Page 37 of Concealed in Death

“No. I felt ashamed, I suppose, that I hadn’t gone up to her, spoken to her.”

“We could look for her, find where she is now.”

“Leave that to me,” Eve advised. “Thank you,” she said as she rose. “You’ve been very helpful.”

“Have I?” Seraphim rose as well. “You must have already known Shelby’s name.”

“You gave me a better picture of her.”

“Any one of them could have been me. Any one of the twelve. I’ll do anything I can to help you.”

“I may take you up on that.”

Eve rolled it around as they rode down to the lobby. “She’s lucky she had someone to go home to. Not the money, the privilege, but somebody who didn’t give up on her, and wanted her.”

“Too many aren’t lucky.” He had been, Roarke thought. Summerset had taken him in—some bloodied street rat—and for reasons he didn’t understand to this day, had wanted him.

“Should I look for Leah Craine?”

Eve glanced at him. “I wouldn’t mind knowing where she is. We can hope she’s not in DeWinter’s lab.”

“She got away,” Roarke said, and because he could picture that terrible resignation too well, he wanted to believe she’d stayed away. And safe. “We’ll have some faith she made a life for herself.”

“Data’s better than faith.”

“Such a cop.”

“Yeah, and since I am I want to take a pass at Clipperton before we call it.”

Anticipating it, Roarke took her hand, gave her arm a playful little swing. “I do enjoy intimidating drunk gits in the evening.”

“If Brigham’s right, he scored booze for a minor, and maybe got sex in return with said minor. He might’ve done it more than once, might’ve developed a sick little relationship there.”

“Which leads to him murdering her and eleven others.”

Eve checked her notes, rattled off the address before she got into the car. “She was a fighter, a badass. Had a rep for it, and had what sounds like a little crew. But they tell me there’s no violence according to her bones, near TOD. All injuries well before that. You don’t kill a scrapper without leaving some marks.”

“Unless the scrapper trusts you.”

“That’s right. Maybe you get said scrapper drunk, take her out during her payment. Smother her maybe, or maybe you scored something more than some brew and she ends up ODing on you. Now what the fuck do you do?”

“Build a wall to hide the body?”

“Stupid, extreme, but... where’d the other kids come from? That’s a question.”

“Why kill all the others? If it did start with this Shelby, why kill eleven more?”

“Every serial killer has to start somewhere. There’s always going to be a first. He killed the one, thought, ‘Wow, that was fun, let’s do it again.”

She tapped her fingers on her thigh as Roarke drove. “He knew this victim, and had to know some of the others. He had to have access to this victim to get her the brew. He knew the building, he had the tools and know-how to build the walls. The Fines may say, Yeah, he’s a dick but he wouldn’t kill anybody. People who know killers rarely think they know a killer.”

She pulled out her PPC. “He’s had some bumps, mostly alcohol-related. D&D, disturbing the peace, vandalism, destruction of property. And two hits for sexual misconduct. Pleaded down on all, did a little soft time, some community service, some court-ordered therapy.”

“The rap sheet of a dick.”

“Dicks kill as much as anyone.”

“I do try to keep mine nonviolent.”