J. Robb - Creation In Death

He’d used both a sketch pad and the computer. Eve stepped around to get a closer look at both. “That’s good,” she agreed.

“It’ll be better. She keeps changing the eyes and the mouth, and that’s because she’s second-and third-guessing. She can’t pull out the eye color, but the shape? The shape of the eyes, the face, even the way the ears lie, she doesn’t deviate.”

The face was rounded, the ears lying neatly, and on the small side. The eyes were slightly hooded and held a pleasant expression. The mouth, a little thin on top, was curved in a hint of a smile. Short-necked, Eve noted, so that the head sat low on the shoulders.

All in all, it struck her as a bland, nondescript kind of face. The sort that would be easily overlooked. “Nothing stands out about him,” she commented. “Except his absolute ordinariness.”

“Exactly. And that makes it harder for the wit. Harder to remember details about somebody who doesn’t really have anything about him that catches the eye. She was more into how he dressed, how he spoke, how he smelled, that sort of thing. They made the impression. Took her a while to start building the face beyond that. But she’s good.”

“So are you,” Eve complimented. “Give me a copy of this for now. Get me the finished when you have it.”

“Some of these details are going to change.” Still, Yancy ordered a print. “I think the nose is going to be shorter, and-” He held up a hand as if signaling himself to stop. “And that’s why we needed a break from each other. I’m projecting.”

“This gives us a base. When you’re done with Trina, I’d like you to arrange for her to be taken back to my residence. She’s expected.”

“Will do.”

“Nice work, Detective.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

As they left, Whitney glanced at Eve. “Check with him in an hour. If there isn’t any change, we’ll release this image. We need it made public as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Contact me when you want to meet with me and Dr. Mira,” he added, then peeled off to go his own way.

E ve didn’t care how cold it was, it was good to be back on the street. She’d had enough, for the time being, of desk work and comp work and briefings. It was true enough she needed some thinking time, just her and her murder board, but right now, she needed to move.

“It’s hard to believe we’ve only been on this since Friday night.” Peabody hunched her shoulders as they walked to BodyWorks. “It feels like we’ve been working this one for a month.”

“Time’s relative.” Ariel Greenfeld, Eve thought, missing for approximately eighteen hours.

“McNab humped on this until nearly three this morning. I fizzled just past midnight, but he was revved. Something about e-juice, I guess. Of course, when he’s really humping the comp, he doesn’t have any left to, you know, hump yours truly. This is the longest we’ve gone since cohabbing not using the bed-or some other surface-for recreational purposes.”

“One day,” Eve said as she cast her eyes to heaven, “one fine day you’ll be able to go a full week without inserting an image of you and McNab having sex into my head.”

“Well, see, that’s what I’m worried about.” They passed into the lobby of the center, flashed badges on the way to the elevator. “You think maybe the bloom’s wearing off? That we’re losing the spark? It’s actually been since Wednesday night that we-”

“Go no further with that sentence.” Eve ordered the elevator to take them to the main gym. “You can’t go, what, four days without worrying about blooms and sparks?”

“I don’t know. I guess. Well, no,” Peabody decided, “because four days is basically a work week if you’re not a cop. If you and Roarke went a week, wouldn’t you wonder?”

Eve wasn’t sure this had ever been an issue. She only shook her head and stepped off the elevator.

“So you and Roarke haven’t gotten snuggly since we caught this?”

Eve stopped, turned. Stared. “Detective Peabody, are you actually standing there asking me if I’ve had sex in the last few days?”

“Well. Yes.”

“Pull yourself together, Peabody.”

“You have!” Peabody trotted after Eve. “I knew it. I knew it! You’re practically working around the clock, and you still get laid. And we’re younger. I mean, not that you’re old,” Peabody said quickly when Eve shifted very cool eyes in her direction. “You’re young and fit, the picture of youth and vitality. I’m just going to stop talking now.”

“That would be best.” Eve went straight to the manager’s office.

Pi got up from his desk. “You have news.”

“We’re pursuing a number of leads. We’d like to talk to the staff again, and make inquiries among some of your members.”

“Whatever you need.”

Though Yancy had a little time left on his clock, Eve drew out the sketch. “Take a look at this, tell me if you know this man, or have seen him.”

Pi took the sketch, studied it carefully. “He doesn’t look familiar. We have a lot of members, a lot of them casual, others who are transient, using this facility while they’re in town for business or pleasure. I know a lot of the regulars on sight, but I don’t recognize him.”

He lowered this sketch. “Is this the man who has Gia?”

“At this time, he’s a person of interest.”

They spent an hour at it, without a single hit. As they stepped outside, Eve’s ’link signaled. “Dallas.”

“Yancy. Got it. Good as it’s going to get.”

“Show me.”

He flipped the image on screen. Eve saw it was a bit more defined than the sketch she was carrying. The eyebrows were slightly higher, the mouth less sharply shaped. And the nose was, in fact, a little shorter. “Good. Let’s get it out. Notify Whitney, and tell him I requested Nadine Furst get a five-minute bump over the rest of the media.”

“Got that.”

“Good work, Yancy.”

“He looks like somebody’s nice, comfortable grandfather,” Peabody commented. “The kind that passes out peppermint candy to all the kids. I don’t know why that makes it worse.”

Safe, Trina had said. She’d said he looked safe. “He’s going to see himself on screen. He’ll see it at some point in the next few hours, the next day. And he’ll know we’re closer than we’ve ever been before.”

“That worries you.” Peabody nodded. “He might kill Rossi and Greenfeld out of panic and preservation, and go under again.”

“He might. But we’ve got to air the image. If he’s targeted another woman, if he’s contacted her, and she sees it, it’s not only going to save her life, it may lead us right to his door. No choice. Got no choice.”

But she thought of Rossi. Eighty-six hours missing, and counting.

Considering the sketch she had was closer than most, Eve used it while they talked to other businesses, to residences, to a couple of panhandlers and the glide-cart operators on the corners.

“He’s, like, invisible.” Peabody rubbed her chilled hands together as they headed toward the club. “We know he’s been around there, been inside the gym, but nobody sees him.”

“Nobody pays attention to him and maybe that’s part of his pathology. He’s been ignored or overlooked. This is his way of being important. The women he takes, tortures, kills, they won’t forget him.”

“Yeah, but dead.”

“Not the point. They see him. When you give somebody pain, when you restrain them, hold them captive and isolated, hurt them, you’re their world.” It had been that way for her, she remembered. Her father had been the world, the terrifying and brutal world the first eight years of her life.

His face, his voice, every detail of him was exact and indelible in her mind. In her nightmares.