Born In Death

When they stepped back into Eve’s office, Leonardo sat alone at the auxiliary unit, brows knit as he studied the screen.

“Mavis?”

“Oh, peeing. Again.” He smiled. “She has the cutest little bladder these days.”

“Adorable. Tell her I’ve got to follow up this lead on the homicides while it’s hot. I’ll be back as soon as I can. If you hit on anything that seems familiar, even like a maybe, earmark it. We’ll give it a push when I get back. Peabody and McNab get back first, give it to them.”

“We will. Dallas, Roarke, would it be all right if we stayed here tonight? She’ll just want to come back tomorrow, or sit down at Central if you’re working there. I hate to have her going up- and downtown when she’s so worn down.”

“You’re always welcome,” Roarke told him. “Why don’t you ask Summerset to fix her a soother? He’d know what was safe for her and the baby.”

“You ought to take one yourself,” Eve added. Then because she knew he loved her friend, she stepped to Leonardo, gave his wide shoulder a squeeze. “Tell her Tandy’s in my head. I do some of my best work there.”

“She believes in you. That’s getting her through this.”

But no pressure, Eve thought wearily as they headed out.

“You drive,” she told Roarke. “I’m going to do some of that work in my head.”

She tipped back her seat a few inches, closed her eyes, and brought Tandy into focus.

Young, healthy, single, pregnant, no close family ties. Relocated. Why not keep in contact with friends/coworkers back home?

Hiding?

From what? From whom?

Father of the baby? Possible, but unlikely. No bitching to new coworkers or new pregnant pal about the lousy bastard who knocked you up.

Eve thought of Tandy’s apartment. A nest, Peabody had said. Not a hidey-hole. Hiding, maybe, but not obsessively. More like the fresh start angle.

The like crime victims had been similar there, too. Relocation – at least initially on the other Brit vic. New job, new place, new life. So maybe it was more getting away than hiding.

Getting away from what? From whom?

One woman dead, two missing. She’d get a doctor – Louise or Mira, or maybe Mavis’s midwife – to look over the autopsy report on the Middlesex vic. If the vic was injured, dead or dying, the killer might have tried to carve the baby out.

And God, that was gross.

No attempt to hide the body. Dump it instead near the vic’s home base. Away from where she’d been held, Eve thought. Away from the killer’s location.

But Belego never surfaced, alive or dead. Take the baby? Dispose of the body? Logical, she mused. Cops are looking for an abductee, pregnant or with infant. Or a runaway. Changed location once, change again.

They’re not looking for a nice healthy baby newly placed with some nice couple. In the country maybe, well away from the location of the abduction.

Healthy baby, priority one. Can’t put a woman that far along on a shuttle or any air transpo. Mavis said she couldn’t travel after her – what had it been – thirtieth week?

“She’s still in New York,” Eve mumbled. “Unless they drove her outside the city. Not far, though. They wouldn’t want to put any more stress on her than necessary. Any stress on her is stress on the fetus. And she’s still alive.”

“Because?”

“Unless she went into labor on her own, she’s still got the package in her. I don’t think they’d push that – give her whatever you give to start the whole process up. All these women were taken in the last weeks of their pregnancy. Maybe that’s coincidence, or maybe the kidnapper waits until they’re near end-of-term.”

She let it run through her head. “Maybe he or she is a frustrated midwife or OB. Likes to deliver babies. Then the mother had to be disposed of, somehow. Can’t keep the babies. Somebody’s going to notice if this guy, this woman keeps adding newborns to the household. Or…”

“Maybe he continues to botch it,” Roarke said quietly. “Loses both, and keeps trying.”

“Yeah. Yeah. That’s one we won’t mention to Mavis. Could be a moral fanatic. Except one of the vics that coordinates for me got married to the baby’s father.”

“If you’re fanatical enough, she still conceived out of wedlock.”

“Can’t rule it out.” She glanced idly at a corner glide-cart, grill smoking. “But the fact we’ve got echoing vics in three countries points me to profit. A business. Snatch, grab, deliver, sell. Destroy evidence.”

“Cold.”

“The coldest,” she agreed, then straightened as Roarke parked on East End Avenue. “But I’m thinking this ranks up there on the ice scale, too.”

It was a little palace of glass and stone, built on the ashes of the Urban Wars. There were a few like it – in size and style – along New York’s rivers, affording lofty views of the waterways. The glass reflected gilded bronze to any who stood outside its walls to admire it. Since the sun had set at the end of the long day, the security lights beamed that same rich color over the blind glass and warm brown stones.

It spired up, with generous terraces on the riverside, and a tall, wide arch at the entrance.

After pressing the buzzer, Eve held her badge up to the security screen. The red beam of the laser sca

She made the attractive, uniformed maid as a droid even before it spoke. “May I help you?”

“Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD, and associate, to see Ms. Bullock and/or Mr. Chase.”

“Neither Ms. Bullock nor Mr. Chase is at home to callers. Would you care to leave your card?”

“When I show you this,” Eve held the badge up in the droid’s face, “it means I’m not here to socialize. Do you think Ms. Bullock and/or Mr. Chase would prefer to call on me at Cop Central?”

“If you’ll wait here, I’ll inform Ms. Bullock.”

Here was a formal foyer with gold and silver tiles for the floor, complex shapes in thin red glass dripping light from the ceiling. There were paintings in sleek gold frames – all flash and color, and to Eve’s mind, no substance or sense.

Benches, tables, chairs were all ebony and trimmed in deep, dark red.

She wandered away from the entrance, glancing up a sweep of silver stairs and looking east into a spacious room where the decor colors had been reversed – black and red for the floor, gold and silver for the furnishings.

A fire roared away in the ruby hearth, and beyond the wall of gilded glass was the long, dark river.

Nothing soft, she thought, nothing quiet or feminine or comforting. Just meticulous, somewhat regimented decor – the sort that gave her a mild headache.

No one would dare put their feet up on the gleaming silver table, or curl up for a nap on the gold cushions of the straight-lined sofa.

She heard the click of heels on the tiles and turned to study Madeline Bullock, in the flesh.

The ID photos hadn’t done her justice, Eve decided. She was a presence. Tall, stately, handsome, with silver-blonde hair sleeked back from a youthful face and rolled smooth at the nape of her neck.

Her eyes were arctic blue, her lips painted red as the hearth. She wore a sweater and full-legged pants that matched her eyes, and diamonds glittered like drops of ice from her ears and her throat.

“Lieutenant Dallas.” She crossed the room the way a well-appointed yacht sails a calm sea. Smooth and important. The hand she offered sparkled with both diamonds and rubies. Eve wondered if she’d accessorized to match the room.

“I spoke with your associate a few days ago,” Madeline continued, “about that terrible tragedy at Sloan, Myers, and Kraus.”

“That’s right.”

“And you’re Roarke.” Her smile warmed several degrees. “I don’t believe we’ve ever met. How odd, considering.”

“Ms. Bullock.”

“Please, please, sit. Tell me what I can do for you both.”

“I was under the impression you’d left the country, Ms. Bullock,” Eve began.