Possession in Death (In Death #31.5)(14)

“Okay.” Eve watched the willowy blonde glide out.

“You wanted to see me?” She had a breathy, baby doll voice that made Eve think it was Allie’s good luck ballet didn’t require vocals.

“Just verifying some information. Would you mind telling me where you were this afternoon?”

“Sure. Alex and I had brunch with some friends at Quazar’s. Caviar and champagne—it was CeeCee’s birthday—which probably wasn’t a good idea right before practice. I’m still carrying those blinis.” She smiled easily. “Doesn’t bother Alex, I guess, because he jumped right in when we got here. Pushed me through that damn pas de deux until I thought about just sticking my fingers down my throat. But Barinova will skin you for purging, and she always knows. Anyway, I got through it. My Angel to his Devil.”

“His what?”

“Devil.” She lifted the water bottle she carried, took a long sip. “We’re performing the final pas de deux from Diabolique. I’m dancing Angel. Alex is Devil. Let me tell you, it’s a killer.”

Eve looked past her to the studio doorway. “I just bet.”

Chapter Six

“That’s what I’d call a devil of a coincidence,” Peabody commented when they stepped out on the street.

“Are you buying it?”

“Not even for the couple of loose credits in my pocket.”

“I want you to check with the other people the blonde gave us, and the restaurant. We’ll see if Alexi could’ve managed to slip away. See what the timing is from the restaurant to the alley, from the school to the alley.”

“Beata turned him down, pissed him off. He kills her, buries the body.” Peabody scanned the area. “God knows where, but that would fit in with the west of the alley, underground deal.”

“She’s not dead. She’s trapped.” Eve snapped it out furiously, shocking herself as much as Peabody.

“Okay… So you think—”

“It’s what she thought. Szabo.” Eve rubbed a hand between her br**sts where her heart beat, hard and dull, a hammer against cloth. “I’m saying Szabo thought Beata was alive.”

“Right. Behind a red door. Why do people have to be so cryptic?”

Think like a cop, Eve ordered herself. Facts, logic, instinct. “Szabo spends time at the school, with Alexi et al, sniffs it out, suspects, hints around. Maybe trying to get Alexi to make a move. He kills her.” Eve rolled it around. “Awful damn tidy, but sometimes it just is.”

“Well, the old lady told everybody Beata was still alive, so that doesn’t ride the train very well.”

“She poofs. She’s got a job, her classes, landed a part. Sounds like everything’s working out for her, but she poofs. Odds are she didn’t poof voluntarily—that’s Lloyd’s take, and I agree.”

“Three months is a long time,” Peabody put in. “A long time to hold somebody who doesn’t want to be held. And for what reason?”

“Szabo didn’t want to believe the girl was dead, and who can blame her?” Eve added. “Not only her great-granddaughter, but she overrode the rest of the family so Beata could come to New York.”

“Had to feel sick about it.” Like Eve, Peabody scanned the street, the buildings, the traffic. “What did she say exactly? To you, I mean.”

Eve didn’t want to go back there, to kneeling in the street, the woman’s hand clasped with hers. Blood to blood.

“She said Beata’s name, she said she was trapped, couldn’t get out. The below bit, the red door. She asked for help.”

You are the warrior. I am the promise.

Fighting to stay steady, Eve shoved a hand through her hair. “She was dying.”

But her eyes, Eve remembered, had been alert, alive.

“We comb through the alibis, check her other habitats.” Do the work, Eve thought, take the steps. “I’m going to check in with Morris, contact the arresting officers about Alexi, get their take on him.”

“Beata’s disappearance and the old woman’s murder—if they’re not connected, it’s another devil of a coincidence.”

“We pursue the investigation as if they are. We figure out one, we’ve got the other.”

“I could tag McNab, have him meet me, go by the theater where she was supposed to work. Lloyd covered it,” Peabody added, “but we could try fresh eyes on it.”

“Good thinking. Send me whatever you get.”

She needed thinking time, Eve told herself as they split up. A stop at the morgue to confirm TOD—which was just stupid, since she’d been right there at TOD—to see if Morris or the lab had been able to get a handle on the type of blade used, if the sweepers had found any trace evidence.

Deal with the facts first, she thought as she got in her vehicle—then move on to theory. But she sat a moment, suddenly tired, suddenly angry. It felt as if something pushed inside her brain, trying to shove her thoughts into tangents.

Not enough downtime, she decided. No time to take some good, deep breaths between cases. So she took them now, just closing her eyes for a moment, ordering her mind and body to clear.

Alive. Trapped. Help.

Keep your promise!

The voice was so clear in her head she jerked up, had a hand on her weapon as she swiveled to check the seat beside her, behind her. Her heart pounded painfully against her ribs, in her throat, in her ears as she lowered her unsteady hand.