“Disguises herself as the son?”
Eve shook her head. “Rich people have security. She can’t get through that pretending to be a member of the household. Security, staff.”
“Delivery person,” Peabody considered. “Part of a cleaning crew, newly hired staff.”
Eve held up a finger. “What does she do well? Sews. Rich women hire seamstresses, right? They can have them come to their home—more private, more convenient. She’s been in New York long enough to have established herself in that line of work. Has to pay the bills, and she thinks ahead. She needs a rich woman to kill.”
“Leonardo.” Peabody shrugged. “It’s a long shot, but we have a direct line to a top designer. Rich women, such as yourself, use top designers.”
“I’m not rich. Roarke’s rich. Leonardo’s an angle. Let’s see if we can contact him, show him the sketch. Maybe it’ll ring. If not, he has plenty of contacts of his own in the business. Somebody he knows might recognize her.”
“I’ll tag him.” Peabody looked at the sketch again. “She doesn’t stand out. Her work might, but …”
“Try it. I’m going to set an alert on the search and go up to harass Feeney on his.”
She can’t wait long, Eve thought as she headed up to EDD. The last chapter didn’t go as she’d written. She knew she had a cop on her heels. Up until now Strongbow had hidden in plain sight, and it worked for her. But under the crazy, she had a brain, and had to know the plot had twisted on her.
So, no, she wouldn’t wait long.
Eve walked into the colorful circus of EDD. She took a quick moment to look through the dancing, prancing e-geeks to see McNab hard at work at his station.
Hard at work, she judged, as his shoulders bopped, his fingers snapped, and his head did a kind of jive that had his multitude of ear-hoops glinting.
She dived for the sanity of Feeney’s office.
He leaned on the side of his desk in his shit-brown suit. He had what might’ve been a coffee stain on his shit-brown tie, but it was hard to tell.
His face, like his suit, looked comfortably baggy. She figured he’d had a recent trip to his barber, as his silver-threaded ginger hair sprang out to about half of its known capacity.
He shifted his basset hound eyes from his screen to her face.
“No point pushing us, kid. We’re working it.”
“I’ve got a face.”
“Got a name and location to go with it?”
“Not yet.”
“We’ll get her. Problem on this end?” He flicked a finger at the screen. “Her writing samples hit dead average, even some below in some of them. So we’ve got a hell of a lot of maybes.”
Eve glanced at the screen, saw words, phrases skimming by, along with figures that looked like code, and numbers that looked like math.
Altogether, it looked impossible. Which was why she wasn’t trying to do the damn search herself.
“Average or just below is what she is, with a couple of exceptions. She can tailor, and she can kill.”
She showed Feeney the printout of the sketch.
“You got forty to forty-five, white, brown and brown. No distinguishing anything. If she’s not in the system for a bump or two, you’re going to be awhile on facial.”
“Yeah, I got that. Hides in plain sight. A fader. That’s the best term for her. Jake called her a fader.”
“Jake? You got a new man in your division?”
“No.” Eve frowned at the sketch, trying to see more. “Jake Kincade. Nadine’s tangling with him.”
“Didn’t know she had a …” Feeney straightened, shoved a finger at Eve. “Jake Kincade? Avenue fucking A?”
“Yeah, she met him at the Garden during the assault. I guess they hit it off.”
Feeney jabbed a finger again, this time made sharp contact. “You had Jake fucking Kincade in the house?”
“Yeah. He’d seen—”
“In. The. House. Jake Kincade. And you don’t think to tag your old pal, your old partner? The one who pulled you off street duty and into Homicide?”
His eyes looked a little fierce, a little wild. Eve eased back a step before she got poked again. “No. I was kind of busy trying to get the face of a serial killer so I could, you know, discourage her from killing the next person on her list. Anyway, how was I supposed to know you’d want to meet him?”
Now Feeney stepped back—almost reeled back—slapped a hand to his heart. “Do you even know me at all? What did I have playing when I trained you on stakeouts?”
“Music. Rock music,” she muttered when he stared holes in her. “But—”
“And who would be my favorite rock band?”
Mentally—she knew better than to try it physically with him staring at her—she rolled her eyes. “The Stones.”
“That is correct. What did I try, and obviously fail, to teach you about music? About Jagger and Clapton, about Springsteen, about Kirkland, Dobbler, and Jake fucking Kincade?”
