“What for?”

  “Because we’re the cops, and you were stupid enough to come up here still stinking of Zoner smoke. Between that and the ’roids you’re popping, it’ll really screw up the rest of your day. Let us in, go away, and we won’t have to waste our time or the city’s resources.”

  “Try to do somebody a favor.” He unlocked the door, but when he started to open it, Eve blocked him.

  “We’ll take it from here.”

  “Rent comes due, I can haul her stuff outta there.”

  “Try it, and I’ll screw up more than one of your days.”

  He gave her a hard look, then turned to stalk off. He lost the impact, as the elevator door had creaked closed again. He stomped to the stairs, let the door bang shut behind him.

  “There’s a dumbass for you,” Eve commented, and opened the door.

  It smelled stale—not like the stairwell, but from disuse. A fine layer of dust thinly coated a small table by the door where a vase held flowers that had withered and died.

  A dark green couch, one Eve assumed opened into a bed, faced a large wall screen. Two stands with drawers, one on either side of the couch, held lamps.

  On a long, low cabinet under the screen sat photos, a decorative bowl, a small pink stuffed bear. She’d set up an eating area outside a galley kitchen—a café-style table, two chairs. A trio of candles sat in the center.

  Art ran to posters of music artists, and Mavis rocked out of one of them. On closer inspection Eve saw Mavis had signed it.

  Sing Out, Anna!

  Mavis Freestone

  “Aw, man.” Peabody blew out a breath. “Why does that make it harder?”

  “Closer to home. Looks like she collected the posters and signatures. They’re all signed. She kept a tidy nest, everything has a place and purpose. Check the bathroom and kitchen. It’s already been done, but we look again.”

  No house ’link, and she knew the lead investigator had already taken the single tablet found in the drawer beside the bed into his EDD. She found clothes, a kit for doing nails, a box of concert and vid stubs, a small collection of costume jewelry.

  Cold weather clothes she found separated out, organized. Clothes Eve feared Anna Hobe would never put on again.

  She went through the room, and it occurred to her the entire space was smaller than her home office.

  But it had been hers, Eve thought. She’d made it friendly and comfortable.

  “Monthly birth control,” Peabody announced. “Some drugstore brand skin and hair care, same with makeup. Nothing high-end. Really clean. Well, a little dusty now, but her towels are folded or hung up. She’s got candles on the sink. No illegals, no prescription meds.”

  “Organized,” Eve said as Peabody moved into the kitchen. “She likes her space, knows how to make the most of it. Condoms in the bedside drawer. Box is nearly full.”

  Nothing here, Eve thought. Nothing here to tell us where or how. Nothing here but a life on pause.

  “No dishwasher, and no dishes in the sink or the rack. Everything’s put away. Some leftover Chinese in the friggie, some cheese, snack food, water, crap coffee, creamer, an open bottle of white wine. The AC’s busted, so she wasn’t using that.”

  Nothing here, she thought again.

  “Let’s talk to some of the neighbors, then hit some of the local takeout/delivery. Maybe we’ll jog something the primary didn’t shake out before.”

  She checked the time. “After, I’ll take you to the house. You can let McNab know.”

  “We’ll stick with Mavis.”

  Eve looked back at the poster. “Yeah. He’s not going to want her, but yeah. Stick close.”

  They hit on the way out as Peabody held open the door for a woman carrying a couple of market bags and a giant purse in the shape of a sunflower.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you live here?” Eve asked.

  The woman waggled her entry swipe. “Who’s asking?”

  Eve held up her badge.

  “Oh. Yeah, right there. What’s the problem?”

  “Do you know Anna Hobe?”

  “Yeah, some. Lives upstairs, works over at Mike’s Place. Is she in trouble? Listen, these are heavy.”

  “Let me give you a hand.” Peabody took one of the bags.

  “Okay, fine. What about Anna?” she said as she moved to her apartment door, juggled the remaining bag and purse to swipe, then unlock the dead bolt. “I know her to say hi to.”

  “Miss Hobe’s been missing since the early hours of June first,” Eve told her.

