Chapter 21

Eve woke in the dark with Roarke's arm wrapped snug around her. She couldn't see the time, but her body told her it was morning. Early, probably brutally early, but morning.

She couldn't have said the time she'd dropped into bed, either—or been dropped, as Roarke had just plucked her up when she'd been half asleep at her desk and carted her to bed.

A habit of his she... didn't mind so much, really.

What she could say was the narrower search parameters had netted her just over two hundred potential suspects.

Too many, of course, but it was better than thousands.

She could carve that down, too, she decided, now that her brain wasn't so fogged with fatigue.

Of course, that ran on the geography around her old building, and that was gut instinct, not solid evidence.

Take that one out, back to thousands.

Or go with it, narrow the area by a few blocks all around, and cut that number down.

So she'd do both, dump a chunk on Peabody. See who in her division could take the time to take another chunk. Hack away at it.

Pull Mira in, have her do the shrink thing on the most likelies, run a probability on same. And wear out some boot leather tracking those most likelies down for interviews.

Check in, again, with everyone on her target list. Had she left anyone off, as she had Jamie?

DeWinter? The forensic anthropologist wasn't a friend, but they'd worked together—and fairly closely. Shit.

Dawson? The head sweeper was a go-to, but that was work, not personal. And if she expanded there, what about Harvo? Where did Dickhead fall into the mix?

Christ, did she need to send out a blanket bulletin to everyone she worked with, consulted with, socialized with at some point?

FYI, evidence indicates I'm currently toxic. Any contact with me may result in death. Take the appropriate precautions.

Knock it off, she ordered herself. Concentrate on the work, on the process.

She needs to kill. Who is the next logical target? Determine, protect, and utilize the determination to apprehend the suspect.

Utilize current data and evidence. We have a profile, a probable if incomplete description, skill sets, motivation, and pattern. Apply to current crop of potentials, and pin the bitch down.

"Your brain's far too busy at this hour."

Since they were nearly nose-to-nose, Eve stared at the shadow of Roarke's face. "Is this a new habit?"

"What would that be?"

"Second time in about a week you're not up buying a solar system before dawn. How can the worlds of business and finance continue to revolve if you're lying around in bed?"

"I thought I'd find out, and rescheduled my five-fifteen 'link conference."

"Who the hell holds conferences at five-fifteen in the morning?"

"Someone with interests in Prague."

"What time is it in Prague?"

"Later than it is here."

"What time is it here?"

"Almost half-five, and it's apparent the soother's worn off."

She barely remembered gulping it down. "What the hell was in that soother?"

"About five hours' sleep, it seems." He rolled on top of her.

"Hey. Who invited you?"

"I live here," he reminded her, and lowered his mouth to take hers. "The last day of the year." He roamed to her throat, to the spot just under her jaw that always allured him. "So we'll end our year the proper way. Then we can begin it the same way after midnight."

"Is that your plan?"

"Call it spur of the moment."

"Your alternate to Prague."

His lips curved against her skin. "Dobry den."

"Huh?"

"Good morning," he murmured, and took her mouth again, slow and deep, and his hands glided down her body and up again.

She hoped to end the year with her UNSUB in the box. But as an alternate... this worked.

So she slid her hand over his cheek, into his hair—all that silk—and down the strong, tight muscles of his back.

The weight of him, both comfort and excitement, the taste as their tongues met, both soothing and stimulating. All, all of him, oh so familiar, but never usual. Clever hands that knew her secrets stroked, brushed, lingered until her skin tingled with anticipation. Her blood, sluggish from sleep, began to heat, began to swim.

In the deep, dreaming dark, in the last hours of a year that had brought blood and death, and joy and comfort, she embraced what fate had given her. And the man who'd changed everything.

For a moment she held there, on that gilded curve of quiet bliss, of knowing, of belonging, with her arms around him, with her face pressed to the curve of his throat.

"I love you, Roarke. I love you."

The words spilled into the center of his heart, glowed there like a candle. Luminous. He gave them back to her, in Irish, in the language of that heart. And slipped inside her, coming home.

She turned her head until her lips found his. She slid her hands up until their fingers linked.

She rose with him, a welcome; fell with him, a yielding. Soft and sweet, the words spoken. Slow and loving, the rhythm set.

Here was peace in a bloody, brutal world both knew too well. And celebration of two souls, lost, then found.