“They, ah, rock?”
“They are each the voice of their generation! My old man’s and his, mine, yours. Jake Kincade and Avenue A followed in the footsteps of the greats, and made their own. Have you even heard their cover of ‘Paint It Black’?”
“Ah …”
“But he’s in our house, and you don’t tell me.”
“I’ll get him back.”
“You’ll get him back.”
“Yeah, I’ll … fix it. I’ve got to get back down, but I’ll fix it.”
She escaped.
“ ‘Burn It Up’ is the rock anthem of your generation!” Feeney shouted after her.
She quickened her pace, grabbed her ’link on the fly. “Nadine, I need a favor.”
Nadine’s feline eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“For Feeney,” Eve corrected before she ended up trading for an appearance on Now. “A favor for Feeney.”
She fixed it, put it away, and planned to close herself in her office and will the facial recognition to hurry the hell up.
Peabody waylaid her in the bullpen. “Leonardo’s coming in.”
“In? He doesn’t have to come in. Just show him the damn sketch.”
“I did, and she didn’t pop for him, but he was just leaving his studio anyway, and said he’d come in, take another look. And maybe we can give him some details that could help. He’ll talk to his team, and spread the word.”
“Okay, that works.”
“Everything okay? You look hassled.”
“Because I am. I am hassled. Did you know Feeney has a hard-on—musically speaking—for Jake Kincade?”
“Dallas, anybody who spins rock does, and for Feeney rock’s a religion. Santiago’s sulking a little bit because you pulled Jake out before he could meet him. That on top of not getting to meet DeLano has bummed him pretty wide.”
“We’re cops,” Eve groaned. She turned toward the slightly sulky Santiago, then lifted her arms to the rest of the bullpen. “We’re cops.”
“Murder cops!” Baxter called out.
“Protecting and serving,” Jenkinson added.
“Because you could get dead,” Carmichael finished.
Trueheart grinned. “Go, team.”
“Jesus, I need coffee.” She started to stalk away, rethought. She could throw one of her men a bone and save herself a step. “Santiago, Carmichael, you’re going to take the sketch of my suspect to DeLano in Brooklyn.”
Santiago visibly perked up, actually adjusted his cowboy hat. “Yeah?”
“I want her and her family to watch for this individual, who is known to have stalked them previously. Find out if DeLano, her mother, or her daughters have seen this woman—when and where, if so. Take another copy to the daughters’ school, show it around. Issue warnings. Check in with Brooklyn PSD, leave them a sketch. Hit the neighborhood shops, restaurants, and so on. Work it. The streets, alleys, shelters, boutiques, markets, diners, LCs, sidewalk sleepers, beat droids.
“She fades, but she’s not fucking invisible. If she scouts in that neighborhood, somebody’s seen her. Go.”
Santiago rose. “All over it, boss.”
“Peabody.”
“Printing out sketches now.”
Once again, Eve started toward her office, stopped when she heard a trill of crazed laughter.
Bella.
Not just Leonardo, she thought, but the whole family.
Mavis Freestone bounced in on electric-blue airboots with two-inch sparkling soles. The boots matched the current color of her hair, worn today in masses of braids. Her open coat—blue again, with thin stripes of pink and green—revealed a deep purple skin suit.
Beside her, Leonardo towered, copper skin, bronze tipped coils of hair, and a long leather coat the color of good port wine.
In his arms, Bella, blond curls falling under a hat with a puppy face and long floppy ears, waved her mittened hands and shouted, “Das!”
“Heartbreaker in training.” Baxter got up from his desk grinning, walked over to snatch her and toss her up in a way that made Bella squeal and Eve’s heart stop.
“Jesus, Baxter.”
“She’s a cutie.” He set her down.
She toddled straight over to hug Eve’s legs, then try to climb up them.
Left with little choice, Eve hauled her up. Bella planted a wet, sticky kiss on her cheek, bounced, babbled, with blue eyes dancing. And ended with a question. “Ork?”
“He’s not here.”
“Aw. Ove Ork.”
“Right. Listen, I appreciate you coming in.”
“We were close by,” Leonardo told her. “Anything I can do to help.”
“Probability’s high she’s working as a seamstress or a tailor. Most likely out of Brooklyn, but she may commute. Peabody says she’s good. Really good.”