The in Death Collection Books 11-15 - J. D. Robb [112]
She held herself level. “Have you checked the DNA against Bayliss’s?”
“What do I look like? A moron?”
She opened her mouth, reminded herself she needed him, and virtuously shut it again. “Sorry, Dickie, it’s been a long night.”
“Tell me. It doesn’t match Bayliss. I got it—and I mean it’s barely a sliver, the little darling—off the underside of the tape. Got Bayliss’s hair with it. You figure that came off his arm, as that’s the location label on the evidence bag, but you don’t figure to get a piece of the dead guy’s nail on the under side of the tape, do you?”
“No, no, you don’t. Goddamn, Dickie, that’s good. That’s beautiful. I think I’m falling in love with you.”
“They all do, in the end. Got the prelim data coming through now.” He shot across the room on his favored rolling chair. “Male. Caucasian male. Can’t give you much more than that right now. You want me to try to pin down approximate age and heritage and all that happy stuff, it’s going to take time. And I ain’t got a lot of this sucker to work with. Could be I’ll find more. He broke the seal one place, might be he broke it another. So far, the only hair is from Bayliss.”
“Keep on it. Good work, Dickie.”
“Yeah. You know what, Dallas? You bring this guy in, we’ll nail him in court. Get it? Nail him.”
“Yeah, I get it. That’s a real knee-slapper.”
She cut transmission, sat back.
A sliver of a fingernail, she thought. Sometimes a man could hang for nothing more than that.
A sliver of a fingernail. Carelessness. The first small chink of it.
Thirty pieces of silver. Symbolism. Religious symbolism. If the victims were Judas, who was the Christ figure? Not the murderer, she decided as her mind drifted. Christ was the sacrifice, he was the pure. The Son. What was the phrase?
The only begotten Son.
A personal message to the primary. Conscience. The killer had a conscience, and his mistake with Kohli troubled him enough that he needed to soothe it by explaining, by justifying. And by setting up an ultimatum.
Bring down Ricker. It circled back to Ricker.
Ricker. The Son. Purgatory.
Roarke.
Business, she thought. Old business.
She was in bed, in the dark, but she wasn’t sleeping. It wasn’t safe to sleep, to let herself hide in dreams.
He was drinking, and he wasn’t alone.
She could hear words when their voices raised, and they raised often. It was her father’s voice she focused on, because he was the one who might slide into the dark with her if he didn’t drink enough. Just enough. He would come in, make a shadow in the doorway with the light hard and bright behind him.
If he was angry with the man, and not drunk enough, he would hurt her. Maybe just slaps, maybe. If she was lucky.
But if she wasn’t lucky, his hands would bruise and squeeze—and his breath, candy-scented—would begin to come fast and hard. The ragged T-shirt she wore to sleep in would be no defense. Her pleas and struggles would only make him mad, make him mad so his breathing got faster, faster, like a big engine.
Then he would put his hand over her mouth, cutting off her air, cutting off her screams as he pushed his thing into her.
“Daddy’s got something for you, little girl. Little bitch.”
In her bed she shuddered and listened.
She was not yet eight.
“I need more money. I’m the one taking the risks. I’m the one putting my ass out there.”
His voice was slurred, but not enough. Not yet enough.
“We made the deal. Do you know what happens to people who fuck with me? The last employee who tried to . . . renegotiate terms didn’t live long enough to regret it. They’re still finding small pieces of him in the East River.”
This voice was quiet; she had to strain to catch it. But he wasn’t drunk. No, no, she knew the sound of a man who’d been drinking, and this wasn’t it. Still, the tone had her shivering. There was a nasty undercurrent to