New York to Dallas (41 page)

“Working from here suits me. That search you wanted on potential locations is in.”

“Okay. Look, why don’t you take care of the half a million things you’ve been letting dangle in Roarke’s Empire of Everything?”

“Catchy title. I may use it one day.”

“I’m going to go back to the beginning. I want to go over all the data, the interviews, time lines, the works. Basically do a solid review, and that’ll take a while. You can send me the search results, and I’ll add them in.”

“All right. But I have Summerset and Caro, and a number of other people dealing with the dangling half a million in REE. So if you come up with anything, or want something looked into, let me know.”

“Yeah.”

She went to her desk, called up the incident report and Bree’s statement on the night Melinda was abducted.

The data remained fresh in her head, she admitted. She knew all the details here, just couldn’t see anything she or the Dallas cops, the feds, had missed. But she rechecked the time lines, read over the interview with the bar owner on Sarajo, the statement from the neighbor.

She filtered in, sifted through all the information Peabody, Feeney, and the New York team had accumulated. She went step by step, stage by stage, retracing her time in Texas, reviewing every fact, speculation, and probability on McQueen and his movements.

She answered her ’link with her mind still steeped in it.

“Dallas.”

“McQueen’s made contact,” Ricchio told her. “He wants to talk to you. Should we link him up?”

“Give me a second.” She rushed over to Roarke’s office. “McQueen through Ricchio. Can you try a trace from here?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have him linked.” She went back to her desk, sat. “I’m set.”

“Do you want to block your video?”

“No, let him see me.”

“We’re linking.”

She angled in. She wanted him to get a good look at her. She was rested, alert. She was ready.

“Eve.”

“Isaac. Really sorry I missed you yesterday.”

“I feel the same. That’s why I’m making arrangements for us to get together very soon.”

“How about now? I happen to be free.”

“Patience. I have a few more preparations to make so we can have a perfect reunion. As you know I had to dispose of the help, so I’m a little shorthanded.”

“Yeah, you were a little rushed, not so careful this time around, Isaac. When you go back to New York, it’ll only be a jumping-off point. This time it’ll be off-planet accommodations for you.”

“Oh, I have something else entirely in mind.”

“Such as.”

“Tell you what, I’ll tell you all about it when you’re gracing my guest room. Meanwhile, I thought you might enjoy a preview of an exciting home vid I produced recently.”

The screen flashed from blank to the obscenity in McQueen’s bedroom. Darlie’s screams and pleading sobs shattered the air.

Eve forced herself to watch, willed herself to give him no reaction while the child inside her wept as piteously as the child on screen.

It shut off abruptly.

“We’ll watch the whole thing when you’re here,” McQueen told her. “I’ll make popcorn. TTFN.”

She held on when Ricchio came on, his face like stone. “Jammed and filtered. We’re cutting through it.”

“Lovers Lane in Highland Park.” Roarke came on, split screen. “He’s moving.”

“Copy that!” Ricchio called out. “I’ll dispatch now. Dallas?”

She shook her head. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”

She ended the call, sat very still.

“I’m all right,” she said when Roarke came in, brought her a glass of water.

“You’re not, and pretending to be isn’t helpful.”

“I already had that in my head, already knew what he—they—did to her. I’m not going to let it mess me up.” But she drained the glass of water. “I’m not heading out because he won’t be there. They have to go, have to try, but he won’t be anywhere near there.”

“No,” Roarke agreed.

“His new location won’t be near there either, so we can eliminate that. Highland Park, right? Lovers fucking Lane. That was deliberate.”

“Yes. Do you want Mira?”

“Yes, soon—but not for me, for this. To help me refine the profile. All those years he kept what he did, what he could do locked in. He could only share his brilliance, as he sees it, with the women he intended to kill anyway. Now he’s found release and enjoyment in bragging. He contacted me to shake me up, to make sure we’re still connected, but also to share. His control isn’t what it was, and that’s an advantage for us. It also makes him more unpredictable.”

