by J. D. Robb
“I knew you’d want it, and probably need it,” Mira said as she offered a cup. “It’s station house, but it’s coffee.”
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t check the media reports this morning. Thank you,” Celina said to Mira, and took the tea. “I wanted to hear it from you. I’ve cried all over Dr. Mira and gotten the worst of it out. I won’t break down again. But first, I want to tell you. I never even considered that he’d be out . . . that he’d hurt anyone last night. I was so damn tired, Dallas, and I wanted to get a good night’s sleep before my appointment this morning. I just wanted to close everything out, so I took a couple of tranqs.”
“That sort of thing block visions?”
“It can.” Celina glanced toward Mira, got a nod. “The drug suppresses. I might have seen something, but I’d have been under so deep I wouldn’t know. Hypnosis could bring it out. Just as it could lower the blocks on the others, so I would see in more detail. See what I hadn’t allowed myself to see.”
“Quite possibly,” Mira confirmed. “Just as it can take a witness to an event back to the event, and bring more details, focus them in, through the practitioner’s direction, to specifics. The things you see,” she continued, “that you don’t consciously recall.”
“I get that,” Eve said. “When can you do it?”
“We haven’t done the physical exam as yet. If I don’t find any problems, we could begin the sessions tomorrow.”
“Sessions? Tomorrow?”
“It will almost certainly take more than one, Eve. And I prefer to wait twenty-four hours, to make certain the drugs are completely out of Celina’s system, and that she’s settled emotionally.”
“Can’t we start sooner? I’ll meditate and cleanse. I’d like to start as soon as possible. I feel . . .”
“Responsible,” Mira finished. “You feel responsible for the woman who was killed last night. But you’re not.”
“If she clears the physical, does the meditation thing, can you go sooner?”
Mira looked at Eve, sighed, then rose to check her calendar. “We could begin at four-thirty today. You may not get your answers, Eve. It depends on how receptive Celina is to the technique, and how much she actually saw and can bring back.”
“Will you be here?” Celina asked her.
Don’t depend on me, Eve wanted to say. Don’t look at me as your anchor. “If I can. I’ve got a line I’ve got to follow, and a lot of routine to deal with on the latest victim.”
“If you can.”
“Anything I should know?” Mira came back to sit. “As applies to profile?”
“Close to the same pattern. It looks like this Annalisa Sommers was cutting through—”
She broke off as Celina’s tea cup shattered on the floor.
“Annalisa?” She pressed her hands down as if to push herself from the chair, then simply fell back again. “Annalisa Sommers? Oh, dear God.”
“You knew her.”
“Maybe it’s someone else, with the same name. Maybe it’s . . . of course, it’s not. This is why. This has to be why I’m linked to this.” She stared down at the broken china. “I’m sorry.”
“No, sit still. Don’t worry.” Mira crouched down, laid a comforting hand on Celina’s knee before picking up the shattered pieces. “Was she your friend?”
“No. I mean, not really.” She pressed her hands to her temples. “I knew her a little. I liked her. You had to like her, she was so bright and full of life.” She dropped her hands, and her eyes went huge and dark. “Lucas. Oh, my God, Lucas. He must be out of his mind. Does he know?” She reached out, grabbed Eve’s hand. “Does he know what happened?”
“I’ve talked to him.”
“I didn’t think it could get worse, but it can. It does when it’s someone you know. Why would she be in the park?” She thumped a fisted hand on her leg. “Why would any woman go near a park now? After what’s already happened?”
“Because people do what they do. How did you know her?” Eve asked.
“Through Lucas.” She accepted the tissue Mira gave her, stared at them as if unaware tears were sliding down her cheeks. “Lucas and I were involved. We lived together for a long time.”
“Right.” Eve nodded. “He’s your ex.”
“My ex-lover, yes, but not my ex-friend. It wasn’t a nasty breakup. We just drifted apart, and moved on. We cared about each other, very much, but we weren’t in love anymore.” Finally, she pressed the tissue to her eyes. “We’ve kept in touch. We even see each other now and again for lunch, for a drink.”
