Nora Roberts - Remember When

"He didn't kill her where he dumped her," Baxter commented. "We found a blood trail from the street. Not a lot of blood. She must've bled a hell of a lot more where he beat her."

"From the angle of the breaks-see on screen here?" Foster nodded toward it, and the enhanced images in blues and reds. "It looks like he hit the leg first. Did that while she was standing. When she went down, he went for the ribs, the face. The skull was the coup de grace. She was probably unconscious when he bashed her head in."

Did she try to crawl? Eve wondered. Did she cry out in shock and pain and try to crawl away? "To keep her from running," she murmured. "Take the leg out first so she can't run. He doesn't care how much noise she makes. Otherwise, he'd have gone for the head first. It's calculated, calculated to look like rage. But it's not rage. It's cold-blooded. He had to have a place where it wouldn't matter if she screamed. Soundproofed, private. He had to have private transpo to get her to the lot."

The data center beeped, had them all turning.

"Hit the match," Baxter murmured, and he and Eve stepped to the data screen together. "That who you're looking for?"

"Yeah." Eve set her coffee aside and stared into Tina Cobb's smiling face.

Chapter 21

"Book us a conference room. I want to coordinate with Baxter and Trueheart when they get back from Essie Cobb's." Eve stepped into the garage-level elevator at Central.

"Has to be the same killer," Peabody said.

"Nothing has to be. We'll run probabilities. Let's get all current data together into a report and send it to Mira for a profile."

"You want a meet with her?"

When the doors opened, Eve shifted back as cops and civilians piled on. Dr.

Charlotte Mira was the best profiler in the city, possibly on the East Coast.

But it was early days for a consult. "Not yet."

The car stopped again, and this time rather than deal with the press of bodies and personal aromas, she elbowed her way off to take the glide. "We'll put what we've got together first, run some standards, conference with Baxter and Trueheart. We need a follow-up with Samantha Gannon and a swing by the club."

"A lot of on-the-ass work." Peabody could only be grateful. Her shoes were killing her.

"Get us the room," Eve began as she stepped off the glide. And stopped when she saw Samantha Gannon sitting on a wait bench outside the Homicide division.

Beside her, looking camera-ready, and very chatty, was Nadine Furst.

Eve muttered shit under her breath, but there wasn't much heat in it.

Nadine fluffed back her streaky blonde hair and aimed one of her feline smiles in Eve's direction. "Dallas. Hey, Peabody, look at you! Mag shoes."

"Thanks." She was going to burn them, first chance.

"Shouldn't you be in front of a camera somewhere?" Eve asked.

"There's more to the job than looking pretty on screen. I've just about wrapped an interview with Samantha. A few comments from the primary on the investigation would put a nice cap on the segment."

"Turn off the recorder, Nadine."

For form, Nadine sighed before she deactivated her lapel recorder. "She's so strict," she said to Samantha. "I really appreciate the time, and I'm very sorry about your friend."

"Thank you."

"Dallas, if I could just have one word?"

"Peabody, why don't you show Ms. Gannon into the lounge. I'll be right with you."

Eve waited until they'd moved off, then turned a cool stare toward Nadine.

"Just doing my job." Nadine lifted her hands, palms out for peace.

"Me too."

"Gannon's a hot ticket, Dallas. Her book is this month's cocktail party game.

Everybody's playing Where Are the Diamonds? You toss murder in and it's top story, every market. I had vacation plans. Three fun-filled days at the Vineyard, starting tomorrow. I canceled them."

"You were going to make wine?"

"No. Though I'd planned to drink quite a bit. Martha's Vineyard, Dallas. I want out of the city, out of this heat. I want a beach and a long cold adult beverage and a parade of tanned and buff male bodies. So I'm hoping you're going to tell me you're wrapping this one up in a hurry."

"I can't tell you any more than the media liaison would've told you. Pursuing all leads, et cetera and so on. That's it, Nadine. That's really it."

"Yeah, I was afraid of that. Well, there's always a hologram program. I can set it for the Vineyard and spend an hour in fantasyland. I'll be around," she added as she walked away.

Gave up too easy, Eve decided.

She thought about that as she headed off to what the cops called the lounge.

It was a room set up for breaks and informal meetings. A scatter of tables, even a skinny, sagging sofa, and several vending machines.

She plugged in a couple of credits and ordered a large bottle of water.

You have selected Aquafree, the natural refreshment, in a twelve-ounce bottle.

Aquafree is distilled and bottled in the peaceful and pristine mountains of-

"Jesus, cut the commercial and give me the damn water." She thumped a fist against the machine.

You are in violation of City Code 20613-A. Any tampering with, any vandalism of this vending unit can result in fine and/or imprisonment.

Even as Eve reared back to kick, Peabody was popping up. "Dallas! Don't! I'll get it. I'll get the water. Go sit down."

"A person ought to be able to get a damn drink of water without the lecture."

She flopped down at the table beside Samantha. "Sorry."

"No, that's okay. It's really irritating, isn't it, to get the whole list of ingredients, byproducts, caloric intake, whatever. Especially when you're ordering a candy bar or a cupcake."

"Yes!" Finally, Eve thought, someone who got it.

"She has issues with machines all over the city," Peabody commented. "Your water, Lieutenant."

"You pander to them." Eve opened the bottle, drank long and deep. "I appreciate your coming in, Ms. Gannon. We were going to contact you and arrange to speak with you. You've saved us some time."

"Call me Samantha, or Sam, if that's okay. I hoped you'd have something to tell me. Shouldn't I have been talking to the reporter?"

"Free country. Free press." Eve shrugged. "She's okay. Are you planning on staying at the hotel for the time being?"

"I-yes. I thought, as soon as you tell me I can-I'd have my house cleaned.

There are specialists, I'm told, who deal with... with crime scenes. Cleaning up crime scenes. I don't want to go back until it's dealt with. That's cowardly."

"It's not. It's sensible." That's what she looked like today, Eve thought. A very tired, sensible woman. "I can offer you continued police protection for the short term. You may want to consider hiring private security."

"You don't think it was just a burglary. You think whoever killed Andrea will come after me."

"I don't think there's any point in taking risks. Beyond that, reporters who aren't as polite as Nadine are going to scent you out and hassle you."

"I guess you're right about that. All right, I'll look into it. My grandparents are very upset about all this. I played it down as much as I could, but... Hell, you don't pull anything over on them. If I can tell them I've hired a bodyguard and have the police looking out for me, too, it'll go a long way to keeping everyone settled. I'm letting them think it was about Andrea."

Her eyes, very bright, very blue, settled levelly on Eve's. "But I've had time to play this all out in my head. A long night's worth of time, and I don't think that. You don't think that."

"I don't. Ms. Gannon-Samantha-the woman who was assigned to clean your house has been murdered."

"I don't understand. I haven't hired anyone to clean my house yet."

"Your regular cleaning service. Maid In New York assigned Tina Cobb over the last several months to your house."