Steadier, she thought. She was steady enough. “If you could send Mira all the updates, this ’link transmission. Ask her to review and reprofile. Then we can talk it through, pass it to the locals and feds.”

“All right. Don’t watch it again.”

“You know I have to.”

“Then give it some time. You said he contacted you, with that, to shake you, to brag. Consider he may have also sent it to switch your focus, to have you spend time studying that brutality rather than pursuing other leads.”

“You’re probably right. I’m going to finish my review, run some fresh probabilities. It’s unlikely anything on that preview will help us nail down his current location. But he confirmed for me he has one, with a guest room.”

She nodded, slowly now. “He’s slipping, and I won’t.”

She dug back in, reviewing notes, making new ones, checking maps. She ran a probability and got a high enough result to allow her to eliminate the Highland Park area. She adjusted the property list she and Roarke had compiled, then began the laborious task of checking with soundproofing companies.

“I’ll help you with that,” Roarke told her when he saw what she was doing. “But the deal is you take a break. It’s nearly one, and you’ve been up since dawn without anything to eat.”

“I’m not getting anywhere. All of the locations on my list had soundproofing during the build. Most of yours, the same, or during a remodel. These sorts of buildings, people expect soundproofing, so he wouldn’t have to hire it out.”

“Then we’ll move on to security and electronics. After we eat.”

“Yeah. I’ll get it. I need to let this sit and simmer some. If I missed something, if there’s a key, I’m not finding it.”

“What are we having?”

“I don’t know.” She checked the AutoChef’s menu without much interest. “They got nachos.” She perked up a bit. “Nachos are supposed to be good here, right? And this tortilla soup. Not bad.”

“I’m in,” Roarke said, thinking that with a messy plate of nachos and the soup she’d have to sit to eat.

She ordered it up, got drinks out of the office friggie. And wandered around her board again.

“The beginning, the beginning again.” She sat, scooped up a loaded nacho. “He’s settled in New York. Excellent hunting ground. He’s got money stashed all over the place—good, solid money—but he’s settled in his working-class building. We haven’t found a second location in New York, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have one. Higher end again. He gets caught, gets caged. But he finds people in the system to exploit. That didn’t start with Stibble and the guard. People running errands, giving him unrecorded access to coms. That takes money. You’ve got to keep the errand boys happy. So if he owned the second location, wouldn’t he sell it? Invest the money?”

“Possibly.”

“Because if he had another, and I think he did, why didn’t he go there, too? Why just where I took him down? He could’ve used that instead of a hotel. If someone else is living there, he just does what he did to Schuster and Kopeski. More fun anyway. But if he sold it, it doesn’t mean anything. Reaching,” she said, pushing her hair back.

“Maybe, maybe not. Keep going.”

“I’m not sure where I’m going, but okay. He killed the New York partner before I took him down. Our best anal is he kills his partner before he switches locations. But there wasn’t any sign he planned to leave that apartment or New York. He had his collection there.”

“He was bored with that partner.”

“Yeah, or she got on his nerves or screwed up. But say he was bored with her, wouldn’t he have another on the string? A replacement, at least potentials?”

“I’d say yes. Yes,” he repeated, pleased they both seemed to be thinking more clearly. “And wouldn’t he want or need another place—one where he didn’t have to worry about the partner dropping by, or the potential becoming too curious about that locked room. A place where he could entertain her, begin to train her, develop the bond.”

“A place more suited to his tastes.”

“I could find it for you, given time,” Roarke considered. “But I don’t see how it would help you at this point.”

“Just additional data. He’s nested in New York. It’s his kind of town, and he’s having one hell of a run there. He’s listening to the media reports on the Collector, how the cops aren’t any closer. Oh, he’s loving it, maybe about to get a new mommy, too. Life is excellent. Then some poor bastard gets mugged and murdered outside his building, and I show up at his door.”

“He couldn’t have planned on that.”

“No, and that’s what he does. He plans. Anticipates, prepares for contingencies while he”—she trailed off with a spoonful of soup halfway to her mouth—“plans.”

“Someone got a buzz,” Roarke commented.

