J. Robb - Possession in Death

“So you'll fight this with logic and instinct?” He decided they could both use a glass of wine.

“It's what I've got. It's what's mine. And if there's any logic to this other part, the part that makes no sense, when I find the killer, when I find Beata, it — she — goes away. If I don't believe that, I'm going to lock myself in a closet and start sucking my thumb.”

He took her the wine, touched her cheek. “Then we'll find the killer and Beata. And for now, we'll keep the rest of it between you and me. Twenty-four hours. We'll work it your way, and I'll find someone who can undo what was done. If this isn't resolved in twenty-four hours, we'll work it my way.”

“That sounds like an ultimatum.”

“It most certainly is. You can waste time arguing, or you can get to work. I'm not going to share my wife with anyone for more than a day.”

“I'm not your possession either, pal.”

He smiled again. “But you belong to me. We can fight about it.” He shrugged, sipped his wine. “And you'll have wasted part of your twenty-four. Still, it might fire you up, so I'm open to it.”

“Smug bastard.”

“Maybe you'd like to swear at me in Russian or Hungarian.”

“And you said I was mean. Twenty-four.” She took a slug of wine, considered how she's push for more if she needed it. “Let's look at the runs.”

Roarke ordered data on-screen, leaned a hip against the side of her desk. “Your prime suspect,” he began. “You had most of this, but the second-level run added a bit, and I extrapolated from your notes. Allie Madison's apartment, where it's verified Alexi Barin began the day, is an easy ten-minute walk to the alley — considerably less if a healthy, athletic man took it at a jog, even a run. It's about the same from the restaurant where he had brunch. As is his own apartment,” Roarke added, ordering the map he'd generated on-screen. “These locations are clustered, more or less, in the general area.”

“So he could've slipped out, slipped away, put on a mask, sliced Szabo up, and gotten back. Which would involve knowing she'd be in the alley at that convenient moment, and wearing something for the blood spatter. Because you don't hack somebody up the way she was hacked and walk away clean and fresh to take your alibi to brunch.”

She paced in front of the screen. “He could have set a meet with her, pinning the timing. Told her he had some information on Beata. It's a lot of planning for an impulsive guy with a temper.”

“Something set him off at the brunch if we go with your TOD, or prior if we stay with science,” Roarke suggested. “He went to confront her, saw her in the alley — he'd have come from this direction, so he'd have passed the alley. He snaps, pulls the knife, goes in.”

“Why is he disguised?”

“She could have seen his face, Eve. The condition she was in when you found her? It's not a stretch to believe she wasn't lucid.”

“She didn't see it. She saw the devil.” Eve paused a moment. “I know. It's what I saw. I had . . . a moment in the alley. I know what she saw.”

“All right.”

Because she'd expected an argument, even yearned for one, she rounded on him. “I don't know whether to be grateful or pissed off that you accept so easily.”

“Not as easy as it might seem, just easier than you. So if you say you saw what she saw, I know you did. The occult, on some level, is involved — even that's logical.”

“If you're a superstitious Irish guy.”

“If you're currently able to curse in Hungarian and make goulash,” he countered — and shut her up. “It could be your suspect has some power of his own.”

“I'm not going there. Logic, facts, data. So while it's possible Alexi slipped out, did the murder, it's low on the logic and probability scale with the data we have at this time. Give me the guy Beata worked with. The one who walked out of the restaurant with her the night she was last seen.”

“David Ingall, twenty-two, single. He's had two bumps. One for an airboard incident where he lost control and mowed down a group of pedestrians in Times Square, and another for manufacturing and using false ID — he was underage and got into a sex club before an undercover busted him. He dropped out of NYU and takes a couple of virtual courses a semester, lives in a one-bedroom apartment a few blocks from the restaurant with two roommates. He's worked at Goulash for three years.”

“Doesn't sound particularly murderous.”

“In addition, the file from your Detective Lloyd has a statement from one of the roommates confirming his arrival home — and the drunken night of computer gaming that followed, on the night Beata Varga went missing.”

“Roommates make it harder for him to take Beata, hold her, unless they're complicit.”

“The information on the roommates is as benign as this one.”

“Switch to the theater,” Eve decided. “Where she was understudying. What did Peabody get?”

She studied the data as it scrolled, listened to Roarke's summaries. And paced.

None of them popped for her. Holding a woman against her will for an extended length of time required privacy, sound-proofing, supplies, and time.

Maybe she was wrong — maybe the old woman had been wrong — and the girl was dead. And the thought of that pierced her so deep, she shuddered.

“Eve — ”

“No, it's nothing. Keep going. I need to set up a murder board. I should've done it already.”

She pinned up her photos, let the information Roarke provided wind through while she arranged what she needed on the board.

“Work and the school,” Eve said. “Her most usual and regular spots other than her apartment. We focus there. She went out on auditions, and that'll be another level if we bomb here. Work, school, her neighbors. Then the theater, then audition sites, shops, and so on.

“Let me see the map again.”

She moved closer to the screen. “She takes this route basically every day. Home to morning class. Then from class to work if she was scheduled. Back to class, back to work or an audition. Evening class three nights a week, and work again four nights.”

“A regular customer at the restaurant,” Roarke suggested. “Someone she waited on routinely. Wanted her, took her.”

She nodded. “Possible. Someone she knew is most probable. Someone who could lure her where he wanted her to go. Doesn't make the ripples a forced abduction would. Had to have a place. Underground. A basement? A cellar?”

“The underground itself,” Roarke commented. “There are places under the streets no one would pay attention to a woman struggling, screaming, calling for help.”

“Too many,” Eve agreed. “But it'd be risky. Someone could take her from you. Private,” she said again. “Can you get the blueprints for the building — the dance school?” When his answer was simply a long look, she rolled her eyes. “Go ahead, show off. Let me see the uncle's data. Sasha Korchov.”

“I've got deeper data on Natalya Barinova as well.”

“It's a man. Go with the man first.”

Benign. That was the word Roarke had used to describe Beata's coworker and his roommates. It was a word that came to mind with Sasha. Dreamy eyes, she remembered — a little like Dennis Mira there — and indeed his ID photo showed the same, along with the soft smile.

But the images Roarke had dug up from before the accident that had cost him his career and his lover showed a dynamic, intense, passionate man. Leaping, spinning a long, leanly muscled body showcased in dramatic costumes. The mane of hair coal black, the eyes on fire.

“How do you lose that?” she murmured. “Lose that energy, that passion, that fierceness? It must be almost like death or losing someone to death. Something breaks, something more than a leg, an arm. Something gets crushed, more than a foot, more than ribs.”