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Peabody joined Eve in the hallway.
“I got ahold of the wife,” Peabody began. “Played it light, and she’s too involved in her morning massage to clue in. Plus, dumb as a brick, which I’m pretty sure is an insult to bricks. She says ‘Freddy’ will be joining her tomorrow or maybe the day after. She needed a little alone time first. Alone means a house full of staff, her personal assistant, the two nannies, and her masseur. His name is Sven.”
“If her husband ends up dead, she’ll have plenty of alone time. Frankie Trent says he uses a guest suite upstairs for sex when his wife’s away, and it’s set up for same now. Unused, but set up.”
She gave a come-ahead head jerk and started up. “She said twice in the six months they’ve worked here, she’s cleaned up that room while he’s supposedly having his alone time.”
“Jeez, why doesn’t he go to a hotel for it?”
“My guess? He thinks this is more discreet, and he’s lazy. Woman comes here, he wines her and bangs her, then she goes home. He just rolls himself down to his own room, sleeps in his own bed.”
“How does anyone live with all this red?” Peabody scowled down at the red carpet. “And all the gold braid? Oh, and I wandered into what I guess is the formal dining room. All the walls are mirrored, and so’s the ceiling. How can you eat when you’re watching yourself eat? I don’t know how—”
“Screaming Jesus Christ!”
At Eve’s shout—nearly a shriek—Peabody drew her weapon. “What? What?”
“In there. Oh, Christ on a catapult, they’re everywhere.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Peabody turned, half expecting a room filled with giant, hairy spiders. Hairy, red-eyed spiders.
And faced a room filled with dolls.
Baby dolls, glamour dolls, smiling dolls, crying dolls. Dolls en pointe in tutus and dolls in swaddling clothes. Dolls with tiaras, dolls with fur coats, dolls in native costumes of every culture and land.
Dolls as small as her hand. Dolls the size of a healthy toddler.
Peabody liked dolls fine—had played with her share and never quite understood her partner’s deep phobia. But the sight of them, of hundreds of them, had her backing up a pace.
“I... think we should close the door.”
“I think we should lock it. I think we should barricade it. That one.” Eve pointed. Slowly. “That one over there on the horse thing. I think it blinked.”
Peabody cast a leery eye toward the cowgirl doll with her smiling face and pink hat. “She did not. You’re weirding me out.”
“You’re seeing what I’m seeing, and I’m weirding you out? Who does this? What kind of sick, twisted mind has a room full of dead-eyed little humans on display?”
“I don’t want to know.” Holding her breath, Peabody reached out—slowly, slowly—then pulled the door shut with a loud snap.
“That many of them?” Eve said. “Oh, they can get out if they want.”
“Stop it. Just stop it.” Peabody hustled down the hall, and kept her weapon out until she was two yards away. “Don’t say anything more about them. Nothing. Sex and murder. Let’s just think about sex and murder.”
Eve walked into the guest suite—cast one glance over her shoulder (just in case)—then got down to business.
“Frankie isn’t wrong. Betz was expecting sex company. Unopened champagne, two glasses, the strawberries, rose on the bed.”
She opened the drawer of the bedside table. “Vibrators, a variety, glides in various flavors. Condoms, also flavored. Nipple clamps—jeweled.”
“Ouch.”
“Some get off on the ouch. Velvet cuffs. And, some Erotica, some Stay Up, other chemical boosts. Illegal ones mixed in. But they never got up here. Took him out downstairs, easy and quick, I bet. Stun to the groin. No bashing him around here. They learned that the first time. Stun him, get him out of the house and into their transportation. He let them in. Maybe he had a double scheduled, maybe he thought he got lucky. Maybe they just caught him off guard, but he let them in, and they took him out.”
“If they took him last night, they took him while they still had Wymann.”
“Yeah, they’re the ones who had a twofer.” Eve thought of the big, gaudy chandelier in the entranceway. “They’ll want to string him up tonight.”
“Following pattern, they’ll bring him back here.”
