Concealed in Death (20 page)

She walked back in, eyes flat, stride brisk. And held out her PPC. “Iris Kirkwood.”

Sebastian looked at the screen, at the image of the girl with straight, sandy blond hair, wide brown eyes, and lips curved in a small, sweet smile.

“Yes, that’s Iris.” He picked up the beer, took a slow swallow. “Is she one of them?”

“I don’t know yet. Her mother’s dead, beaten to death by the guy she lived with in North Carolina. April of ’forty-five.”

“That would’ve been six or eight months after Iris came to me, and a few months before she left us.”

“Any other girls who left about that time?”

“No, at least none who didn’t go back to a parent or guardian. Which is encouraged—strongly—when they’re spinning a tale as Merry did.”

“As Merry did?”

“You’ve looked at her background by now, so you know—as I did—she came from an average family. No reports of abuse, no Double Ds—and yes, some of that often isn’t reported. But I know when a girl’s lying to me. And her claims of terror and misery at home were lies.”

He paused to consider his beer again. “She paid far too high a price for it. If and when you have more photos, I’ll look at them.”

“He fished in your pool, and The Sanctuary’s. Where was your flop during this period?”

“We had three on rotation that year, year and a half. As I assumed you’d ask, I’ve noted them down.” He took a piece of paper out of his pocket, handed it to her. “All three buildings have been renovated and are occupied now, but at the time they were useful.”

“Where’s your flop now?”

He smiled a little. “I won’t tell you the truth, and find myself reluctant to lie to you. So.” He gave a small, elegant shrug, sipped his beer. “If you need to talk to me again, Mavis knows how to contact me.”

Eve sat back, considered. She wouldn’t break her word to Mavis and run him in on the stream of charges that came to mind. And for now, he might be useful.

“The other two in Shelby’s crew. What do you know about them?”

“The boy, nothing. DeLonna . . .” He hesitated. “She’s alive and well.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“It’s awkward. I’ll contact her, ask her to contact you. I can’t do more without betraying her.”

“She’s very likely a material witness in multiple homicides.”

“I very much doubt that, or she’d have said or done something. She loved Shelby, and Mikki. But I give you my word I’ll contact her tonight, and I’ll convince her to talk to you.”

“Your word.”

“Is good, which is why I rarely give it. How did they die? How did he—”

“I can’t tell you at this time.” She slid out of the booth again, hated that she saw genuine grief on his face. “But when I can, I will.”

“Thank you.”

“If I find out you had anything to do with it, the wrath of God has nothing on mine.”

“I hope that’s true. I hope when you find him, the wrath of a thousand gods comes down on him.”

She turned to go, scowled when Roarke held out a hand to him. “It was good to meet you.”

“And you. Both of you.”

Eve kept her silence until they were out in the cold and the wind. “You’re freaking polite.”

“No reason for me to be otherwise.”

“You
liked
him.”

“I didn’t dislike him,” Roarke qualified, as he grabbed her hand and walked toward the car.

“He conceals girls from the authorities, teaches them to distrust, disrespect, and break the law, cheat people, steal from people when they should be . . .” She waved her free hand. “In school and whatever.”

“They should be in school and whatever,” he agreed. “They shouldn’t be used as a punching bag, or worse, by a parent. They shouldn’t be neglected and left to fend for themselves or exposed to violence, illegals, indiscriminate sex, and everything else they’d be exposed to in a bloody awful home.”

He opened the car door for her. After one fulminating glare, she got inside.

“And just how many of the girls who’ve run through
his
system,” she began the minute Roarke slid behind the wheel, “are in a cage, or dead, or working the streets because of the lifestyle he promoted?”

“I expect some are, and likely would have been with or without him. I also know at least one who’s happy, successful, has a family, and a very fine life.”

“Just because Mavis—”

“Where do you think she’d be, given how she was, where she was, her age, if he hadn’t given her a place?”

“I think she’d have been scooped up, the cops and CPS would’ve interviewed and examined her, would’ve tossed her worthless, bat-shit mother in a padded cage, and put Mavis in foster care.”

