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“And the others? How many will you worry about tonight?”
“I talked to all of them. My gut says, if she’s going to go for someone tight with me, it’ll be Nadine or Mira, since Mavis is off the list. She can’t try for Mavis, not now anyway. I’m going to tag both of them, push the stay-inside, be-careful routine.”
She got up, just had to get up, walked to the board.
“Murdering Morphing Dollies.”
“Excuse me?”
“McNab thinks you should produce a vid game. Murdering Morphing Dollies. When he had the hat on today, he and Yancy got together, came up with a series of possible sketches. Using math and probability and ratio and dimension and what the hell.”
“Interesting.” Considering, he finished his wine. “And actually there’s a customer base who’d go mad for Murdering Morphing Dollies.”
“They dressed their ‘dollies’ in trashy underwear and skimpy bikinis.”
“Well, of course. Why don’t I have a look?”
“Because of the trashy underwear?”
“Such things are always a factor, but for now, to see the concept.”
She set it up, then stood studying the images on screen with him.
Head angled, he smiled. “Hmm. We’d need to include weapons. An ax—perhaps a halberd—maybe a boomer, definitely a vial of poison.”
“What?”
“Sorry, the game idea. It’s intriguing. The body type . . . No, you’re not looking for fragile or soft. She carried the dead weight of a full-grown woman. She outran you.”
“She didn’t outrun me,” Eve protested, insulted. “She had a street-wide lead plus, because I had to dodge traffic to get across.”
“Apologies.” But his lips twitched. “I mean to say she’s quick. How far did you chase her?”
“Two and a half blocks, not counting through the restaurant.”
“Quick and at least some endurance as all this would’ve been as flat-out as possible. So the odds are she’s in shape.”
“She runs,” Eve stated, then cocked her head. “She’s fast, yeah, yeah, and likely fit. Maybe she trains. A fitness center maybe, keep in tune. She had Bastwick planned all the way through, I’m sure of it. So she knew she’d have to carry her from the living area to the bedroom since she wanted her on the bed. And—shit.”
“What?”
“I’m an idiot. She put her in bed. She killed Ledo in bed.”
Eve began to pace. “I don’t know what she planned for Hastings. No way she would carry him all the way upstairs. But he’s got props, right? In the studio. Something that could stand in for a bed. That’s what she’d use for him. Why in bed? Why does she put them or take them in bed?”
“Vulnerability? Sleep, sex, sickness. Wouldn’t those be the top reasons for being in bed? All of those make you vulnerable.”
“Good, that’s good.” Struck, she pointed a finger at him. “They’re vulnerable, she’s in control. And it’s tidy, too, isn’t it? She doesn’t leave them sprawled on the floor. She cuts out the tongue—that’s a statement—but doesn’t otherwise mutilate. Tidy. And a bed, it’s like a display. Here’s your present.”
She told him about the holo program she’d run, the time lag. How she calculated the killer had used it.
“You challenged her today. The media conference.”
“I need to piss her off, shake her up. I think I did. And chasing after her added to it. I’m betting she’s not feeling real friendly toward me right now.”
“You’d like her to come after you. In your place, I’d want the same. But that’s not likely to be her next move, is it?”
“No, not likely. Kill me, the whole thing’s finished. She’s given me gifts, and I just haven’t appreciated them properly.”
