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“I—” Mika staggered back, one hand pressed to her head. “Who? I can’t think through the pain.”
Eve glanced at Roarke. “I take that as a yes.”
“She’s straight, Dallas.” Peabody brooded out the window of the AT. “She could barely stand for the pain, but she fought to push through it. Worried about her husband and kid, sick—seriously sick—at the idea someone died while she had the com.” She glanced at Eve. “Just like Pike. So you have to think, given the circumstances . . . Ritual magic, on the black side, the gathering of, well, power. By all appearances and all evidence, the ability to cause two straight arrows to behave in a way opposed to their character. We could be dealing with a spell.”
Eve’s brown eyes narrowed. “I knew you were going to get around to that.”
“It’s not unprecedented,” Peabody insisted. “There are sensitives, unscrupulous sensitives who’ve used their gifts for their own gain, their own purpose. Black magic’s taking those gifts, that power, and distorting it.”
“Jackson Pike was loaded with drugs.”
“Add drugs to the mix, it’s easier to bend the will. There was something in that suite, something left over.” Peabody rubbed her arms as if suddenly chilled. “You felt it, too.”
She didn’t argue, because that much was true. “I’m not buying that some witch can . . .” Eve waved a hand in the air. “And get some normal guy to start hacking someone with a knife.”
“I don’t think he did. I think he was supposed to be another sacrifice—or maybe just the patsy.” When Eve didn’t respond, Peabody scowled. “You don’t want to buy into the power deal, but going straight logic, why does this group plan all this and include some young doctor who’s only been in New York a couple of weeks, and has no ties, none to anything off prior to that? You don’t bring some newbie in on the big deal. You don’t—”
“You’re right.”
“Listen, I’m just saying . . . I’m right?”
“About Pike, yeah, you’re right. Maybe they were going to off him, too. Or maybe they pulled him in to take the rap. Drugged the shit out of him, left him behind. He’s got no defense. Naked, full of illegals, covered with the vic’s blood, and carrying around one of the knives used on her. Still, they’d have to figure we’d know he didn’t do it alone, and once the drugs wear off, we examine him, work with him, he could start to remember some details.”
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Peabody pondered on it a moment. “Okay, look, you don’t buy the magic, but you’ll agree that people who get together to light candles, have orgies that end in human sacrifice probably do.”
“I’ll give you that.”
“And can be persuasive—especially if they have a gift, are a sensitive, especially if the person they’re persuading is doped up.”
“Okay.” Eve nodded.
“So, to dissuade we need someone with a gift, someone who believes, to break the spell.”
“You want to bring in a witch? Christ.”
“It’s an option,” Peabody pushed.
“Mira’s going to examine them, and determine the root of the physical and/or psychological blocks. Let’s stick with reality, for just a little while.”
She shot up to a slot on a second-level street parking. “Trosky, Brian, on the desk at the time of the group check-in. Let’s see what he remembers, or if he’s got himself a really bad headache this morning.”
Eve strode across the sidewalk and into the apartment building. As it didn’t boast a doorman or clerk, she went straight to the intercoms, pressed the one labeled Trosky.
When no response came, Eve bypassed the elevator lock. “Third floor,” she ordered.
The music blasted out the moment the doors opened on three. A woman stood beating on the door of 305, Trosky’s apartment. “Brian, for chrissake, turn it down.”
“Problem?” Eve asked at close to a shout.
“Yeah, unless you’re frigging deaf. He’s had that music blaring like that for over an hour. I work nights. I gotta get some sleep.”
“He doesn’t answer the door? Did you try his ’link?”
“Yeah. It’s not like him, I gotta say. He’s a nice guy. Good neighbor.” She beat on the door again. “Brian, for chrissake!”
“Okay, move aside.”
