Read In Death 25 - Creation in Death for Free Online

already.”
    “Yeah.” Eve nodded. “I figure he’s got number two.”
    Feeney braced his elbows on the table, scooped his fingers through his hair. “We’ve got to go through everything we had nine years back, what data there is on him from the other times he went to work. Put a task force together now, at the get. We don’t wait for the second body to show up. You get anything from the scene?”
    “So far, just the body, the ring, the sheet. I’ll get you a copy of the records. Right now, I’m heading to the morgue to see what Morris can tell us. You’re going to need to get dressed, unless you’re wearing purple terry cloth to work these days.”
    He glanced down, shook his head. “If you saw the one the wife got me for Christmas, you’d understand why I’m still wearing this one.” He pushed to his feet. “Look, you go on, and I’ll meet you at the morgue. Going to need my own ride anyway.”
    “All right.”
    “Dallas.”
    In that moment, Roarke realized neither he nor Peabody existed. They simply weren’t a part of the reality between the other two.
    “We have to find what we missed,” Feeney said to Eve. “What everybody’s missed. There’s always something. One piece, one step, one thought. We can’t miss it this time.”
    “We won’t.”
     
    R oarke had been to the morgue before. He wondered if the white tiles through the tunnels of the place were meant to replace natural light. Or if they had merely been chosen as an acceptance of the stark.
    There were echoes throughout as well—the repeat and repeat of bootsteps as they walked. More silence, he supposed, as the staff would be on graveyard shift. So to speak.
    It was still shy of dawn, and he could see the long night was wearing on Peabody a bit, with a heaviness under her dark eyes. But not on Eve, not yet. The fatigue would rush up and choke her—it always did. But for now she was running on duty and purpose, and an underlying anger he wasn’t sure she recognized as vital fuel.
    Eve paused outside the double doors of an autopsy room. “Do you need to see her?” she asked him.
    “I do. I want to be of some help in this, and if I’m to be of any help, I need to understand. I’ve seen death before.”
    “Not like this.” She pushed through.
    Morris was inside. He’d changed, she noted, into gray sweats and black and silver skids she imagined he kept on the premises for working out. He sat, and continued to sit for a moment, in a steel chair drinking something thick and brown out of a tall glass.
    “Ah, company. Protein smoothy?”
    “So absolutely not,” Eve said.
    “Tastes marginally better than it looks. And does its job. Roarke, good to see you, even though.”
    “And you.”
    “Vic worked for Roarke,” Eve said.
    “I’m very sorry.”
    “I barely knew her. But…”
    “Yes, but…” Morris set the smoothy aside before he pushed to his feet. “I regret that we’ll all come to know her quite well now.”
    “She managed one of Roarke’s clubs. The Starlight down in Chelsea?”
    “Is that yours?” Morris smiled a little. “I took a friend there a few weeks ago. It’s an entertaining trip back to an intriguing time.”
    “Feeney’s on his way in.”
    Morris shifted his gaze to Eve. “I see. It was the three of us over the first of them the last time. Do you remember?”
    “Yeah, I remember.”
    “Her name was Corrine, Corrine Dagby.”
    “Age twenty-nine,” Eve confirmed. “Sold shoes in a boutique downtown. Liked to party. She lasted twenty-six hours, ten minutes, fifty-eight seconds.”
    Morris nodded. “Do you remember what you said when we stood here then?”
    “No, not exactly.”
    “I do. You said: ‘He’ll want more than that.’ And you were right. We learned he wanted more than that. Should we wait for Feeney?”
    “He’ll catch up.”
    “All right.” Morris crossed the room.
    Roarke looked over, then he stepped over.
    He’d seen death, bloody, vicious, violent, useless, and