“For sex?”
She lowered her hands, slowly. “No. I suppose you have to ask something like that. No, we weren’t intimate anymore. And some months ago, almost a year ago, I think, he and Annalisa began seeing each other. I know, because I could see it, and because he told me, it was serious between them. They were happy together, and I was happy for them.”
“Broad-minded of you.”
“Oh, for—” She broke off, swallowed whatever angry remark she’d been about to make. Took a calming breath. “Haven’t you ever had someone in your life you loved, then you didn’t—not in the same way?”
“No.”
Celina gave a kind of sobbing laugh. “Well, people do, Dallas. And still manage to care about each other. Lucas is a good man. He must be devastated.”
“He is.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Should I go see him? No, not now, not yet. My being part of this would only make it worse, for everyone. Can we start sooner?” She reached for Mira again. “Couldn’t we start right after the physical?”
“No. You need this time, particularly now. If you want to help, you need to take this time.”
“I’m going to help.” She balled her hands again. “I’m going to see his face. I swear it. When I do. . . .” Her eyes burned as they lifted to Eve’s. “When I do, you’ll find him. You’ll stop him.”
“I’ll stop him.”
Chapter 16
“She knew the vic?” sympathy rippled over Peabody’s face. “Lucas, Lucas Grande, her ex. Didn’t click before. Man, that’s got to be rough. Especially rough. Must’ve been the trigger all along. It’s the kind of logic in paranormal elements.”
“You can’t use logic and paranormal in the same sentence.”
“Sure you can, oh stubbornly grounded one.”
They were going to check out shoes, Eve thought. That was logical.
“When can I drive the new ride?”
“When you learn that a yellow light means haul ass to get through it before it turns red instead of slowing down to a crawl a half a block away.”
“You force me to point out that you drive offensively rather than de-fensively.”
“Damn straight. You drive like one of those prissy ladies at lunch who won’t take the last cookie in case somebody else wants it. No, please, please,” Eve said in a high, satisfyingly prissy voice, “you go ahead. Hell with that. I want the cookie, I eat the cookie. Now, give me a for instance and stop sulking.”
“I get thirty seconds of sulk time when my driving abilities have been so brutally and unjustly insulted. Besides, taking the last cookie is rude.”
“And you and your prissy lady pals end up letting the waiter chow down on it after he takes the plate back to the kitchen.”
With a huff, Peabody folded her arms over her chest because she realized that was probably true. And there were many cookies she’d missed due to manners. “For instance what?”
“Say you’re shacked up with this guy.”
Her mood lifted instantly. “I am shacked up with a guy,” she said proudly.
“Peabody.”
“Yeah, yeah, this is a hypothetical.” She sulked a little more as Eve plowed through a yellow light. “Is he really cute and sexy, and does he bring me cookies and let me eat the last one to show his love and devotion?”
“Whatever. So you and this guy call it off.”
“Aw. I don’t like this pa
rt.”
“Who does?”
“Was it because I ate all those cookies and my ass got fat?”
“Peabody!”
“Okay, okay. Sir. I’m just trying to understand the motivation. Like who called it off, and why, and . . . never mind,” she said when she saw Eve bare her teeth.
“You call it off, go your separate ways. You still pals?”
“Maybe. Depends. Don’t bite through my jugular or anything, because it really does. Did the breakup involve calling each other unflattering names and hurling small, breakable objects, or was it sad, yet reasonable, a mutual decision. See?”
Eve didn’t see it, but stayed the course. “No, but we’ll say, for this case, it was sad, yet reasonable. So later this guy hooks up with another skirt. How would you feel about that?”
“Depends again. Am I hooked up with a guy? Is the other woman thinner than me, or better looking, or rich or something? Does she have perkier boobs? These factors play in.”
“Goddamn it, why does it have to be so complicated?”