···

In the predawn dark, she rose, showered, dressed. While Roarke dealt with his rescheduled 'link conference, she checked the overnight results. In the hours she'd slept, the computer had spat out a few more names.

She studied the faces, the data, asked herself if any of them sparked a memory. Someone she'd seen, in passing. Someone who crossed her path, performed some function.

She disagreed with the computer on one or two. Complexion too dark, too light, a hair too young. But she couldn't risk tossing any of them out of the mix, not yet.

Laboriously, frustratingly, she programmed the two alternate searches, ordering one without the sector factored in, ordering another after she'd clipped two blocks off the grid.

Though she worried it pressed her technological luck, she added another task, and started probability runs on the current results.

Too early to check in with anyone, she decided, as the cat bumped his head against her ankle.

"Okay, okay, I get it. Time for breakfast."

She started to go into the office kitchen, changed her mind.

Some routines were worth preserving, she decided, and with the cat jogging at her heel, went back to the bedroom.

She couldn't know how long Prague would take, but considering the soother, the rescheduling, she'd bet her ass Roarke figured to top off his personal brand of care and nurturing with oatmeal.

"Pig meat," she murmured, frowning at the bedroom AutoChef. "Definitely pig meat. Not one of his full Irish deals. One of those omelet things. What's it..." She scrolled through the omelet choices. "Yeah, yeah, Spanish omelet. Why is it Spanish? Why isn't it French or Italian? Who knows, who cares? Okay!"

With a half laugh as Galahad bumped and meowed—the sound like a curse—she got his kibble first. Since she'd made him wait, she boosted it with a saucer of milk.

She programmed breakfast for two—and just in time as Roarke came in before she'd quite finished.

"All good in Prague?"

"All very good in Prague. And here you are, the dutiful wife, making breakfast."

"Here I am, the hungry cop, making breakfast. Why is it a Spanish omelet?"

"Is that what we're having?"

"Yeah, but why? It could be an Irish omelet because it's got potatoes."

"I have no idea why, but it looks good." He tugged her down with him. "Thanks."

"I wasn't sure how long you'd be in—where is Prague? Czech Republic?"

"You get an A in Geography this morning."

"Geography's part of the deal." She picked up a slice of bacon. "It's just a hunch about the UNSUB living in my old area."

"A logical hunch."

"Yeah, maybe. I'm going to go by that bar and grill when it opens, take the images in. But I'm running alternate searches now, tossing out the geography on one, closing it in a few blocks on another."

"That explains the cursing."

"I'm pretty tired of programming." And in fact she'd already earned a low-grade headache from the morning session. "I don't know how you geeks deal with it."

"Hence the term ‘geek,' a club you don't belong to."

"Fine by me. I've been looking over the pictures of potentials. I feel like a wit going through mug shots, and that's a club I'd like to resign from really soon. Nobody pops for me, particularly."

"Clearly it's no one you know well or work with on a regular basis."

"Agreed. But I had another thought. She showed some hair when she went for Nadine, so I'd say wig's most likely because why show her own?"

Roarke nodded as he ate. "That would be careless, and she hasn't been."

"What we see of her shows her complexion is darker than Hastings said—and I don't think he was wrong. He's too tuned in to features, faces. So she could have lightened it for that, or darkened it for Nadine."

"Or it's neither because she could have worn subtle disguises throughout."

"Yeah, exactly. So no matter what we've got, even when you work some magic and clean up the better look we got last night, it may not end up giving up a solid match."

"As a charter member of the club of geek, I have to tell you the searches are set very broadly. It's why you've got so many matches in the relatively small geographic area we put in, and why there's so many variables in those matches."

"At least you say it in English," she replied. "I think, going with the odds and my gut, she went heavier on the disguise last night. She felt like she had to set the delivery ploy aside, the box she could rest on her shoulder to block her face from cams, and people. Why be that careful if you'd altered your look—the face part—that much? Some, I'm betting some because I think it's more than careful. Obsessive again, anal about it."

She went back to her coffee as the theory rolled through her head. "But last night, the face is going to be partially exposed. The cameras, the possibility—and that happened—of witnesses. She'd want to look less like herself. If she's law enforcement, she knows we're running these searches. Even if she's not—but she is—she's smart enough to know the basic process."

"More than blending," Roarke agreed. "More than going unnoticed by passersby."

