“He’s yours.”

  Mavis spun to Eve with a laugh. “As if.”

  “No, seriously. I’ll make him your housewarming present. I’m supposed to do that, right?” she asked Peabody. “Do the present thing?”

  “Housewarming presents aren’t usually human beings.”

  “We can have a debate on whether or not Summerset’s human, but either way, I’ll make an exception.”

  “Someshit,” Bella announced, and Eve nodded at her.

  “You got that right, kid.”

  “Check these samples, Peabody, and give me your what-what. I got Trina’s, but I need more votes.”

  “You guys do that. I’m going to find … Ork.” And escape from tile samples.

  “Take the back stairs,” Mavis suggested. “We’re leaving them in. I’m digging deep on having back stairs.”

  When Eve reached the second floor, she noted the absence of ugly wallpaper, and more walls down to studs.

  And through the studs the colorful McNab working on a handheld, the towering Leonardo in what she supposed passed as work clothes in his world—the flowing blue-and-red-striped shirt over blue baggies—and Roarke, still in his king-of-the-business-world suit.

  Or maybe Supervisor of All.

  He did something with those long, clever fingers to something inside the open studs. “Try it now, Ian.”

  “And we are up! We are green all the way! Woot! My man!” He gave Roarke a high five, then offered his palm for a low one to Leonardo. “This system will rock it up, down, sideways, inside, and out.”

  “And the house, the grounds, my girls, they’ll be safe.”

  “They will, yes.” Roarke gave Leonardo a pat on the shoulder. “I promise you.”

  “That’s all that matters.”

  Roarke looked through the studs, the odd wire, and smiled at Eve right up into those wonderful wild blue eyes. “Nothing matters more. Lieutenant.”

  “He’s not going to look at Mavis,” Eve said as she walked forward. “I’ve got a line on him, and she doesn’t fit. I just want to be careful.”

  Leonardo crossed to her, folded her in. “They’re my world.”

  “They’re a really big chunk of mine. Just steer clear of the playground until we’ve got him.”

  “We will. Bella’s so in love with the house, it’s her playground for now.”

  “Job Boss,” Eve said, adding a smile in hopes it took the worry from his eyes. And it did.

  “She runs the show. We’ve got wine. I’ll go open a bottle.”

  She started to beg off. She wanted to get home, get back to work—but she caught Roarke’s eye.

  “Sure. We’ll have a glass before we take off. Everything echoes.”

  “Sometimes Mavis wanders around singing. It’s wonderful. I can already see us here. I already see it.”

  Eve slowed her pace so she fell well behind Leonardo and McNab. “I really can’t stay long. There’s another missing woman, and he has her.”

  “We won’t.” Roarke took her hand. “They need this, need just a moment with you here.”

  She did her best to shift gears. “Can you already see it?”

  “Actually, I can. It’s going to be a colorful, creative, and surprisingly functional home.”

  “And safe.”

  “Safe as our own. Trust me on that.”

  “I do.”

  When they reached the kitchen area, McNab poured wine into disposable cups, and Leonardo mixed some sort of sparkling drink for Mavis.

  “To welcoming friends who are family into our home.” Leonardo hauled Bella onto his hip, handed her a sippy cup.

  “And when it’s finished,” Mavis continued, “Leonardo, Bella, Peabody, McNab, and me? We’re going to throw the mother of all parties.”

  Eve watched Bella’s eyes go dreamy as she sucked on the little protrusion on the side of the cup. “What’s in that thing?”

  “Water.” Leonardo nuzzled his girl. “With a vitamin fizzy tab.”

  Conversation headed into tile samples, and choices of sinks, and, oddly to Eve, doorknobs. She didn’t object when Mavis tugged her outside.

  “I know you gotta book it.”

  “Yeah, but when you throw the mother of all parties, I’m going to use the power of my will to put a moratorium on all homicides, suicides, and suspicious deaths for one damn night.”