“That’s possible,” he said as he drove. “As it’s possible someone prone to taking young girls would have raped her at the least, sold her, killed her. Many possibles, but the fact is she wouldn’t be who she is, you wouldn’t be more than sisters if not for Sebastian. Change something by a hair, darling, change it all.”

“It’s not right, what he’s doing. I let it go because I needed her to get him to talk to me. And because—”

“You gave her your word you wouldn’t arrest him.”

“It’s different now.”

“You don’t think he killed those girls.”

Damn it, no, she didn’t—and hoped to hell she wasn’t being conned. “Thinking isn’t proof, and he’s connected. Liar, thief, con man.”

“Are you speaking of him or me?”

She slumped down in her seat with a fresh scowl. “Stop it.”

“Well now, I didn’t run a gang of girls, but I ran with a gang. I lied, I stole, and certainly ran the occasional scam. You’ve learned to live with that, but it niggles now and then.”

“You gave it up.”

“Some for myself before I met you. The rest for you. For what I wanted for us. I had Summerset, or else the old man would’ve beat me bloody time and again until he did me in. You know, better than most, that the system does fail, however much those in it try. And that not all who take children in, within that system, do so with open hearts. You have your lines, Lieutenant, and I’ve my own. I don’t think we’re too far apart in this case. More a bit of a lean in two directions, but not far. Not with Mavis in the middle of it.”

He reached over, rubbed her thigh. “Where’s her mother? You’d have looked into that.”

“In a facility for the bat-shit who carve an equally bat-shit up with a butcher knife. She’s been in for about eight years now—before that she moved around, joined a cult, left it, did some time for trading sex for Zeus. Got out, got on the funk. She was wasted on it when she sliced up the woman she ran with—and was sleeping with by that point. Mavis was right. She just fried her own brain over time. She’s mostly sedated.”

“You haven’t told her.”

“I will if and when she needs to know. If and when she ever wants to know. She’s pushed it all out, or had until tonight. Really pushed it out. She had some moments tying herself up in knots that she wouldn’t be a good mother, but she figured out how to set it away, and be happy. Telling her just throws it back at her.”

Eve leaned her head back. “And she was right. If her mother wasn’t shit-house crazy, she’d never recognize the kid she knocked around in Mavis Freestone, music star and fashion . . . wonder. I often wonder about her fashion.”

“That’s part of the point, isn’t it? Forced to wear dull clothes, having her hair whacked off. It’s not just shoving it out, it’s beating it with sticks and setting it on fire.”

The image surprised a laugh out of Eve. “Yeah, it is. I wonder if she knows it.”

“I suspect she did when she started experimenting with hair color, eye color, the clothes. Now? It’s who she is.”

He turned in the gates, toward the big, handsome house. “She didn’t recognize Iris from The Club?”

“I didn’t have an ID photo to show her. No Missing Persons ever filed on Iris Kirkwood, no alerts, not here, not where the mother died. She slipped through the cracks. Yes, the system fails sometimes, some of the worst times, but teaching adolescent girls how to run Take the Candy isn’t the solution.”

“I’ve never heard of that con.”

“I made it up. I want some candy.”

He parked in front of the entrance, smiled at her. “Let’s go get some.”

She went in with him, tossed her coat over the newel post.

“What do you intend to do with the addresses Sebastian gave you?”

“Send out some uniforms to canvass and dig up residents and merchants who were around when the girls went missing, show them photos. Poke, prod, pry. It only takes one person,” she continued as they went upstairs, “just one to have seen one or more of the vics with someone. They’ll have been friendly with him, trusted him. She had a secret,” Eve murmured. “Iris.”

“You believe she’s one of them.”

“She sneaks out of the place that’s been her home, where she feels safe, takes her stuffed dog, and never comes back? They never find her, because I believe him when he said they looked. Somebody snatched her or lured her, and/or killed her.”

Eve looked at the board as they walked into her office. “So she goes up. The question mark comes off Merry, and onto Iris. But it won’t be a question mark for long.”

