Kindred In Death

She stopped for a moment, let herself stop, pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I can’t not do it. I don’t know if it was ever a choice, but I know it’s not one now. I can’t see him. It’s not just because we haven’t found anyone alive who has. It’s who he is, why he is, why he did this and in this way. I can’t see him. He’s murky. Walking through it helps clear some of the murk.”

She rubbed her eyes again, refocused. “How long would it take you to retrieve the discs from a system like the one here, and wipe the hard drive?”

“It has two fail-safes, and requires a code for disc retrieval. But I know the system.”

“Yeah, one of yours, I checked. But he’d know it. Bank on that.”

“Well then, it would take me about thirty seconds for the retrieval, and another one or two to do the wipe. But he infected it to corrupt. We’ve got that much from today’s work. A complicated virus to corrupt the drive and wipe out the data and imagery, and that would take some time to upload, and skill or money to obtain.”

“He’s not as good as you-not a pat on your back, but he doesn’t have your experience. If he passes for nineteen, I doubt he’s hit thirty. So maybe two or three times longer for the retrieval, maybe twice on the wipe since he’s using a virus.”

“What are you looking for, Eve? If I had an idea I might be able to do more than stand here.”

“I don’t know. Something. You gave me coffee.”

“Sorry?”

“A token, something to charm her. A little gift, nothing too important. You sent me coffee right after we met.”

“And you interviewed me as a murder suspect.”

“It worked. The coffee, I mean. Hit the right button. So what did he give her? What… I knew it. I fucking knew it.” She held up a music disc taken from the hundred or so in a holder. “Happy Mix 4 Deena, that’s the label. And look here, she added this sticker thing-a big red heart, and initials inside.”

“DM, for her, DP for him.”

“For the name he gave her anyway,” Eve confirmed. “David, Jo said. Never as smart as they think. He should’ve looked for this, taken it. It’s a link, and the only one so far.”

She bagged it.

“I have to say the odds of tracing that disc-as it’s a common sort-are astronomical.”

“He made it. A link’s a link.” She looked around again, satisfied for now. “Okay, the scene doesn’t have any more to tell me. At least not now. I need to go work it.”

6

AS SUMMERSET MADE NO APPEARANCE WHEN they walked into the house, Eve lifted her eyebrows. “Where’s Mister Scary?”

The look Roarke sent her managed to be both resigned and mildly scolding. “Summerset has the night off.”

“You mean the house is Summerset-free? Damn shame we have to waste it with work.”

He slid a hand down her back, over her ass. “A break wouldn’t be uncalled for.”

“Nope. I’ve got over thirty runs to do. Plus I put off reporting to Whitney hoping we’d catch a miracle.” She started up the steps, then stopped dead when she spied the cat sitting on the landing, staring at her with unquestionably a

“Jesus, he’s almost as bad as your goon.”

“He dislikes being left on his own.”

“I’m not going to start hauling him to crime scenes. Deal with it, pal,” she told the cat, but stopped to crouch and stroke when she reached the landing. “Some of us have to work for a living. Well, one of us has to. The other one mostly does it for fun.”

“As it happens I need to go have a bit of fun. After which I’ll put in some time in the lab.”

“Work, on Peace Day-or pretty much Peace Night now, I guess.”

“A little something I started this morning when my wife left me on my own.”

They continued up together with the cat prancing between them.

“Can you make a copy of this disc?” she asked him. “I need to keep the original clean.”

“No problem.” He took the evidence bag. “We’re eating in two hours,” Roarke decreed as he walked past her office toward his own. “Meanwhile, you can feed the cat.”

She didn’t bother to scowl, it was energy wasted. She moved through her office, and again stopped dead when she saw the stuffed cat Roarke had given her-a toy replica of Galahad-sprawled on her sleep chair.

She looked at the toy, at the original, back to the toy. “You know, I don’t even want to know what you were doing with that.”

In the kitchen she fed the cat, programmed a pot of coffee.

At her desk she booted up her comp then sat to organize her notes, the reports, and start the first ten runs from the Columbia list. While the computer worked, she looked over the report she’d drafted for Whitney.

She refined it, read it again. Hoping he’d be satisfied, for now, with the written, she sent copies to both his home and office units.

She ordered the computer to display the runs, in order, on screen. Sitting back with her coffee she studied data, images.

Young, she thought, all so young. Not one of her initial runs had so much as a whiff of criminal, no juvie bumps, no illegals busts, not even so much as an academic knuckle rap.

She ran the rest, then started over from another angle.

“Computer, run current list for parents, siblings with criminal record and/or co

Acknowledged. Working…

Payback, if payback it was, came from different roots, she thought. While the run progressed, she rose to set up yet another murder board.

Data complete…

“On screen.”

Now there were some bumps and busts, and a few whiffs. Eleven on her list had illegals hits, some more than one. And yet, she noted, none of those had any co

Considering, she ordered a run on the investigating officer or team. Maybe the co

Once again, she hit zero. And paced.

She’d ask MacMasters directly. Maybe one of the investigators was an old childhood friend, or a third cousin once removed.

Waste of time, that wasn’t it, but they’d cover the ground.

She recircled the murder board, coming from another angle, but saw nothing new. She shook her head as Roarke came in.

“Daughter,” she said. “Payback-if we run with that-was to kill MacMasters’s daughter. Is it a mirror? Is MacMasters somehow responsible-in the killer’s mind-for the rape or death of his own daughter-child. Make it child as MacMasters only had a daughter.”

“If the killer is anywhere near the age he pretended to be, he’d be a very young father. What if he’s the child, and MacMasters is, to his mind, responsible for the rape or murder of his parent? Or, for that matter himself. He might perceive himself as a victim.”

“Yeah, I’m circling those routes, too.” She dragged both hands through her hair. “Basically, I’m getting nowhere. Maybe taking that break, clearing it out of my head for an hour, is a good idea.”

“I copied the music disc.”

Something in his tone had her looking away from the board, meeting his eyes. “What is it?”

“I ran an auto-analysis while I was working on the other e-business. It’s both audio and video, which is very unusual. Performance art is often a part of a disc like this. But there was an addition made this morning at two-thirty, and another at just after three.”

“He added to it. Son of a bitch. Did you play it?”

“I didn’t, no, assuming you’d disapprove of that.”

She held out her hand for the disc, then took it to her comp. “Play content from additions, starting at two-thirty, this date. Display video on screen one.”

Roarke said nothing, but went to her, stood with her.

The music came first, something light and insanely cheerful. The sort of thing, she thought, some stores play in the background. It always made her want to beat someone up.

Then the image slid on screen-soft focus, then sharper, sharper until every bruise, every tear, every smear of blood on Deena MacMasters showed clearly.