  “Bet you will. Don’t worry about me, Dallas. I’m heading out tomorrow for a gig in Atlanta the next night. Security team’s with me,” she added. “And because he’s still a little freaked, Leonardo’s going, too.”

  “I’m sorry I freaked him.”

  “He freaks if I break a nail these days. My honey bear loves me. And don’t be sorry, it means Bella’s going so I don’t have to miss her for a couple of days. I’m going to miss this, though—the house, the crew, the big magalicious mess of it. I’m so into it. Who’da thought, right? But the gigs are part of why I have it to get so into. I feel abso-poso forking serene.”

  She turned to Eve, beaming. “Another who’da thought.”

  “It looks forking good on you.”

  “Totally does.”

  When Mavis wrapped an arm around Eve’s waist, Eve took the moment. And gave it.

  When the moment passed, she left her friends with their tile samples and doorknobs.

  Roarke drove home so she could check on any progress.

  “No other witnesses popping up.” She frowned at her ’link. “We were lucky to hit on one with Hobe.”

  “I take it Hobe’s the missing woman.”

  “Yeah. We coordinated with the detective who caught the Lauren Elder case when she was reported missing. I had him and Peabody do searches for others in that age group, with that basic physical description.”

  Because he invariably provided an exceptional sounding board, she went back to the beginning—the body on the bench of the playground—and caught him up.

  “The Bad Mommy message. You held that back from the media.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And it’s key.”

  “Has to be. I pulled Nadine, and she’s doing a deep dive to try to find the original.”

  “Who you believe existed, and would’ve been in that age range, with that physical description, shortly after the turn of the century.”

  “Due to fashion—how he dressed her, did her hair, makeup—according to Morris, Mira, and Peabody.”

  “A long time to mourn, or hate, or obsess.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  She watched a small group of tourists, announcing their status in matching I ❤ NEW YORK tees, gawking up at an airtram—and the street thief who slid through them like butter.

  “By the time I stop, you get out, he’d be two blocks gone,” Roarke commented.

  Eve looked back, noted he’d already turned a corner. “Yeah.

  “They might as well wear shirts that say: I Heart Pickpockets. Anyway. Mira figures some sort of more recent psychic break. Mommy kicked it, or kicked him, or something just snapped.”

  He wove his way through traffic—miserable traffic—with far more calm than she would have.

  “And both women worked at bars—late shift. So you’d deduce the mother did as well.”

  “It’s possible. Or their work, and the timing, made them easier to grab.”

  “He had to look for them first, find candidates that suited his specific needs. But, at least for these two women, he didn’t look at other late shifts. Not at licensed companions, at any who work at twenty-four/sevens or building security or maintenance and so on. Which…” He glanced over at her. “You’ve factored in.”

  “I factored it in, and deduce the probability the mother worked in a bar, or frequented them regularly, is high. It doesn’t get us closer to finding Anna Hobe before he kills her.”

  “A handful of hours ago, no one knew Anna Hobe had been taken, was being held, by the same person who abducted, held, and killed Lauren Elder.”

  “He held Elder for ten days before he killed her. He’s had Hobe for seven already.”

  Coming fast up on eight, Eve thought.

  “He left Elder where we’d find her, and quickly. He has a vehicle. He could have taken the body out of the city, buried her. He has somewhere private enough to hold women. He could have dismembered her, dumped her in a tub of lye. Shit, weighed her down and dumped her in the river. All kinds of ways to dispose of her, to at least stretch out the time between killing and discovery. But he didn’t.

  “He wanted us to find her. Wanted to see the media reports.”

  “You think Hobe doesn’t have the ten days.”

  “I think he stepped up his schedule, taking Hobe so soon after Elder. Maybe because of the rain, good cover. Maybe because he didn’t want to put all his eggs in one box. Maybe because Elder already wasn’t working out for him.”

  “Two are more difficult to hold than one, so I agree there was some need or reason. It’s basket for the eggs, not box.”

  She turned in her seat. “I’ve seen eggs in boxes. With the little…” She outlined a dip in the air with a hand. “To hold them in.”

