She wiped a hand through the air. “So. Everybody says it can’t be done. Not costuming, not physically. But it has to be one or the other. If it’s physical, maybe it’s long-term. Something he’s learned to live with. Peabody’s circus freak angle. And if that’s it, I eliminate everybody on my list.”
She scowled at her board. “Pisser.”
“Maybe one of your suspects hired the killings.”
“I’m going to run probabilities on that, but it rips up the theory—and it’s more than a theory—that the killer knew the vics. That it was personal.”
“Maybe he just takes pleasure in his work.”
“Crap. Crap. Crap. Somebody’s wrong. Either the medical experts or the cosmetic/costume experts. I like it better if the cosmetics are wrong, but I’ve got to work it both ways. I’ve got to go back to the beginning.”
“You can go back with me over a meal.”
It usually helped to do just that, talk it through with him, bounce theories and angles off him. But this time, she felt she only circled without getting any closer to the center.
“I don’t believe anyone looks like that,” she said. “And if I decided to believe somebody did, I can’t believe he’d stay off the grid. I ran that sketch through every program we’ve got and didn’t get a single hit.”
“Maybe it’s more recent.”
“The hypo-whatever, the multiple organ failure—and why isn’t he dead, if so—and whatever trauma would cause the lower part of his jaw to be so dislocated it’s nearly under his right ear? I don’t think so. If he was a hire, how did anybody know about him—because he’d have popped if he was a pro, even semipro. If he killed them for himself, why doesn’t anyone else know about him? Unless . . . maybe he’s a patient at the Center. Maybe he’s a kind of experiment they’re keeping on the down low.”
“As in botched?” Roarke twirled some seafood linguine on his fork. “As in mad science?”
“Mad, bad. Maybe. It’s something to poke at. Maybe the vics knew him from before, and found out he was there, confronted the mad-bad scientist, or threatened to tell people on the outside.”
“You don’t like that very much.”
“Not as much as one of them slapping gunk on their face, pumping themselves full of a Zeus cocktail, and whaling away, but it’s another route to take.”
She took it, working angles, running probabilities, reformulating, juggling through the pieces. When Roarke finally tugged her out of her chair hours later, she was more than ready to give it up for the night.
Clear her head, she decided. Let it simmer for a few hours.
Shortly after midnight, Eton Billingsly coded himself into Justin Rosenthall’s lab using a cloned key card and a recording he’d made of Justin’s voice.
He thought himself very clever.
It was time—past it—to prove to Arianna she was wasting her time and resources on Justin. The man was obsessed with this serum, and far too secretive about it in the last weeks.
Because he was getting nowhere, Billingsly concluded. The financial resources Justin wasted had become intolerable, particularly since they could and should be redirected to his own department. Once Arianna saw the truth, she’d rethink the relationship, and this wedding business.
He went directly to the main comp station, noted Justin had locked it down for the night.
But no problem, or very little of one. He’d worked with Justin long enough to know the man kept such things simple
, so his assistant and interns could access data when needed.
Justin called it teamwork. Billingsly called it naivete. One day one of those underlings would steal data and take credit for whatever advance Justin managed to stumble onto.
But in this case, it simply made the job easier.
He tried various names as passwords, working patiently. At one point he thought he heard a sound, froze, turned to look around. Then shook his head at his own foolishness.
He continued until, inspired, he tried Ari102260. The date they’d chosen to be married. Sentimental fool, Billingsly thought as access was granted.
Quickly now, he scanned through file names.
UNQUIET. Justin’s term for the core of addiction. Before he could call it up, something crashed behind him. “What the devil—?”