“You’ve only two more.”

“Yeah, maybe one of the last two hold the key. Or DeLonna. She poofed, too, but not until she was about sixteen and pretty clear of the system. But she’s alive according to Sebastian.”

“And well.”

“I’ll judge that when I talk to her—and I will talk to her,” Eve said as she hunkered down beside her desk chair. “If he doesn’t come through by tomorrow, I’ll have to squeeze him.”

“Which you wouldn’t mind doing just on principle.” She took a candy bar out of the desk drawer.

“In here? Really? I didn’t know you kept a stash at home.”

“It’s not hidden from you. and I’ll even share this time.” She broke the bar neatly in two.

“Here’s to that,” he said and tapped his half to hers.

•   •   •

T
he chocolate gave her a boost—especially with the coffee she pumped in after it—so she worked until midnight.

Spinning wheels, mostly, she admitted. Covering and recovering the same ground. But sometimes you spotted something when you backtracked.

Someone they knew. And most if not all of them knew each other. Some lived together, or ran together. Same basic turf.

If Sebastian was to be believed, he hadn’t forged Shelby’s docs. Say he told that straight, Eve thought as she propped up her feet to study the board.

Could she have done them herself, catching on to how Sebastian did forgeries? Picking it up, as he’d said, because she knew how to pay attention?

Possible. Possible.

Eve brought Shelby’s picture on screen, studied it.

Smart girl, tough girl, hard girl. But loyal. A born leader—and I bet you liked being in charge—who didn’t like the rules. Not with the do-gooders, not with the grifters. Wanted your own.

“And didn’t the place, the perfect place, drop into your lap when The Sanctuary pulled up stakes? That’s what plays. It plays. It’s familiar. It’s empty. You know it top to bottom.”

She rose, walked closer to the screen as Roarke stepped back in.

“I half expected to find you snoring at your desk.”

“Caffeine works. I don’t snore.” Eve pointed at the screen. “She’s the key.”

He turned to study the screen with her. “Which is she?”

“Shelby.”

“Ah, the leader, the one who walked out of the new facility with forged documents.”

“Exactly. She knew the ropes, had an agenda. And she had a connection with somebody who knew how to forge.”

“I don’t see why Sebastian would deny doing so, at this stage.”

“She could’ve done them herself, picked up the basics from him, just like he said. That would explain the misspellings, and the really bad attempt at forging Jones’s signature. That data came through from the analysis,” she added. “It’s way off from Nashville Jones’s signature.

“So . . .” Turning from the screen, she circled the board. “She’s learning, planning, and Bittmore drops the bountiful in The Sanctuary’s lap. Hey, kids, we’re moving to big, pretty new digs! Pack it up.”

“And she realized it’s just the right time.”

“Perfect time. Everybody’s going to be busy, running around, distracted. More, she’s smart enough to know what goes on, and what goes on is the old building’s going to be empty. At least for a bit while the bank gets its act together, and that’s already been hanging for months.”

“A lifetime at thirteen. Would she even think about that really?” Roarke wondered. “Opportunity’s there, grab it?”

“Yeah. Foreclosures, mortgages. Adult stuff. For her, it’s just perfect time, perfect place. She’ll get out, get in, set things up for her friends until she can get them out. Nice and tidy, with documentation so nobody comes hunting for them.”

“It worked for her—the getting out.”

“Yeah, it did. Did she have somebody inside, or outside? Did she use somebody? She’d have seen it that way, just another mark. And the mark turns. Maybe she lured him in, trading sex for whatever she needed or wanted. But that didn’t work out for her, because she was the mark all along.”

“Why kill her?”

“Need, desire, or a dozen more reasons. Iris had a secret, but I don’t see somebody like Shelby taking somebody like Iris into her confidence.”

“The killer?”

“Maybe, just maybe. She’s no leader, but can be led. Iris went to church, like Lupa, like Carlie. Lots of churchy talk with Jones and Jones. Where does that fit in? Does it?”

When she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, Roarke took her arm. “Let it sit for now. Get some sleep.”