  “You gather them up from the hens in a basket.”

  “How do you know that? When’s the last time you snatched an egg from a chicken, ace?”

  “That would be on the far side of never, but I watched my cousin gather them up on the farm in Ireland.”

  “Don’t they get pissed off? The chickens. Like, ‘Hey, that’s my egg, you fuckhead.’ What’s Irish for fuckhead?”

  “Fuckhead translates to all languages. Young Sean told me they, for the most part, go broody—don’t ask me why—but occasionally one might object and have a go at you.”

  “I’d brood, too, if I worked to push out an egg and somebody snagged it to make an omelet. Anyway, now I’m thinking about exactly where eggs come from, so I have to erase this entire conversation from my memory bank.”

  He only smiled as he turned, and the gates of home opened.

  And home stood, fanciful as a castle, its towers and turrets stone gray against the summer-blue sky. Bright things dotted the lush green grass—artfully placed beds of flowers, blooming shrubs and bushes. Trees spread their quiet evening shade.

  She thought of Mavis again, in a house not as massive but in its way just as fanciful. And she’d feel this way, Eve thought, probably just this way when she came home from a gig and saw the house she’d made her home.

  Welcomed, and grateful.

  And her mind shifted to what Elder and Hobe might have felt as they’d walked from work, one in the clear, one in the rain, toward what they’d made home.

  “They were nearly there.”

  Roarke parked, looked at her.

  “He caught them at their most vulnerable, nearly there, when you’re just thinking about getting inside, shaking off the day. Or night in their case. Did he think of that? I think so. He’s not stupid. A lot, maybe most, criminals are. Just dumb as a basket of rocks. He’s not.”

  He started to tell her it was a box of rocks, but saw that winding around, and let it go.

  “Is that what you think when you come through the gates? Getting inside and shaking off the day?”

  “Depends, I guess. Because if I’m working one, I usually know it’ll take awhile to shake it off. Don’t you?”

  “I do, yes.” He didn’t say his first thought, always, was: Is she home? Is she safe?

  She didn’t need to hear that.

  They went inside together, where Summerset, bony in black, stood with the fat cat at his feet. Galahad pranced over to ribbon through Eve’s legs, through Roarke’s, and back again.

  “Barely late and together,” Summerset observed.

  “A bit of tweaking the internals at Mavis’s house,” Roarke told him.

  “Ah. On schedule there?”

  “We are, yes. You should drop by again.”

  “Be sure I will.

  “Thoughts, Lieutenant?” Summerset asked as she started up the stairs.

  “What? On the house? It’s better without the scary wallpaper and nightmare kitchen.”

  “A point of agreement. I’ll mark the calendar.”

  He sort of got her that time, Eve thought as she continued up. But she’d been thinking of home and work and not of giving him a nice little jab.

  Next time.

  “I need to set up my board and book.”

  “Understood.” The cat shot by them because he also understood.

  “And I’m hoping I’ve got some lab reports. All that makeup, the hair products, and she was wearing perfume. I could smell it. Then there’s the jewelry he put on her. And the tat.”

  She glanced over as they turned into her office. “Forgot, I gave Jamie the tat.”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “EDD’s new part-time intern. Part-time because you finagled getting him part-time interning for you. Long shot, like Nadine coming up with an ID on the mother figure, but it’ll keep him busy.”

  “If memory serves, he’s working in Cybersecurity at my headquarters tomorrow.”

  “Your memory always serves. Cybersecurity. Clever of you, keeping it close to cop work.”

  “And the head of that division tells me what I already knew. The boy’s a bloody genius. Be grateful he didn’t decide to tread my earlier path. If he and I had partnered up back in the day? Ah.” Roarke let out a sentimental sigh. “The possibilities.”

  “Cop here. Still a cop standing right here.”

  “Darling Eve, you can’t fault a man for imagining.”

  “Imagine me busting your ass and slapping the cuffs on you.”

  Now he grinned, now he grabbed her. “A different sort of imagining altogether.”

