Kindred in Death (In Death #29)(64)

“No problem.”

“Let’s get out of here. We’ll go down and have some coffee.”

“I really can’t. I’ve got to get back to work.”

Louise stepped back, her gray eyes going somber. “It’s that young girl, isn’t it? The one who was raped and murdered in her own bedroom. I heard the report, and they said you were leading the in vestigation.”

“Yeah.”

“I hope you find him quickly,” Louise said as they walked back downstairs. “Her parents must be devastated.”

“We’re working some angles.”

“Then I won’t keep you, even though I wish you could stay. I’m so glad you came by. Now I can be nervous without being nervous about why I’m nervous.”

“So you say.” Eve paused at the door as something clicked. “What hotel?”

“Sorry?”

“Why do you need a car to pick you up at a hotel?”

Louise shrugged, and her expression turned sheepish. “More obsession. I don’t want Charles to see me before the wedding because of the ridiculous bad-luck myth. But maybe it’s not a myth so, why take the chance? And since I’m going to need all day to get ready and deal with details, I decided I’d stay in a hotel the night before, get my spa services there, have Trina come in to do my nails, hair, makeup, that sort of thing.”

Here, Eve realized, was something she could do, should do as matron of honor. “Cancel that. You can’t stay in a hotel room, alone, the night before the deal. You can stay at the house, where it’s all happening anyway.” And she thought, here was the major sacrifice for friendship. “Trina can do whatever you need there. Maybe you want a couple of women friends with you. It’s a ritual thing, right?”

Face glowing, stunned, Louise shot out her hands to grip Eve’s. “That would be absolutely amazing. Absolutely perfect. It would mean a lot to me.”

“Then it’s done.”

“Thank you.” Louise hugged Eve again. “Thank you.”

“Go log it on your board. I’ll see you Friday night.”

“Five o’clock rehearsal,” Louise called out.

“Sure.” Did she know that, Eve wondered. Rehearsal? Jesus, they had to do it all twice? She pushed a hand through her hair as she walked back to the car. They’d probably have more charts and time lines, and . . .

“Shit!” Ignoring the insulted look from the pair of women she passed, Eve snatched out her communicator. “Feeney, check back on the security. See if there’s another glitch, a lag, any anomaly previous to the night of the murder. Not too close,” she added. “He wouldn’t rehearse it, time it, too close to the actual murder.”

“You want me to pull off this to wade through weeks?”

“What if he’d been in the house before? Cased it? Wait. Let me talk to MacMasters first, see if he noted any blip.”

She cut Feeney off, tried MacMasters as she quickened her pace to the car. “Captain, can you tell me if you experienced any problems with your security system over the past six months. Even minor glitches?”

“No.” His eyes seemed to have sunken into his skull. “I run a system check weekly as a precaution. The upgrades added a few months ago claim that’s unnecessary, but—”

“What upgrades?” She got behind the wheel.

“The maintenance company automatically informs us if and when upgrades are available.”

“When did you last upgrade?”

“I’m not sure, I think . . . Sometime in March. I coordinated it with our annual maintenance check.”

“Does the company do the upgrades and the check in house or on site?”

“Both.”

“I need the name of your maintenance company.”

“Security Plus. We’ve used them for years. They’re top-rated. Do you think someone there—”

“I’m going to cover that angle, Captain. We’re going to cover them all. I’ll get back to you.”

She pushed her way uptown while she hit Feeney again. “Start in March,” she told him. “MacMasters got an upgrade on the system in March, and his maintenance company came in to add it. Company’s Security Plus, and I’ll run that down.”

“It would take balls to walk right into the house that way—and brains. He’d get a firsthand look at the system. Where it is, how it works, right on site. But we’ve already checked out the company. It’s what we do. I’ve got the upgrade, and the tech who plugged it in. He’s clean, and he’s twenty years too old to fit our guy. Worked for the company fifteen years.”

“Damn it. Maybe this guy’s connected. Maybe he’s got the same system, and got the same upgrade. He’d get the same notice. Maybe he doesn’t rehearse on site, but he damn well practiced. Run it anyway. I’ll run down other clients with the same system, the same upgrades.”

“Save yourself the time. I’ll get a man to run that down. It’ll be quicker.”

“Get back to me. Wait, shit, wait. Does this company have more than one location?”

“They’ve got a dozen in the metro area, counting New Jersey.”

“He could still work for them. Work for them, be a client—or both.” It felt right. “Let’s push this. I’m in the field, then I’m working at home. Send me everything you get.”