“Plot twist? It’s a story for her. Her story, but a story. So, come in as a man, kill the character as a man, leave as a woman. Plot twist.”
“Plot twist.” Eve grabbed her coat. “Let’s go see the writer.”
Blaine DeLano lived with her family in a settled Brooklyn neighborhood with rejuvenated old houses, heavy on the brick. A place of sidewalks, financial security, good schools and restaurants.
DeLano’s corner-lot three story had a narrow garden area in the front and a covered portico over the front entrance, with a small, attached garage on the side-street end.
Window boxes holding some sort of purplish cabbagey-looking plants added a female sensibility.
Top-flight security, Eve noticed, which showed the females inside had sense as well.
Eve pressed the buzzer expecting the security comp to quiz her. But the door opened in seconds.
DeLano’s mother, Eve concluded, as the resemblance, despite the age difference, was strong. The mother might have gone boldly red with a short, sculpted cap of hair, but the eyes, the shape of the mouth, the line of the chin, she’d passed down to her daughter.
“Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody.” Brooklyn rang in her cheerful voice. “I recognized you.” She grabbed Eve’s hand to shake, used it to pull her inside while she gestured Peabody in. “I’ve seen the Icove vid three times. I’m really rooting for it next month.”
“Next month?”
“The Oscars. You’re going, aren’t you? I hope you’re going. What an experience. And listen to me, blathering on when you must be here to see Blaine. I talked her into going up to her office to write, take her mind off things. She’s so upset about that poor girl. Come in, sit. I’ve got the fire on. Spring can’t come soon enough.”
She led them out of the wide foyer with its vase of fragrant lilies on a glossy table, its big oval mirror and pretty, girlie chairs, into a spacious living area where a fire snapped in a hearth of dark gray brick flanked by tall white cabinets. On the mantel over the hearth stood more flowers, candles, and a large painting of what Eve thought might be tulips.
Lacy curtains fussed at the windows that let winter light slide inside in frilly patterns. Soft throws draped artistically over the backs of facing sofas, while the pillows Eve assumed women loved simply because lined the seats.
“Let me take your coats, and you make yourselves at home while I get Blaine.”
“Thanks. We’d like to speak with you, too, Mrs. DeLano.”
“Audrey, please. And I’ll confess, I’d be thrilled to be interviewed by Dallas and Peabody. I know it’s a terrible situation, but if there’s a silver lining, you should find it. I’ll go get Blaine.”
She carted off the coats, steps brisk in her house skids.
“This is a really nice house,” Peabody commented as she wandered around. “I really like this room. It’s girlie, but it’s comfortable girlie.”
She sat in one of the occasional chairs, snugged her butt in. “Really comfortable, and it smells really good.”
Eve scanned the photos on the cabinet shelves. Family shots, generational. Baby pictures, little girls, young women, mothers and daughters—some men sprinkled in. One of Audrey, Blaine, and two teenage girls—Heather and Piper, Eve remembered.
Photos, some books, lots of pretty, useless things.
She turned when she heard footsteps.
DeLano had changed since her morning visit to Central and now wore baggy gray pants, a hip-length blue sweater with a kangaroo pocket, and house booties designed to keep the feet warm.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” she began, “or see you. I hope it means you’ve broken the case, or that, at least, found some way I can help.”
“We have some angles.”
“My mother said you wanted to speak with her as well. She’s excited about that.” DeLano let out a short laugh, sat on one of the sofas. “She’s followed your work closely since Nadine’s book. She’s just getting coffee—she likes to fuss, as we don’t get many visitors during the work-week. At least not until the girls, and often some of their friends, charge in from school.”
“How soon will that be?”
“The coffee?”
“Your daughters. When do you expect them home?”
“Oh, I …” She looked at her wrist, laughed. “No wrist unit. I don’t pay attention to the time when I’m working. What time is it?”
“Three-ten,” Peabody told her.
“Really? I lose track. Shortly then. If you want them out of the way, I can just—”
“Actually, we’d like to speak with them. With all of you.”
“Oh.” A worry line dug in between her eyebrows. “I haven’t spoken to them yet about any of this. They’ve been in school.”
“If you’d like time for that, we can wait.”
