She shook her head, sipped the cold coffee, continued to stare out the window into the dark. But she knew if she didn't rid herself of it, it could fester. "When you were gone," she began, "I had a dream. A bad one. He wasn't dead. He was covered with blood, but he wasn't dead. He talked to me. He said I'd never kill him, never get away."
She saw Roarke's reflection in the glass, saw her own merging with it. "He had to punish me. He got up. Blood was pouring out of him, but he stood up. And he came for me."
"He is dead, Eve." Roarke took the cup out of her hand, set it aside, then turned her to face him. "He can't hurt you. Except in dreams."
"He said to remember what he'd told me, but I can't. I don't know what he meant. But I asked him why he hurt me. He said because I was nothing and no one, but most of all he hurt me because he could. I can't seem to take that power away from him. Even now I can't."
"You diminish him every time you stand for a victim. Maybe the further away you get from him in reality, the harder it is to pull back in dreams. I don't know." He skimmed his fingers through her hair. "Will you talk to Mira?"
"I don't know. No," she corrected. "She can't tell me anything I don't know."
Are ready to know,Roarke thought, and let it be.
"Anyway, I need her for a consult on the murders."
"Another?"
"Yeah. So I've got to put more hours in."
"Was it the same man?"
She didn't answer, but wandered back into her office. She didn't want the coffee after all. Instead she kept moving, let it all play through her head as she gave him the basic details of the second murder.
"If there's a local source for the illegals used, I could track it for you."
She looked at him, elegant in his dark business suit. It didn't pay to forget there was a dangerous man inside it, one who had once trafficked with other dangerous men.
Roarke Industries might have been the most powerful conglomerate in the world, but it had been born, like its owner, in the dark alleys and grim streets of Dublin's slums.
"I don't want you to do that," she told him. "Not yet. If Charles and Feeney both crap out, I may tag you. But I'd as soon you didn't make a connection with that particular area."
"My connection would be no different than yours, only quicker."
"Yeah, it's different. I'm the one with a badge. You know a lot of women."
"Lieutenant. That portion of my past is a closed book."
"Yeah, right. What I'm saying is, in my experience, most guys generally go for a type. Maybe they like brainy women, or subservient women, or jocks, whatever."
He moved in on her. "What type do you suppose I go for?"
"You just scooped them up as they fell at your feet, so you went for the variety pack."
"I definitely don't recall you falling at my feet."
"And don't hold your breath on that one. You don't count so much because you'd never have to go fishing in the cyber-pool for a date or sex or anything."
"You're not making that sound complimentary."
"But what I'm saying is, people generally have expectations, or fantasy types. Date number one. Savvy, sophisticated, urban female with a romantic bent. Slick dresser, sharp looker. Snappy apartment, sexually active when she can get it. Outgoing, friendly. She likes fashion, poetry, and music. Spends her money on clothes, good restaurants, salons. May or may not be looking for Mr. Right, but would really enjoy a Mr. Right Now."
"And," Roarke put in, "is adventurous enough to audition a candidate over drinks."
"Exactly. Date number two, solid middle-class suburban background. Shy, quiet, intellectual. Hoards what money she has to buy books, pay the rent on an efficiency apartment. Rarely eats out, and spends fifteen or twenty minutes every morning with a female neighbor old enough to be her grandmother. She has no other close friends in the city. She's very young and still a virgin. She's looking for a soul mate. The one man she's saved herself for."
"And is naive enough to believe she's found him without ever having met him."
"One is introverted, the other extroverted. Physically they are nothing alike. In the first case, the murder appeared to have been unplanned, and the killer panicked. There were no signs of violence on the body that were inflicted pre-mortem. Sexual activity was vaginal only."
She picked up a disc from her file, slid it into her computer. "In the second case, the murder appeared to have been premeditated, and the killer was deliberate in the execution. There were signs of violence, bruises, small bites. The victim was repeatedly and roughly raped, and sodomized. It could be theorized that he became… encouraged, aroused, intrigued by the first murder and decided to have the experience again, purposefully, more aggressively this time as the act excited him."
With a nod, Roarke walked over to stand with her. "It could be."
"Image on wall screen," Eve ordered. "I've done a split screen with the security cam feed from the entrance of each victim's building. That's Bankhead on the right. We know the killer is wearing a wig, face putty, and makeup. With this look he goes by the name Dante. On the left is Lutz, and there he goes by Dorian. The face jobs are good. Body type, height, more or less the same. Each can be altered easily enough – lifts, padding in the shoulders."
She'd already studied the images, over and over. She knew what she was seeing now.
"Note how Dante holds her hand, kisses her fingers, holds the door open for her. The perfect dream date. Dorian's got his arm around her waist. She's looking up at him, starry-eyed as they approach the door. He's not looking at her, no eye contact. It doesn't matter to him who she is. She's already dead."
She switched images. "Here, Dante's coming out. You can see the panic, the sweat. Christ, he's thinking, how did this happen? How will I get out of it? But you see here, the exit from Grace's place. The way he strolls out, almost a swagger, the way he looks back and smirks. He's thinking: That was fun. When can I do it again?"
"The first theory would hold," Roarke commented. "He's building confidence and need and pleasure. A second would be he has different personalities for different looks, for different women. But you've a third theory." Roarke looked away from the screen, looked at Eve. "You think you're after two men."
"Maybe it's too simple. Maybe it's what he wants me to think." She sat, stared at the split screen again. "I can't get inside him. I ran a probability on two killers. It came in just over forty-three percent."
"Computers don't have instincts." He came over to sit on the edge of the desk. "What do you see?"
"Different body language, different styles, different types. But it could be role-playing. Maybe he's an actor. Drinks at an expensive, romantic location, then the return to the victim's apartment. He doesn't dirty his own nest. Candles, wine, music, roses. So he uses the same staging. I haven't got the results back on DNA, but the sweepers didn't find any fingerprints but the victim's and her neighbor's in Grace Lutz's apartment. Not on the wine bottle or the glasses, and not on her body. He sealed this time. Why is that, when he knew we'd have prints from the first murder?"
"If there are two – in reality or by personality split – they know each other intimately. Brothers of a sort," Roarke said when Eve looked over. "Partners. And this is a game."
"And they'd keep score. One each. They'd need a tiebreaker. I'm going to set up here to monitor some of the chat rooms where one of the screen names popped before."
"Do it from my office. My equipment's faster, and there's more of it. Plus," he added, knowing she was trying to think of a reason to refuse, "I can give you the list of the wine purchases."
"Can you cross-reference that with purchases of Castillo di Vechio Cabernet, forty-three?"
"I can," he agreed, pulling her to her feet. "If somebody keeps me company and has a glass of wine with me."