Page 85 of Delusion in Death
Was there a twinge of pain there? Eve wondered. Maybe—maybe just a twinge.
“I think that’s one of the reasons I remember him much more clearly. It’s not just that he had me longer, but that he was the one who brought in the food, that sort of thing. He couldn’t turn me. Maybe I was stronger than either of us knew, or he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. But it’s not hard to turn a kid—even an adult—pain and reward, pain and reward, deprivation, fear, repetition. You can even turn them with kindness, if you’re smart about it.”
“I agree, but as you said, Callaway’s too young to have been an abductee.”
“If his father was, Callaway might’ve been raised in the doctrine. Or he could know someone who was. I’m going to fine-tune those lists of abductees.”
“Why Callaway? Specifically.”
“It’s little things. They start to add up. He’s the first to come forward—with Weaver. Come in, show concern for their pal and coworker. He admits to being at the bar, and that’s the ground zero area, from what I can piece together. Vann left too early. Weaver’s already in charge, and like I said, she’d have used a man.”
“Then why not go after Weaver, or Vann for that matter? Weaver’s a woman, in charge. Vann’s got the family connections, the shine.”
“Maybe he’s working his way up. Eliminating direct competition first. Maybe he’s just hitting indiscriminately, and he got lucky. In ratio, his office lost more than any other in the two attacks. Relationships. He lives and works in that sector. Weaver and Vann live on the edges of it, but Callaway’s right in the middle. Geography. And he’s pushing, and pushing Weaver to push for information.
“He’s single,” she went on. “Has no long-term relationships that I’ve found.”
“And Vann’s been married, has a child. Weaver’s had two engagements.”
“You could say Weaver and Vann don’t ace it on commitment, but they each gave it a shot. Nothing shows where Callaway did. And though it was kind of a toss out, Weaver mentioned her mother, Vann his son. Callaway?”
“No one,” Roarke finished.
“It adds up,” she repeated. “He lives alone, and he’s spinning in middle management. Of the three of them he was the most controlled tonight. Careful what he said. It felt as if he took his lead from them—didn’t want to stand out, not in this situation. He wanted to let me think about the other two, respond primarily to them. Until closer to the end of it. He wasn’t getting everything he wanted, so he had to insert himself instead of relying on the other two to pull out the information he was after.”
She sat back, hissed out a breath. “And it’s all a feel, a read. I don’t even have enough to pull the manpower to watch him.”
“Then we’ll have to find enough.”
“If I’m right, there’s going to be something, something buried in his background. His education, family history. And there has to be a trigger. He didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to kill a bunch of people. Something set him off, or gave him permission.”
“The campaign seems to have been their focus for the last several weeks. It’s interesting that the first attack came the night they’d completed it, and Vann left for the client presentation.”
“Maybe you know somebody who knows somebody who could arrange for me to talk to the client on the QT. Get impressions.”
“Why don’t you leave that to me? The client’s more likely to talk to me about business than to a cop about a murder suspect.”
“Okay, if you deal with that—”
“In the morning.”
Her brows drew together. “Why not now? I don’t want to waste time on this.”
“During business hours,” Roarke insisted. “If I approach this now, it’s going to make the client wonder. A contact during regular business hours—then it’s regular business.”
“I guess you’d know,” she grudgingly agreed.
“I guess I would. And it frees me to help otherwise. Abductees or background?”
She considered. “Go ahead with the background. Teasdale’s probably looking at abductees. Not the way I’m going to. But I can jump off her data.”
“Will you tell her what you’re doing?”
“After I do it, sure. It’s my case,” Eve reminded him when he smiled. “She’s consulting. She’s probably clean, especially after you microscoped her and think so. But I don’t know what she’s made of. She’ll get what I’ve got at tomorrow’s briefing, just like the rest of the team. Unless one of us strikes gold and we can move tonight.”
“Then I’ll get started being nosy. And since I fed you, you can deal with the dishes.”
“There’s always a catch.”