“He plans.” She pushed up, strode to the board. “That control, anticipation. Routine, procedure. It’s what made him so good at what he did. What did he have to do in prison but plan? Oh, he’s going to get out. It may take time, but that’s all right. He wants everything in place first. It takes time to groom the errand boys, time to get the rhythm of the prison, and show what a good boy he is so he gets a few perks. Time to find the partner, start the training. Time to set it all up, so he can move right ahead.”

Roarke saw precisely where she’d landed. “We haven’t been looking back far enough for the location.”

“No. We’ve been looking back a couple of years. Not far enough.”

“A dozen years is a long time, and clever. Who’d look that far back?”

“Not that far.” She laid a finger on Melinda’s picture. “Here, right here. She went to visit him. Whatever plans he made prior, he adjusted. She was the key. A sign from whatever perverted god he worships. He took her—the last he took—and I freed her. Melinda from Dallas. I knew that would trip his switch. I knew it had. How did I miss this?”

“Bollocks. You didn’t miss a thing. You didn’t even suspect he had another hole until yesterday. Why would you?”

He got up, went to her desk. “When did she visit him?”

“August ’fifty-five.”

“Then we start there.”

“New construction. He had plenty of time, why not customize it, get exactly what he wanted?”

She pulled out her ’link, nearly tagged Peabody before she remembered. Dutifully, she contacted Ricchio. “I might have something.”

She let Roarke handle the search while Ricchio set up a team to do the same from his end.

“The feds are about to freeze the accounts,” she told Roarke. “This bought us a couple hours. They’ll hold off that long.”

“But no pressure,” he muttered.

She started to snap back, then got a look at him. Hair tied back, working the comp, a smart screen, data flashing on the wall screen across the room.

But no glass wall, she thought. And no drag of worry and fatigue on his face.

Instead of snapping she walked over, leaned down, and kissed the top of his head.

He glanced up at her. “I haven’t found it yet.”

“But you will. I’m calling Mira in. She may be able to help us. And Feeney. I should let him know where we are.”

“Go do it somewhere else.”

When she brought Mira up, Eve gave Roarke another glance. “Don’t talk to him,” she warned. “He can get bitchy when he’s in this deep. I don’t know if we have any of that tea stuff.”

“I had it stocked, and I don’t get bitchy. Bloody, buggering
hell
.”

Eve just rolled her eyes and got the tea.

“Thanks.”

“We can take this downstairs.”

“No. The board’s helpful to me, too.” But Mira spoke quietly as Roarke switched to Irish and mutters. “He’s devolving.”

“No, he just gets more Irish when he’s frustrated.”

“Not Roarke.” Mira smiled a little. “McQueen. He spent a long time in prison, and as many do, he grew used to the routine, the structure. Freedom after confinement can be frightening, overstimulating, leave you floundering. How do you make a decision when making decisions has been taken away?”

“But he made decisions in prison. He chose a partner, chose a location, chose his first victim with Melinda.”

“Yes, but even those were illogical. He’s first and foremost a pedophile, but he risks his freedom with a plan to kill you.”

“I stopped him. He’s also made of ego.”

“Yes. I would have expected him—and so did you—to go under first, to hunt next, and to come after you last. He put you first. And since he’s been out, he’s acted on impulse, he’s been impatient, broken pattern. His confidence is broken. He denies it, but his actions are rash . . . inelegant. Contacting you today, showing you the video—”

Eve looked Mira in the eye. “I’m okay.”

“Showing you tells me he’s fighting to get his confidence back, to show you how confident he is.”

“Ties and olives.”

Mira simply stared. “I’m sorry?”

“He’s bought a lot of stuff, duplicated it, which doesn’t go with his previous pattern. Like dozens of ties, multiple jars of olives. Other stuff. And Melinda said he went blank for a minute after he got the call from Sylvia. Pulled out the knife, then just went blank. Like he forgot what he wanted to do.”

“It fits.” Mira nodded. “Freedom after a long confinement can be stressful even though deeply desired. Decisions are more difficult. Adjustments when a factor changes unexpectedly, even more so.”