Take it.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Relax.” Yancy gave her his easy smile. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
Eve left them to it, and head-nodded Roarke into the kitchen.
“I’m going to go over all this when McNab gets here so I only have to say it once.”
“All right.” He leaned in, kissed her. “You’d object to that once we’re in cop mode.”
“I’m still in cop mode. I don’t know how long this is going to take.”
“Understood. Just tell me this before we begin. What did you think of Stanton Wilkey?”
Eve bared her teeth. “I want to bury the bastard.”
“All right then. Let’s get started on making that happen.”
15
When they stepped back out, Eve saw Yancy guiding Peabody through the process. Giving them room, Eve listened, nodded in approval.
Her partner rolled into it.
“Mirium Wilkey,” Eve murmured to Roarke. “Wilkey’s daughter. She said she had a place in the city. How about you find that for me?”
“Happy to. I’ll just use your command center, as you’re itching to add some details to Peabody’s description.”
Okay, maybe, but … “I want her to do it, and she’s doing better than okay.”
Roarke took her chair anyway as she began circling the board.
She heard McNab’s prance approaching, and stepped out of the office. He pranced beside Feeney.
“Didn’t expect you.”
“I gave the boy a ride, and I didn’t want to miss all this.”
“I sure as hell can use you. Peabody’s working with Yancy, so keep it zipped, Detective.”
“Got it.”
“Go get coffee, fizzies, whatever the hell. They’re close to finished.”
While they headed in and straight to the kitchen, Eve wandered to the table to look at the sketch.
“What have I missed?” Peabody asked her.
“Not much. It’s solid.”
“But something? Yancy really takes you back, but I feel like I’m not right there.”
“Her complexion’s a little more sallow, and she has some sag under the chin.”
“That! The sag!”
“The eyes are good, except she had little pockets—not bags, just little pockets—under them. And she got a deep line between her eyebrows when she concentrated on pouring the tea. It’s left a more shallow one from pulling her brows together over the years.”
“I keep reminding myself not to do that.” Peabody rubbed her fingers between her eyebrows.
“That’s her. That’s good. She’s about fifty—looks older by a few years. No work, no makeup, but about fifty if you factor that. You can run facial rec on this one, Yancy.”
“Not the younger one.”
“You can try it, but they wiped her data, so it’s next to zero you’ll hit anything. I want to see if they did the same with the older woman.”
“I’ll run it now. Nice working with you, Peabody. You got sharp skills.”
“I’ll brief everybody while that runs.” Rolling into what felt like real progress, Eve turned. “Everybody grab a seat.”
“You can brief over pizza,” Roarke said. “Your troops need a meal, Lieutenant.”
She wanted to object, maybe would have, but he’d said the magic word.
Pizza.
“Fine.”
“McNab, help me set up a table. Peabody, would you order up what suits?”
“I’m all over it and back.”
“Hit,” Yancy allowed, and had Eve moving back to him and looking over his shoulder.
“Let’s get it up on-screen.”
“I’m not on your system.”
To solve that, Roarke stepped over. “If you wouldn’t mind?” With Yancy’s assent, Roarke took his portable, synched it, and threw the data to Eve’s wall screen.
“Okay, here’s Gayle Steenberg,” Eve began. “Age fifty-two, Caucasian, married to Carl Steenberg, age fifty-five, since 2034, two offspring, both male. And the residence listed for the last fifteen years is Natural Order’s Connecticut HQ. Employed by Natural Order as a domestic-slash-domestic trainer at an annual income of a hundred and twenty-five K.”
She caught the scent of pizza. Okay, fine, she thought, she could eat. And she had to bring everyone up to date before they could really dig in.
“Go ahead, set up the food. I’m going to start a deeper run. I want to find out when she joined the order, if her husband and offspring are members. Yancy, if you need to take off, you’re clear. If you want to stick, I’ll fix it.”
“I’d like to help find her—the first one. I’d like to know who she is. And there’s pizza.”
“You’ll earn it.” She went to her command center, set up the runs.
When Roarke came over, kissed the top of her head, she was too engrossed to be embarrassed. “Come, grab a slice with your team. You’ll be the better for it.”
“It’s more of a team than I figured on, and I think we’re going to need to add to it before this is done.”
While she