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“I thought I already used you this morning.”
“Aren’t you the clever one today.”
“Every day. I’ll let you know. If Sebastian doesn’t come through on DeLonna this morning, I may ask you to dig out his flops.”
“I like to think he’ll come through.”
“We’ll see.”
He gestured toward her PPC. “How are things in Eve World?”
“I shot off some more notes to Peabody, to Mira. Figured I’d work here for an hour or so as I’m getting going so early.”
She forked up some omelet—not bad at all.
“This will happen when you’re waked by a group of unhappy girls, then want sex.”
“I guess. It’ll give me a jump anyway. She was unhappy,” Eve said after a moment. “Not just pissed off and defensive. She picked up Linh somewhere along the line, but never took her to Sebastian’s. Going to take her to her place. Get a few supplies first, take her newest bud to the place she was making for herself. And he kills them both. Did she know? Was she aware enough to know? Now I’m going to be dead, and so’s Linh. I’m never going to have what I want. It’s not fair.”
She could picture that—the despair, the frustration, the guilt, the anger.
“It worked so well for him, he could do it again. Some, like Mikki, just walked right in, probably looking for Shelby. Others, he lured. Lupa and this Iris kid. A church-type thing for them, at least for them if not some of the others. Use what works? Vary it to suit. Or did he use the same basic ploy?”
It nagged at her, the not knowing. Shaking her head, she tried to focus on the food, but her thoughts kept circling.
She sat up. “The dog. Where’s the dog?”
“I don’t believe we have one. We have a cat.”
“No, the toy dog. The kid’s stuffed dog. She took it with her when she left The Club. It wasn’t with any of the remains. He had to take it, like their clothes, out of the building. Did he toss it?”
“I would think.”
“Maybe he kept it. A little souvenir. He might have other things. The jewelry we didn’t find, e-stuff, backpacks. Yeah, he might have kept some of it, to remind him.”
She shoveled in more omelet. “Something else to think about.”
• • •
When she walked into her home office, she frowned at the board, studied it, then muttering to herself changed the arrangement again.
She pinned Nash, Philadelphi
a, Shivitz on one side, with the victims in residence at The Sanctuary below—connecting them in turn to Fine, Clipperton, Bittmore, Seraphim Brigham in one group, Linh Penbroke offshooting from Shelby.
Sebastian headed the other section, the victims from his club ranged under him.
Cross-matched were victims connected to both groupings.
Too many, she thought, too many crossed, and that meant the killer had knowledge of both pools to fish in both pools.
And however she arranged it, she still came back to Shelby as a key.
Considering, she moved Montclair Jones from ancillary to the head group with his siblings.
It had to flow from there, she decided. So turn it all over, start again at the top.
She went to her desk to review the runs on all three. She picked apart little details, poked through on education, activities, relationships, medicals, and financials.
