She glanced back at Roarke. "Woman who runs her own public relations firm with that scope, she'd probably need a pretty slick image. Polished, sophisticated."
"It follows."
"Woman has a kid, then after a little scandal in the workplace heads off here and there establishing herself an international company."
"The payoff from McNamara and company must have been considerable."
Eve nodded. "But why'd she go through with the pregnancy? Why have the kid?"
"Perhaps she wanted a child."
"What for? Look at his schooling. She started him full-time at three. All private facilities. Boarding schools. And you can bet your ass someone else was doing the baby thing for the first three years. She didn't found that company while she was changing diapers and carting a kid around."
"Some parents have been known to," Roarke pointed out.
"Beats me how. But if she was into the mother thing, she wouldn't have shipped him off when he was still sucking his thumb."
"I tend to agree with you, though our experience in this particular area's limited. If I were to speculate, I'd wonder if the payoff wasn't linked to her going through with the pregnancy."
"Buy her off, buy the kid," Eve surmised. "It's a continuation of the project in a way. Long-term results. I'm going to have a really fascinating talk with McNamara tomorrow. Look at Morano's educational scope. Very heavy on the computer tech studies. It fits. He's our compu-geek. I need the image from the security discs, Moniqua Cline's file."
Behind her, Roarke did the transfer and display, split screen.
"You got a morph program on there?"
"Yes. I know what you want – one minute." Anticipating her, Roarke sat again, went to work. He started with the hair, copying the killer's bronze mane onto Kevin's unobtrusive brown. He altered the shape of the face, defining cheekbones, lengthening the jaw. Then deepened the skin tone to a sun-washed bronze.
"Magic," Eve noted as the two images mirrored each other. "Won't hold up in court. Lawyers'll tear morph ID to shreds. Even with Moniqua testifying about the name, they can wiggle. She was seriously drugged at the time and so on. But it's him. The eyes are the same. He changed the color, but he couldn't change what's in them. Because what's in them is nothing. Nothing at all. Copy and save imagery. Morano, Kevin, data back on the screen. Who are you, Kevin?"
Morano, Kevin, DOB 4 april, 2037. Hair brown. Eyes blue. Height five foot eleven inches. Weight one hundred fifty. Current residences: New York City, London, England. Employment: Freelance Computer Programmer. Education: Eastbridge Early Childhood Preparatory. Mansville Preparatory. Advanced Education: Harvard Technology. Graduated, summa cum laude, 2058. No siblings. Marital status: single. No criminal record.
"He's twenty-two," she stated. "He's only twenty-two. And so is McNamara's grandson, who also went to Eastbridge, Mansville Prep, then on to Harvard Medical. Graduated summa cum laude in 2058. No siblings," she added. "But I bet under the skin, Kevin is his brother. Give me his data, with image."
"Dallas?" Mavis peeked in the doorway. "We're set in here."
"Hold it." Eve held up a hand as Lucias's data rolled on-screen. "Nearly the same height and weight, too. Give me the image from Grace Lutz's – "
"I'm ahead of you," Roarke told her.
"He's better at it," she said as the images ran side by side. "Better at hiding what's behind his eyes. Morph him. It doesn't show on him the same way. He's smarter, more controlled, more sure of himself. He'd be the dominant."
When Trina came to the door. Mavis shushed her. "She's working. Frigid to watch."
"I can turn Kevin. Oh yeah, I scoop him up tomorrow, lock him into Interview, squeeze his balls till they turn purple. He'll roll on his buddy."
She paced back, studied the faces, considered. "Maybe I can fast-talk my way into a search and seize tonight, take them both, take them by surprise. But if they don't have the lab on premises, if they don't do any of their work in-house, they could get rid of a lot of evidence before I track it down."
"You have DNA from two of the victims," Roarke reminded her.
"Can't force them to give DNA samples unless I charge them, can't charge them with what I've got. If I slide under and get prints or DNA without authorization, I lose them in court. I'm not losing them. We wait till tomorrow," she decided. "Then we close them down."
"Isn't she the ult?" Mavis asked Trina.
"Yeah, and she'd better get her ultimate butt in the chair."
Eve turned, and the eyes that had been flat and cool showed hints of fear. "This is just, you know, practice. And it's all temporary. You don't do anything permanent to me."
"Right. Strip off the shirt. You need bigger tits."
"Oh God."
While Eve was getting a temporary breast enhancement, Peabody was winding down with a bowl of frozen non-dairy dessert some marketing whiz had named Iced Delight. Drenched in chocolate-substitute syrup, it wasn't half bad. Or so Peabody decided as she scraped the bottom of the bowl.
She washed the bowl so that it wouldn't be sitting there in the morning to remind her she had absolutely no willpower. When she heard the knock on her door she was about to turn off the entertainment screen and head to bed.
If it was one of her neighbors again, with a complaint about noise from another apartment, she was telling them to call a cop. She was off duty, damn it, and needed the six hours' sleep she had coming.
A peek in the security screen made her gasp in surprise. She unlocked the door, pulled it open, and stared at McNab. His lip was swollen, his right eye boasted an impressive shiner. And he was wet.
"What the hell happened to you?"
"I had an incident," he snapped. "I want to come in."
"I tried to reach you. You've got your 'links on message only."
"I was busy. I was off duty. Goddamn it."
"Okay, okay." She stepped back before he could plow into her. "We're on at oh six hundred. We caught a break earlier tonight. We've got an op going tomorrow. Dallas – "
"I don't want to hear about it now, okay? I can hear about the damn op tomorrow."
"Suit yourself." A bit miffed, she shut the door. "Your boots are squeaking."
"What, I don't have ears? I can't hear them squeaking?"
"What crawled up your ass and nested?" She sniffed the air. "You reek. What've you been drinking?"
"Whatever I want. Would you get off my back?"
"Look, you're the one who came to my door bunged up, wet, and smelling like the floor of a bar. I was on my way to bed. I've got to get some sleep."
"Fine, go to bed. I don't know why I came here anyway." He stalked to the door, pulled it open. Slammed it shut again. "I went by Monroe's. We got into it."
"What do you mean you…" she stammered. "You had a fight with Charles? Are you crazy?"
"Maybe you don't think we've got anything going on, but you're wrong. That's it, you're wrong. And I see him pushing Dr. Blonde in your face, it pisses me off. Best thing could happen to you, in my opinion, but I didn't like the way he tossed you over."
"Tossed me over," she repeated, dumbfounded.
"You break up with somebody, you do it square. He's going to apologize."
"He's going to apologize?"
"What are you, an echo?"
She had to sit. "Charles blackened your eye and split your lip?"
"He got in a couple of shots." Not to mention the gut punch that had him heaving up the homemade brew in the gutter like a common brew head. "His face isn't so perfect tonight either."
"Why are you all wet?"
"Dishy Dimatto was with him. She dumped a bucket of water on us." He shoved his hands in his damp pockets and stomped around the room on his squeaky boots. "I'd've taken him if she hadn't broken it up. He shouldn't have treated you that way."
Peabody opened her mouth to explain she hadn't been mistreated, then wisely closed it again. Her mother hadn't raised a foolish daughter. "It doesn't matter." She cast her eyes down in a sorrowful droop to hide the unholy gleam in them.