In Death 29 - Kindred in Death

changed, filled with desperate pain. “But she can’t be dead. That can’t be true.”
    “When did she text you?”
    “I don’t remember, exactly. Here.” He shoved the ’link at Peabody. “It’s logged. It’s right in there.”
    As Peabody took the ’link, stepped away to check its log, Eve pulled a chair over to face him, sat. “Mr. Hampton, look at me now. Detective Peabody and I need your help. Karlene needs you to help us find who hurt her.”
    “How is she dead? How is she dead?”
    “We believe whoever she took to the loft killed her. Do you know who the client was?”
    “That can’t be. This is all . . . not real.”
    “Who was the client?” Eve repeated.
    “It was some rich guy. Some wannabe artist from a rich family. Young guy.”
    “Have you met him?”
    “No. But—”
    “Do you know his name?”
    “She probably told me. I don’t know.”
    “She’d have a memo book here, an appointment book.”
    “She keeps one here, one in her bag, one at work. Anal. In the office.” He stared hard at Eve’s face, intensely, as if he had to focus on her to form each word. “We share the office here. I work at home. I work at home, and sometimes she does. We’re getting married on Saturday.”
    “Can we get her book, take her book?”
    “I don’t care.”
    Eve signaled Peabody. “Do you know how this man, the one she was with yesterday became her client?”
    “I’m not sure. She’s been looking for the right place for him for a few weeks. Big fish. She said big fish. The SoHo loft. That just popped up again. She was so excited. It was just the right property for him, she said. Exactly what he wanted, and the commission would be extreme. She had to move fast.
    “Where’s Karlene?”
    “We’re going to take care of her now.”
    Slowly, he shook his head side-to-side. “She doesn’t like to be taken care of. She takes care of herself. Are you sure? Are you really sure?”
    “Yes.”
    He buried his face in his hands, began to rock, began to weep. Eve rose, moved quietly away to where Peabody waited.
    “A text came in to his ’link at fourteen-ten, and another at eighteen oh-three.”
    “She was bound and raped by the time the first went out, dead before the second.”
    “He had the friend’s name, gave the word, spending the night and so on, the way Hampton stated. The memo book lists an appointment with D.P. for yesterday at nine-thirty a.m., the SoHo address. I went back through it, and there are a couple others. And one, the initial one from the looks of it, that lists an appointment with Drew Pittering.”
    Eve went back to Anthony to ask for permission to search through Karlene’s things, and to take both his ’link and the memo book.
    “Who can we call for you, Anthony?” Peabody asked him when they’d done all they could. “Let me call someone for you.”
    “My—my family. They’re in town for the wedding. They’re here, in the hotel. They’re here for the wedding.”
    When they walked back outside, Peabody pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “I know it’s never easy, and notification just doesn’t get to be routine. But that? It had to be one of the worst. All the wedding stuff lying around. It killed me.”
    Eve pushed it aside, viciously, as she had inside the apartment. “Hampton didn’t recognize the sketch. But Darrin wouldn’t need to stalk her here. Cohab works at home. Makes it too hard to take her there. But her line of work, that makes it easy to take her in a locked, empty space. You pose as a rich guy, young, attractive—and I bet charming sticks in there. She’d check it out, that’s routine. Check out his ID, but he’d have covered that.”
    “I ran the name, along with the image, and his age—and I got nothing.”
    “He’s already wiped it. But she’d have checked him out. Maybe there’s something on her comps here or at work. It’s not going to have his real address, but it’s another pin in the map.”
    “You’re cutting it close to the media conference.”
    “Fucking media.” Eve raked at her hair. “I need you to go by her office, get whatever you can.”
    “What about notifying her parents? Oh, Jesus, Dallas, don’t make me do that solo.”
    “Take a grief counselor with you. And get the parents into Central. I want to talk to the mother.” She considered the fact Peabody would have to get to Brooklyn and back. “You take the vehicle. I’ll catch the subway back to the house.”
    “Okay. Dallas, we