"Yeah, but we can extrapolate. Easier to darken skin than lighten it, so I'm going with her natural tone on the first two hits, or lighter. She went with dark brown hair last night, so I eliminate that hair color. Not going to use her own. She went with my eye color. Brown. So—"

"It's more than brown eyes," Roarke interrupted. "It's your eyes, Eve. And there, it's deliberate. Your eyes. She wants to see through them. And wants others to see you in her."

"That's Mira's area." Eve stopped, poked at the omelet. "But I don't think you're wrong, and it's straight-out creepy, I admit it. I get through the creepy, I have to figure out how to use it. Because I will use it when I get her in the box. To get her there, I have to find her. Do you have time to play with the image from last night?"

"I began that."

"Yeah, but can you tweak what you've got? Merge it, morph it, whatever it is, Hastings's description? He's going to be the most on target, from my take of it. Go with the shorter height, because that's going to be closer, and the slimmer build, same deal."

"I'll give it some time."

'Link conference with Prague, she thought, solar systems to buy. He'd already given her more time—and always did—than she could ever expect.

"When you run out of time, can you pass it to Feeney? I want his eye, his experience. He can let McNab and Yancy play some more if he thinks that's the way to go. But I want his take first."

"Of course."

"One more thing."

"Should I start taking notes?"

"I think you'll remember. Do me a solid, Roarke, and be extra careful today. Don't drive yourself anywhere today. Please," she added, before he could say anything. "Last night had to make her crazy—crazier. And pissed. If she wants to hit at me where it hurts most, it would be you. Strap on one of the weapons you're not supposed to carry."

"Darling Eve." He leaned over, kissed her. "I always have one of the weapons I'm not supposed to carry. You're not to worry about me."

"That's the same bullshit as me telling you not to worry about me."

"Fair enough. So you'll take care of my cop, and I'll take care of your criminal. Reformed."

"Semi-reformed. Since you break the law every time you go out packing." She hissed out a breath. "Take a clutch piece, too."

He patted her hand, went back to his eggs.

He always had a clutch piece.

···

She could've worked at home. In fact, it might have been more efficient, but she wanted to be visible. So she had Peabody meet her at the lab. She'd make the rounds.

She harassed Dickhead because it was routine, and if anyone was watching, she wanted her to see routine. She flashed the sketch around—Roarke's take, fully clothed.

She took it in to Harvo, asked the queen of hair and fiber to post it on her board. Then made the trip upstairs and tracked down Garnet DeWinter over skeletal remains.

Today's lab coat was turquoise to match stacked-heel boots. DeWinter pushed her microgoggles up into her explosion of caramel hair, where they were all but lost.

"Dallas, Peabody. I'm in the middle here, so if it's not urgent—"

"Recognize her?" Eve pushed a copy of the sketch under DeWinter's elegant nose.

"I can't say I do. She looks... ordinary, and in need of a makeover. Good bone structure, good potential, unrealized."

Bone structure, Eve thought, inspired. "What can you tell me about her?"

DeWinter glanced at the bones on her table. Sighed. "Let me have that."

She took the sketch, angled it toward the light. "It's a composition, so it's complete speculation. I can say, easily, she needs a better hair color and style."

"Don't care."

"Everyone should and it would be a more attractive world." She looked over the sketch at Eve. "This would be your UNSUB."

"It would."

"If this is accurate—the bone structure, the shape of the face, the mouth? Mixed race, but I find myself influenced by the tone of her skin. If I had her skull on the table—"

"I'll try to arrange that."

"I wouldn't blame you," DeWinter countered, frowning at the sketch. "I wouldn't be surprised to find Greek in the heritage. Possibly Turkish descent, but not recent. Diluted, as so many of us are, Western Europe—some Anglo-Saxon blood. Her body appears well proportioned. And all of that's guesswork—most probable conclusions, based on a sketch."

"I'll take it. Keep that. Give it a glance now and then, and show it to your people. She's going to be ordinary, someone who disappears into the scenery. But smart, bright, good at the work, whatever the work is. She has solid e-skills, patience. She's obsessive, organized."

"You've just described about half the people in this facility."

So Eve went with the gut. "She probably doesn't have friends. Even her coworkers don't think of her when it's time to go out, have a drink. She's single, no romantic relationship. She knows my cases inside and out."

"That narrows it a bit more. There's a nice camaraderie here. It's often ugly work we do, so that camaraderie makes it bearable."

DeWinter studied the sketch again. "I can't think of anyone, but I will think more. Is it true Nadine was attacked last night?"

