“What’s the status on the journal?”
“She’s tricky. I got through the first level, but she put another layer on. Paranoid—and really good.”
“I could probably get a court order for her to open it.”
“And suck out my fun? Give me a couple more hours.”
“If you don’t have it by eleven hundred, I’m going to see what Reo can do. A woman who lives alone in a secured apartment who keeps a journal with that kind of protection has something to hide.”
“Everything in her place is locked down double, even her house ’link. Again, can you say paranoid? Callendar and Feeney said the other two were overcovered, but this one? It’s like Global Security.”
“We’ll brief at eleven hundred,” Eve decided. “That gives you and the rest of EDD time to comb through what we have while Peabody and I go over what the rest of the team brought in.”
“Then we’d better party now, because we’re going to kick it early tomorrow. There’s Baxter. Looking tight.”
“Baxter?” Glancing around, she spotted Baxter and a scatter of other cop faces. “What, did Nadine invite the entire NYPSD?”
“Looks like it. I spotted Tibble over at the bar. I guess you got to do the invite to the commissioner. He looked like he was in a good mood.”
“Let’s close this case and keep him that way.”
“Cop talk? This is a party.” Nadine hooked arms around McNab’s and Eve’s waists. “With all my favorite people.”
“From the looks of it,” Eve observed, “you have a lot of favorites. And a good chunk of them are cops.”
“You work the crime beat, you make friends with cops—or you don’t work it long.”
“It’s a total bash,” McNab told her. “The music slays. I’m going to get Peabody out there and show them how it’s done. Cha.”
“He’s a cutie.” Nadine beamed after McNab. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a man in an orange tux.”
“It’s the glow-in-the-dark bow tie that makes it.”
“It does add a flare. Well, look at him go!” Nadine added with a laugh. “He’s got some moves. They look so happy.” She sighed. “I’m so happy. All those nerves are gone now. I guess it takes a party, and a few hundred of my closest friends, to flip them over to happy.”
“Congratulations.” Roarke stepped over, gave Nadine a kiss. “It’s a wonderful party, and the centerpiece is stunning.”
“Thank you. Both of you. I’m just so . . .”
“Happy,” Eve finished. “She’s very happy.”
“Perilously close to giddy.” After lifting her glass in toast, Nadine drank deep. “And buckets of this adds to it. I need to steal Dallas for a minute.” She laid a hand on Roarke’s arm. “I won’t keep her long.”
“You’re not going to introduce me to a bunch of people I have to make conversation with—because that’s the problem with parties. You have to get dressed up then talk to a bunch of people you’ll probably never see again and you don’t care about their opinions or life stories anyway.”
“You’re such a social butterfly, Dallas. I don’t know how you get any work done.” Nadine kept a hand on Eve’s arm, steering her through.
Like a dance, Eve thought. Not like whatever Peabody and McNab were doing, which looked more like sexual calisthenics, but a kind of gliding ballet. A pause here for a word, a gesture there to acknowledge someone, a turn, a laugh, all while moving without any visible hurry.
They passed an enormous display of the cover of the book. On a background of icy blue, interlocking faces stared out. The same face over and over—female and striking, with a small, secret smile.
They shimmered against the ice, while those eyes seemed to glow with some inner life.
“It’s creepy, and compelling,” Eve decided.
“Exactly.”
“You didn’t use Avril, or any of the others we identified as clones.”