New York to Dallas (16 page)

“She’s in love with him,” Roarke commented.

“In whatever twisted way it works with her kind. She’s hooked— addictive personality, and he’s another drug. He won’t keep her much longer.”

“He never confessed. It could never be proven, but the prevailing theory is once he disposed of his partner, he’d shortly dispose of any captives and move on.”

Eve looked at Ricchio, understood his guts would be in knots. “Prior to New York, he was still evolving, finding his pattern, his rhythm. Added to it. He hasn’t finished with me, so he hasn’t finished with Melinda. Who do you want me to work with, Lieutenant? And do you have somewhere I can set up?”

“I’ve got a temporary office for you. It’s not much. I’d like you to use Bree and Annalyn. Bree needs to keep her mind engaged, and she trusts you.”

Eve started to point out that Bree Jones didn’t know her, but let it go. “I’m good with that. Saves having to update them on what we got from the bar.”

“If you don’t need Roarke at the moment, I’d like to have him acquaint himself with our EDD.”

“Best use,” she said to Roarke.

“Then I’ll get back to you later.”

They went their separate ways.

“Not much” turned out to be twice the size of her office at Central with a shiny desk outfitted with a data and communication center, a multiposition gel-chair, an AutoChef, a personal friggie, an auxiliary station, two cozy visitor’s chairs—and a large window she immediately shielded.

Too much space, she thought, too much comfort. Adjust, she reminded herself. Make it work.

She programmed what passed for coffee, made do with that while she began to set up a case board. She barely glanced over when Bree and Annalyn came in.

“I’m still setting up. I’ll need you to share the auxiliary. Run an anal on all the data we have, specifically on the female UNSUB. And I want a time line up here on the board, starting with first known contact with McQueen right up to his last communication with me.”

“I’ll start on the data,” Annalyn said. “Bree, while the lieutenant’s setting up, why don’t you get us some eats? Use my code. My treat.”

“Sure. What would you like, Lieutenant?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You a veggie?” Annalyn asked her.

“Not unless I can’t identify the meat.”

“Texas beef, one of the perks. Hardly any filling. I’ll spring for burgers, Bree.”

“Could use a Pepsi,” Eve added. “Coffee’s absolute shit.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

When Bree left, Eve glanced at Annalyn again. “Something on your mind, Detective?”

“She’s a good cop, doesn’t miss much. A little more seasoning, she won’t miss anything. On a personal level, she can be a little intense, but she’s not an asshole. Right now she’s holding on by her fingernails. She’ll keep holding on as long as she believes we’ll find Melinda. She stops believing that, she’s done. Not just for now. Just done.”

“Then we won’t give her any reason not to believe it.”

“She needs to be part of bringing McQueen down.”

“I’ve got that, but that’s your lieutenant’s call, not mine.”

“You don’t get you’re her hero. Whether you want to be or not,” she continued, correctly reading Eve’s face. “You saved her life, and more important to her, you saved Melly. You know what he did to them, to all those kids, and you stopped him, you got them out.”

“I got lucky. If you read the files, you know I was lucky I didn’t get us all killed.”

Annalyn propped her ankle on her knee. “Not the way I read it—and besides, if it wasn’t for lucky, half the cases we close would still be open. It doesn’t matter how you did it, you did it. And you’re a big part of why she can believe we’ll do it again. Stop him, and get Melly out. If you’ve got doubts—and Christ knows I do—and you want Bree to keep hanging on, to be a useful part of the investigation, don’t let her see them.”

Eve didn’t hesitate, didn’t need to. “Let me make this clear. At this point in time, I don’t have any doubts. What I have is data, facts, pattern, theory, and instinct. I don’t believe we’re going to get Melinda Jones home, and put McQueen and his partner in prison. I know it.”

Annalyn glanced toward the door. “How do you know it? No, wait. If you mean that, tell us both when Bree gets back.”

“I’ll do that. Get started on the anal.”

Having said her piece, Annalyn got to work without any more chatter. Eve continued with her board, had it nearly set to her satisfaction when Bree and the food arrived.