“I feel like I’m circling it, like I’m close, but not close enough to see it clearly.”

“In the morning you might.”

She shot him a look when he led her out. “You could find Sebastian’s flops. You could,” she pressed when he said nothing.

“I imagine I could.”

“Just keep that on tap, okay? I won’t ask unless I have to ask.”

“Agreed,
if
I agree with the ‘have to ask.’”

That had to be swallowed, though it was hard going down. “Good enough.”

Again, all the pretty girls sat in a circle. More had faces of their own now, young and sad in contrast with their bright clothes, bright hair.

They didn’t chatter like the girls in Times Square, or giggle at jokes only they could understand. They sat, they watched.

Eve thought they waited.

“I’m getting close,” she insisted. “It takes time, and work—and maybe some luck. There are so many of you. I only need two more IDs.”

And the two wearing her face turned and looked away.

“There’s no point in being pissy about it.”

“They don’t like being dead,” Linh told her. “None of us do. It’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair. Neither’s death.”

“Easy for you to say.” The girl named Merry sneered at her. “Your life’s totally mag. You’re sleeping in a big warm bed with the frostiest guy on or off planet.”

“Her father beat and raped her when she was just a little girl,” Lupa told Merry. “Younger than us.”

“She lived through it, didn’t she?” Shelby stood up, crossed her arms over her chest. “And landed in the prime. Now she’s blaming
me
for everything.”

“I’m not blaming you, for anything.”

“Are too. You’re saying it’s
my
fault we’re dead. That just because I wanted my
own
place with my
own
friends, everybody got killed. Like, what, I knew it was going to happen or something?”

“Listen—”

“So what if I sucked off a few fuckheads?” She threw her arms out now. “So the fuck what! I got what I wanted, didn’t I? And shit for my buds, too. If you don’t take what you want, somebody takes it first. No way I was going to be stuck in that ‘holy higher power meditate your brains out’ shit until some jerkwad who didn’t know jack about me decided I could get the hell out. I decide for myself. Nobody was going to push me around again, ever, ever, ever!”

“Wow.” Eve gave her a considering nod. “You really were a bitchy little whiner. Not that you deserved to die for it. Maybe you’d have grown out of it, or maybe you’d have been a bitchy grown-up whiner given the chance. But you didn’t get the chance. And that’s where I come in.”

“You’re no different than the rest of them. No better than the rest of them.”

“I’m what you’ve got.”

“Fuck you!”

“Sit down. Shut up.”

Mikki hauled herself to her feet, hands bunched to fists at her sides. “You can’t talk to Shelby like that.”

“Sure I can. It’s my dream, and I’m in charge here.”

“I don’t like when people fight.” Iris put her hands over her ears, began to rock. “People shouldn’t fight.”

“Where’s your dog?” Eve wondered. “Didn’t you have a dog?”

“We don’t have to listen to you!” Shelby shouted, running to each girl, hauling her up to stand. “We don’t have to talk to you. We don’t have to do anything you say. Because we’re dead! And it’s not my fault.”

“Jesus. Shut up. Shut up so I can think.”

“You’re the one doing all the talking.”

Eve blinked her eyes open, looked blurrily around the dimly lit room. “What?”

“That should be my question.” Roarke stroked a hand over her hair. “Who needs to shut up?”

“Shelby. The girls came back. That Shelby. Bitching, whining, bitching. I probably would, too, if somebody drowned me in the tub. What time is it?”

“Early.” He leaned over to touch his lips to hers. “Go back to sleep.”

She sniffed him. “You’re up, just out of the shower.”

“Can’t fool an ace detective.”

“Your hair’s still damp.” She walked her fingers through it. “And you smell really good.” And her detective skills told her he wore nothing but a towel. “I bet you have a ’link conference with Pluto and a holo-meeting with Istanbul or somewhere scheduled.”

“And a mind reader as well. What a lucky man I am.”

“You could get luckier.” She skimmed a hand down his chest, down his belly, down. And grinned. “But I see you knew that.”

“I’ve deductive powers of my own.”

