“This guy doesn’t have any of that in him. When I saw Stella, recognized her—”
“Eve.”
“No, no guilt here. I would never have forgiven her, and never have reconnected. But I didn’t wish her dead. I live with death, work with it, and I don’t wish it on anyone. This guy? He has to kill. He kills what … disappoints him again.”
She tilted her head, narrowed her eyes. “He sees, he imagines and needs, so he plans. Every step. It takes time and patience—and money, too. He has to make an investment. He watches, waits, and he takes.”
She sipped coffee. “He doesn’t physically or sexually assault—that would be … disrespectful, unseemly? They must beg him to let them go—it’s human nature. And that’s going to piss him off.”
“Why?”
“A mother wants to be with her child. This hurts his feelings—but he doesn’t strike out at them. It’s why he needs more than one. One of them will understand. One of them will become, and stay and love him.”
“He can make them like her—physically,” Roarke put in. “The tattoo, the piercings.”
“That’s right, and that’s important, but he can’t change who they are, or make them who they aren’t. So, he’ll end up disappointed again.”
She shifted her gaze from the board to his.
“But under it all, Roarke, he doesn’t forgive her for what she did or what he perceives she did. So he’ll kill her, and go on killing her.”
“You’ll find him. You’ll stop him.”
“We’ll find him. We’ll stop him. I just don’t know if we will in time to save those two women on the board.”
She worked, and touched base with Peabody, with Reineke. When Roarke found a house on his list with a permit for rehabbing a laundry area, adding a bathroom, she passed it to Reineke and Jenkinson.
“We’d never get a search warrant—way too thin,” she told Roarke, “but we can see how the occupant reacts when asked if a couple of cops can take a look at their basement.”
“At this time of night, said occupant may be less than hospitable.”
She frowned at her wrist unit. “It’s not that late. It’s not even really twenty-three hundred.”
“It’s ten past that.”
“See, not even barely there. And I told them this is the last one tonight. They can hit the others tomorrow. They got to a solid third of the list tonight.”
She rose, walked to the board one more time. “If none of those properties pan out, we’ll have to widen the area. I’m not wrong about the damn house. Okay, okay, what if he has the place, but he didn’t put it in his name? Maybe the mother’s name, or a family name, a place name. A combo.”
“I’ll agree to set up a new search, put it on auto, if you agree to shut it down for the night.”
“I’ll shut it down as soon as Reineke and Jenkinson check back in.”
“Deal.”
At midnight, because a deal was a damn deal, she slid into bed. “I can’t believe I’m obsessing about toilets.”
“It’s a necessity.” Roarke wrapped an arm around her. “As the man Jenkinson and Reineke talked with who had one installed in the basement he’s turned into a media room understands. I wonder if we should add a media room.”
“I like stretching out on the sofa and watching vids in here.”
“As do I. Which is why I’ve gone back and forth on the idea. Now turn off that relentless cop’s brain and sleep.”
In a minute. Or two. “If he comes out to hunt tonight, and the patrols spot him—”
Roarke rolled over on top of her. “I see what needs to be done.”
“Sex isn’t the solution to everything.”
“But it does solve a multitude of problems. Now quiet down,” he said, and closed his mouth over hers.
He went the dreamy route—she knew his ways.
And they worked.
She heard the thump of the cat jumping off the bed, imagined him stalking away in annoyance. Then forgot him as the dreamy spread through her.
Soft and slow, lazy and sweet, Roarke relaxed her muscle by muscle. He found the places, all the places that needed to melt, the places that wanted to ache.
He slid her nightshirt up, inch by inch, over her head and away.
And she was away, with him, body against body, pulse against pulse, mouth against mouth.
He felt her yield, not just to him, but to the moment. The way that relentless cop gave way to the woman who loved. And like her, he yielded to her, to the moment. To the stroke of her hands on his skin, the warmth of her mouth answering his.