“Because it is.”
“No, you’re with the guy, then you’re not, then he’s with somebody else. Simple, straightforward. Are you all chummy?”
“Okay, let’s see. I was hot for this guy before I moved to New York. We weren’t cohabbing, but we were pretty involved. Stuck together, in every sense, for nearly a year. Then it fizzled. I wasn’t wrecked or anything, but I was pretty, well, moony for a while. You get over it, though. We stayed friendly, you could say, and I used to see him around.”
“Is this going to take much longer? Will I need a hit of Stay-Up to get through the rest?”
“You asked. Anyway, he hooked up with this skinny blonde with big tits. IQ of a rabbit, but hey, his choice, right? I felt a little pissy about it, but I got over that, too. Maybe, in some dark recesses of my soul, I wouldn’t mind so much if he got a mild case of genital warts, but his dick doesn’t have to actually fall off or anything. And if me and McNab ever take a spin out West, I can show him—McNab—off. And so there. No big.”
She waited a beat. “Still awake?”
“Barely.”
“If you’re thinking Celina’s got some mojo vengeance thing going because of Grande and Sommers, I don’t see it. Doesn’t work that way anyhow.”
“What doesn’t work that way? You just said depends about six million times.”
“The psychic angle doesn’t work that way. It’s not like she could put a spell on some guy, have him go around whacking women and make sure one of them was Sommers. Second, she came to us. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have made a blip on the investigative radar when Sommers got dead. Third, all evidence points to the fact that Sommers went into the park voluntarily and alone. Then there’s the profile. Guy’s a loner, a woman hater, and a predator.”
“You’re right, all the way down the line. I guess I don’t like paranormal logic, which smacks mightily of coincidence.”
“I think there’s another factor working in your head.”
Eve said nothing for a long moment. “Okay. I don’t like the whole setup. Depending on psychic visions or hypnosis. And I don’t like Sanchez depending on me to bolster her up or hold her hand.”
“No more room at the Dallas Inn for another friend?”
“Full up. Maybe if one of you moved off planet or met with a tragic accident I could juggle another one in.”
“Come on. You like her.”
“Yeah, so what? Do we have to be pals just because I like her? Does that mean we have to start hanging? Am I supposed to give her the last damn cookie now?”
Peabody laughed, patted Eve’s arm. “There, there. You’ll get through this trial. You had a good time last night.”
Now Eve wanted to sulk, but she put her energy into scouting for a parking space. “Yeah, yeah. And don’t think I don’t know how this stuff works. Now we have to have everybody over to our place. Then you’re going to have to have us over to yours, and—”
“We’re already planning on having a housewarming party.”
“See? See?” She zipped, with a deliberate recklessness she knew would have Peabody’s heart stuffed into her throat, up to a second level, curbside. “It never ends. Once you start, you can’t get off the friendship ride. You just keep circling around and around and around, with more people trying to cram on. Now I have to buy you a goddamn present just because you’re shacked up in a new place.”
“We could really use some nice wineglasses.” She was laughing as she climbed out of the car. “You know, Dallas, you’re pretty lucky in your friends, of which I am one. They’re smart and fun and loyal. And diverse. I mean, could Mavis and Mira be any more different? But they both love you. Then the chilly thing happens, and your friends get to be friends.”
“Yeah, and they go out and make other ones, and I get stuck with somebody like Trina.” Self-consciously, she ran a hand over the back of her hair.
“She’s unique.” They walked down to street level. “And you’ve got a man like Roarke, so you’ll never lack for cookies.”
Eve blew out a breath. “Wineglasses?”
“We don’t have any nice ones, like for company.”
Eve had felt more at home in Jim’s Gym than she did in the high-end clothing store for the discerning king-sized man.
The shop was three floors: the main with one up and one down. Since the one down dealt with foot apparel—couldn’t they just call it shoes and socks?—they headed down.
