Born in Death (18 page)

“That helps. Thanks. Anything else, contact me.”

“I’m going to go through my file on her, and ask the other members of the team if she spoke to them about anything that seems important. We all want her and the baby back, safe and healthy.”

14

SHE WENT OVER THE DATA PEABODY SENT TO her computer on like crimes. IRCCA had popped a few for her. Abductions, abduction/murders, rapes, rape/ murders. Abductions where the baby had been delivered then stolen, and the mother left behind.

Alive or dead.

In the majority of the abductions, the woman had known her kidnapper, or had had previous contact.

Eve separated them into known or unknown, into family strife, cases where the abductor had been mentally ill, and those done for profit.

She culled out the rapes into a separate file.

Then she worked them geographically.

There had been cases in New York with similar elements, and those involving family members of the victim she separated out again. She set aside those cases where the perpetrator was doing time, earmarking those to check other family members, and any possible contact with Tandy.

She outlined Missing Person cases where the investigator found the woman had gone into a shelter to escape an abusive relationship, or simply walked out. And others where neither mother nor child had ever been found.

Because Tandy had come from London, Eve moved there next. A smattering of like cases again, but none that had any outward link to hers.

So she branched out to Europe.

The most interesting was a case, still open, in Rome where the missing woman had walked out of her regular OB exam in her thirty-sixth week, and poofed. Like Tandy, earlier in the pregnancy she had relocated to another city, moving from Florence three months before she went missing. She was single, had no family in that area. She’d been healthy, and lived alone. Unlike Tandy, this woman had applied for and received paid maternity leave during her second trimester.

A struggling artist, she had been in the process of finishing a mural of a fairyland on the walls of the nursery she’d outfitted in her apartment.

Or was it ‘flat’ in Italy, too? Eve wondered.

Sophia Belego had been missing for nearly two years. Gone without a trace.

After making a note of the investigator’s name, Eve stewed over the time difference. Italy was another place she couldn’t contact yet.

“Lieutenant.”

“What? Huh?”

“It’s now after two in the morning. New York time.”

“What is it in London?”

“Too early.” Roarke laid his hands on his wife’s shoulders, dug at the rocks that had taken up residence there. “And time for both of us to recharge.”

“I’ve got more in me.”

“You’ll have more yet after a few hours of sleep.”

“I’m working something from the data Peabody got from IRCCA.”

“And how much further can you take it tonight?”

Nowhere really, she thought. But still. “I haven’t written it all down. I need to put it into a report for the file, and copy MPU.”

“Which can wait until morning.”

“If she got snatched, she’s going on better than fifty hours missing. I need the damn data from the parking lot. And I’m not going to get that until morning,” she argued when he only looked at her. “Okay, a couple hours down.”

Because she was looking glassy-eyed, he moved to the elevator with her.

“You got anything for me?” she asked him.

“Nothing concrete. It’s going to take longer without names. With them, I could do more thorough excavating.” And, he thought, make use of his unregistered equipment and avoid CompuGuard’s beady eye if he went down a bit deeper than was technically allowed. “I’ve left a couple of programs running. We’ll see what we get in the morning.”

“I have to do some digging myself on that.” She pushed her tired brain from possible abduction into murder. “Cavendish to Bullock to Robert Kraus to Jacob Sloan—maybe three generations of Sloans—and from there to my vics. Something there. I think if I squeeze Cavendish right, he’ll spurt.”

As her mind shifted between two investigations, she undressed. “Why does a firm with that kind of—what is it—panache—use a guy like Cavendish to head up its New York branch? Nepotism, maybe, because he’s not as smart as he could be. Bruberry, his admin, she’s smart. But she’s not blood, so you put his name on the letterhead, and let her run it behind the scenes? That’s how it feels.”

Eve slid into bed. “Copperfield said she was offered a bribe. If I can show contact around the time of the murder between her and Cavendish’s office, I could squeeze from that angle. Or—”

“Too much coffee for you.” He drew her close. “Turn off that head of yours and go to sleep.”

And how the hell was she supposed to do that? Because he was right, as usual. She’d poured too much coffee into her system. Her brain was running sloppy loops inside her head, from Copperfield to Byson to Tandy and back again.