"An attempt on her. She's fine." And thanks to whatever soother Summerset had talked her into, Nadine had still been out when Eve left the house.

"I don't know her well, but I like her. I'm glad she's all right."

"She's covered. Anything pops, anyone comes to mind, however out of orbit, I hear it. And... I don't know you, really, but we've worked together. She's going after people I know. You should watch yourself."

"Well, that's... harrowing."

"You're low on the list. You just haven't been here long enough. But watch yourself anyway."

"Happy New Year," Peabody added as they started out.

"Thanks bunches."

"Let's hit Dawson," Eve said, "then we'll go by the morgue, run it through with Morris." She checked the time as they walked. "That bar's not going to be open for hours. We work the searches back at Central until. Maybe we'll get lucky."

···

Dawson had a desk twice the size of Eve's. It occurred to her when she noted all the glass vials holding insects, bone fragments, soils, stones, and what might have been a decimated fish of some sort she'd never actually been in his office before.

Names, locations, tasks, techs, investigators—including her—covered his board. A wide shelf under a glow light held several odd-looking plants.

He raised his face from a scope, noted the direction of Eve's glance. "Carnivorous plants. A hobby of mine."

"You have meat-eating plants in your office?"

"Frrrosty," was Peabody's take as she moved closer to study them.

"Can't have them at home. My wife laid down the law on it. It's not like they eat people." He smiled broadly. "Yet. I'm playing around with a hybrid."

"I'll remember that should I have to arrest you for aiding and abetting homicidal vegetation. Recognize her?"

She handed him the sketch.

"This is the one who did Bastwick, Ledo. Heard she tried for Nadine Furst last night. Word travels." He held the sketch out at arm's length. "Haven't gotten in to get my eyes fixed."

He squinted at it.

"Looks like a lot of anybodies."

She repeated the routine she'd done with the others. Single, ordinary, bright, organized, and so on.

"You're not bright, organized, and a little obsessive, you don't stay on my team for long. I know my people pretty good, Dallas. And that bleeds over to the other departments."

"Anybody particularly interested in my cases?"

"See that board? We cover every-fricking-body. Not to say we don't dig in. The one you worked with DeWinter? Everybody got invested in that." He swiveled gently in his chair, obviously comfortable with his decimated fish and carnivorous plants. "You find the remains of twelve kids? I don't work with people who don't get invested in something like that."

"Think about it," she asked him. "Post that where people can see it."

Where, Eve thought, she can see it if she's here.

···

She wasn't there, or at the morgue, or in a cube or on a crime scene.

She'd taken a personal day—the first in more than two years. The work she did now, the most important work she'd ever done, ever would do, needed the time. Needed her focus.

She worked through the pain, leery of blockers. But she coated her burned wrist with ointment, carefully wrapped it.

Pain was nothing, really, but the body's reaction, even a warning. Purpose outweighed pain.

True, she'd broken down twice in tears. The pain in her body, the pain in her heart. Fear that eked in through the purpose. But the purpose stiffened her resolve, dried the tears.

Everything ended. She knew that, accepted that. Life was a cycle, one that couldn't refresh until it ended.

So she would end it. Purge, purify, destroy to rebuild.

Careful of her wrist, she shrugged into the combat vest she'd worked on for most of the night. It fit well—heavy, of course, with the charges she wired in.

Still work to be done, but for what else she needed, it had to be Central. She knew just how to get through, get the rest, get it done. In just a few hours, she thought, and turned to the mirror.

She'd added one set of lifts to bring her height up to match Eve's. She'd had her eyes done professionally, and would no longer need the dulling contacts for work.

That part of her life was already over.

She'd done the hair herself, and it was good. Short, shaggy, brown with lighter tones blended in. Just like Eve's. All her sources said it was natural, that color. It hadn't been easy to duplicate.

For over a year, she'd worked out rigorously, building muscle, killing fat. She'd been soft once, in another life. Now she was hard and strong.

Like Eve.

"We're the same. You'll understand that soon. There has to be payment for betrayal. Justice must be served. You can't pay unless I pay. We're the same. You'll see."

For now, she put on the dark brown wig, the blue contacts. Everything she needed was packed in the evidence box.

She put on her coat, hefted the box. She took the time to look around. The photographs, her equipment, her case board. Her life.

She'd never see it again.

It had been a kind of cocoon, she realized. A place where she transformed, in quiet, in safety.

Now she was ready to spread her wings and fly.