worked her way forward in the time line, to Naples, to Vegas, to France, to London, gathering crumbs and bits, putting those slivers and pieces in place with the whole.

She used the back of her board, making a chart of that time line, pin-pointing locations, adding each victim’s photo, linking all with more notes. With fact and with supposition.

Seven dead, she thought as she stepped back from the board. She knew those two pair of hands carried the blood of seven people.

Maybe more.

She continued to stare at those faces as Roarke stepped behind her, laid his hands on her shoulders, rubbed at the aches there.

“All those lives cut off. An adventurous woman, girl with a boyfriend who wanted to make up, a husband and father, a woman about to start the next phase of her life, an old woman who’d spread beauty and culture around the world. And then to another husband and father who’d turned a bad beginning into a solid now, and a woman who’d once given another woman the chance to escape a monster.

“All on this board because they decided they wanted a new thrill. A new form of entertainment. The same as somebody else turning on the screen or going to a vid.”

“No. It’s like a new, stronger drug.”

“Yeah.” Exhausted, sickened, she rubbed her eyes. “You’re right, it’s more that. And that’s going to help me stop them. That need, that addiction, it’ll push them.”

“Come to bed now. You need to sleep.” He turned her, slid an arm around her. “Let it rest a few hours, Eve, so you can.”

“Can’t think anymore, anyway.” She walked out with him.

It was after three hundred hours, she realized, and no call from Dispatch. Maybe she wouldn’t be too late. Maybe she wouldn’t put another face on her board.

17

AT FIRST, SHE THOUGHT THE LION GNAWING greedily on her leg woke her—which was bad enough. But when she struggled through the surface of the dream, her communicator sent out its sharp, insistent beep.

“Fuck. Just f**k.”