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“But a good game always tosses in an unknown, a bigger challenge. That would be you.”
“Crib’s still up there,” Feeney muttered and earned a sour look from Eve.
“Copy the copy. I’m going to want to work at home. They’re not going to give us a search warrant for private residences with what we’ve got. Everybody’s alibied, no clear motive, no physical evidence. Barely any circumstantial at this point. We need more.”
“Whose residence?” Callendar asked her.
“Partnership’s like marriage. It’s a freaking minefield. And one of Bart’s partners decided on that pizza and pipe wrench.”
Back in her office, she deemed it time to dig deeper, a lot deeper on the three remaining partners of U-Play.
She needed something, just a little something she could turn, twist, or tweak to convince the PA to go after a search warrant.
The killer’s home comps would certainly have been doctored by now. She wasn’t dealing with an idiot. But EDD had its ways, as did her expert consultant, civilian.
While her own computer dug, she rearranged her murder board. Studied it, rearranged it again.
She thought she understood, at least partially, the why. It was small and it was shallow, but murder had been done for much, much less. Without Reineke’s nose, a man’s death might very well have been put down to the contents of his wallet and a veggie pizza.
There’d be bigger under the small, and deeper under the shallow, but it was enough for now. Enough to help her create her own scenario.
“I’m back! Did you miss me?” Peabody bounced in, then flopped in the visitor’s chair. “Jeez, do you know what the shuttle’s like this time of day? It’s a zoo—animal ferocity and smells. Plus, the air unit fizzled twenty minutes out of the station. Add jungle heat to that. I want a two-hour shower.”
“You had sex.”
“What? What? Why do you say that? You can’t have sex on the shuttle! You’d die of heat prostration, then be arrested.”
“You had sex before you got on the shuttle. There better not be an expense chip for some cheap by-the-hour flop on my desk tomorrow.”
“We didn’t use some cheap by-the-hour flop. We . . .” Peabody cleared her throat as Eve simply kept up the long, steady stare. “Played games. As ordered.”
“I don’t want to know what kind of games.”
“Really, really good games. Ones that call for excellent reflexes and superior physical stamina.” She grinned, unrepentant. “We’re going to save up and buy a new, juicy game system for each other for Christmas.”
“Is this your report?”
“No, this is the shuttle-boiled-my-brain babble. Whew.”
“What’s on your tit? What the hell is that?”
“Oh.” Peabody ducked her chin to glance down. “It’s my love dragon. It’s a temp.”
“A love dragon? You’re wearing a love dragon on your tit, most of which is spilling out of whatever that is you’re not covered up with.”
“It’s a look—and it works. Trueheart nearly choked on his tongue when I walked through the bullpen.” Peabody sighed. “It’s pretty satisfying.”
“It may be you confused undercover with undercovered. Either way, I don’t want to see your love dragon tomorrow. Now if you’ve rested and recovered from your arduous assignment, I’d like that report.”
“Sure. The contact, Razor, the King of All Weaponry, hasn’t heard of a sword like we’re after—not a real. Props, toys of a similar and nonlethal nature, but nothing that could decapitate or leave those burns.”
“Could’ve been made custom.”
“We thought of that after . . . after a little gaming inspired us. We went back, discussed. After a little persuasion he gave us the names of a couple of sources who might be able to make something along the lines, for a price. A really, really whopping-ass price. Out of those, there was maybe one who might do it off the grid, unregistered. But that ups the price to about double whopping-ass. I know we looked at the financials, and nobody on our radar had an expenditure that comes close.”
“I’m doing deeper runs right now. Maybe it’ll pop. Some people game for
money,” Eve considered. “Some game for money off the grid. So, we might have somebody who had a double whopping-ass pile of unreported cash.”