“Might have to go to London,” she murmured. “Huh. Wouldn’t it be a kick in the head if I really did have to be out of the country hunting a criminal mastermind when Mavis goes into labor?”

“I, my ass. That goes towe or I’ll hurt you.”

“Yeah, big talk.”

Since her brain was up, and her body insisted on following suit, she didn’t see why she shouldn’t put both to good use.

She trailed her fingers up his spine, then down while she angled her head and found his lips with hers in the dark.

“Are you trying to take advantage of my weakened state?”

“Damn right.”

“Just checking.” His lips curved against hers. “Go ahead then. I can’t stop you.”

“Guess you’ll have to lie there and take it.” She nipped at his jaw, slicked her tongue down his neck. “You could call for help.”

“My pride prevents me.”

Chuckling, she slid a hand down, found him already hard. “Yeah, you’re just full of pride.”

He tasted so good, all warm and ripe, and as her body pressed to his, rubbed bare flesh to bare flesh, she felt his heartbeat kick. She shifted, stretched herself over him so she could press her lips where that heart beat for her.

More than desire, she thought lazily. Here was knowledge and comfort, and a kind of communion.Turn to me, and I’ll be there. That was the simple answer they could always find together no matter what shadows hung over them. Through the past, through the present, they could always find the answer, and each other.

She felt his hands on her now, stroking to soothe or to arouse, and succeeding in doing both. For another moment, she stayed as she was, eyes closed, absorbing the sheer and simple pleasure of knowing where she belonged. Then, in the deep dark, in the deep quiet, she slid up him again until their lips met.

Movement and heat, he drifted into both as she did and rode on the warm current of sensation. The shape of her, the scents and the sounds, were so familiar, and so alluring. She, as no other ever could, reached every corner of his heart. His woman with her long, lean body, her courageous spirit and questing mind. His joy, and his salvation.

Here it was so clear, so easy, with only the two of them in a dance either could lead, both could follow.

And the need for her sang through him like a favorite melody.

She straddled him, laying her hands over his as he took her breast in his mouth. Letting her head fall back as she immersed herself in the next thrill, letting her mind empty of everything but what they gave to each other.

She took him in, slow, slow.

He quivered for her, he murmured to her, and at last he filled her. Her body bowed back, a slim white curve in the shadows. Then forward to rock them both breathless in the dark.

They wrapped around each other, sliding languidly down from that peak, her leg tossed intimately over his hip. She rested her brow lightly against his jaw until sanity returned.

“Better than cake,” she said, and made him laugh.

“So it was. And it was damned good cake.”

“Mmmm. What time is it anyway?”

“Ah…somewhere after three.”

She did the calculation in her head. “Good enough.” She tipped her head up, pressed her lips firmly to his. Then rolled away and sat up.

“And what are you about, Lieutenant?”

“I’m about waking up some people in Europe. Light on, five percent. Going to grab a shower first,” she said when the lights glowed dimly. “Wash the rest of the cobwebs out.”

He folded his arm behind his head. “So I served as a way to use up a bit of time till you determined it was reasonable to wake some poor sod up on a Sunday morning.”

“Yeah.”

“I feel so used. Thanks.”

“Welcome.” She felt clearheaded now, a good second wind. “I’m just going to get some things rolling, then I’ll catch a couple hours down.”

“Too right you will.” Then he sat up. “A bit longer then.”

“You don’t have to stay up.”

“You weren’t singing that tune a few minutes ago.” When she grinned, he walked by her, giving her a quick pat on the ass. “Let’s have that shower, and maybe both of us will be back in bed before dawn.”

Eve tried Candide Marrow first, and was bumped to voice mail. She left a message, then moved down the list to the stepsister.

A hoarse, muffled voice said, “Bugger off.”

“Briar Rose Marrow?”

“Do you know what bloody time it is?”

“Where you are or where I am? This is Lieutenant Eve Dallas, from the New York City Police and Security Department. Are you Briar Rose Marrow?”

The lump in the bed had a mad thatch of black hair streaked with gold, and muttered, “What the fuck is it to you?”

Since Eve figured she might’ve had the same attitude under the circumstances, she held onto her patience. “Are you Briar Rose Marrow, and do you have a stepsister by the name of Tandy Willowby?”

