"Just hold on." Feeney ordered the function, then pursed his lips. "Got a problem here."
"What? What's wrong with it?"
"Meld prints on screen," he ordered, then sighed as the points and valleys clashed. "They don't match, Dallas. They aren't even close. You got two different voices here."
"Shit." She tunneled her fingers through her hair. Because she could see it for herself, her stomach started to burn. "Let me think. Okay, what if he used a distorter on his end of the 'link?"
"He could mess it up a little, but I'd still get match points. Best I can do is ran a scan, search for any electronic masking, clean it out if I find it. But I've seen enough of these to know when I'm looking at two different guys."
He sighed and sent her one of his mournful looks. "Sorry, Dallas. This sets things back a ways."
"Yeah." She rubbed her eyes. "Run the scan anyway, will you, Feeney? How about the feature-by-feature from the videos?"
"It's coming – coming slow. I can run Rudy's ear shape, eye shape against it."
"Let's go that route, too. I'm going to check with Mira, see if the profile's done."
To save herself time, Eve called Mira's office. The doctor was gone for the day, but a preliminary report had been transmitted to Eve's office 'link. She headed over, trying to pick apart the voice prints as she went.
The guy was smart, she mused. Maybe he'd figured on a voice print analysis. Anticipated it and found a way around it. What if he'd had someone else call the jeweler's?
And that was reaching, she admitted. But it wasn't impossible.
She heard what she would have sworn was a giggle, and stepped inside her office to see Peabody chatting amiably with Charles Monroe.
"Peabody?"
"Sir." Peabody sprang instantly to her feet and to attention. "Charles, ah, Mr. Monroe has some… wanted to…"
"Restrain your hormones, Officer. Charles?"
"Dallas." He smiled, rising from his seat on the arm of her one pathetic chair. "Your aide kept me company, charmingly, while I waited for you."
"I bet. What's the deal?"
"It might be nothing, but – " He shrugged. "One of the women from my match list got in touch a couple of hours ago. It seems her date for a jaunt upstate this weekend hit a snag. She thought I might like to substitute, though we didn't really connect before."
"That's fascinating, Charles." Impatient to get on with her work, Eve dropped into a chair. "But I don't feel qualified to give you advice on your social life."
"I can handle that on my own." As if to prove it, he winked at Peabody and had her going rosy pink with pleasure. "I was toying with the idea of taking her up on it, but knowing how things can go, I chatted her up awhile to get a feel for it."
"Is there a point to this?"
He leaned forward. "I like my moment in the sun, Lieutenant Sugar." Both of them ignored Peabody's gasping snort at the term. "She started unloading. She'd had a big bustup with the guy she'd been seeing. Dumped all the crap on me. She caught him cheating on her with some redhead. Then she tells me how he thought he could make up for it by having Santa bring her a present last night."
Eve sat up slowly, and now her attention focused in. "Keep going."
"I thought that would do it." With satisfaction, Charles leaned back. "She says the doorbell rings about ten last night, and when she looks out there's Santa with a big silver box." He shook his head. "I have to tell you, with what I knew, my heart just about stopped. But she's rambling on about how she wouldn't give the cheating bastard the satisfaction of opening the door. She didn't want his pitiful makeup gift."
"She didn't let him in," Eve murmured.
"And I figure that was why she was alive to call me and bitch."
"You happen to know what she does for a living?"
"She's a dancer. Ballet."
"Yeah, that works," Eve murmured. "I need a name and address. Peabody?"
"Ready."
"Cheryl Zapatta, she's on West Twenty-eighth. That's all I've got."
"We'll find her."
"Look, I don't know if I did the right thing, but I told her. Your one-on-one with Nadine Furst had just run, so I figured it was out. I told her to turn on her screen, and I filled her in." He blew out a breath. "She panicked. Big time. Said she was getting out. I don't know if you're going to find her for a while."
"If she's scrambled, we can get an order to enter and search. You did the right thing, Charles," Eve said after a moment. "If she hadn't heard the report, she might have had a change of heart and opened the door the next time. I appreciate you coming in."
"Anything for you, Lieutenant Sugar." He got to his feet. "Can you let me know what happens?"
"Watch your screen," Eve advised.
"Yeah. Uh, would you mind showing me the way out, Officer?" He sent a killer smile at Peabody. "I'm a little turned around."
"Sure. Lieutenant?"
"Go ahead." Eve waved them away, then dived into Mira's report. Engrossed and frustrated, she didn't notice that it took Peabody twenty minutes to show Charles to his choice of people glide or elevator.
"She's cleared the son of a bitch." Eve sat back, scrubbing her face over her hands when Peabody came back in. "I've got nothing to hang on him."
"Rudy?"
"His personality index doesn't fit the profile. His capacity for physical violence runs low on the scale. He's devious, intelligent, obsessive, possessive, and sexually limited, but in the doctor's opinion, he isn't our man. Damn it. His lawyer gets a copy of this, I won't be able to touch the little creep."
"Are you still looking at him for it?"
"I don't know what I'm looking at." She tried to keep her head and her temper clear. "We go back and we start over. From the beginning. We re-interview, starting with the first victim."
At eight forty-five, Eve charged up the steps. She was already irked, as Summerset had greeted her in the foyer with his bilious stare and the comment that she had precisely fifteen minutes to make herself presentable before guests began to arrive.
It didn't help to race into the bedroom and find Roarke showered and dressing. "I'll make it," she blurted out and dashed into the bath.
"It's a party, darling, not an endurance test." He wandered in behind her, mainly for the pleasure of watching her strip. "Take your time."
"Yeah, like I'm going to walk in late and give that butt-face another reason to complain about me. Shower, all heads full, one-oh-one degrees."
"You aren't required to meet Summerset's approval." He leaned idly against the wall to watch her. She showered as she did nearly everything: quickly and efficiently, no wasted time or moves. "In any case, people traditionally arrive late for affairs like this."
"I'm just running a little behind." She hissed as shampoo ran into her eyes and stung. "I lost my prime suspect, and I'm starting from scratch." She sprang out, took a step toward the drying tube, then stopped. "Shit, am I supposed to put that glop on my hair when it's wet or when it's dry?"
Having a fairly good idea which glop she referred to, Roarke plucked a tube from the shelf and poured a dab in his palm. "Here, allow me."
The way his hands moved through her hair made her want to purr, but she eyed him narrowly. "Don't mess with me, pal. I don't have time for you."
"I have no idea what you mean." Enjoying himself, he chose another tube and poured a generous pool of body lotion into his hands. "I'm simply helping you get ready," he began as he slid his slickened hands over her shoulders, her breasts. "Since you seem frazzled."
"Look – " Then she closed her eyes and sighed when his hands slithered down to her waist, slipped over her butt. "I think you missed a spot."
"Careless of me." He lowered his head, sniffed at her throat. And bit. "Want to be very, very late?"
"Yeah. But I'm not going to." She wiggled away and leaped into the drying tube. "But don't forget where you left off."
"A pity you didn't get here twenty minutes ago." Having decided that watching her wasn't going to help his blood cool, he strolled back into the bedroom.