  She struggled away from the kiss—after a minute. “Put a pin in that imagining. I’ve got work.”

  “Since you do, I’ll leave you to it, and finish up a few things.” He walked over, opened the doors to her little balcony. “Then we’ll have a meal.”

  He stood there a moment in the open doorway with the light streaming in and a gentle breeze, a warm one, playing with all that black silk hair. Stood there, she thought, all tall and lean in his perfect suit, one hand in his pocket.

  On her button, she realized. He carried that damn button like a magic charm.

  Then he turned, and those wildly blue eyes met hers. His lips—those gorgeously sculpted lips—curved.

  “What?”

  “I would’ve busted you,” she said. “Or worked my ass off trying. I think I’d’ve busted you in the end. But, damn it, I’d have fallen for you. I’d have fallen for you, and busted you anyway. And you’d have really screwed up my life.”

  “If you’d have busted me—and there we strongly disagree—I believe my life would’ve been considerably more screwed. Especially since I’d have fallen for you as well.”

  He walked back to her, ran his hands down her arms, back to her shoulders. “Isn’t it a lovely twist of fate we met at a time neither of us had to put our considerable skills to that test?”

  “You were a murder suspect when we met.”

  He shook his head, ran a finger down the dent in her chin. “You knew better. You have those considerable skills and knew better.”

  “Yeah, I did. I could fall for a thief, but not a cold-blooded murderer. Which is why you’d have screwed up my life when I busted you on all the other stuff.”

  He smiled, gave her a light kiss. “Not a chance, Lieutenant,” he said as he walked away.

  Chance, she thought. Probably. Maybe fifty-fifty. If she’d made it her mission in life.

  But she’d made catching killers her mission in life. So she walked to her command center, opened operations, and picked up the mission where she’d left off.

  7

  She wrote up the interviews with the bartender and Mike, with Liza, updated her home copy of her murder book. Programmed coffee, set up her board with the addition of Anna Hobe, the timeline.

  Since the lab hadn’t come through, she put her boots on her command center, studied her board, and drank the coffee.

  No like crimes, she thought. That didn’t mean he hadn’t grabbed someone at some other time, experimented …

  Didn’t fit. Just didn’t. Too exact, too precise.

  The tat, the piercings, the clothes, the message.

  But …

  “Maybe he killed the mother,” Eve said when Roarke came back in. “Maybe he snapped, killed the mother, disposed of that body. Now he’s trying to replace her.”

  “That’s a cheerful thought.” Like her, he studied the board. “There’s a slight resemblance between Elder and Hobe, but you have to look for it. It’s really more the type. Pretty blondes, early twenties, and, from the height and weight listed here, the same basic body type.”

  “We have another, a stripper, missing. I gave her to Detective Norman, but I don’t see it. She’s got three times the tits and more ass.”

  “I imagine she’d be grateful for the T&A for more than professional reasons if she knew.”

  “She used to be an LC, but failed the screening. She had a habit, maybe still does. Elder and Hobe come clean there. I think he wants clean. Bad Mommies are addicts, right? Wouldn’t he see it like that? I don’t know, but that’s how I see it. Still, I want to find her.”

  She stared at the hole in her desk unit. “Nothing from the lab. Maybe I’ll tag Harvo, give her a poke.”

  “Lieutenant, she’s bound to be home or out with friends at this point in the evening. Possibly enjoying a good meal. It’s time we did the same.”

  He strolled into the kitchen. The cat, who’d sprawled over Eve’s sleep chair, perked up, leaped off, strolled—very nonchalantly—after Roarke.

  She listened with half an ear as Roarke informed the cat he knew bloody well he’d already had his evening meal. And being a trained investigator, deduced Roarke would cave and give Galahad a handful of cat treats anyway.

  He carried in two domed plates, walked over to set them on the table by the window.

  “He had to get the makeup from somewhere,” she said as Roarke walked back to select a bottle of wine from the wall cabinet. “It was, you know, the full shot.” Eve waved a hand in front of her face.