It seemed, she discovered, foot apparel didn’t just mean shoes and socks. It included house slippers, boots, something called leg slickers—with or without belly control panels. There were shoe protectors, shoe boxes, heating inserts, foot and ankle jewelry, and any number of products that dealt with foot care or decoration.
Who knew there was so much involved dealing with a guy’s feet?
The salesman she approached gave her the usual hem and haw before striding off to contact the store manager.
Eve zeroed in on the shoes in question while she waited.
Sturdy, she decided, hefting one. Practical and efficient, and well made from the look of it. She wouldn’t mind having a pair herself.
“Madam?”
“Lieutenant,” she corrected and turned with the shoe in hand. And had to take a step back, angle her head up to make eye contact.
He was seven feet if he was an inch, and skinny as the beanpoles she’d seen in Greenpeace Park. His skin was dark as a new moon so that the whites of his eyes, his teeth, gleamed like ice. As she gave him the once-over, his mouth quirked in a little smile that told her he was used to it.
“Madam Lieutenant,” he said, very smoothly. “I’m Kurt Richards, the store manager.”
“Power forward?”
He seemed pleased. “Yes. For the Knicks once upon a time. Most people automatically ask if I played basketball, but rarely guess the position.”
“I don’t get the chance to follow much round ball. I bet you moved over the boards.”
“I like to think so. I’ve been retired nearly eight years now. It’s a young man’s game, as most are.” He took the shoe from her. His palms were so wide, his fingers so long, it no longer looked outsized. “And you’re interested in the Mikon Avalanche?”
“I’m interested in your customer list for purchases of this model in size fifteen.”
“You’d be Homicide.”
“You’re good at guessing positions, too.”
“I saw a clip of yesterday’s media conference, so have to assume this has to do with the Park Murders.”
“That what they’re calling them?”
“In large, red letters, yes.” Lips pursed, he turned the shoe over in his hand, studied it. “You’re looking for a man who wears this particular model in that particular size?”
“It would be of help to me if I could have your customer list for those specifics.”
“I’d be happy to be of help.” He replaced the shoe on its stand.
> “And the names of any employees who purchased same.”
That stopped him. “Well. I’m going to consider myself fortunate that I wear a seventeen in footgear. Would you like to come up to my office while I get that data for you, or browse the store?”
“We’ll come up. Peabody—”
She broke off, frowning as she scanned the area and spotted Peabody with a handful of colorful socks. “For God’s sake, Detective!”
“Sorry. Sorry.” She hustled over. “Ah, my brother and my grandfather. Both big feet. I just figured . . .”
“No problem.” Richards gestured to a clerk. “I’ll have them rung up and boxed for you. You can pick them up at the main-level counter on your way out.”
“You know, Christmas isn’t that far away.” With the business done, Peabody scrambled out of the store, purchases in hand, behind Eve.
“Oh please.”
“Really. Time zips, and if you pick up stuff when you see it, you don’t get that holiday crazy look in your eyes. Besides, these are really nice socks, and they were on sale. Where are we going? The car’s—”
“We’re walking. Next stop’s only six or seven blocks. Hike’ll do your ass good.”
“I knew it looked fat in these pants.” Then she stopped, squinted at Eve. “You just said that to pay me back for buying the socks. Right?”
“You’ll just never know, will you?” She kept walking, digging out her communicator when it signaled. “Dallas.”
“Got your first matches,” Feeney said over a mouthful of nuts. “We’re starting the next level, eliminating females, families, and those outside the profile parameters.”
She wound and swerved through foot traffic. “Shoot the initial matches to my office unit, in case I need to backtrack. Appreciate the rush job, Feeney.”
“My boys put in the time.”
“How about the discs from Transit?”
“Slow going there. No promises.”
“Okay. Lab ID’d the shoe. I’ve got a customer list from the first outlet. I’ll send it to you. You get a bang from that, I need to know ASAP.”
“On that. How many outlets altogether?”
“Too many, but we’ll knock them down.”
