New York to Dallas (In Death #33)(108)

“We’re linking.”

She angled in. She wanted him to get a good look at her. She was rested, alert. She was ready.

“Eve.”

“Isaac. Really sorry I missed you yesterday.”

“I feel the same. That’s why I’m making arrangements for us to get together very soon.”

“How about now? I happen to be free.”

“Patience. I have a few more preparations to make so we can have a perfect reunion. As you know I had to dispose of the help, so I’m a little shorthanded.”

“Yeah, you were a little rushed, not so careful this time around, Isaac. When you go back to New York, it’ll only be a jumping-off point. This time it’ll be off-planet accommodations for you.”

“Oh, I have something else entirely in mind.”

“Such as.”

“Tell you what, I’ll tell you all about it when you’re gracing my guest room. Meanwhile, I thought you might enjoy a preview of an exciting home vid I produced recently.”

The screen flashed from blank to the obscenity in McQueen’s bedroom. Darlie’s screams and pleading sobs shattered the air.

Eve forced herself to watch, willed herself to give him no reaction while the child inside her wept as piteously as the child on screen.

It shut off abruptly.

“We’ll watch the whole thing when you’re here,” McQueen told her. “I’ll make popcorn. TTFN.”

She held on when Ricchio came on, his face like stone. “Jammed and filtered. We’re cutting through it.”

“Lovers Lane in Highland Park.” Roarke came on, split screen. “He’s moving.”

“Copy that!” Ricchio called out. “I’ll dispatch now. Dallas?”

She shook her head. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”

She ended the call, sat very still.

“I’m all right,” she said when Roarke came in, brought her a glass of water.

“You’re not, and pretending to be isn’t helpful.”

“I already had that in my head, already knew what he—they—did to her. I’m not going to let it mess me up.” But she drained the glass of water. “I’m not heading out because he won’t be there. They have to go, have to try, but he won’t be anywhere near there.”

“No,” Roarke agreed.

“His new location won’t be near there either, so we can eliminate that. Highland Park, right? Lovers f**king Lane. That was deliberate.”

“Yes. Do you want Mira?”

“Yes, soon—but not for me, for this. To help me refine the profile. All those years he kept what he did, what he could do locked in. He could only share his brilliance, as he sees it, with the women he intended to kill anyway. Now he’s found release and enjoyment in bragging. He contacted me to shake me up, to make sure we’re still connected, but also to share. His control isn’t what it was, and that’s an advantage for us. It also makes him more unpredictable.”

Steadier, she thought. She was steady enough. “If you could send Mira all the updates, this ’link transmission. Ask her to review and reprofile. Then we can talk it through, pass it to the locals and feds.”

“All right. Don’t watch it again.”

“You know I have to.”

“Then give it some time. You said he contacted you, with that, to shake you, to brag. Consider he may have also sent it to switch your focus, to have you spend time studying that brutality rather than pursuing other leads.”

“You’re probably right. I’m going to finish my review, run some fresh probabilities. It’s unlikely anything on that preview will help us nail down his current location. But he confirmed for me he has one, with a guest room.”

She nodded, slowly now. “He’s slipping, and I won’t.”

She dug back in, reviewing notes, making new ones, checking maps. She ran a probability and got a high enough result to allow her to eliminate the Highland Park area. She adjusted the property list she and Roarke had compiled, then began the laborious task of checking with soundproofing companies.

“I’ll help you with that,” Roarke told her when he saw what she was doing. “But the deal is you take a break. It’s nearly one, and you’ve been up since dawn without anything to eat.”

“I’m not getting anywhere. All of the locations on my list had soundproofing during the build. Most of yours, the same, or during a remodel. These sorts of buildings, people expect soundproofing, so he wouldn’t have to hire it out.”

“Then we’ll move on to security and electronics. After we eat.”

“Yeah. I’ll get it. I need to let this sit and simmer some. If I missed something, if there’s a key, I’m not finding it.”

“What are we having?”

“I don’t know.” She checked the AutoChef’s menu without much interest. “They got nachos.” She perked up a bit. “Nachos are supposed to be good here, right? And this tortilla soup. Not bad.”

“I’m in,” Roarke said, thinking that with a messy plate of nachos and the soup she’d have to sit to eat.

She ordered it up, got drinks out of the office friggie. And wandered around her board again.

“The beginning, the beginning again.” She sat, scooped up a loaded nacho. “He’s settled in New York. Excellent hunting ground. He’s got money stashed all over the place—good, solid money—but he’s settled in his working-class building. We haven’t found a second location in New York, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have one. Higher end again. He gets caught, gets caged. But he finds people in the system to exploit. That didn’t start with Stibble and the guard. People running errands, giving him unrecorded access to coms. That takes money. You’ve got to keep the errand boys happy. So if he owned the second location, wouldn’t he sell it? Invest the money?”