“Black Hat Derick,” Roarke said as he and Eve rode down to the garage.
“You’re not going to tell me you admired him?”
“Well now, there was a time in my youth when he was a hero for certain, scooping up funds like candy drops and bolloxing up the system with keystrokes and vision. No question at all he was bleeding deadly, but he went full mentaller, and that’s the tragic.”
Eve stood a moment, brows knit. “What? What language is that?”
“Sorry, a mental and linguistic trip to that youth. I’m saying he was brilliant, but went mad with it. I can admire the brillia
nce, and feel that what he ended up doing with it and becoming was a tragedy.”
“Okay.”
“You feel for his daughter, and so do I. Twice victimized, once by her father’s deeds, then by a cunning woman.”
“Mars had to do some work to find out who she was. I can see her—Mars—homing in on Phoebe as a target. She looks soft, easy to intimidate, and obviously has e-skills. Sniffed her out,” Eve said as they crossed the garage.
“Then some background, finds her the only child of a single mother. Pushes a bit on that. Where’s the father, who’s the father?” This time Roarke took the wheel. “But it would take some skill to lever under the false front and pull out Black Hat Derick.”
“Agreed. Missy Lee Durante’s next.” She gave him the address. “If she managed to very successfully create her own false front, that might have given her some skill, some instincts. She finds a couple dots, starts connecting them, finds more.”
“She—Mars again—should have been able to do her own e-shoveling.”
“More fun to have someone else under her thumb. And it gave her a scapegoat. She puts Phoebe on her team, gets information from her. Anything leans south, she tosses Phoebe under the truck.”
“Bus,” Roarke corrected absently. “And if Phoebe claims Mars blackmailed her, gives out about her father, she’s only more fucked. Again, you’d have to say it was bleeding deadly.”
“That’s Irish for smart?”
“Very. A sad girl with a sad story. You’ve heard sad stories all day. It’s not a wonder you look tired.”
“And not one of them goes to the cops, or even to the station head. What are the odds?”
He heard the frustration, sympathized. “I’d say Mars knew her targets well before shooting the first arrow.”
“She aimed at you.”
“Not really, no. She took the arrow out of the quiver, you could say, but didn’t notch it. And was wise enough not to.”
“There had to be other times she backed off, or just missed. And there are going to be others she was busy laying the groundwork on.”
“Which is one more reason I’m sure she has records kept elsewhere.”
Because she agreed, Eve wondered how hard she could push DeWinter. She needed that face. Mars’s true face.
“It’s smart to weave some truth through a false ID,” she speculated. “Maybe she did go to a college in the Midwest, or move around a lot as a kid.” She added, “Her underground accounts used planets, so maybe that’s a pattern that carried over. You’ve got, what, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter.”
“Uranus is always popular.”
“That’s such a lame guy thing.”
“Sadly true. Saturn, Neptune,” Roarke added, “and Pluto depending on your stand there. Trying to find the name of a female of her age that has a connection to a planet—or perhaps a moon or important star—who attended a Midwest college could take … next to forever.”
“You’re supposed to be bleeding deadly.”
Appreciating her, he laughed. “Now you force me to at least play with it, which makes you fecking wily.”
“Really smart?”