Reunion in Death (In Death #14)(41)

He sat back, sipped his brandy. "We both know I'm not going around with cops on my heels."

"You'd prefer protective custody and me keeping you locked in this house?"

He angled his head. "You know my lawyers will tear any attempt at that into tiny shreds, so let's save both of us the time and trouble."

"You hard-headed son of a bitch. I'll chew your lawyers up and spit them back out on your thousand-dollar shoes."

"You can try."

She sprang to her feet. "I pick up that 'link, I'm getting authorization to lock you up, at a location I see fit, and slap a goddamn bracelet on your wrist until I'm sure your ass is safe."

He got to his feet as well. "Then I pick up the 'link, make my call, and have a restraining order trumping your bloody authorization before it's printed. I won't be caged, Eve, not by you or anyone. And I won't hide or run, so put your considerable temper and energies into tracking your woman, and I'll see to my own ass very well."

"It's not just your ass anymore. It belongs to me, too. Goddamn it, I love you."

"And I love you right back." As his temper ebbed, he laid his hands on her shoulders. "Eve, I'll have a care. I promise you."

She shrugged his hands off, paced away. "I knew you wouldn't do it my way."

"Do you think I'd be where I am if every time there's a threat I bolt into some safe house? I face what comes at me. I deal with it. I deal with it a bit different than I once did."

"I know. I know you're more savvy about security than anyone, but will you let Feeney look things over?"

"I've no problem with that."

"I'm asking for you to give me your schedule, where you'll be, when and with who. I won't throw cops at you." She turned back now. "You'd make them and ditch them anyway. But I'd feel better if I knew."

"I'll copy you."

"Okay. I'm going to have to go to Dallas." She said it very fast, as if the words might burn her tongue. "I'm going to need to talk to the stepfather. I'm not sure when I can manage it, but within the next two days. She'll be moving in on someone else before much longer. He could be a target, too. You know, Texas, cowboys. Maybe that's the sheep angle, too. They've got sheep in Texas, I think. I-"

He'd come to her while she'd rambled, and cut her off by gently taking her arms. "I'll go with you. You won't do this without me."

"I don't think I could." She relaxed deliberately, muscle by muscle. "I'm okay. I've got work."

CHAPTER 9

Eve spent hours doing probabilities, running scans on names that linked to sheep and cowboy.

While the computer worked, she read over the Pettibone file, hoping she'd missed something, anything that indicated a more direct link between the killer and her victim.

All she found was a nice, middle-aged man, well-loved by his family, well-liked by his friends, who'd run a successful business in a straightforward, honest manner.

Nor could she link anyone else. There was no evidence that either of the victim's wives or his children or the spouses of his children knew or had known Julianna Dunne, and no motive she could find that leaned toward any of them arranging a murder.

The two wives might have been totally different types, but they had one patch of common ground. An obvious affection for Walter C. Pettibone.

As far as the data, the evidence, and the probability scans indicated, Julianna had picked Pettibone out of a hat. And that canny capriciousness meant the next target could be one of millions.

She left the computer sorting names when she went to bed, and was up at six a.m. going over it all again.

"You'll wear yourself out again, Lieutenant."

She looked over to where Roarke stood, already dressed, already perfect. She'd yet to so much as brush her teeth.

"No, I'm fine. I got a solid five. I'm working with sheep." She gestured toward the wall screen. "You got any clue how many names have something to do with stupid sheep?"

"Other than the variations that include the syllable sheep itself? Lamb, Shepherd, Ram, Mutton, Ewes-"

"Shut up."

He grinned and came into her office, offered her one of the mugs of coffee he held. "And, of course, countless variations on those and others."

"And it doesn't have to be a name. Could be a job, the way he looks. Christ, I got this angle from a jonesing funky junkie named Loopy."

"Still there's a logic to it. The bone man, the sheep man. I'd say you're on the right track."

"Big fricking track. Even cutting it to multiple married males from fifty to seventy-five, her usual target area, I've got tens of thousands just in the metropolitan area. I can cut that back again by financial worth, but it's still too many to cover."

"What's your plan?"

"Cutting it down again by following the theory that Pettibone was considered eight to ten years back. If her next mark was in the running back then, I look at men who were successfully established in the city ten years ago. Then I hope to hell Julianna's not in a hurry."

She ordered the computer to start a new listing using that criteria, then took a casual sip of coffee. "What've you got going today?"