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“Those are going on my list.” She shot him a glance in return. “Would you go for another cop in eighty or ninety years?”
“Absolutely not. The next time I’m after a nice, quiet woman, perhaps one who does watercolors and bakes scones.”
“My richer bastard bakes pies. I like pie.”
“I like pie, too. I’d like to meet him.”
“Wait a few decades. What’s he been doing for fifteen years?”
She wasn’t thinking of her fictional richer bastard now, Roarke mused. How her thought process fascinated.
“How did he stop killing? Did he? Did he find another way to dispose of the bodies? Did he die, end up in a cage, find God? He killed twelve. Probably within a few weeks or months. You don’t just stop cold. I keep asking myself, where is he? What’s he doing? I did a run on like crimes, and sure, you get a couple pops here and there for girls in that range, for the plastic wrap and other elements. But none that fit this, not this. Multiples, the time and effort to hide them, the lack of violence. How the hell did he kill them?”
“I think you need to give DeWinter a bit of time there.”
“Yeah, yeah. She and Morris have their heads together on it.”
Frustrated, Roarke concluded, that she didn’t have the data, couldn’t start using it to narrow her track toward the killer.
“We notified the parents of the first vic we ID’d. Solid upper middle-class—upper-upper. Both doctors, long-term first marriage, two other offspring—grown now. Nice home, stable, affluent. No signs of abuse on the remains, and every sign the victim had been well cared for, medically, physically.”
“Was she abducted?”
“No. At least not from home. Got pissy about a concert. Was going through a pissy stage, which apparently is pretty normal. Took off for the city—from Brooklyn—had money, so my best guess is she lived it up for a couple days, tried the walk on the wild side, liked it fine. She wasn’t like the girl he wrapped up with her though. If she’d stayed clean, she wouldn’t have stayed on that path. She’d have gone home. The other one? The last place she’d have gone was home because that’s where they hurt you.”
Roarke simply covered her hand with his. It’s all he had to do.
“It’s not like me,” Eve murmured. “There was never a home in the first place, and maybe that was an advantage. I didn’t expect someone to look out for me. And I didn’t know, until he was dead, I could run. Even after, I didn’t manage to run far
. Running’s what killed her, or put her on the path to being a victim.”
She yanked her ’link when it signaled, read the text from Peabody.
“Shelby Ann Stubacker. She’s got a name now.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She was thirteen. Father’s doing a dime in Sing-Sing—his second for assault. Mother’s got a sheet, mostly for illegals. They didn’t file a report, so we wouldn’t have found her there. She was picked up a few times. Truancy, shoplifting, did some juvie time, and some court-ordered rehab as she was picked up stoned, and in possession of illegals. She was nine the first time she got busted. Born here, died here. She’d have a file with CPS, but what’s the point. The system failed her, everybody failed her.”
“You won’t.”
Roarke pulled up in front of a gold-trimmed white building with seas of glass sparkling. Considering the low-end look of the vehicle, it wasn’t a surprise to Eve to see the doorman’s chin jut up, his mouth tighten, and his feet beat across the royal blue carpeting that stretched from sparkling glass door to curb.
Now, she thought, Roarke would get a load of what she put up with. Looking forward to it, she squeezed her way out on the street side.
The minute Roarke stepped out on the sidewalk, the doorman went from protective terrier to welcoming hound.
“Sir! Are you visiting someone at The Metropolitan this evening?”
“As it happens, I’m accompanying Lieutenant Dallas inside. I’m sure she’ll appreciate you keeping her vehicle in place until she’s completed her business.”
“I’ll see to it personally. Can I notify anyone for you?”
“If you’d let Ms. Bittmore know Lieutenant Dallas is here to see her on NYPSD business.”
“I’ll let her know. You’ll want the first bank of elevators, on the left side of the lobby. Mr. Bittmore’s main entrance is on the fifty-third floor, number fifty-three hundred.”
“Thank you.”
