New York to Dallas

to her heart. “Sandra? Her sister?”
    “There was no sister. Just one woman, two different identities. Tell your neighbors. If they see this man, contact the police immediately.”
    “I will. I will.” She turned, bolted for her own door. “Candy! Candy!”
    “You scared the hell out of her.”
    “I meant to,” Eve said as the door slammed, as locks snicked into play. “Because he could come back here. He might start to wonder if she had anything that might point the way to where he’s dug in now. And that one’s just the type who’d come out, talk to him like she did with me. I flashed a badge, a New York badge from ten feet away, and she just accepted and came right out. I don’t want to find out she’s had her throat cut.”
    She stepped to the door, used her master.
    The sweepers had been through, she noted, leaving their fine layer of print dust.
    “No need to seal up again,” she told Roarke.
    “Small blessing.”
    “Decent furniture, on the gaudy side,” she began as she walked through the living area. “Not a lot of it, and no fussy stuff sitting around. Not home, not for her.”
    She studied the couch fabric, and the purple and pink roses growing over it in wild abandon. “Does that make your eyes sting, or is it just me?”
    She needed to keep it light, then he’d keep it light. “I was about to dig out my sunshades.”
    “She could watch some screen down here if she was bored enough, privacy shades down. Don’t want nosy neighbors peeking in. Had to be lonely, waiting for him to get out, but she doesn’t have any men over. She went to them, took care of that somewhere else. As someone else, I imagine.”
    She moved through into a powder room. A single towel, she noted. “No guests. Just a place to pee if she was down here. If there’d been any trash, any paraphernalia, the sweepers would’ve bagged it. Nothing here.”
    She moved on, dining alcove—empty—and the kitchen.
    “Sits at the counter to eat.” She opened the fridge. “Or drink,” she said, when she saw only four bottles of brew, one bottle of wine, open.
    She opened cupboards. “Glasses, a couple of plates, a stack of disposable ones.” She jerked her chin toward the pile of dirty dishes and unrecycled cartons in the sink, on the counter. “Not much on housekeeping.”
    “And no house droid,” Roarke observed, “to tidy up after her.”
    “Good appliances, nice counterwork, cabinetry, but she doesn’t care. It’s not hers. Not what she wants. She wants a lot more than this little playhouse with its fenced yard and the two bitches next door who ask too many questions. She wants the high life Isaac’s going to get her. Nothing here,” she said again, and walked back to take the stairs up.
    She turned to the bedroom first. Too much perfume, she thought immediately. Too thick, too strong, too much. And the memory struck like a fist.
    “Eve.” Roarke grabbed her arms when she swayed.
    “Too much. Do you smell it? It’s too sweet—dying sweet, like flowers left out too long. God, it makes me sick.”
    But she pushed back when he tried to draw her out of the room.
    “No. I remember. I remember. The bedroom—their room. Always smelled like this. Too much. Perfume, too strong. And sex. Old sex and perfume. All those bottles and tubes. Lip dyes and sprays and powders. Can’t touch or she’ll hurt me. She’ll hurt me anyway because I’m ugly and stupid and always in the fucking way.”
    “No. Baby, no.”
    “I’m all right, I’m all right. Just need to breathe. God, open the window. Please, God, get some air in here.”
    He yanked up the privacy screen, the window. She leaned out the opening, gasping air like the drowning. “I’m okay. It just hit so hard. She wanted to get rid of me. I can hear them talking, arguing. I’m so scared. I want to hide so maybe they’ll forget about me. Maybe she won’t remember me. She wants to get rid of me, for Christ’s sake. I’m useless, always hungry, always in her things. They should sell me now, get something out of the fucking little bitch.
    “But he says no. They’ll get more later, renting me out. Can’t get top dollar for a six-year-old. But rent out, starting at ten, maybe sooner—rake it in for five, six years easy, then sell what’s left.”
    Undone, simply shattered, he laid his cheek on her back so they drew in the hot, fresh air together. “Let me take you away from this.”
    She reached back for his hand. “I can’t get away if I