She went over the closet floor, the walls, even the ceiling, looked under the bed, between mattresses, checked the cushions of the desk and lounge chairs, under and behind the desk.
She judged the dresser too heavy to be moved out without showing scuffs on the floor, but tried it anyway, looked under it, pulled the drawers out, looked under them.
As she slid the bottom drawer back into place, the design beneath it caught her eye. A kind of braiding, about two inches high, ran along the base. And when she’d slid that drawer in, pulled it out, there’d been the slightest need to tug, and the faintest little click.
Nothing that out of the ordinary, but . . .
She took the bottom drawer out again. It was a well-made piece of furniture, sturdy, nicely crafted of engineered wood.
The bottom drawer rested on a slab of that wood.
Curious, she ran her fingers over the twisted braid of decoration along the base, pushing, prying. Felt one twist give, just the tiniest bit.
She tugged. Nothing.
She kept working along the braid, found another twist give, then a third.
She didn’t have to tug. The narrow hidden drawer slid out toward her.
Empty, she noted. Empty but for the cushioning foam with cutouts for two knives and two hand weapons. Blasters by her eye. Another cutout, a rectangle, would easily hold several IDs, maybe more cash, Eve thought.
“She’s not coming back here,” she murmured.
“I agree,” Roarke said from the doorway. “You’ll want to see this. You were right about using the younger brother’s unit. The file I found was cleverly hidden. And even then,” he continued as they walked back to the brother’s room, “she was careful. This isn’t a rash or impulsive young girl.”
&
nbsp; “Not even close.” Eve studied the first document on screen. “It’s their hit list. Just initials, not full names, but there’s BM, KR—Michaelson, Russo—there’s MB—and I’m betting on Marta Beck, Michaelson’s office manager, there’s BF, that’s going to be Fine, the driver who hit the second wife. One of these others—AE, JR, and MJ—is likely the lawyer we haven’t identified. And two others. Two down, five to go.”
“There’s a second page to this document.” Roarke ordered it on screen.
“Zach Stuben—that’s her brother. Lincoln Stuben, her stepfather. Christ, her mother’s on here. Rene Hutchins, Thomas Greenburg, Lynda Track—we need to identify them. And this one with initials. HCHS.”
“It’s her high school—I’m sure of it, as I found this document as well.” Roarke called up a blueprint of Hillary Clinton High School. “Certain classrooms, certain areas were highlighted, egresses marked.”
“Jesus, Jesus. She plans to hit her school.”
“And already has her nest chosen. Closer this time than the other two attacks, but still an appreciable distance.”
Eve looked at the next image. “The roof of her father’s apartment building. She has these hidden here because this isn’t her father’s agenda. It’s hers. When they finish his mission, she can begin her own. How hard did you have to look to find this?”
“A bit of work, but more to the point, I likely wouldn’t have found it if I hadn’t been specifically looking for it. It was shielded under a perfectly harmless school report on George Washington.”
Eve paced. “Okay, let’s get back. We need to access Mackie’s apartment. It’s likely he’s got cams set up, is monitoring anyone going in or out of the building, certainly his own space.”
“I can take care of that.”
“Counting on it. We need to get in, see who’s next. When and where. They may have moved straight to the next nest, and there are three people on his agenda we haven’t ID’d. And we have to ID the unknowns on her list.”
“There’s more on hers. She’s listed her kills. Animals,” he said quickly. “The type, the place, the distance, the weapon, the date, the time. It appears her father’s taken her hunting—illegally very often—into Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, the Dakotas, even into Mexico, Canada. She’s listed over two dozen kills in the last seven months.”
“Copy the file to my units. I’ll have EDD pick this up, and hers. Hell, all of them, and now. She’ll have a unit at her father’s place. We need to get into that. She wouldn’t have needed to be so careful on his agenda there, so maybe we’ll have names.”
Eve shoved a hand through her hair. “I wonder if Mackie knows what kind of monster he’s created. And if he knows, does he care?”
9
Eve tagged Peabody, reeled off the names from Willow’s list. “These people are connected to the suspects, most likely the female. Nail them down, get contact information.”