“Or he might have accessed the floor plans.”
“Those e-skills.” She nodded. “He walked right in, right up the stairs. He waited up there for close to three hours. Patience, that he’s got. But he’s a coward. Comes in from behind, gets his prey restrained before he starts on them. Pounds on them even when they cooperate, so he likes to hurt people. But the rape, that’s the main event. Raping the woman, making the spouse watch. Forcing her to say she likes it so the spouse can hear it. And terrorizing with the costume, adding that flourish.”
Roarke waited a beat—she was in the groove. “Why does he untie them when he’s done?”
“It only adds to how helpless they were, rubs their noses in the helplessness. Free them so they know he was always in control. Free them and they call for help—have to tell what happened. Reporting a rape, it’s another level of humiliation. You have to go back over it, relive it to tell it. He likes that part, too.
“It’s all part of it,” she added. “Invade their home, where they feel the safest—their bedroom, their most intimate and private space.”
Without thinking, she stabbed some cauliflower, ate it.
“Hurt them, take away their freedom, humiliate them, and make the male vic feel helpless, enraged, impotent while you violate the female. Stealing adds a layer. I can take whatever I want. Beat them unconscious before you release them so they wake in pain, in that shock and humiliation, and somehow worse, free again. It’s a big mind-fuck, start to finish.”
“And when you have him in the box, Lieutenant, you’ll show him what it is to be mind-fucked.”
“Damn straight I will.” She looked back at the board, at the victims. “Damn straight.”
*
She refined her notes, wrote reports, studied case files. At the end of it, the best she could do was lay out her plans for the next day. She’d interview the previous victims, tug hard on those connections, start exploring possible theater angles.
She had to hope a night’s sleep would help coalesce her thoughts enough to pull a solid theory out of them.
This time she got in the fancy new bed, and decided it was more than fine.
“Married couples so far, not cohabs. Does that matter?” She closed her eyes as Roarke’s arm draped over her. “No kids in the house. I think that matters. No pets, no kids—or absent human staff.”
“Let it go for the night.”
“Except the Strazzas had a houseful. So…”
She didn’t let it go so much as drop away.
*
When she woke just after dawn, it took her brain a minute to catch up with her eyes. New room, she reminded herself.
Roarke sat on the big sofa, fully dressed in one of his impeccable dark suits—apparently unconcerned about cat hair on the material, as the cat had deserted her, and was now stretched out on his back beside Roarke.
Roarke absently scratched Galahad’s exposed belly while he sipped coffee and watched the incomprehensible stock reports on screen.
They made a hell of a good-morning picture, she thought, the insanely gorgeous man in his emperor-of-the-business-world suit and the big cat riding on bliss at the touch of those skilled hands.
She could relate to the bliss.
He’d probably already had a couple of ’link or holo meetings, she mused. Might have bought Saturn for all she knew. But all in all, her biggest interest at the moment involved the fact that he had coffee, and she didn’t.
“Good morning,” he said when she pushed up to sit. “It’s bitter out, and they’re calling for snow—quite a bit of it—starting mid-morning.”
She said, “Ugh,” and stumbled her way to the AutoChef, remembered it wasn’t where it used it be, stared blankly at the carved doors.
“Touch either,” Roarke reminded her.
“Right.” She slapped at one and both popped open, and the interior lights gleamed on. She programmed coffee—all that currently mattered—and waited to down the first heady gulp.
“You’re going to have cat hair all over your million-dollar suit, pretty boy.”
“It’s easy enough to deal with, and it only cost a half million.”
“Ha.” She took the coffee into the bathroom, caffeinated and showered herself awake.
When she came out, wrapped in a red robe she’d never seen before—but it was as soft as a cloud, as warm as a hug—he’d already set up breakfast.
She knew, thanks to his handy weather report, she’d start the day with oatmeal.
At least it came with lots of berries and the crunchy stuff—and he’d added a side of bacon. Which explained why he’d banished the cat. Galahad now sat in front of the fire, industriously washing himself—and sending the human an occasional steely stare.
“It matters,” she said.
“Does it?”
“That the victims are married. It matters. I just need to figure out why.”
“Did you dream?”
“Just slept—and let me add another hot damn on that bed. Three assaults is pattern and purpose and profile. Typical escalation, and the murder comes off as of the moment. That wasn’t planned. Next time it will be.”