“Didn’t appear to be, and that’s troubling. But it fits for me.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s like a diary, but not. Just observations, thoughts, little poems. She mentions bad dreams, headaches, memory blanks. Sleepwalking.”
“Like Darlene.”
“‘The Mad Hatter and the March Hare hold their tea parties, but the tea is blood. The Dormouse sits in the corner, counting the money.’ What’s a dormouse?”
“I don’t know, exactly. It’s another character in the story.”
“Figured. And here, the last thing she wrote. ‘Day and night, darkness bright, he has the sight and feeds it on their sorrow. Bright and mad, deceiving sad, take what they had and bring them death tomorrow.’”
Eve glanced up. “Then she writes ‘WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER?’ in all caps, and circles it again and again.”
“So he used her, probably to solicit rich clients—the dormouse counting the money—and somehow blocked her memory of it.”
“Something like that,” Eve agreed. “But the keys here are ‘he.’ So it’s a man, like Mira predicted, and more, there are three. If we take this literally. Mad Hatter, March Hare, Dormouse. Three of them working this.”
“It’s weird to the mega. Where do you want me to start?”
“Take the kitchen,” Eve told her as the morgue team did their work. “We’re going to send samples of any tea, coffee, herbs—hell, pretty much any consumables. And we’ll get the sweepers in here, in case there’s anything.”
McNab, who could’ve passed for a weird psychic in his sunburst shirt and the hip-swinging vest covered with neon blue stars, came to the doorway, then sidestepped for the morgue team and body bag.
“We may have something.”
“What something?” Eve demanded.
“We found a memo cube in the room across the hall. A recording. Roarke says it’s your vic’s voice. It’s weird, like she was in a trance.”
Eve nudged by him and went into the room where Roarke stood working his PPC.
“Her circle of light,” he said.
“Yeah, I saw that. This cube?”
When he nodded, she picked it up and activated it.
“In my circle the door is closed. Nothing passes through. Safe and quiet mind, safe and quiet mind. Too much blood! Too much. What have I done? Help me see. Blue smoke, blue light. Too many voices. Quiet, be still.”
Just breathing now, long, deep, a shuddering breath, and more steady ones.
“Blue smoke, blue light. See through it. See true. Bright, bright, bright. Not true. A lie, another lie. I am not weak.”
Weeping now, the words thick with tears.
“I found my strength after the lies. These are just more. I didn’t see. I didn’t know. Bright. It hurts to see. It hurts to know. Blood on my hands. So much blood. Bright blood. A lie, see through the lie to truth. Simon. Zacari. Roland. Carroll, and more and more. One truth in the lies. Where is the truth? All are death. That is the truth.
“Now rest, just rest, mind, body, spirit. Know his truth is death, and don’t follow.”
“Peabody, run those names and all combinations. Simon, Zacari, Roland, Carroll—add bright into them. She says bright too often for it not to mean something.”
“I already am.” Roarke continued to work his PPC. “Give us a few minutes here, it’s a dicey job on a handheld.”
“McNab, tag Feeney. Let him know we need the lab. It’ll go faster at Central.”
“Considerably,” Roarke agreed.
“We’ll load up her electronics, take them with us. Let’s move. Peabody, let Dawson know the sweepers need to send samples of anything she’d have consumed to the lab. Officer . . .” She read the name tag of the uniform on the door. “Kinsey. Hold here for the sweepers.”
“Yes, sir.”
They hauled down Dupres’s tablets, ’links, desk comp.
“Roarke, narrow the search, crossing the names with psychic and/or medium work and licenses.”
“I didn’t just come down in the last shower of rain,” he replied, and slid into the passenger seat.
“What does that even mean?” She gauged the traffic, cursed it, then shot away from the curb. She felt the first real crack in the case, needed to widen it—and snarled at the fat, sticky knot of vehicles in her way.
“I’m going in hot,” she announced, hitting lights and sirens.
In the back, Peabody said, “Oh boy,” and clamped her hand on McNab’s. Focused on the work, Roarke simply tightened his seat belt without glancing up.
“I might have something on Zacari. One Anton Zacari, lived and worked as a spiritual consultant in Prague from 2049 to 2052. Closed up shop, relocated to Kashmir.”
“Where?”
“Himalayas, darling. And there he went missing on a mountain trek, and is presumed dead.”
“The dead don’t kill.” Judging an opening, she punched for more speed. “Got an image of him?”
“I do. Age forty-eight when he dropped off the grid. No marriage, no co-habs, no criminal. Hmmm.”
“Try an image match with the other names,” she began, then caught his quiet stare as she hit a fast vertical to circumvent vehicles that wouldn’t get the hell out of her way. “Fine. If you’re so damn smart, why aren’t you a cop?”
“You’ve just answered your own question. Image matches will go smoother and faster in the lab, but I’ve got something here on Roland. Angus Roland, spiritualist, Edinburgh, 2045 to 2048. Relocated to Istanbul, where he drowned in a boating incident in the Sea of Marmara. Body never recovered. Isn’t that interesting?”
“It’s bollocks, that’s what it is. Image?”
“At a glance, no match, but . . . with a bit of work. Ages are wrong by a few years, but only a few.”
“Changes appearance and ID, fakes death after a relocation. The world’s his sick playground.” Eve ignored the wide eyes of a pedestrian foolish enough to try to beat the sirens, swung hard to miss said idiot, then zipped back to avoid a collision with an oncoming Rapid Cab.
“Stop muttering, Peabody,” Eve ordered.
“She’s praying, Dallas.” She caught McNab’s grin in the rearview. “This is some wicked ride.”
She hit vertical again, did a kind of midair, two-wheeler turn to take the corner tight enough to have the glida-cart operator doing business on it scramble back.
“Wasn’t that close,” Eve said under her breath. “Glorified grifter, that’s what he is. If the other names don’t run the same, I’ll kiss McNab’s bony white ass.”
From the backseat, McNab snickered. “How can I lose?”
The comment pulled a reluctant laugh out of Eve as she arrowed toward Central’s garage. And with a scream of tires and a squeal of brakes, she shot into her slot.
“Thank you, Jesus, Buddha, and the goddess Morgana.” On shaky knees, Peabody climbed out. “I covered my bets.”
“Lab.” Eve doubled-timed it to the elevator. “Three or four years in one location. How long’s he been in New York? How long does he stay after he scores?”
She rode up to her level, cops and staff and civilians clambering on and off. “I need five in my office.” She bulled her way off. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“She needs to put Dupres on her board,” Roarke commented. “Acknowledgment.”
“We’ll get him.” Since Eve wasn’t there, McNab wound his arm around Peabody’s shoulders, gave her a squeeze. “On the scent now.”
When they got off and turned toward the lab, e-geek Callendar crossed paths. She wore a hat with snowmen dancing around the brim and a scarf of purple, yellow, and green in lightning bolt stripes—both courtesy of Peabody’s talent with yarn.