“No, I … No,” DeLano said more firmly. “They’re tough and they’re sensible. We can explain it all to them together. Just, can you tell me, should I be concerned for their safety?”
“I don’t think there’s any cause to be overly concerned at this time. But we’ll talk about that.”
Audrey carried in a loaded tray. Peabody jumped up to take it.
“Let me help you.”
“I’m strong as an ox, but you’re a good girl. Just on the table there. Sweetie, the girls will be home in a few minutes. Do you want me to steer them off?”
“The lieutenant wants to talk to them, too.”
Mother and daughter exchanged a look. Audrey sat, patted DeLano’s knee. “Well, we’re in this, and everything else, together.”
DeLano tipped her head to her mother’s shoulder. “Always.”
8
Audrey gave her daughter a quick pat on the leg, then shifted to pour the coffee. “Two black—that’s Lieutenant Dallas and me. Two coffee regulars for Detective Peabody and Blaine. And I hope you’ll try my sugar and spice cookies. They’re a favorite around here.”
After she passed around coffee and cookies, Audrey sat back. “Now, what do you need from us?”
“Peabody, photos. I’d like you to look at the photos,” Eve told them.
Mother and daughter huddled together, studied the photos.
“The same person?” DeLano asked. “Brother and sister? It’s hard to see much of either face.”
“Same person,” Eve confirmed. “And at this time the prime suspect in Chanel Rylan’s murder.”
“You can’t see the eyes,” DeLano murmured. “Or the features very clearly. Still, I think if this was someone I knew well, it would click. But it doesn’t. I’m sorry.”
“It’s a woman, isn’t it? At first glance—well, even at a second good look—you assume this one here is a man. But when you see them together like this … You’re looking for a woman?”
“We believe the unsub is female,” Eve said. “And presents herself as the character in the specific murder scene, as written. A woman for the first, a man in this case. This individual clearly selected, studied, and stalked both victims. Very likely selected them from others considered and settled on them because they best represented the victims in the books.”
“It’s more about the books, that’s what you’re saying, than about the women who were killed.”
“It’s more about the books,” Eve agreed. “Which means it’s more about you.”
Eve heard the voices—female—the clatter of footsteps coming from the back of the house.
“The girls.” DeLano squeezed her mother’s hand, got to her feet as the voices—obviously in the heated rush of an argument—ebbed and flowed.
DeLano walked to the foyer. “Heather, Piper! Grand and I are in the living room.”
The voices continued.
“I so did not give Brady Mishner the sexy eyes.”
“You so did. With the hair-flip combo!”
“Cut it out!”
“Brady, Brady!” Kissy noises followed.
“You’re such a wheeze, Piper.” Sounds of a scuffle followed.
Two voices, as one, whined: “Mom!”
“Girls, we have company. Pretend to be civilized.”
As the girls stepped up, DeLano hooked an arm around each of their necks—a kind of affectionate double headlock—and drew them into the room.
The one on the right topped her mother’s height by about an inch, had a long mane of dark blond hair with a couple of bright blue braids worked through it. Startlingly pretty, she wore skinny pants that swirled with color, a sweater that matched the braids, and may or may not have given some boy named Brady the sexy eye–hair flip combo.
The one on the left had the look of a clever, potentially devious elf. The top of her head came to her mother’s cheekbone, and she studied Eve out of long green eyes that tipped up at the corners. She wore her brown, streaked-with-pink hair pixie short, and had on baggies with a sweatshirt that claimed GIRLS ROCK AND RULE on a compact frame.
She may or may not have been a wheeze.
“I know who you are,” Piper said, and looked up at her mother. “Who got killed?”
“No one you know. Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody, my daughters, Heather and Piper. Sit down, girls.”
They sat on the sofa, immediately went from squabbling siblings to a unit. All four females ranged themselves together.
“I went to see the lieutenant and the detective this morning because a woman was killed last night. She was stabbed with an ice pick while watching a vid in a theater in Times Square.”
“Like in your book,” Piper said, those odd elf eyes direct on Eve’s face.
“Yes, and there was a murder last month of a licensed companion, and it was like one of my books.”
“That’s awful.” Heather snuggled closer to her mother. “Mom, that’s awful.”