  “What?” The woman glanced back as she pushed the door open. Her amber-tinted sunshades slid down her nose. “What do you mean, missing?”

  “As in no one’s seen her.” Eve stepped into the apartment—and colorful chaos.

  A flowered tote bag sat on a small square table outside a small kitchen area. A carry-on bag sat open, its contents jumbled on a couch covered with red flowers over a sky-blue background. A cloth bag in front of the open bathroom door exploded with laundry.

  “You’ve been away,” Eve concluded.

  “Yeah—so sorry about the mess. Got in really late last night—our flight was delayed—and I had to go back to work this morning, so I haven’t had time to unpack or, well, anything.”

  She set her market bag on the short kitchen counter, did the same with the one she took from Peabody.

  “When did you leave, Ms.…”

  “Rameriz. Joslyn Rameriz. I left on the first. A group of us friends rented a villa right on the beach in Costa Rica. It was just freaking mag.” She began to unload staples—a quart of nondairy creamer, fake egg mix, a couple of bananas.

  “I take it no one from the NYPSD has interviewed you previously regarding Ms. Hobe.”

  “No, first I’ve heard. Missing.” Rameriz paused to pull out the tie holding her sun-streaked brown hair back, then scrubbed her hands through it. “She doesn’t seem like the type to go missing, but I guess I don’t know what that type is, exactly. I know Anna to say hi, like I said, and some of my gang would go into Mike’s every couple-three weeks. It’s a fun place. Maybe she just took off.”

  Shaking her head, she scrubbed at her hair again. “But if I think about it, she doesn’t seem like the type to take off.”

  “What type does she seem like?”

  “I don’t know. Regular.” Her pretty, sharply angled face with its vacation tan slowly registered concern. “Jeez, you don’t think something really happened to her?”

  “She was last seen leaving her place of employment at approximately one A.M. on the morning of June first. She hasn’t been seen since, hasn’t returned to her apartment, and her ’link has been disabled. Yes, we’re investigating the possibility something really happened to her.”

  “Okay, listen, sorry.” Now Rameriz rubbed at the back of her neck. “Long, weird day back at work, and I’m still on vacation time, so I’m a little slow here. I don’t know the last time I saw her, and—oh yeah, yeah, I do.”

  She shot up a finger. “There’s an abso craphole of a laundry station in the basement. We were both down there a couple days before I left. I mean we passed each other—she was coming in as I was leaving—commented on the craphole. I said how I was going to Costa Rica, and she said like wow, and have fun. Just like that.”

  “Did she ever, in passing, mention any problems, someone who bothered her?”

  “No, not to me. I mean we didn’t cross paths all that much, and she mostly worked nights.”

  “You left on the first, how about the night before? What were you doing around one A.M.?”

  “Usually, I’d’ve been conked, but with the trip, I was still packing, mostly. And getting myself worked up because I was excited, and I get nervous when I fly, and I was sure I was going to forget something I’d absolutely had to have. So I…”

  She blew out a breath. “Okay, we’re not supposed to smoke in the building—as if the Zoner freak super would notice. But I was worked up, so I lit up an herbal because they smooth me out. I cracked the window. It was raining, but it was kind of nice. A little cool, the rain, so I, like, sat on the windowsill awhile and smoothed out.”

  “So you were sitting in the open window. Did you notice anything, anyone?”

  “No. I mean, what’s to notice? I noticed it was rainy—not like pouring or anything, but raining, so I thought how it would be all sunny and hot the next day, and I’d be looking out at the water instead of the street. And cute monkeys and parrots instead of some guy standing in the rain like a dumbass.”

  “What guy?” Eve interrupted.

  “I don’t know. Some guy.”

  “Show me the window.”

  Rameriz stepped back. “You want to see my bedroom window. Everything’s really a mess because—”

  “It takes me days to unpack and get everything straightened up when I take a trip.” Peabody aimed a sympathetic smile. “The more fun I had, the longer it takes.”

  “Right?” Rameriz let out a laugh. “So don’t judge.” She led the way down the short hall that led to the bathroom, and the bedroom to the left of it. With a window facing the street on the far side of the building.