She used her other hand, tugged him down by his hair. “What else you got?”

“Apparently a randy wife.” His hands got busy as well, skimming up and under the thin nightshirt she wore. “Pluto can wait.”

“Now, how many people can say that?” She tugged again so his lips came to hers.

And in the thrill of the long, lazy kiss, wrapped her arms, her legs around him, holding him tight and close.

Because she was lucky, and wouldn’t forget it. She had lived through it, all that had come before. And she was in the big warm bed with the frostiest guy on or off planet. The man who loved her, wanted her, tolerated her, and understood her.

Whatever the day brought when it dawned, she had this, she had him, to begin it.

“I love you.” She tightened around him. “I really mean it.”

“I love you.” She felt his lips curve against her throat. “I really mean it.”

“Show me.”

She arched toward him. He slid into her.

On the slow rise, the slow fall, he watched her face in the quiet light. Happy, he thought, there in her eyes, in the easy, fluid move of her body, in the quickening beat of her heart.

Whatever had troubled her in dreams she’d set aside, for this, for him. For them.

He touched his lips to her cheek, then the other, her brow, then her lips. To show her.

Dawn crept closer as they gave pleasure and took it. She sighed, a simple sound of bliss, stroked her hands down his back, up again until her fingers tangled in his hair.

All as sweet and lovely as a walk in a summer garden.

As the heat built, as the need sharpened, he watched her still, saw that pleasure peak in the deepening of her eyes even as he felt her body arch up to reach it, to take it.

Her heart drumming now against the thud of his own, her sigh sliding into a long, throaty moan. And her eyes, her eyes going dark and blind for that moment, that sumptuous moment when she lost herself, surrendered herself to what they made.

Reaching, taking, he fell into her eyes, fell into her.

She lay under him, limp, dazzled. If she could wish a single thing for a single day, it would be to stay just as they were, all warm, all tangled, all content. She turned her face, nuzzled it against his hair to cover herself with the scent.

She could take that with her, whatever else the day handed her.

When she stirred, he pressed his lips to the side of her throat, then levered up to look down at her again. “Can you sleep now?”

“I think I’m awake. Just as well.”

Rolling over, he drew her to his side.

“Don’t you have Pluto on tap?”

“In a bit.”

He thought he could lull her back to sleep, she realized, but her mind was already starting to churn.

“I don’t blame the kid for it.”

“Of course not.”

“Figuring she might be the key isn’t the same as thinking it’s her fault.”

“Got under your skin, did she?”

“I think I’m looking at her as a part of me I was still testing out at that age. Not the bjs and booze.”

“Happy to hear that.”

“It’s the pushy little bitch part, the ‘I want my own place, my own purpose’ part. She, from what I know and the dots I connect from that, let all that right out. I mostly kept it under wraps.”

“She was in a safe place, Eve, or what should have been. You rarely were.”

“But I hated it, safe or otherwise. Hated all of it. I think she did, too—or am I projecting? I think she hated it, resented it, thought it was all bullshit. Even Sebastian’s club. None of it was hers, and that’s how it was going to be. Someone she knew used that. She thought—I’m probably projecting—she thought she was using him, but she was a child, and easily strung along. Figured she knew the score, but she was still just a kid.”

“How does that help you?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’m trying to get a clear picture of all of them, and she’s pretty clear at this point. Anyway, you should do your Emperor of the Known Universe thing. I think I’ll get in a workout before I start all this.”

“I’ll be about an hour. I’ll meet you back here for breakfast.”

“That’ll work.”

They rolled out of bed, he to go to his closet for a suit, she to grab some sweats.

As she pulled on a tank, she frowned over at him. “It’s not really Pluto, right?”

“Not yet.” He smiled at her. “The day may come.”

•   •   •

S
he let her mind roll around possibilities, speculations, avenues while she pushed her body into a good, muscling-pinging sweat. Satisfied, she took the elevator from the gym back to the bedroom, and straight into the shower.

Roarke hadn’t come back by the time she got out, so she amused herself by hunting up the financial reports he habitually scanned in the mornings before she even opened her eyes.

