Eve had her feet up on the desk, the chair kicked back, and her eyes closed when Roarke came in. Galahad lay belly down on her desk, staring at her.
Not sleeping, he thought. Thinking.
Rather than interrupt whatever train she was riding, he moved into the kitchen, programmed fresh coffee, split the large slab of pie. And to reward the cat for being on guard, added a couple of mouse-shaped feline treats.
“Nadine or Mira,” Eve said, eyes still closed when he set the coffee down on her desk.
“As next target?”
“It’s what makes best sense, and Nadine edges out Mira if it’s a night hit. She lives alone. Might have company at any time, sure, but she’d watch for that. Especially watchful after Hastings.”
She opened her eyes now, watched as Galahad inhaled the little cat cookies as if they’d been air. Wisely, Roarke gave him a nudge off the desk before he set down the pie, or it might have met the same fate.
“You could maybe check my work here,” she told Roarke. “I’ve set up a search and match, NYPSD database. Cops, support staff, lab, morgue, all crime scene personnel, including the cleaners contracted to swipe down a crime scene after we clear it. If I don’t hit anything on this, I’ll expand to relatives of same. Could be. Thinking about running another on applicants to the Academy, forensics, morgue, and so on. We’ve gone through the most direct lines there. So using McNab and Yancy’s best guess, I’m trying it again.”
“Up,” he said, and switched places with her.
He studied the search, the parameters she’d programmed, the images, the language.
“This would do it.”
“Good, because it took me forever.”
“I’m going to refine it with what I’ve done. It doesn’t change much, but sharpens the edges a bit.”
He paused the search, input her new data, ordered a realignment as she sampled the pie.
“You have sharper images?”
“Mmmm.” He ordered them on screen while he restarted her search.
“Really?” Eve rolled her eyes as the first image scrolled on. He’d dressed the long-legged female with short mouse-brown hair in a sheer black lace bra and G-string, added a sassy, hip-shot stance.
“We make our own fun,” he told her, then swiveled in the chair. Before she realized his intent, he snagged her hips, pulled her onto his lap. “Now, while the changes are subtle, I was able to calculate those ratios, and all the other bits and business you don’t want to hear about. This is my most likely.”
“You honestly think this homicidal lunatic wears trashy underwear?”
“Truthfully, I don’t understand why women wear any other kind. However, whatever she wears under her clothes, I think this represents the best estimation, given all known data, on her body type, her general features, her coloring.”
“Hair and eyes can change on a whim. Mavis’s official ID – her latest one – has her with pink hair. She had blue hair tonight. Just as an example.”
“It’s rare anyone has Mavis’s fluid style. Your UNSUB may certainly change those things, but I’d say this is her natural coloring – or close.”
He kept one arm hooked lightly around Eve’s waist, took a forkful of pie with his free hand. “It is good pie. Maybe a bit shy of damn good, but good all the same. It’s possible her legs aren’t this long, but again, given the best guess. She’s tall – or tallish for a woman. Even considering lifts, she shouldn’t be under five-eight. She’s fast on her feet – kept ahead of you, and yes, darling, she had a strong lead, but you said she was fast. Most probably, long legs to go with the height. And again, fast, so unlikely she carries too much excess weight if any. Strong, likely good upper-body strength.”
Because it was right there, he kissed the nape of Eve’s neck. “She blends, would that be accurate?”
“I think yes. Not one to draw attention, very likely she keeps under the radar in her work. Smart – and maybe underappreciated, at least in her own mind.”
“I’d assume she either disguises her attributes or has a slim body type. Serious curves draw attention. Those attracted to women notice serious curves. As you believe she’s unattached and likely lives alone, a more curvaceous body would draw attention.”
“She’d get hit on,” Eve concluded.
“Playing the odds. Young, single female, add curvy. Going to the least common denominator? Impressive breasts impress.”
“Tits aren’t the only reason women get hit on or draw attention.”
“No indeed, but they rank high. She’s unlikely to be visually compelling. A pleasant enough face, most likely. As real beauty or someone overtly unattractive also draws attention. So… Computer, display image two.”