The smell of burgers and fries filled the room, and for a moment made the strange space comfortably familiar. Eve took her burger off the disposable plate, chomped in. “Good,” she decreed. “Okay, here’s how I work, and how we’ll be working as long as I’m here. I use visuals, like the board here, and if I’m sitting back with my eyes closed I’m not catching a nap. I’m thinking. If I kick you out it’s because I want to think without your thoughts getting in my way. Detective Jones, if I refer to your sister as the vic, I don’t want to see that look on your face I caught during the briefing. I know it’s personal, and to a point that could be an advantage. But if it gets in the way, you’re out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your partner understands you, and she’s got your back. I don’t want her distracted worrying that you’re going to lose it at any point—any point—in this investigation.”

“I—”

“Don’t interrupt. We’re going to find McQueen and put him back where he belongs. I believe the most direct route to that end is the partner. We identify, locate, apprehend her, and bring her in, grill her like this pretty damn good Texas beef.”

She took another bite, swilled down some Pepsi.

“He had a long run before he went down. He chose his spot and made it his sick, personal playground. He’s not going to have a long run this time for very specific, very definite reasons.”

On another bite of burger, she leaned back on the shiny desk. Adjusting, she thought, and finding her rhythm after all.

“First,” she continued, “I’m a hell of a lot smarter than I was twelve years ago. We have more resources and we know more about him than we did at that time. Second, because he’s obsessed with getting to me, he’s gone over the top pulling this off, involved too many people, left too many avenues—and we’re going to squeeze all those people dry, take every one of those avenues until we find him.

“And the third reason.” She took another long drink of Pepsi. “Melinda. She’s a trained therapist. She knows how to talk to people, to get in their heads. She had the guts to confront him in prison, to know herself well enough to do that so she could take her life back. She had the stones to go into a career that would remind her, every day, of what he did to her. That makes her tougher and smarter than he is.

“If you don’t believe that, all of that, then I can’t use you here. Find something else to do.”

“I believe it, Lieutenant. All of it.”

“What’s with the ring?” Eve demanded, and Bree stopped turning it.

“It’s Melly’s. I . . . I put it on this morning after this started. I wanted to have a piece of her, something I could touch, something to remind me I’m a piece of her.”

Eve nodded. “Good enough. Do the time line.”

Eve studied the board, made some adjustments, some additions. She paced back and forth in front of it, frowning at the time line Bree created, mixing it in.

She needed to go by the female’s former apartment, take a look at it, talk to the neighbors, the shopkeepers. Overlapping the feds, maybe, but she liked Roarke’s two-pronged approach.

Might be something there, she thought. Some little crumb—something said, something seen. An impression. An opinion.

She wished fleetingly for more salt as she ate her fries. A lot more salt. She should just carry some in her pocket for fry emergencies.

An addiction, she admitted, like the coffee. Just something she craved and Roarke provided. That made him sort of her pusher, didn’t it?

“Why does she fall in love with him?”

“Sorry?”

She shook her head at Bree. “He’s in prison. She goes for the money, the work—gotta live, gotta get what she needs. She’s experienced, she’s hard, she’s self-absorbed. All addicts are. But she falls for him.”

She paced again, studying the two shots of the female, the picture of McQueen.

“Sure he’s attractive. Maybe even her type. He’s hard, too. He’s been around, knows the score. But he likes little girls. Those small, supple bodies just budding. She’s too old for his needs, too experienced sexually. However well she’s kept her body, it’s never going to be in first bud again. She has to know that.”

“He’s charming,” Bree put in. “When he raped me the first time, he was charming. I don’t mean—”

“I know. You weren’t charmed, but he put it on for you.”

“He flattered me. How pretty I was, how soft my skin was. It didn’t matter that I was screaming. He kept saying things like that. He had candles lit, and music playing. Like it was romantic.”

Bree shook her head. “You know all this. I told you all this before, when you talked to me in the hospital.”

“Doesn’t hurt to be reminded. He charms her, flatters her. But that’s not enough. Somehow she’s convinced she’s different than the others, that she has something with him. How do you train someone to do what you want, to follow complex instructions over a long period of time? To form the sort of attachment to you that would have them do whatever you wanted, even when you aren’t there to make them. It’s a con, just like any other. He can’t control her with fear, so it has to be pleasure.”