She glanced down at the cat bumping his head against her leg. Suspicious, she hunkered down, sniffed.

“I know Summerset fed you. I can smell your kibble breath.”

He merely stared at her with his bicolored eyes, then butted his head lightly to hers.

Okay, so she was a sucker. Rising, she ordered up a saucer of milk—a small one—and set it out for him. While the cat happily lapped, she grabbed pants, a sweater, a jacket she was reasonably sure she’d never seen before. But she liked the dark chocolate leather trim at the pockets, and the cloud-soft rest of it.

She started to swing it on over her sweater and weapon harness, caught the label.

“Cashmere. Jesus, Jesus, why does he do that?” she demanded of the cat, who merely continued fastidiously washing himself. “Watch, just watch. I’ll get in a fight with some psycho and ruin in. Just watch.”

With those dark thoughts she put it on because, damn it, she liked it—and it was his own fault if she destroyed it on the job.

As he was still with Pluto or whoever, she considered the AutoChef, then made her choices for breakfast for two.

She was sitting, as he usually was, the financials on mute, as she went over her notes and drank coffee when he came in.

“It took longer than I thought it would,” he began, then stopped to smile at her, and the two plates, covered with warming domes, on the table in the sitting area. “You’ve done breakfast for me. What do we have?”

He lifted the dome. “Omelets, berries, toast, and jam. Nicely done.”

“I figured you’d stick me with oatmeal. Beat you to it.”

“An omelet does very well.” He sat beside her.

“How are things in Roarke World?”

“Satisfying at the moment. I’ve some meetings later—”

“My shocked face.” She opened her mouth and eyes wide.

Amused, he popped a berry in her mouth. “I can and will make time if you can use me for anything.”

“I thought I already used you this morning.”

“Aren’t you the clever one today.”

“Every day. I’ll let you know. If Sebastian doesn’t come through on DeLonna this morning, I may ask you to dig out his flops.”

“I like to think he’ll come through.”

“We’ll see.”

He gestured toward her PPC. “How are things in Eve World?”

“I shot off some more notes to Peabody, to Mira. Figured I’d work here for an hour or so as I’m getting going so early.”

She forked up some omelet—not bad at all.

“This will happen when you’re waked by a group of unhappy girls, then want sex.”

“I guess. It’ll give me a jump anyway. She was unhappy,” Eve said after a moment. “Not just pissed off and defensive. She picked up Linh somewhere along the line, but never took her to Sebastian’s. Going to take her to
her
place. Get a few supplies first, take her newest bud to the place she was making for herself. And he kills them both. Did she know? Was she aware enough to know? Now I’m going to be dead, and so’s Linh. I’m never going to have what I want. It’s not fair.”

She could picture that—the despair, the frustration, the guilt, the anger.

“It worked so well for him, he could do it again. Some, like Mikki, just walked right in, probably looking for Shelby. Others, he lured. Lupa and this Iris kid. A church-type thing for them, at least for them if not some of the others. Use what works? Vary it to suit. Or did he use the same basic ploy?”

It nagged at her, the not knowing. Shaking her head, she tried to focus on the food, but her thoughts kept circling.

She sat up. “The dog. Where’s the dog?”

“I don’t believe we have one. We have a cat.”

“No, the toy dog. The kid’s stuffed dog. She took it with her when she left The Club. It wasn’t with any of the remains. He had to take it, like their clothes, out of the building. Did he toss it?”

“I would think.”

“Maybe he kept it. A little souvenir. He might have other things. The jewelry we didn’t find, e-stuff, backpacks. Yeah, he might have kept some of it, to remind him.”

She shoveled in more omelet. “Something else to think about.”

•   •   •

W
hen she walked into her home office, she frowned at the board, studied it, then muttering to herself changed the arrangement again.

She pinned Nash, Philadelphia, Shivitz on one side, with the victims in residence at The Sanctuary below—connecting them in turn to Fine, Clipperton, Bittmore, Seraphim Brigham in one group, Linh Penbroke offshooting from Shelby.