“So fucking what?”

“When did you last have contact with your stepsister, Ms. Marrow?”

“Well, Christ.” The lump moved, shoved at the mad thatch and revealed a pale face with sleepy and improbable purple eyes heavily lined with black, and full lips where the lip dye had faded to splotches of crimson. “How the bleeding hell should I know when it’s eight bleeding o’clock in the bloody morning? Who the hell are you again?”

“Lieutenant Dallas, in New York.”

“Cops? What do the cops want with Tandy? New York? I haven’t had my sodding coffee.” Briar Rose scrubbed at her face with her hand, then pressed it over the sheet in the vicinity of her belly. “Oh, fuck me, how many orgasms did I have last night?”

“That would be your personal business.”

The woman snorted. “The drinks, more’s the pity. Why are you waking me up on a Sunday morning about Tandy?”

“Are you aware she’s been living in New York for the past several months?”

“New York? Well, fuck me. You serious? Handy Tandy in New sodding York.”

“I take it you haven’t spoken to her recently.”

“Not since…” She scratched her fingers in her hair, and crawled across the bed to a little table where she shoved around at debris and came up with some sort of cigarette. “I’m trying to think. June maybe. Why? You’re not going to tell me she’s done something illegal. Not our girl.”

“She’s missing.”

“Missing what?” She fumbled with a lighter, then lowered it before it sparked. “Missing?What do you mean, missing?”

“She hasn’t been seen since Thursday.”

“Maybe she had herself a massive piss-up.”

“Which would be?”

“You know, a bender? A drinking binge. Though that isn’t much like Tandy.”

“I doubt it, particularly given her condition.”

“Condition of what?”

“Are you aware Tandy’s pregnant? Due to give birth in a matter of days?”

“What? What the fuck? Up the duff? Tandy? Oh, bollocks to that.” But the sleepiness cleared out of her eyes. “Just a bloody minute.” She rolled out of bed, and to Eve’s mild relief was at least wearing underwear. She grabbed some sort of baggy red shirt out of a pile of clothes and dragged it over her head. “You’re telling me Tandy’s knocked up, and nobody knows where she is?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. You said you hadn’t spoken to her since June. Is that usual? That long a gap?”

Briar Rose walked back to sit on the side of the bed. This time she lit the cigarette. “Listen, we were steps less than a couple of years, really. Her widower father married my stone bitch of a mother when I was about fourteen. He was all right, too, nice sort. Then he ups and gets killed in a pile-up on the M4.”

She paused a moment, let out a long breath and a cloud of smoke. “Tandy was finishing up at University, and already had a job. My mother dragged me off to Sussex for Christ’s sake. Tandy made some tries at keeping up a kind of relationship, but the stone bitch wasn’t interested. I moved back to London first chance, but I was in a phase, you know? Mostly interested in piss-ups and getting laid. I didn’t want the big sister deal, especially with one who was bog standard while I was busy shagging wankers and gits. Cocking up right and left. I’d see her now and again, if she cornered me.”

She drew deep on the cigarette. “Even when I got myself a decent job and eased back some, we just didn’t have much in common. I saw her last spring, it was. She rang me up, said she needed to talk to me.”

“And you talked about?”

“We didn’t, not really. I knew she was wound up about something, and thought she’d probably got herself engaged, or got a bloody promotion, again. I acted a pillock because the bloke I’d been seeing turned into a berk and dumped me for some bit of fluff. And bollocks to him. I just met her for coffee and had a right go at her and buggered off. Bloody hell.”

It was a challenge, but Eve thought she’d picked her way through the foreign slang and idioms to the meat of it. “No contact after?”

“Well, I felt a right arse, didn’t I? A couple weeks later, I did penance and went by her flat, but she’d moved. All they said was she’d moved, maybe to Paris. It pissed me off that she didn’t let me know where she’d gone but there was bugger all I could do about it. She’s having a baby?”

“That’s right. Do you know Aaron?”

“Met him a couple of times. They were all but shacked up. Is he there in New York with her?”

“Not to my knowledge. Do you have his full name, a contact number or address?”

“Aaron Applebee, in Chelsea, I think. He’s a writer forThe Times. You telling me that git got her up the duff, then turned her out?”