Page 80 of Concealed in Death

“A big goose egg. There’s no connection I can find linking the latest two vics ID’d with The Sanctuary, HPCCY, Nash, Philadelphia, any of them.”

Eve nodded, as she’d laid the same goose egg. “We have the Korean market linking Shelby and Linh. We’re going to find other connections, just that nebulous. I’m taking this home. I need to spread it out, shuffle it up, look at it from other angles.”

“Did you notify next of kin on the latest?”

“I talked to her mother. She didn’t know any of the other vics, never heard of The Sanctuary.”

“How’d she handle it?”

“Glazed over some,” Eve said as she packed up what she wanted. “But toughed it out. She’ll claim the remains when we’re clear with them. I backtracked, too, and got the data on Jubal Craine. His wife killed him, set their barn on fire with him in it.”

“She must’ve been very upset.”

“Apparently she got a little ticked off when he beat the crap out of her, yet again. But according to everything I can find, he was alive and well, and in fricking Nebraska during September of ’forty-five. And since his daughter didn’t slip the leash again until November of that year, he didn’t have any reason to come back here.”

“You didn’t really think he’d killed them.”

“No, mostly because I don’t think he’d have spent all that time in godless New York, or if he had, any of those girls would’ve gone with him without a serious fight.” She yanked on her coat. “But it was a loose end.”

“McNab’s on the hunt for DeLonna and T-Bone. We’ll probably take that home, too.”

“If he finds them, either of them, I want to know asap.”

She carted the file discs, headed out.

Deliberately, she drove home through the insane circus of Times Square. She studied the packs of teenagers, the packs of girls she gauged to be on the cusp of their teens or just over the line.

She’d never sought out a pack, alone had suited her. Too much bouncing from place to place in the beginning in any case, she thought, even if she’d been inclined to the pack mentality.

But she understood she represented the exception.

They looked alike, she noted, streaming along under the flooding, jittery light that kept the dark away and invited everyone to the endless party. Their coats, hats, scarves, gloves might be different colors, but a definite style ribboned through most. Clunky boots that must have weighed like anchors, bright pants worn tight, bright coats worn big, hats with long ties flopping.

They sucked on tubes of fizzies, yammered on ’links, chowed on warm, soft pretzels they tore apart and shared.

And they stuck together as if hooked by invisible wires.

Boys scattered through some of the groups of older girls, but the younger ones—the vics’ age range—largely stuck with their own kind. Not only gender, she saw now, but class.

She picked out huddles of cheaper boots, thinner coats, most of them hatless with streaks of color through their hair rather than their wardrobe.

She spotted one helping herself to some scarves while her two partners kept the vendor busy on the other side of the stall. She watched the handoff to the girl doing a brisk walk-by before Light Fingers wandered around to her friends, all innocence and empty pockets.

Would they wear them, sell them?

Then the light changed, and she drove on.

You couldn’t pull them all in, couldn’t chase them all down, couldn’t wrap them all up in the system so they came out the better for it.

Some, as Roarke had, were just surviving, taking what they could from the streets so they’d have food in their bellies or enough to catch a vid. Others just looked for a quick thrill, some noise, some movement, with them so much in the center.

And all of them thought they’d live forever.

She left the crowds, the noise, the jittery lights behind, and drove toward home.

The elves had definitely paid another visit, she thought as she studied the house. It looked like some elegantly wrapped gift with its starry lights, countless wreaths, flowing greenery.

A long way, she thought, a long, long way from the single spindly tree Mavis had pushed on her every year.