Kindred in Death (In Death #29)(75)

“Yeah. And I’ll find her.”

She pulled out her ’link when it signaled. “Dallas.”

“Are you seriously in Alabama?” Baxter demanded.

“I’m on my way to transpo, and will be heading back.”

“Could you pick up some barbecue? There’s nothing like Southern barbecue.”

“Baxter, it’s your ass getting barbecued if you’re tagging me for nothing.”

“Can I have barbecue if I’ve got something? Jesus, Dallas, you’re going to scare my appetite away with that face. Okay, we got a hit. Girl working the bar at a club that caters to barely legal college types. She made the sketch. She says she had some classes with this guy. He really did go to Columbia. Better yet, she’s a grad student, working her way through her master’s, and says she saw him—you’re going to love it—at a party on New Year’s freaking Eve.”

“At Powders’s.”

“At Powders’s. Tells us she was there solo, and hey, why not, so she put a little hit on him. He wasn’t into it. Believe me, a man would be crazy not to be. Right, Trueheart?”

“She’s very pretty.”

“Hot. Steaming, finger-burning hot.” He sighed the sigh of a patient tutor. “My work is never done with this boy.”

“Write it up.”

“That’s where the boy’s work is never done. So we hied ourselves—”

“What yourselves?”

“Hied ourselves over to Powders’s, and got confirmation. He, his roommate, and his unfortunately underage twist all recognized him. Just somebody they’d see around now and then. But the girl noticed him party night. She said she always notices frosty guys—and gave our own Trueheart a little flutter.”

“Sir, she did not—”

“You need to be more observant, my young apprentice. So we’ve got wits put him in Powders’s on the night the ID was lifted. It’s good.”

“It’s good.”

“Dallas, it’s too damn late to go knocking on doors at MacMasters’s.”

“It’s only . . . shit.” An hour gained, an hour lost. She just hated it. “You’ll hit it after the briefing tomorrow.”

“We’ve got a couple more maybes here and there. Shilly’s the solid.”

“Shilly.”

“I know, she even has a steaming, finger-burning name. About that barbecue.”

She cut him off.

“The PA’s going to be pleased with that when we take him down,” she said to Roarke. “It’s nice case-building. If you manage to clean up that hard drive, get me that picture of him going in the door—”

“And we will.”

“We’ll put him away. But we have to find him first. Got his face,” she mumbled. “Got a name. Not the one he’s using now, no, not the one he used with Deena. That was David. But a name. Got his connection, got his kinship.”

She noted they were about to enter the transpo station. “I can start the search for Inga—whatever name she was using—on the way home.”

“I could find her faster, I’d wager. If you’d like to pilot.”

“Ha-ha.”

“You’d enjoy flying more if you’d learn the controls.”

“I’d rather pretend I’m on the ground.”

Roarke sent her a quick smile. “And how many vehicles have you wrecked, had blown up, or destroyed in the last, oh, two years?”

“Think about that, then imagine it happening when I’m at the wheel at thirty thousand feet.”

“Good point. I’ll do the flying.”

“Do that, ace.”

He parked. “They had something, the Pauleys. A solid base, a strong connection to each other. Each of them solid in their own right, from my perception, and more yet together.”

“I wouldn’t argue. He feels responsible, and feels a kind of grief over Darrin. Even though it’s very unlikely he’s the father.”

“Blood still, either way. Blood’s a strong tie. Kinship, as you said. And a good man like that, he’d feel it regardless.”

“A bad man can feel it, too,” she said and got out of the car to fly home.

15

SHE’D BEEN IRENE SCHULTZ—AT LEAST IN June of 2039 when a young Jonah MacMasters had collared her for fraud, possession of illegal substances, and soliciting sex without a license.

Her male companion, one Victor Patterson, had been questioned and released though MacMasters’s case notes indicated his complicity. Lack of evidence against him, and the woman’s confession made it impossible to hold and charge him.

A male child, Damien Patterson, had been removed by child services into foster care during the investigation, and subsequently returned to his father. Schultz had taken a deal, and had done eighteen months.

Case closed.

“It has to be her,” Eve said as she and Roarke walked back into the house. “Everything fits. Two months after her release, she poofs, and so do Patterson and the kid. Vanish, no further data on record.”

“Picked up new identities.”

“That’s the pattern.” She headed up the stairs. “Change ID, move locations, start a new game. But here’s a new angle. From the case notes, it’s clear MacMasters believed Patterson—or Pauley—was part of the fraud. He let her take the rap, and she let him. She went down for it. More, Vinnie said nothing about illegals. His brother’s got no illegals bumps on his record. That’s new. Where’d it come from?”