In Death 17 - Imitation in Death

and-"
     
     
"I don't need every minute detail. Broker meeting, stocks and bonds and blah blah. Check. What else?" His lips twitched.
     
     
"A conference regarding the Olympus Resort. Two new areas are ready to open. I'm expanding the police and security force. Chief Angelo sends her regards."
     
     
"Right back at her. Any trouble up there?"
     
     
"Nothing major." He washed down pepperoni pizza with champagne. "Darcia wondered when we might be coming back for a visit."
     
     
"The next time I pass out and can be, dragged into a space shuttle." She licked pizza sauce off -her finger. "What else?"
     
     
"Internal staff meeting, a number of security checks. Routine. Discussion of preliminary reports on a sheep farm in New Zealand I'm considering buying."
     
     
"Sheep? Baa-baa?"
     
     
"Sheep, wool, lamb cutlets, and other by-products." He passed her a napkin and that made her think of Mrs. Parksy. "I had an extended business lunch with a couple of developers and their rep, who'd like me to come aboard their project. A massive indoor recreation center in New Jersey."
     
     
"Will you?"
     
     
"Doubtful. But it was entertaining to hear them out, and eat on their expense account. Is that enough for you?"
     
     
"That was just through lunch?'
     
     
"That's right."
     
     
"You're a busy guy. Is it harder for you to handle all this stuff out of New York than it was when you traveled?'
     
     
"I still travel."
     
     
"Not like you used to."
     
     
"It used to hold more appeal for me. Before I had a wife who invited me to nail her on the kitchen floor.".
     
     
She smiled, but he knew her too well. "What's troubling you, Eve?"
     
     
She nearly told him about her dream, her memory, but pulled back from it. The subject of mothers had to be sensitive for him yet. Instead she used work. It wasn't an evasion. Work did trouble her.
     
     
"My gut knows who he is already, has from the first time I saw him. But I can't see him, so I don't know for sure. Not in my head. He changes, and he'll change again, so I can't see him. Not his type, or even his mind. Because that changes, too. He's good at what he does because he changes. Because he assumes the personality of what he imitates. I don't know if I can stop him."
     
     
"Isn't that what he's hoping for? That he'll frustrate you by assuming a different personality, different method, different victim type, all of it?"
     
     
"So far, mission accomplished. I'm trying to separate him from, let's say, the cloak he wears. To see him as he is so I'll know if my gut's right. So I can move from instinct to evidence to arrest."
     
     
"And what do you seem'
     
     
"Arrogance, intelligence, rage. Focus. He has excellent focus. Fear, too, I think. I'm wondering if it's fear that makes him imitate others, instead of striking out in his own way. But what does he fear?"
     
     
"Capture?"
     
     
"Failure. I think it's failure. And maybe that fear of failure has its roots in the female authority figure."
     
     
"I think you see him more clearly than you give yourself credit for
     
     
"I see the victims, she continued. "The two he's killed already, and the shadow of the one who'll be next. I don't know who she'll be, or where, or why he'll choose her. And if 1; don't figure it -out, he'll get to her before I get to him."
     
     
Her appetite was gone, as was the euphoria of good sex. "You're a busy guy, 'Roarke,". she said.
     
     
"Got a lot on your plate"
     
     
"I prefer that to an empty one. So do you."
     
     
"Good thing for us. I need to look into my list of suspects. I- need 4o find this female authority figure, because when I do, I find him. I could use a hand."
     
     
He took hers, squeezed it. "I happen to have one available." The most practical way to begin, she thought, was alphabetically. And, though it still scraped the pride a bit, to let Roarke man the computer.
     
     
He may have gotten spanked by a barbecue grill, but on a desk unit, he was king.
     
     
"We'll start with Breen," she told him. "I want everything I can get on Thomas A. Breen and his wife, without tram pling on privacy laws."
     
     
He sent her a pained look as he sat at her desk. "Now, what fun is that?"
     
     
`Keep it clean, ace."
     
     
"Well then, I want coffee. And a cookie."
     
     
"A cookie?"
     
     
"Yes." The cat leaped on the desk to bump his head against Roarke's hand. "You have a cookie cache- in here. I want one."
     
     
She stuck her hands on her hips, tapped