  6

  Eve ignored the big open suitcase on the floor and the clothes spilling out of it and went straight to the window.

  The way the window angled offered a reasonably decent view.

  “Tell me about the guy.”

  “Just a guy. I only noticed because I was kind of looking down that way and saw him when he got out of the car.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “I don’t know. Honestly. Maybe it was a van, or an all-terrain. It was dark, and it was raining, and I think I just noticed because he got out and walked over to stand on the sidewalk.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “No. Maybe he had a hoodie on. Or a hat. Or a hat and a hoodie. I wasn’t paying attention, just thinking, Look at that idiot standing in the rain, then— Yeah, yeah, Darlie tagged me up because she was packing and all worked up, too, so we talked awhile, calmed each other down while we finished packing. Then I went to bed.”

  “Did you leave the window open?”

  “No—man you don’t want to do that. I closed and locked it before I went to bed.”

  “Where was the guy when you closed it?”

  “Gone. Yeah! Yeah, he was gone. Pretty sure. I guess the car or van or whatever was, too. I didn’t notice.”

  “What time did your friend tag you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I was smoking an herbal and, okay, drinking a brew. Just to smooth myself out because—”

  “Can we check your ’link?”

  “Well, ah, sure. I guess.” Dubious, Rameriz took her ’link out of her back pocket. “I’ll just, you know, go back to that night, okay?”

  She swiped back, shifting her weight, frowning as she swiped. “Yeah, here we go. Darlie tagged me at twelve-fifty-three. After midnight, so on the day we were leaving. She knew I’d be up because—”

  “How long did you talk?”

  “Oh … Wow, twenty-six and a half minutes. It didn’t seem that long.”

  “Did you sit in the window while you talked?”

  “No. I’d about finished the herbal, so I put it out, and we set our ’links down so we could talk while we both finished packing. Then it was like, ‘See you in a few hours, yay!’ and I went to bed.”

  “Are you certain you saw a male?”

  “A male? Oh, a guy.” Rameriz bit her lip, crinkled her eyes. “Well, I don’t know, but I thought guy.”

  “How about the vehicle? Ever notice it before? Maybe when you sat in the open window?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. It was a car or maybe a van, black maybe. I only noticed the guy—probably a guy—because he’s just standing in the rain.”

  Eve took her through it all again to try to nudge out some details. She let the sympathetic, cajoling Peabody have a shot.

  By the time they left she had a vague headache, but knew where the killer had parked his (most likely his) car/van/AT. That was maybe black or just dark.

  “Closer to the building than I thought,” Eve decided as they stopped at the area Rameriz approximated. “The timing? He’s parked, and waiting, just before she’s off shift, he gets out of the vehicle. To wait for her. He could watch through the windshield, but he’d need to keep the wipers on to see through the wet. Maybe he just got out to be ready.”

  “If Rameriz had stayed where she was another few minutes, she might’ve seen the grab.”

  “Yeah. Even with the dark, the rain, the distance, she might’ve seen enough to give us something to pull. But she didn’t. Let’s have some uniforms do another canvass of the building, and the others in this area. Maybe somebody else they missed on the first rounds was looking out at the rain. Notify Norman.”

  “I’ll get it started. You know, Dallas,” Peabody continued as they walked, “one A.M.’s a world away from two-thirty. If it hadn’t been raining, if it had been a nice night, there might’ve been—likely would’ve been—more people out, more windows open.”

  “Yeah. Option One, he took advantage of the weather, moved up his schedule to grab her on an early closing night at Mike’s. Option Two, he wanted her enough to take the risk. And the option that combines both? Lauren Elder wasn’t working out the way he thought. One thing’s clear. He’s got her, and he’s had her for a week.”

  Since they’d already passed end of shift, Eve decided to take the work home. After a detour.

  She drove to Mavis’s strange new house, and found relief when the gate stayed securely closed.

  “I got it!” Nearly bouncing in her seat, Peabody took out her ’link, tapped in a code. “We’re going to have your ride tagged for entry when the security’s complete,” she said as the gate slowly opened. “Can’t do Roarke’s because he’s got a zillion rides.”