“He gives her what she needs, promises more,” Annalyn said.

“The illegals. He provides.” Eve started to reach for her communicator. For Peabody. Two detectives in the room, she reminded herself. She needed to use what she’d been provided.

“I need names of inmates on his block. Look for an illegals connection and a release. Start with six months before his first contact with the female. Go back a year if you don’t get any hits.”

“I’m on it,” Annalyn told her.

“Not all those contacts with Stibble’s ’link were to her, I bet my ass and yours. Had to make arrangements to give his dog her bones. He’s got someone on the outside who’d take care of that. Someone who either owes him a big favor, or who he has on his payroll.

“Too many people.” She nodded, felt the buzz. “Just too many people. She’s got a source in Dallas, too. Find the source, find her. Find her, find McQueen.”

“Jayson—Detective Price’s brother—works in Illegals,” Bree began. “He’s the one who interrupted you during the briefing. He and Melinda just started seeing each other a couple months ago, so—”

“Don’t care. Have him tap his brother. Really Fat Vik said boosters, but it’s going to be more. She needs something to level out, keep it smooth. Can’t just bounce on the high with all this going on. She needs to tune out, relax.”

“She’d think she’s competing with girls, sexually, wouldn’t she?” Annalyn commented. “I’d add sex drugs. Erotica at a minimum to that.”

“Good point. Make it happen, Jones.” She considered Annalyn. “You look good.”

“Thanks. I work with what I’ve got.”

“And you’re single. You’re out in the mix. You do the salon thing? The hair and all that?”

“Tough on a cop’s salary, but once a month or so, yeah. I see where you’re going. She’s got to look good for him. I bet she’s had some body work since he hooked her. Lift the girls up some, laser off the lines, like that.”

“Recent, after she stopped counseling, before his escape. In Dallas, or close. She’s thinking about seeing him, him seeing her, being with him, she might’ve gone for the works at some salon, and in the last few days.”

“Feels right.”

“Look, I’ll take the inmate search. You and Jones know the city. Put together a list of most-likely salons, body work locations. Show both her ID shots. Let’s get lucky again.”

“Are you going to update the feds with this angle?”

“Shit. Yeah, I’ll take care of it.”

“Too bad,” Annalyn said, and grinned. “Come on, Bree. Let’s track this bitch down.”

Eve sat, started the search. Annalyn was right, she thought. It felt right. Felt good. While she worked she forgot the unfamiliar room, fell into a routine.

McQueen had mucked with his, she thought, and now his foundation cracked under the weight of too much fuss, too many additions.

It didn’t surprise her to find so many cons, deemed rehabilitated, with connections to illegals.

“Prisons are full of bad guys,” she mumbled, ran each one.

“I like you, Burt, street name Thor, Civet. I like you a whole bunch.” She ran probabilities, smiled slowly. “See there, the computer likes you, too. You’re a popular guy. Contact Peabody, Detective Delia, NYPSD,” she ordered the ’link.

Peabody’s face, showing a little wear, came on screen. “Hey, Dallas. We’ve got Stibble and Lovett on hold. We think we’ve tapped them out, but we’ll give them another go tomorrow.”

“I’ve got a line. Burt Civet, aka Thor. Did time with McQueen until he made parole about four years ago. His current address is listed on Washington Street. No current employment, so I’m just taking a wild guess he’s dealing again. Find him, pick him up, squeeze him. Probability’s high McQueen tapped him to supply the partner when she was in New York, keep her happy.”

“Got it.”

“I want everything he knows about this woman, Peabody. Everything. I want to know how McQueen handled the payoff. Make whatever deal you’ve got to make, but convince him it’s in his best interest to roll over. He did five hard last time. Use it. He likes to sell to minors, tends to set up shop near playgrounds, schools, arcades.”

“Makes him a good match for McQueen.”

“I’m sure they bonded. I want McQueen’s bitch, Peabody. Squeeze hard.”

“He’s the lemon, we’ll make lemonade. How’s it going down there?”