Abandoned in Death (In Death, #54)(14)

Mira sat back. “I completely agree. I wouldn’t rule out the female, and there I’d look for someone the people who think they know her describe as meek and unassuming, quiet, diligent.

“In either case, this is someone scarred in childhood who’s carried those scars, and—again if this is the first kill—recently experienced a trigger.”

“Okay.” Talking it through gave Eve a picture. Not clear and exact, not yet, but a picture. “I’ll get you the report, the record, the lab results as they come in.”

“It’s fascinating. Tragic for all involved, but fascinating. The power of motherhood, for good or ill.” Mira’s soft blue eyes held on Eve’s. “You understand that.”

“Yeah. The last thing I’d want to do is re-create mine.” She started to push to her feet, then stopped. “She didn’t abuse the kid—the killer. If she had, he’d have paid her back. There’d be signs of payback. Physical abuse or sexual abuse.”

“Abuse, if it applies, may have been emotional.”

“Yeah, there’s that.” Now she stood. “I appreciate the time.”

“I’m glad I had it. It is fascinating, Eve. You’ll search for more missing women?”

“On the list,” she said.

She took the glides up for the breathing room and thinking time. She needed to dive into every detail of the victim’s appearance, every step her killer had taken to create her.

Missing persons, female, between twenty and thirty to be safe, she considered. In the last month, to fully cover it. Start with a search using the victim’s basic physicality.

Finding the “mother,” the original, had to be one of the top priorities. She had some ideas how to start on it, but it would take time.

If the killer abducted another surrogate, time narrowed.

And on a personal level, she needed to talk to Mavis.

She smelled the brownies the minute she swung into Homicide.

And there in her bullpen, her damn good cops—including her partner—scarfed down brownies as Nadine Furst, bestselling writer, Oscar-winning screenwriter, and, more relevant, award-winning on-air reporter for Channel Seventy-Five, leaned her well-toned butt on Peabody’s desk.

“I assume the population of New York, including all tourists and visitors, is alive and well.”

Jenkinson, her senior detective, brushed a crumb from his atomic-yellow tie. Eve found herself surprised one of the grinning green frogs hopping over it hadn’t flicked out a tongue to capture it first.

“Just a real quick break, boss. They’re double fudge.”

“Break’s over. Nadine, I don’t have time for you. Peabody, my office.”

Peabody hustled after her, but Eve heard the bright click of Nadine’s skyscraper heels in pursuit.

“Busy,” Eve snapped without looking around. “Take off before I charge you with bribing police officers.”

“Give me one minute—and don’t close the door in my face. One minute, and I’m gone if that’s what you want. Either way, you get the brownie I saved you in my purse.”

The scent of chocolate could have weakened the strongest spine, but the friendship weighed on the scale. The friendship existed because while Nadine would pursue a story like a dog pursues a rabbit, she cared about truth.

“Let’s see the brownie.”

Nadine reached into a stop-sign-red bag the size of Brooklyn and took out a little pink bakery box. Eve opened it, nodded at the brownie within, then set it on her desk.

“One minute, clock’s ticking.”

“Mavis. I sat on that same damn bench with you at that playground after Mavis gave me a tour of that big, rambling, strange, and wonderful house she and Leonardo, Bella, and the new one when it gets here are making into a home. Where Peabody and McNab are making theirs. He left that woman’s body on that bench, where Bella’s played, and will play.

“They’re my family, too.”

There was truth, Eve acknowledged, absolute and pure.

“Okay. Then get out and let me do my job.”

“Give me something. Not to air,” Nadine said quickly. “I hit the story this morning—my first day back, by the way, post–book tour—and I’ve got enough for a follow-up report.”

Which, Eve thought, explained the camera-ready. Streaky blond hair carefully styled, perfect makeup, the sharp white suit, the red-and-white-striped heels.

“I can help. You know I can. I’ll give you a blanket off-the-record until you give me the go. I’ll want a one-on-one, when it’s appropriate, and I’ll hound you until I get it, but this isn’t about the story. Give me something I can dig into. Something I can get my team to research. We’re good, you know we are.”

Eve eased back on the corner of her desk. “I’m going to send you a picture of a tattoo. The killer inked the victim a couple days before he killed her. Lower back. We’re looking for a woman with that tattoo in that place—a woman between twenty and thirty, White, blond, about five-five and a hundred and twenty-five. I’ll give you the ID shot of the vic. There’ll be a resemblance. The tat may have been done in the last decade of the twentieth century or anytime since.”

“What is it, the tat?”

“Butterfly.”