“Got it up, Dallas.”
Eve moved over to the stage area.
She watched the night owls, the party people, the LCs calling it a night head for the platforms. A couple of sidewalk sleepers in from the cold huddled together on the floor, begging hats displayed—and ignored.
She saw Strongbow. Mink hoodie up and buttoned to the neck, wind goggles in place. As she approached the transoms, Strongbow unbuttoned the hoodie to reach inside for her purse.
Took out a swipe.
Eve braced. Do it, do it, you crazy, murdering bitch.
But she stopped, dipped her head lower. Stepping aside, she reached in her purse again, carefully counted out cash.
She took it to the machine, paid for a new swipe.
Cash, Eve noted from the display. One ride.
“Smart enough, smart enough to be careful. Didn’t use a multi-swipe—we could’ve tracked her movements. Didn’t use an account via her ’link, and you can bet she’s got those. Cheaper than a ride-by-ride.”
Strongbow pushed through, kept her head bowed as she waited on the platform. When she got on the train, McNab switched the feed. Eve saw her sit in a corner, huddle there.
“She’s aware of the cameras, thinking about the cameras. Brooklyn, yeah, she’s got to risk that, but you can bet your ass she won’t get off at her usual stop. She’ll walk, warm in a scene well written and in that damn stupid jacket. Wearing gloves, probably had them in her purse, but still she’s careful not to touch things. Overcautious about prints or a germophobe? Can’t see any hair. You ought to get a hint of the dreads from some of the angles, but nothing. She’s already ditched them. Peabody, push on teams to scour the area from here to the station where she got on.”
Eve paced in front of the screen as Strongbow rode.
“Mistakes, got some mistakes now. Got spotted, had to run. What does she think of that? Is she asking herself how the bartender made her? Will she go back over the scene, looking for the mistakes? Had to leave her coat, got the better part of the deal with the mink, but we’ve got some pieces of her now. She didn’t get away clean.”
“I kind of wonder …”
When Peabody trailed off, Eve turned to her. “Finish it. Half thoughts are weak and annoying.”
“Okay, I wonder if getting spotted, running, if that added a new element for her. If she got a thrill out of it. It’s attention, right? She craves it.”
“That’s good,” Eve said. “That’s very good. First the shock, the fear, then the thrill. Nadine’s broadcast gave her a taste of it, likely juiced her up to move on this next chapter tonight. Now she’s got more. She hedged her bets,” Eve added. “She texted Yola Bloomfield from dumb-ass Janis’s ’link seconds after she texted Loxie.”
Eve jammed her hands in her pockets, rocked back on her heels. “Yola tagged me, full panic. Word’s already out on Loxie Flash—with video.”
“So it didn’t matter which of them,” Peabody said.
“Glaze mattered. Loxie was likely top prize, but Yola’s done the dirty with him a couple times, so she’d do. Or would have if she hadn’t had the sense to stay home. She’s getting off. That’s … on Jay.”
Head down the whole way, Eve thought. Even in the expensive coat, she was a woman who barely made a ripple on the air.
“We’ll check store and street cams in that area,” Eve said. “She’s going to know where they are and how to avoid them, but we have to check. I’m betting her usual stop is at least a couple stations down the line, or a transfer. But we’re going to have a sketch tomorrow. Copy that transfer feed to my units, McNab. Peabody, morgue, eight hundred sharp.”
“I figured.”
“Go home, get some rack time. I’ll seal up here.”
“I hear that.”
“There’s transpo waiting for you outside,” Roarke told them. “Ice has gone to snow, which means ice under snow. It’s ugly out there.”
“That’s even better news than ‘go home.’ ” Wearily, Peabody shrugged into her coat. “Thanks. Mega serious thanks.”
“Squared,” McNab added, then snagged Peabody’s hand so they swung arms on the way out.
Eve walked back over to the booth, shook her head.
“Loxie almost had to see her. Look at the angles—booth to bar. Strongbow had to be close to the booth, maybe about here.”
Eve walked around, imagined the mink hoodie carelessly tossed over the plush back. “Wits put vic here.”
She circled again, pointed to the curved end farthest from the bar. “Here, Loxie’s got Glaze’s booth in her line of sight, and she wants that. Wants his eye on her—doesn’t get it. The way the booth curves, if Strongbow’s more or less where it makes sense—close enough, angled there, so she can watch Loxie drink and die—Loxie probably saw her.”
“Does it matter?” Roarke asked her.
