“I think he likes the risk. It’s part of the fun.” Eve studied her board, grabbed a second slice. “He needed to know the timing, the routine. He had to know the targets were having a party. Figure there are, in addition to the hosts, forty-eight guests—and their staff, maybe hairdressers, and so on who knew. Add the caterer, and staff—and the people they might have mentioned it to, the rental place, and so on.”
Nodding, Roarke passed her a napkin. “Potentially a few hundred people knew the time, the place, the basic setup.”
“Not that hard to get the information. He plans. He gathers information on the targets. The first couple, out for the evening, he breaks in, disables security. Second couple returning from a few days away.”
She sat down now, put her boots up, while Roarke settled for the ass-pinching visitor’s chair. “His violence and lag time have escalated, but the Strazzas—that was the big one. Walking in while people were in the house, strolling right by staff and up the stairs to set the stage. I bet that added excitement. Possibly increased his violence due to same.”
“The theatrics, the folklore monsters. There are easier ways to disguise yourself, but he chooses the elaborate.”
“And it’s a sharp angle,” Eve agreed. “It’s like a performance, right? And he’s in character. He writes the script, sets the stage. But this time, he had to—what do you call it—ad lib. He didn’t go in there intending to kill. But now that he has…”
“You expect he might write that ending for the next performance.”
“I do. He will.” Of that she had no doubt. “He likes causing pain, suffering, fear, humiliation. In every case he choked the female victim to unconsciousness. Sooner or later he’d have gone too far there, either by accident or design. Now he’s crossed that line. He won’t go back.”
While he didn’t doubt her, Roarke studied the board as she did. “Yet, every time he released his victims before he left—and even after he killed, he released Daphne Strazza.”
“Yeah, well, show’s over, right?”
“Mmm. If you take your theory to the next step, does he release her because he wanted a review? Someone who’d lived through the performance, as you called it, and would speak of it. Even—to his deluded mind—praise it.”
“Like a critic?” Musing on it, Eve reached for her coffee, found the mug empty.
Roarke rose, got two tubes of water. “Switch it up,” he suggested as he handed her one. “Like a critic,” he confirmed, “or an audience review. Someone who’d relate how convincing his performance was.”
“I can see that.” After gulping down water, Eve gestured toward the board with the tube. “Daphne Strazza’s done just that because in her state of mind, she is convinced the devil attacked her.”
“Surely there’s no greater ego boost for a performer than having someone believe he was the character he portrayed. It’s a terrible sort of praise, isn’t it?”
“Ego,” Eve murmured. “A need for praise. He made the women praise him while he raped them. Next to stupidity, ego’s the thing that causes the most mistakes.”
Again she gestured to the board. “Following a pattern’s another. There’s got to be some connection between the victims. Some linchpin. The SVU detectives are solid, they’ve been thorough, but there’s something they haven’t found.”
“So you will.”
She angled her head to look at him. He so rarely looked tired, so rarely showed fatigue, but she saw the first signs of it in his eyes. “So I will. And you should go home.”
“Kicking me out?”
“For your own good.”
“Come with me and work at home. After you have a nap.”
“I’ve got the valets coming in—I have to cross them off. And some other things to deal with. Then I’ll be home. And maybe take a nap in our big, fancy new bed.”
He rose, came over to take her face in his hands. “Coming home as we did only yesterday—then going out again to the charity ball—we haven’t yet slept or anything else in our big, fancy new bed.”
“We’ll make up for it. I like how it’s turning out, the bedroom and all.”
“And like even more that the bulk of the work was done when we were on the island.”
“Goes without saying. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
“I’ll be there,” he said, and kissed her.
And that, she thought as he left her, summed up the miracle of her life. She had a home with him, and he’d be there.
Swinging her legs off the desk, she started her murder book.
* * *
When they finished the last interview, Eve prepared to send Peabody home.
“Get some downtime. We’ll pick it up tomorrow.”
“Are you going home?”
Not directly, Eve thought, but … “Yeah. I want Mira’s profile, another prod at the survivor when the medicals clear it, Yancy’s sketch. None of that’s going to happen now. I can comb through Olsen and Tredway’s files at home.”
“I can walk out with you,” Peabody began, knowing her partner’s methods.
“I’ve still got to grab my things,” Eve began, then turned to the burly man with a visitor’s badge clipped to his New York Knicks sweatshirt. “Can I help you?”