  The first thing Eve noticed was the grounds that had been neglected, overgrown into a tangle of God knew what, had been cleared. On either side of the drive green sprouts poked up through what looked like piles of straw.

  “Landscapers seeded the lawn, after they cleared out the overgrowth. Had to take out some trees—just dead—but we’re going to plant others, and more, and have a veg garden out back. Leonardo bought a lawn tractor.”

  “A lawn tractor.”

  Eve visited a strange image of the fashion designer with his shining braids and one of his flowing outfits plowing a field.

  “For maintenance,” Peabody explained. “Mowing the grass, sucking up leaves. And we’re going to expand the little garden shed. And see, see? They already tore up and redid the flooring on the front porches. It wasn’t safe. Doing the back next, we hope.”

  The house still looked strange and rambling to Eve’s eye, but not as strange since it no longer looked as if it grew up inside some urban jungle.

  The minute she stopped the car, Bella ran out the open front door.

  The kid wore pink overalls over a flowered T-shirt, little pink work boots, and had a hard hat—pink of course—over her spill of golden curls.

  “Das! Pee-oddy!”

  “‘Pee-oddy’?”

  “She’s getting closer.” Peabody popped out, snatched Bella up for a hug and a toss.

  Mavis bounced out—and Eve hoped she’d keep her hair that shade of purple for a while. Just in case. She wore a snug white tee that said NUMBER TWO! with an arrow pointing down at her tiny baby bump. Rather than work boots she wore blue skids with yellow, calf-skimming skin pants.

  “You made it!” She all but flung herself into Eve’s arms. “We have grass!”

  “Yeah, I see. It’s green and everything.”

  “Come in, come see!” She grabbed Eve’s hand to drag her forward. “Roarke and McNab are here. They’re upstairs doing something with the security and the communication and entertainment and all that. The inspector’s coming in the morning.”

  “Oh God! Are we ready?”

  “Everybody says so. Right, Job Boss?”

  Bella grinned, tapped her hard hat. “Oss!”

  “Ba-ba-ba-boss.”

  “Bababa! Oss!”

  “We’ll keep working on that,” Mavis said as Bella laughed like a lunatic and leaped toward Eve.

  She grabbed Eve’s face in both hands, babbled madly.

  “She’s juiced up,” Mavis told her.

  “When isn’t she?”

  “She’s juiced because … Ta-da-de-da!”

  Mavis spread out her arms, twirled in circles.

  Eve noted some walls had come down and—better—all the hideous wallpaper in her sight line. Some walls apparently would go back up, and inside their framework lived the new guts that would run security and the rest.

  “It looks bigger. It was already big.”

  “Roomier, more open. It’ll be function city, too, when it’s done. We got more samples, Peabody.”

  “I wanna see!”

  Bella wiggled down to run, to lead the way through what Eve remembered as a labyrinth and now presented as—yeah, roomier, more open. And into what had been an ugly nightmare of a kitchen.

  It seemed the gut job Roarke had deemed it had been accomplished. Most of the wall leading out to the now-cleared backyard was glass.

  “They installed the accordion doors!”

  Mavis did another dance. “Surprise! And check this!”

  She tapped a code on her ’link, and the doors silently folded in and away. “It’ll be voice command, too, when it’s all done. Is that frosted or what?”

  “Frost supreme,” Peabody agreed, and took Mavis’s hand. “We’re going to have the most fabulous gardens. I’ve got so many ideas.”

  “And over there”—Mavis pointed—“Play Town. Ken, the secondary job boss after Bellamina who’s fallen hard for her, drew up this magomaniac play/adventure house. Roarke gave it the okay, so they’re going to build it.”

  “Roarke?”

  Mavis turned to Eve. “He’s Supervisor of All.”

  “Ork,” Bella said, and sighed like a woman in love.

  “Over here, that’ll be the hang-out area.” Mavis circled the kitchen. “And there, kind of a cozy place, like for breakfast, and back here … Roarke calls it a butler’s pantry. We’re not getting a butler, unless it’s Summerset.”