McNab stood a moment as if gathering himself, with the striped tail of his cap dangling out of a pocket of his bright green coat. A crescent moon of sparkling hoops adorned his ear. The long-dead Elvis rocked on the front of his sweater.
The deep green eyes in his pretty face were all cop. “I’m not saying what they did to him was right. It’s not right. But it’s hard seeing it as wrong. Easier to say it’s not right than to say it’s wrong.”
“It is, isn’t it? I may not believe it as truly as Eve, or you, or Peabody, but I see the value of the belief you hold that you’d rather have him alive, alive so he could suffer the humiliation and the loss of his freedom for a lifetime, than dead on the ground like this. However much he suffered first.”
“There are times it’s harder to believe than others, but yeah, I do believe it. Thanks for reminding me.”
“All in a day’s. I’ll give you a hand until your help arrives, or the lieutenant needs me elsewhere.”
—
Roarke waited for her, busying himself with electronics. He knew worrying about her state of mind was fruitless, but couldn’t stop the worry.
She wouldn’t stop, he knew, no matter what it cost her.
When she came down—eyes flat as McNab’s had been, the shadows dogging them only accentuating her pallor—he had to bite back a demand that she take a break, get some rest. Because together they watched the morgue team take the bagged body away.
“If Easterday brought anything relevant with him, they’ve got it. And the cash I know he took from his house is gone. His passport’s in the suitcase, so he was prepared to get gone, too.”
She shifted aside to make room for the sweepers as they began their work.
“It’s clear enough, he decided to leave—his life, his wife. Better that than face what was coming.”
“Because, start to end,” Roarke said, “he’s a sodding coward.”
“Yeah. Yeah, start to end. I pushed enough buttons he knew what was coming. He came here because he figured it would be safe until he could make arrangements to get out of the country. Probably had a little pity party, like you said, with booze—poor me—maybe he came down after a while. Get more booze, maybe get some food.”
She walked back to the blood, the overturned table, the broken glass.
“When they come in, he’s not prepared, and maybe a little drunk. They’ve got Betz, carting him in. That’s got to take two of them, at least, but there are four of them. Younger, faster, and plenty determined. Easy enough to run down a guy pushing seventy, one who’s been drinking. He tries to get away, but they gang up on him—tit for tat, right? Whatever the hell that means. Struggle, knock the table over, and the glass vase thing on it breaks. He goes down hard. That’s probably a head wound—maybe some cuts from the broken glass, too. He’s dazed or knocked out, and they’ve got him.”
She looked back to where the sweepers worked on the light, the rope. “Easy to restrain him, even wait for him to come around while they put the noose around Betz. Now they’ve got two—and make Easterday watch while they raise the light, while the noose tightens, while Betz claws at his own throat, legs kicking, body convulsing.”
She drew a breath. “And they’re thinking, You watched while your brothers raped us. They watched while you raped us. Now you’ll watch your brother die, and know this is what we’ll do to you.”
“They could’ve ended it all here.” Peabody hunched her shoulders as Eve’s rundown brought the scene into her head too clearly. “Killed both of them, and gone into the wind.”
“That’s not the plan. Easterday has to suffer first. They have things to say to him, things to do to him. He has to beg, the way they begged. He has to know, the way they knew, begging won’t stop what’s coming.
“Hold here a second.”
She moved over to where Uniform Carmichael stepped in.
“Sorry to pull you back,” she began.
“It’s how it goes, Lieutenant.”
“It’s how this is going. I want you to supervise the canvass. We need to wake up the whole fucking block, Carmichael, dig down for any information. They had transportation, most likely a van, light colored, on the new side. Make sure every uniform has copies of Yancy’s sketches of the suspects. You’re going to need to coordinate with and work with the local PSD.”
“No problem. I’ve got a cousin on the job here. Already gave her a tag, let her know. She’ll help smooth the way if I need it.”
“Good. Let the locals secure the scene. But keep an eye. I don’t know them.”
She walked back to Roarke, Peabody, McNab.
“We’ve done a first pass on the electronics,” McNab told her. “Nothing that hits on this. I’ve got an EDD team taking everything in. You want me on that?”
“No. We’re going to hit Blake’s residence and office. You and Peabody will take the office, and the civilian and I the residence. That way we’ve each got an e-man. Anyplace to land the damn copter near Blake’s office?”
Since she would have objected, perhaps physically, to an ass pat, Roarke patted her shoulder instead. “There’s always a place.”
“Then you’ll fly back with us, and get there from wherever that place is.”
“Copter ride. Woo!” Peabody shrugged. “You had to know it was coming.”
“Reo’s working on the warrant for the electronics. Stickier when it’s a law office, but we’ve got more than enough to get it now. Until we do, turn the place inside out, but don’t touch the electronics or files.”
“Got that.”
“We’re done here for now.” She gave the hallway a last glance. “Let’s move on.”
—
On the short flight back to Manhattan, Eve kept in touch with Reo via ’link texts, read what she could of Baxter’s and Trueheart’s and Peabody’s runs on MacKensie and Downing.
“You can see it now, knowing where to look. They all travel on the same shuttle to Elsi Adderman’s memorial—coming and going. They all made annual contributions to a women’s crisis or rape center—not the same amounts, not the same center, but every one of them put some money where their issues are. None of them are in relationships. All but Downing went to Yale, and we’ll find her connection. All but Blake either dropped out or hit some skid during college. She hit hers later, that’s how it reads to me.”
“Lipski at the crisis center recognized Su, Downing, and MacKensie,” Peabody added.
“And we now know Blake served as legal consultant there. We show Adderman’s sketch to Lipski, she’ll recognize it, too. They had their convergence there, or through the support group either before or after the memories came tumbling back.”
She turned around as Roarke touched down on a rooftop.
“This is only a block or two from the office, and another two from the apartment.”
“It’ll do.” Eve got out, reminding herself she only had to get back in once more.
She turned to Peabody and McNab as the wind buffeted around them, and Roarke bypassed security on the roof access door.
“Wait for the warrant before you hit the electronics. By the book. However you feel about it, these women are serial killers, and the last vic they can get to is already in their hands.”
“Sorry about before,” McNab began.
“Before what?” Eve said, making him smile a little as they went in and started down the stairs.
“Anything to be found, we’ll find it—and send up a signal if and when.”
After they parted ways, she hunched against the wind, rubbed her tired eyes. “I can’t figure if they’ll do him fast or draw it out. They didn’t expect to come on him like they did—that’s a bonus for them. Will they kill him quick, or savor it? Because if they do him fast, we’re not going to have time to stop them.”
“If fast was the goal, you’d have found his body with Betz.”
“Yeah, I tell myself that, then I think—in their place? I’d start calculating how much time, how much risk. If they want to get away with it, they’ve got to get it done and blow.”
“Have you considered they don’t care about getting away?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I have. And that’s a bigger problem.”