“Just helps me get a picture. Vic here, killer there, bar there, Brad the bartender down there. People crowded around, moving through, plunked in other booths or at tables. She gets back from the dance floor—far end because she wanted Glaze to see her rubbing herself all over some guy named Bennie. Drink’s sitting here because Strongbow ordered it from this end of the bar—that stool where she left her coat—and set it down in front of five oblivious idiots.”
Eve sat on the end of the booth. “Stand over there, will you?”
Roarke moved in as surrogate for the killer.
“Lots of weird lighting, lots of people, lots of noise, but here I am, pissed and insulted because my ex doesn’t have a boner for me. I pick up the drink.”
She mimed lifting it, drinking it down. “Bennie’s got his hands all over me. Maybe I’ll let him do me later. Probably. Definitely want to get laid. Can’t get my breath—weird. I don’t feel right. Something’s wrong, it’s wrong. Bennie’s humping me, but I can’t breathe. I can’t—
Eve drew a line with her hand from where she sat to where Roarke stood. “Almost had to see her. Not unconscious like the first vic, not in the back like the second. She wanted to be seen. She wanted to see and be seen. And that matters, because she’s going to want that again.”
Heaving out a breath, Eve rose. “Did Loxie have that moment of awareness—seeing the woman with the blue dreads, thinking about the taste of that stupid martini? Did she have enough time for that fuckme moment?”
She shook her head again. “Anyway. Strongbow cut back her lag time. Cut it way back. That’s the broadcast with Nadine.”
“You won’t blame yourself for this.”
She turned back to Roarke. “Damn right I won’t. I laid all this out for Loxie Flash, just like the others. I warned her, showed her crime scene pictures. Hardly more than a goddamn hour before she walked in here, I talked to her again, warned her again. She had to do one fucking thing to stay alive. Stay out of the clubs. Give me a few days, and stay out of the clubs. Instead she got her slut on, walked in here. Bad enough, all that’s bad enough, but I told her the drink to avoid. She drinks it anyway. Drinks what’s in front of her because she was weak, stupid, and liked sticking her finger in authority’s eye. She’s a goddamn accessory to her own murder.”
Releasing frustration, Eve kicked the booth, twice. “And now she’s mine.”
“She’s yours,” he agreed. “And you’re tired. Let’s follow your own orders and go home, get some rack time.”
“Yeah. Nothing more to do here.” Looking at him, knowing he saw her, saw in her, she let the exhaustion come. “Damn it, Roarke, goddamn it. She just had to stay home.”
“Baby.” He moved to her, drew her in. “Some can’t. For some, being alone is a kind of death.”
“She made her choice. The last shit choice in a series of shit choices. Yeah, let’s go home. I need to notify her next of kin, though if Yola’s anything to go by, they already know.”
18
Eve surfaced out of dreams mildly annoyed with her subconscious. Couldn’t it give her a break once in a while, come up with some puffy white clouds for her to float on?
Why would she—or anybody—want to float around on puffy white clouds? One strong wind could knock you off, then you’d have to dream up a parachute. And for all you knew, you could end up splashing into some big dream ocean and get eaten by sharks.
Forget the damn, stupid clouds.
“You’re thinking too loud.”
Eve opened her eyes, looked straight into Roarke’s.
So blue, she thought. If you splashed into an ocean that blue, there wouldn’t be any sharks because it would be perfect.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was sleeping until your brain woke up and started muttering.”
“Is there nothing left in the universe to buy or sell or build or invent? Have we reached critical mass?”
“Buying, selling, and so on can wait another hour.” As he spoke, his hand skimmed down her back, glided over her ass.
“Somebody told me last night that sex was life.” Since it was handy, she gave his really exceptional ass a pat. “I wish I had time to live,” she added, rolling away from him and out of bed.
Galahad leaped off behind her, beat her to the AutoChef. Pretty much on auto herself, she programmed his kibble, and two mugs of black coffee.
The first glorious sip fired up a few circuits as she walked over to hand Roarke the other mug.
“Thanks.”
She narrowed her sleepy eyes at him. “How can you look awake? How can anybody look awake before the coffee? It’s just not right.”
“I enjoy the awake more after the coffee.”
“Not the same thing. Do you think the subconscious gets bitchy because it knows it’s starting the day at the morgue?”
“It may factor. Bad dreams?”
“No, bitchy ones. As in dead Loxie Flash bitching about being dead. Everybody’s fault but hers, right, until you wanted to punch her in her whiny face. But since she’s dead, what’s the point?”