The scent of the burger had saliva pooling in her mouth. “A lot of new juice, Feeney. ME’s ruling homicide on McCoy, and I’ve got the gears oiled in Jamaica so Peabody and McNab can haul the evidence back here. Mira says-”
“Go ahead.” Roarke lifted the burger off her plate and to her mouth. “Take a bite. You know you want to.”
“This isn’t the time for a family picnic.”
“Think of it as a combination family and company event.”
“You gotta eat, Dallas,” Feeney told her. “That’s primo cow. You don’t wanna waste it.”
“Fine. Fine.” She bit in. “Mira says-okay, this is really good, and I see absolutely no reason I can’t sit down and eat this while I brief you.”
“Just let me set this on auto, and you can brief both of us.”
She moved to a table, and sitting, gripped the burger in both hands. Even as she took another bite, Roarke was dumping some sort of grilled vegetables on her plate.
“To balance it out,” he told her.
“Whatever.” If he wanted to play as if everything was dandy between them, she could get on board. There was enough inside her head without marriage weirdness. “Okay, here’s how I think it went down, and I need EDD to dig into McCoy’s links and verify. Whoever took her out contacted her. She’s happy and excited enough to take some Sober-Up to counteract the wine she’s been guzzling with her neighbor. She uses birth control. She fixes up the place, and herself.”
“Sounds like someone expecting a hot date, not a girl getting ready to pop termination pills.” Feeney shook his head. “She’s been rolling with Blair Bissel, and Bissel’s dead. You figure she had another guy dangling?”
“Possible. More possible that whoever contacted her made her think one of several options. That he had news on Bissel-the whole thing was a mistake, a cover-up, maybe an operation. He’s going to bring Bissel to her place, for hiding out until it’s safe. Or he made her think he was Bissel.”
“That’d be a trick.”
“Not if you’re the man’s brother. You got a strong resemblance, and you could augment that. You’ve been jealous of the bastard all your life, and here’s your chance to get some young stuff on his back.”
Feeney contemplated the beer he’d brought to the table. “That’s a good one. Damn good one. Had to contact her, though, if she had time to prep herself. We’ll go deep on the ‘links, and put her unit in the mix. If he used e-mail, it’s going to be a bitch to find.”
“That’s your deal. I’m looking at Carter Bissel. He knows what big bro’s been up to. He’s had a side deal going with his trainer. Blair’s working with Kade, and sleeping with her. She knows about McCoy, and about whatever Bissel gave her that was secreted in the locket. There’s a reason that was taken from the scene. McCoy’s a loose thread, and she has to be snipped.”
“I said it’s good, but why not just go in and snip?” Feeney questioned. “Why the big show?”
“Same deal as Ewing. Lots of bells and whistles, lots of show and smoke. He likes to improvise. He’s having fun with this. And maybe because the need for cover seemed to warrant it, maybe for the drama. Maybe both.”
“Follows.” Feeney nodded at Roarke. “I did a good job with her.”
“You did, yes. She’s cop to the bone.”
“Let’s try to stick with the point.” But Eve took a healthy and satisfying bite of burger. “Either way, it’s the same MO under the surface. Kill, and go to considerable lengths to make it seem like what it’s not. Hang the murder on somebody else. Ewing in the first case, McCoy herself in the second.”
“Plays well,” Roarke agreed. “When her killer arrived, however, wouldn’t she question or object if Bissel wasn’t along?”
“He gets inside. Tells her they have to be careful. They need her help. The more theatrical the story, the quicker she’d buy it and go along. All he has to do is talk her into starting a note. Hell, she might’ve written it herself beforehand, just a dramatic sort of touch. He slips the meds into her wine. After she drinks it, all he has to do is lay her out, then walk away.”
“Or”-Eve ate a grilled pepper without thinking about it-”the HSO could’ve staged the whole thing. Gotten in, disabled her. But that doesn’t explain the BC, or the Sober-Up. Whoever killed her didn’t know she’d used either. He’s not as smart as he thinks he is.”
Roarke remembered the young woman clinging tearfully to Eve’s shins in the gallery. It fit. It was just sad enough to fit. “You’re heading back to Bissel’s brother.”
“Yeah, I’m liking the looks of him. He’s been MIA for almost a month. Plenty of time to have a little face work done, make himself look more like his brother.” She polished off her burger, took another drink of beer. “But there’s one more possibility, a little out-there, but interesting.”
“Blair Bissel killed her,” Roarke put in.
“You’re pretty quick for a guy who grills burgers in his spare time.”
“Smoke’s gotten to you two,” Feeney said. “Bissel’s in a cold drawer at the morgue.”
“It looks that way. It probably is that way,” Eve agreed. “But let’s take this into spy vid territory for a minute-which Reva said was one of his hobbies-and which we know was his profession. What if Bissel was playing both sides? Or he was doing a double agent thing with, or without, HSO sanction. They find out Kade’s turned, or he’s just pissed she’s playing with his brother. He sets them up, knocks them down, and handily frames his wife, who he’s done with. He snips McCoy and gets back whatever she was holding for him in the locket.”
“You don’t think somebody as sharp as Morris would see the body didn’t match the ID photo? Even with the couple of bashes in the face, there’s dental. There’s fingerprints. There’s fricking DNA. All of it matches Blair Bissel’s.”
“Yeah, and he’s probably on ice. I said it was out there, and Carter Bissel heads my list. Morris is going to run a scan and see if he had any recent facial surgery. And because, if this is true, it would be another thread, I need you to hit IRCCA, find me a recently deceased face fixer. I’m betting Carter Bissel had work done-either to play Cain or to be tricked into playing Abel. One of the Bissel brothers is alive. We just need to figure out which.”
Eve told herself not to think about what was being done to her. Otherwise, she might scream like a girl. Her hair was plastered to her head with a thick pink goop. A new product according to Trina, guaranteed to add luster, body, and bring out the natural highlights.
None of which, to Eve’s mind, mattered.
Her face and throat were slathered with something green, and sealed with some sort of spray. Before that, her skin had been buffed and scrubbed, examined and critiqued. And not just the skin on her face and throat, Eve thought, still inwardly shuddering, but every inch that covered her body. From the throat down she’d been painted yellow, then sealed with the same spray before having her mortified body wrapped in a heat sheet.
At least she was covered. Small blessings.
She’d quietly turned off the VR goggles Trina had programmed when Trina had given the delighted Mavis her full attention. Eve didn’t want the mindless nature sounds or the soft, swimming colors of the relaxation program.
She might have been naked on a padded table and covered from head to feet in goo. But she was still a cop, and she wanted to think like one.
Back to the victims. It was always back to the victims.
Bissel, Kade, McCoy, with Bissel as the focal point. Who or what stood to gain from their deaths?
The HSO. During the early days of the Urban Wars, the government had formed the arm as a way to protect the country, to police the streets and gather intel covertly from radical factions.
It had done the job. It had been necessary. And over the years since, some said it had morphed into something closer to a legalized terrorist group than a protection and intel operation.