“And when you have him in the box, Lieutenant, you’ll show him what it is to be mind-fucked.”
“Damn straight I will.” She looked back at the board, at the victims. “Damn straight.”
* * *
She refined her notes, wrote reports, studied case files. At the end of it, the best she could do was lay out her plans for the next day. She’d interview the previous victims, tug hard on those connections, start exploring possible theater angles.
She had to hope a night’s sleep would help coalesce her thoughts enough to pull a solid theory out of them.
This time she got in the fancy new bed, and decided it was more than fine.
“Married couples so far, not cohabs. Does that matter?” She closed her eyes as Roarke’s arm draped over her. “No kids in the house. I think that matters. No pets, no kids—or absent human staff.”
“Let it go for the night.”
“Except the Strazzas had a houseful. So…”
She didn’t let it go so much as drop away.
* * *
When she woke just after dawn, it took her brain a minute to catch up with her eyes. New room, she reminded herself.
Roarke sat on the big sofa, fully dressed in one of his impeccable dark suits—apparently unconcerned about cat hair on the material, as the cat had deserted her, and was now stretched out on his back beside Roarke.
Roarke absently scratched Galahad’s exposed belly while he sipped coffee and watched the incomprehensible stock reports on screen.
They made a hell of a good-morning picture, she thought, the insanely gorgeous man in his emperor-of-the-business-world suit and the big cat riding on bliss at the touch of those skilled hands.
She could relate to the bliss.
He’d probably already had a couple of ’link or holo meetings, she mused. Might have bought Saturn for all she knew. But all in all, her biggest interest at the moment involved the fact that he had coffee, and she didn’t.
“Good morning,” he said when she pushed up to sit. “It’s bitter out, and they’re calling for snow—quite a bit of it—starting mid-morning.”
She said, “Ugh,” and stumbled her way to the AutoChef, remembered it wasn’t where it used it be, stared blankly at the carved doors.
“Touch either,” Roarke reminded her.
“Right.” She slapped at one and both popped open, and the interior lights gleamed on. She programmed coffee—all that currently mattered—and waited to down the first heady gulp.
“You’re going to have cat hair all over your million-dollar suit, pretty boy.”
“It’s easy enough to deal with, and it only cost a half million.”
“Ha.” She took the coffee into the bathroom, caffeinated and showered herself awake.
When she came out, wrapped in a red robe she’d never seen before—but it was as soft as a cloud, as warm as a hug—he’d already set up breakfast.
She knew, thanks to his handy weather report, she’d start the day with oatmeal.
At least it came with lots of berries and the crunchy stuff—and he’d added a side of bacon. Which explained why he’d banished the cat. Galahad now sat in front of the fire, industriously washing himself—and sending the human an occasional steely stare.
“It matters,” she said.
“Does it?”
“That the victims are married. It matters. I just need to figure out why.”
“Did you dream?”
“Just slept—and let me add another hot damn on that bed. Three assaults is pattern and purpose and profile. Typical escalation, and the murder comes off as of the moment. That wasn’t planned. Next time it will be.”
“Because there’s no going back, only forward.”
“Yep. Do you have any—trinkets—from back when?”
Walking his fingers down Eve’s arm, Roarke ate some bacon. “Now that’s a loaded question from a cop over breakfast. I did have a few, here and there,” he said with a shrug. “But I passed them on, you could say, when a cop came into my life—as she wouldn’t like it.”
“She wouldn’t have known.”
“I would have. As a former thief, I’d say if your suspect is indeed keeping all his spoils, he’s what you termed him last night. A hoarder. He doesn’t need to liquidate, so it’s not for the money—and a man can have plenty of that and enjoy taking more. Serials often take souvenirs, don’t they?”
“Yeah, but it tends to be something specific to the victim, a memento. This is more … Aladdin’s Cave … He’d need a place, and a private one. The jewelry alone is a serious haul. The dresses—he’s taken a cocktail dress from each vic—though I haven’t confirmed that with the Strazza hit. That’s more a souvenir, but it’s a weird one. A fancy dress, shoes, and an evening bag.”
“Costume.”
Eve poked Roarke’s shoulder. “What I’m thinking. Not for him—different body types, so I don’t think we’re after a cross-dresser—but maybe for a woman or a droid or just one of those dead bodies the stores use to display clothes.”
“Mannequins, darling Eve. Not dead bodies.”
“They look like DBs. Anyway, he’s got a lot of whacked-out layers to him. No pets, no kids, in-home safes, married couples, single-family residences with good security. They’ve got to be surrogates, it’s too specific otherwise.”