Kindred in Death (In Death #29)(71)

“God. Dig. Now.”

“I will. Am.”

“And work the shoes and the outfit angle. Check to see if he has a credit or debit under that name. If not, we’re going to cross the data you have with males with the initials DP. He used Darian Powders’s ID. Stick with the familiar, so maybe he has other aliases with those initials.”

“That’s good. I’ll—”

“That’s it. Bank a few hours’ sleep because we’re briefing a full team at seven hundred. Book the conference room. I’m out,” Eve said and broke transmission.

“While I find myself, as always, excited by your commanding demeanor,” Roarke said, “this member of the team isn’t available at seven tomorrow.”

She suppressed the urge to swear, because damn it, she could’ve used him. “Civilians get a pass.”

“I can reorder a few things if Feeney can use me, and be available to him about the same time I managed it today.”

“If it works for you. He’s not going to be in Alabama. He needs the payoff of seeing, firsthand, MacMasters devastated. And he’s been in New York for some time. Maybe not for five years, maybe not the whole time since his stint at Columbia, but for a while now. Keeping an eye on things, spinning his web. He’s going to come to the memorial, so I can’t release the sketch to the media and tip him off. Which I may do by pushing at his father.”

“Then why are you? Wait until after the memorial.”

“Calculated risk.” She wanted to stand up, pace, but the size of the plane, the expanse of the night, the emptiness outside the windshield kept her in place. “Off chance he is there. Very off chance, but it can’t be ignored. Better chance, his father knows where he is, and I can get it out of him. Then shut the father’s communications down until we take the bastard down. The other end of it is, I get nothing, the father tips Pauley off, and he’s in the wind. But . . .”

“You don’t think so.”

“Family man, long marriage, another kid. No criminal other than a minor bust for disturbing the peace when he was in his twenties. Solid employment record, mid-level salary, small house in the ’burbs, mortgage. Is this guy going to risk his wife and daughter, that little house, the job, the life, to dodge a police investigation into the rape-murder of a girl? Risk charges of obstruction, accessory after the fact, and anything else I can use to pressure him?”

“Depends, I’d say, on how much he loves his son, and how far he’d go to protect him.”

“I wouldn’t understand that kind of love, the kind that shields monsters. I don’t think it is love. If he does love this sick, son of a bitch, I’ll use that. He needs help. Help us to help him. If I don’t find him, someone else might. He killed a cop’s kid, and someone else might put that above the law.”

She drummed her fingers on her thigh, tried to ignore the shimmy of the plane as they started to descend. “I’ve got to take another risk.” She tagged Baxter at home. “Take the sketch,” she ordered without preamble. “Get Trueheart and canvass the coffeehouses, clubs, hangouts around the university, and on campus.”

“Now?”

“No, gee, whenever you feel like it. Jamie worked an imaging program at Columbia. Check in with him, let him know you’re in the field. And, if it isn’t too much trouble, if it doesn’t interfere with your plans for the evening—”

“Jesus, Dallas, bust my balls.”

“Your balls have never interested me, Baxter.”

“Again, ouch.”

“Take the sketch around MacMasters’s neighborhood. Anything pops, tag me. Otherwise, briefing at seven hundred, Central, confer ence room.”

“Fine. fine. Where the hell are you?”

“I’m about to be in Alabama.” Her stomach flipped. “I hope, sincerely, in one piece. Peabody has the details if you need them. Move it, Baxter.”

“Moving it.”

Lieutenant Dallas, who would charge through a firefight to do the job, closed her eyes with her stomach quivering as they dipped toward touchdown.

She was better when they were zipping along the roads in some spiffy, topless rental with the heavy Southern air whipping around her head.

“A little late for a cop call to a family man,” she said. “Good, it gives us another advantage.”

“It’s not that late. We’re on Central time,” he told her. “We’re an hour earlier here.”

She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “So we’re here before we left. How does anyone keep their brain from frizzing over stuff like this?”

Unable to resist, Roarke gave her a poke and a grin. “And when we go back, we’ll lose an hour.”

“See? It’s senseless. How can you lose an hour? Where does it go? Can someone else find it? Does it get reported to the Lost Time Division?”

“Darling Eve, I have to inform you the world is not flat, nor is New York its center.”

“The first part, okay, but the second? Maybe it should be. Things would be simpler.”

He slowed, sliding onto a suburban street where the trees were plentiful and the houses jammed so close Eve wondered why the occupants didn’t just live in apartments. They’d probably have more privacy.