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“But she’s not a little girl now.”
“No, she’s not.” Bree firmed her lips. “She’ll get stronger, put everything she has into helping Darlie get through this. She’ll talk to him if he lets her, try to bargain and negotiate, stall. If she can find or make any kind of weapon, she’ll use it. She’d kill him to protect the girl.”
She clasped her hands in her lap. “And that’s what scares me, more than anything.”
“He’ll contact us today.”
“You sound so sure.”
“I am. He has to brag about the girl. And if he wants to get his hands on me, he has to start that maneuver soon. When he does, we start our next maneuver.”
“Which is?”
“We play him and the woman against each other, the way we do suspects in Interview. I’m just hoping for a little more meat first. And this might be it,” she said as Roarke came out of his office.
He held up a disc. “You were right.”
“Damn straight. Let’s see her.”
He passed her the disc. “Once I had her, I ran for ID. She’s going by Sylvia Prentiss, who’s clean as the proverbial whistle.”
“Why is a whistle clean? I’ve seen whistles that weren’t. Or is it the—” She curled two fingers between her lips, released a quick, high sound suitable for hailing a Rapid Cab on Fifth.
“If I’m using a whistle,” Roarke considered, “I insist on it being clean.”
“I don’t understand,” Bree said as Eve loaded the disc. “There’s a whistle?”
“Only in metaphor. And there’s Sylvia Prentiss, who’s been dead six years and was originally from Oregon where she worked as a travel agent before . . .”
“Eve?” She’d lost her color again, had a hand clutched at her belly. “What’s wrong?”
“What—nothing.” For a moment, both pain and panic had stabbed her. “Not enough sleep.” She rubbed her eyes, studied the ID shot again.
“You should sit down, Lieutenant,” Bree told her.
“I think better on my feet. Just went off for a minute. This is her, the real her. Or who she’s made herself into for him. This is what she looks like when she’s with him, when she’s in her own place, when she’s in her routine.”
“More attractive than the others.” Unable to help himself, Roarke rubbed her back as he studied the image. “Lists her age as forty-six.”
“Shaved that some, I bet. Probably had some work done, too, but this is the face she sees in the mirror now.”
“How do you know? How did you find her?”
“Mall security discs,” Roarke answered when Eve said nothing, only stared and stared at the image on screen. “The lieutenant believed, correctly, as she’d grazed that area with her more maternal aspect, she used it for herself as well. As herself, to shop for a proper wardrobe and the like.”
He waited again, this time running a hand gently over Eve’s hair. “Do you want to see her movements at the shopping center?”
“I can’t find it,” Eve muttered.
“What, darling?”
“I—I don’t know. Something. Doesn’t matter.” She tried to shrug it off, then bore down and shoved until she was clear of the feeling that dogged her. “Yeah, let’s see her—how she moves, where she goes.”
“There’s an address on her ID.” A tremor shook lightly in Bree’s voice.
“Yeah, I saw it. She might have listed her actual address here, might not. But we’ll check it out. Let’s get all we’ve got first.”
“I need to call it in. We need to get over there.”
