Thankless in Death (In Death #37)(39)

“So young,” Mira said quietly, and moved back to the living room.

“If you’re done in there, I want to let the sweepers get started, and bring the morgue team in.”

“Yes, I’ve seen enough there. Did he do this?” She gestured to the little kitchen area.

“Yeah, he ate after. At least some of it after. He used the AutoChef after TOD.” Eve signaled the sweepers.

“Junk food. Fun food. Party food. His little celebration, all the more enjoyable as she’s dead so close by. Did he take anything else?”

“Her wallet, her tip money, her comp, her new ’link. That’s all I’m sure of for now. Probably some jewelry. I think, out shopping with a girl pal, getting new hair and stuff, she’d’ve had on some earrings, maybe a couple of other pieces.”

“I agree. She’s a young woman, a waitress, so it’s doubtful unless she had a family piece, she had anything particularly valuable.”

Watching Mira wander, Eve felt it build up. “I screwed up.”

Calm and assessing, Mira looked back. “Why do you think that?”

“I never figured he’d go after anyone else—and not this fast—unless in flight or for survival, or possibly if they refused to help him. But I never saw this.”

“I don’t know how you could have or why you would have. Coming here, doing this? It’s risky and it’s calculated. His other killings weren’t. They were, first, impulse, then opportunity. Even with that, you tried to reach her, several times. Circumstances prevented it.”

“I had the wrong handle on him. He’d never shown particularly violent behavior before, or ambition or calculation. Killing his mother, that was impulse, then blind rage.”

“Yes.”

“Then his father, hours later. Rage again, but some glee in there, and the cold-blooded ability to stay in that apartment, first waiting for his father, making plans, then with both of them dead by his hand while he completed the plans. He ate, slept, plotted, with their bodies only a few feet away.”

“He felt nothing,” Mira said. “He’s a sociopath, a narcissist. He believes everything revolves around him, and his needs—or that it should. He uses projection bias to shift blame and responsibility to others. He believes this, and feels no guilt or remorse for his behavior, nor any need to change.”

“He did change,” Eve argued. “When he picked up the knife and put it into his mother.”

“Escalated,” Mira corrected. “Broke through the restraints. And it was her own fault.”

Eve shoved a hand through her hair, nodded. “Okay. And I saw it as they’re out of his way, he has a conduit to the money, a way to live like a king for the short term. Just what he wanted. No guilt or remorse, I got that. It was more like glee. But … Killing his parents, did it kill something in him, that tiny spark of conscience, humanity, the need to be a part of the whole?”

“I think seeing what he did here, what he enjoyed doing here, no, it didn’t kill a part of him, it freed a part of him he’d suppressed. And likely suppressed out of fear of punishment. A part of him he may not have been truly or fully aware of until freed. He’s found himself.”

“Sorry to interrupt.” Peabody walked in, holding a take-out tray. “Roarke sent this in. That’s tea for you, Dr. Mira, on the front corner. Coffee for you, Dallas, back corner, and coffee regular for me. Roarke’s down with McNab, at this twenty-four/seven café across the street. The waiter recognized the suspect. They’re checking out street-level security discs.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“As is this.” Mira sipped her tea. “It’s my favorite. How does he do that?”

Eve shrugged. “I’ve stopped asking that question.”

“Is it all right to sit a moment?”

“Go ahead,” Eve told her. “I can’t yet.”

“I can, two minutes,” Peabody said quickly, and lowered onto one of the padded crates.

“He’s validated,” Mira went on as she sat. “All those menial jobs he was pushed or forced into? Never meant to be—he always knew it, now he’s proven it. All the bosses who demanded he work by their rules? Shortsighted, stupid, or out to make him less because they saw he was so much more. He’s killed three people, and he’s walking free. You know who he is, but you can’t stop him—he just proved that with this last kill. He has money now, true freedom now, true self now.”

“He’ll need to kill again.”

“Definitely. His sexual reaction to this kill adds yet another level of that need. Killing rewards him.”

“Someone he knows? A stranger won’t give him that same rush, at least not this soon.”

“Agreed, and knowing his victim, knowing that victim has always underestimated him, considered him less, has even hurt or insulted him in some way is only part of it.”

Yes, she could see into him now, into the dark corners of him. “Payback’s the other. His parents held him back, shoved him, nagged him, threatened him, and were on the point of booting him. She already had. He’s got plenty of others he’d see the same way.”

“A long list of slights, opportunities to prove himself, opportunities for the thrill and release, and the gain. The reward.”