She heard a babble of voices in the background, and a number of whooshes, thuds.
“Lieutenant?”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“At An Didean, just outside what will be the recreation center.”
She thought of the shelter he was creating for disenfranchised kids—and the dead girls they’d found sealed inside the walls of the building the previous year.
“I need a favor.”
“All right.”
“Can you work in a stop by the Miras’ sometime today?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, and I just want to keep it that way.” Stupid, she told herself. Overreacting. But she couldn’t stop it. “I thought you could take a good look at their security, maybe do what you do to beef it up, or add a couple layers. He hit again last night, killed both of them this time. I know the Miras aren’t on the list—she’s outside his age preference, and they’re not seriously wealthy, exactly, but—”
“I’ll pick up a few things, go by before I come home tonight. Will that work?”
“Yeah.” Ridiculous relief flooded her. “Thanks. Mavis and Leonardo and the kid are in New L.A. for a couple of days. Some fashion thing for him, some gig for her. They’re not really in the pattern, either, but I don’t have to think about them right now. The Miras … I just don’t want to risk it.”
“Then we won’t.”
“I’ll let her know you’re doing this. I … I can’t talk now, but thanks for this.”
“They’re mine as they’re yours. Tag me if you’re going to be delayed, more than usual, getting home.”
“I will.”
She clicked off as she turned into Homicide.
“Carmichael’s on the way with the new uniform to scoop up Anson Wright,” Peabody told her. “I just got off with Baxter. He and the other detectives are coordinating, and they can handle the rest of the list. One of the couples he and Trueheart talked to are friends of the Patricks, and were at their table the night of the gala. No connection to the vendors, but the wife’s done numerous vid ads, and is currently one of the stars in one of On Screen’s projects in development. Baxter says she’s ‘Ooh-la-la.’”
“Other than him getting a woody over an actress who’s someone else’s wife, any more buzz?”
“Neither of them remember anything unusual about that night. The wife admits she gets hit on pretty regularly, just part of the package, but doesn’t recall anything that night, or anything period that’s gone beyond her expected hitting on. Oh, and some mildly creepy and suggestive fan mail. They asked if we can take a look at that.”
“Take a closer look at her, send me what you get.”
In her office, Eve updated her book, her board, wrote detailed reports on the interviews. Then meticulously wrote up the report on the double homicide.
Rather than take the time to return to Mira’s office, she wrote out an e-mail, read it, fiddled with it, sent it.
It would be harder for Mira to argue the need for Roarke’s visit if Eve didn’t give her a way to argue.
She flicked over to an incoming, read Peabody’s quick, additional run of one Delilah Esterby.
Eve remembered the name, the face—husband of ten months (only dating at the time of the gala), Aidan Malloy, of the really, seriously rich Malloys.
Both stupidly good-looking, ages twenty-seven and twenty-six, respectively. Young, rich, beautiful, and living in a classy house on the Upper West.
Fit like a glove.
Eve opened the vid attachment to the report, lifted her eyebrows as she watched a montage of Delilah’s ads.
Selling with sex, she thought. Wear this, buy that, use this, and every man—or woman—alive will want to bang you the way they want to bang me.
Considering, Eve studied her board, all the other victims. Stunners, with faces and bodies gifted from gods.
But this one added straight-out fuck-me sex to the mix.
So why hadn’t he gone there? Why pick the soft, the submissive, the busy professional, or the happily devoted wife and daughter instead of the bombshell who made her living selling sex?
Fitting another piece into the twisted puzzle of the killer’s mind, Eve replayed the video as Peabody came in.
“Makes me want to run out and buy that entire line of bath and body products,” Peabody said.
“Why?”
“Well, ah—”
“Serious question.”
“Because it makes me think—absolutely illogically and unrealistically—that I’d end up looking like that, sounding like that, and being just, I don’t know, aware how iced and powerful I am.”