“Was he angry?”
“Who? Justin? Oh, no. He didn’t know, for one thing. Honestly, I thought of Neville as a lovely fantasy. The looks, the accent, the manner, the chemistry. I was sure it was only that when we ran into each other again. I was free, but he was with someone else. Missed that chance, that’s what I thought. Then, third time’s the charm. We met again and we were both single, and it turned out he’d felt that same thud. And that’s been that. The Don’t Bother aura descended.”
“Did you ever have the feeling someone had been in your home when you weren’t? Notice something missing?”
“Not really.”
“Underwear,” Eve said and watched surprise flicker over Rosa’s face.
“I … It’s odd you say that. I bought all new lingerie before the wedding, didn’t wear any of it. Neville and I lived together in the house since the spring, and I wanted everything new when we were married. So I put it away, but didn’t wear it. When we got back from the honeymoon I’d have sworn a couple of sets were missing. I took some with me on the honeymoon, but I was so sure I’d bought and put away these others.”
“They weren’t where you’d put them.”
“They weren’t anywhere. I just chalked it up to all the wedding chaos.”
She stopped, rubbed a hand over her heart. “He’d been in the house?”
“It’s something we’re looking into.”
“It feels like it’s never going to end,” Rosa murmured.
McNab opened the door, let Kyle walk in ahead of him.
“Lieutenant?”
“Give me a minute.” She stepped out with McNab.
“Drop ’link.”
“I figured.”
“But I’ve got a location. Where the text originated, and where the ’link—still active—is now. It’s half a block from the Patricks’ building. I checked the file.”
“Get your gear, you’re with me. Garage, five minutes, so move your ass.”
“It’s never still.”
Simple truth, she thought as he rushed off on his tartan airboots and she went back into Interview A.
“As I suspected, the text came from a drop ’link.”
“What does that mean?” Rosa demanded.
“They can’t identify it, Rosa,” Kyle explained. “It’s not registered.”
“Oh, but—”
“We do have a location. I’m going there now. I can take you down to our lounge to wait for Mr. Patrick.”
Kyle checked his wrist unit. “Damn it. He’s still about ten minutes out. Don’t wait. Go. I’ll tag him back, and we’ll meet him downstairs. He’s nearly here, Rosa. We’ll go meet him.”
“Yes.” Rosa stood up. “Hurry,” she said to Eve.
Eve hurried to her office, barely slowing her stride when Peabody sprang from her desk in the bullpen. “McNab said—”
“Work the list. McNab’s enough for this. We get anything, you’ll know.”
Eve grabbed her coat, arrowed down to the garage. McNab loped up half a minute behind her.
Eve simply bulleted out of the slot, hit the lights and sirens, and sped out of the garage.
“Yee-haw” was McNab’s reaction, but he tightened his safety harness. “Not to dampen down, Dallas, but he’s not going to be there.”
“I know it.”
“Okay then. This sucker moves. So this fuckhead escalates to murder on one hand, devolves to taunts on the other.”
“Why ‘devolve’?” she asked as she swerved around a sedan whose driver obviously decided sirens meant nothing to him.
“It’s small time, right? Sure, it keeps a former target on edge, or brings back that edge, but he’s on to bigger now.”
“Ask yourself why this target? Why this woman? The first.”
He asked himself as she hit a clear stretch on Tenth, and the city blurred by. “She’s still important. She, especially, means something to him.”
“He didn’t include the husband on the text—it wasn’t a couple thing. He didn’t threaten violence. He taunted, yeah, but it’s ‘Let’s do it again.’ The sick part of him that twists this into actual sex wants to do it again. With her. That’s my conclusion until and unless the rest of the victims get the same.”
McNab thought it through. Nodded. “That’s why you’re the LT.”
“Fucking A. Still in that location?”
“Hasn’t budged. I got a lock on it.” He studied the read on on his PPC.
He guided her in as they got closer, then cursed.
“Shit, fuck, damn, it shut down.”