Acknowledged. Displaying image two.
“Okay.” Eve nodded, would have pushed up if Roarke hadn’t held her in place.
The same body, face, coloring, hair, but wearing a dull gray suit, a little drab, a little dowdy, Eve supposed. And the sassy woman in the trashy underwear became ordinary.
“You wouldn’t look twice at her on the street,” Eve stated. “She’d blend into the scenery.”
“And now. Computer, display image three.”
Acknowledged. Displaying image three.
This time the image wore a bulky brown jacket, brown trousers, ski cap, boots.
“Yes!” Again, she started to push up, and again he kept her snuggled on his lap. “Come on. I’ve got to move.”
“Don’t I get a reward?”
She craned around, looked into those wild, amused eyes. “You got pie.”
“The pie’s nice, but the work, if I say so myself, is superior.”
She couldn’t argue, so she clamped her hands on his face, covered his mouth with hers, let some of the excitement of having a face – a strong potential – fire up the kiss.
“That’s more like it,” Roarke decided, and let her go.
“I’m going to send this to the wits, and to everyone on the list of potential targets. Ordinary sort of face, nothing stands out especially, but if it’s close, if it is, and you had this in your head, you’d recognize her.”
She turned to him. “Can you do a side-by-side, put the shades, the scarf on her? This image, just those additions.”
“Of course.”
In seconds, he had the dual images, split screen.
“It feels right, feels close.”
She closed her eyes, froze the moment when she’d looked across the street – the distance, the big bus lumbering away from the stop.
Take the bus away, all the vehicles, she ordered herself. Just her. Just you, just her, facing each other. She fixed the moment in her mind, one isolated instant, then opened her eyes.
“The face is broader – still narrow, but not quite this narrow. Can you…” She trailed off as he was already making the adjustment. “Not that much, a little… Yeah, that’s better. Long legs, right on that. The coat today was down at her knees, but there was some length between the coat and the boots.”
She closed her eyes again, tried to bring it back. The chase, tried to edit out all the people, the noise, the movement.
“She kept the box under her arm. Can’t say what was in it, can’t judge the weight, but she kept it tucked in, like a running back with the ball heading toward the goal. Shoving with the other hand,” Eve added, making the motion herself. “Pushing, shoving, elbow jabbing, but never slowing down. Focused. Okay.”
She opened her eyes again, turned. “She knew that restaurant. Goddamn it, that wasn’t just luck. She was hauling her ass right there, knows the neighborhood, knew she could jump in there, make that end run toward the kitchen and out. She’s been in there before.”
“Scoping out Mavis’s area?”
“That, sure, that. But she’s been in that place, knew the setup. No need to know that to scope out Mavis. We’ll get the image over there, show the owners, the staff. Maybe somebody knows her.”
She came back for her coffee.
“You lived there,” Roarke pointed out. “In that building, only a couple blocks away from that restaurant.”
“It wasn’t there, not with those people when I… She’s tuned into me. That’s my old neighborhood. I got that place because it was close enough to Central to make it smooth. Not a long haul to the morgue, to the lab.”
“Why wouldn’t she do the same?” Roarke proposed. “If she works in any of those facilities, or wishes she did, if she’s obsessed with you, why not live in the same area you did? Walk the same sidewalks, eat and drink and shop where you did.”
“She could’ve run into the Chinese place, but it has a different setup – it’s narrow and it doesn’t have that little alley off the back like the bar. She had enough of a lead to keep going, and yeah, yeah, get across the next intersection, maybe gain some distance if I got hung up with the traffic again. But she swung around that corner, never hesitated. She aimed for it.”
She sat on the desk. “Plug it in, will you? You’re faster. Narrow the search. Let’s see if we can find somebody who meets this basic description who lives within a six-block radius of my old building.”
“It’s a lot of ground,” he told her as he made the adjustments. “And unlikely to get quick results.”
“Results works well enough for now. I’m going to use the auxiliary, get the image out.”
“Take your pie,” he suggested.