“You’ve heard of the game?” Jack asked.
Millhouse nodded, a bare movement. “I showed it to her. Then she was sucked in.”
“She played a lot?” Noah asked.
“She was making money at it, amazingly. I played for fun. Amy played for keeps.”
“How did she make money?” Noah asked.
“She gambled in the casino. Poker, blackjack, all the games. She won, a lot. Took her winnings, bought and sold real estate in the better neighborhoods. She converted the Shadowbucks into real-world money. She was about to quit her day job.”
“So she spent time in the casino. Did she mention meeting anyone there?”
“If she did, she didn’t tell me. We’d been arguing about her spending so much time in the online world. I was stunned, frankly. She’d become this wheeler-dealer, a person I didn’t know. When I found her hanging there…” His voice broke. “Like that…”
“So you took her down and changed her clothes,” Jack said quietly.
“Yes.” Millhouse dropped his head to his hands, his shoulders shaking as he cried. “She was my little sister, dammit. I showed her the game. It was my fault.”
His lawyer patted his shoulder. “Can he go now?”
“In a minute,” Noah said, as kindly as he could. “Mr. Millhouse, this killer has taken the computers of the other victims. Did you notice anything different about the computer at your sister’s apartment after her death?”
Millhouse scraped his hands down his face, struggling for control. “I don’t know. We were just in… autopilot, you know? My mother was having chest pains and I couldn’t stand the guilt. I… burned the dress. I told my wife to get rid of everything else.”
Of course. Not that this guy would have left anything behind anyway, Noah thought bitterly, then stood. “Thank you, Mr. Millhouse.”
“Do you have any leads?”
Not a one. “Yes,” Noah said. “We’ll call when we have news.”
Noah waited for Jack in the hallway, closing the door behind them. “We know one new thing,” Noah said. “Martha and Christy spent their time at Ninth Circle. Rachel divided her time between the bar and the casino. Amy Millhouse hung at the casino.”
“So we know two places he hunts his victims. So how does that help?”
“I don’t know yet.” But Noah knew who to ask. He checked his watch. “I’ve got plans for dinner. Let’s break and meet at the Bolyards’ house at 8:30.”
Jack put on his hat. “I had to cancel Katie. Maybe I can still catch up with her.”
“Good luck,” Noah said, and meant it.
Jack’s smile was flat. “You, too.”
Wednesday, February 24, 6:40 p.m.
“Eve?” Her chin jerked up when hands squeezed her knees and she met Noah’s eyes over her laptop. He was crouching, looking panicked. As well he should.
“I tried to call you a couple of times, but you didn’t answer.”
She fished her cell from her bag. “I had it on vibrate and forgot to change it. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you again.”
The panic had left his eyes, leaving concern and an anticipation that made her own skin tingle despite her own jumble of emotion. “How is David?”
“Better. Tom’s in with him now. Noah, I think I found him.”
“Who?”
“The man who hates you. Sit and look.” He did, sliding one arm across her back and leaning closer. Which put his face right next to hers, throwing her pulse into overdrive. Which, she suspected, was his intent. Keeping her eyes straight ahead she pointed to the picture she’d downloaded. The man had a dark beard threaded with silver, a hard mouth, and harder eyes. “Do you recognize him?” she asked, her voice a little huskier.
“No.” Then he turned his head, bringing his mouth inches from hers. “Should I?”
“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Pay attention, Noah.”
“I am.” But instead of backing away, he came closer and there was nothing hard about his mouth when he brushed it over hers. There was instead sweetness and heat. Her eyes slid closed and she leaned into him, lifting one hand to tentatively touch his face, deepening the kiss until it was slow and unhurried, making it all the more devastating. It was sumptuous, rich and full. And right.
That rightness would make it that much harder to lose later.
She pulled away, as slowly as they’d come together, her palm still cupping his cheek. His eyes searched hers while she fought the tears that rose in her throat. It had been a hell of a day. Anyone’s emotions would be on the edge.
“Sometimes,” he murmured, “when you’re behind the bar, you watch everyone and your eyes grow so sad. I always wondered what you saw. I’m wondering that right now.”
The tears rose a little higher and she swallowed them back. “Why didn’t you ask?”
Regret flickered in his eyes. “If you only knew how many times I wanted to. But I watched you and knew you were… fragile. Vulnerable.”
“I’m not,” she protested.
“You are. So am I.” He hesitated. “Eve, my mother was an alcoholic when I was a kid, out of control. I never wanted to be like her. I craved discipline and prided myself on not being weak. I joined the army, did a tour, came back determined to be a cop like my dad. He died when I was five, line of duty. That started my mother drinking.”
“You got married,” she said and he nodded. “But she died,” she added. “How?”
“Car accident,” he said briefly. “Which… started me drinking.”
He hadn’t moved, his face still hovered inches from her own. “Who saved you?”
“My cousin, Brock, at first. I spent more time at his house than mine growing up because my mom was always drunk. When I hit rock bottom, I called him, begged him to help. He took me to my first AA meeting, stood by my side while I dried out. My mom had joined AA a million times, but always fell off the wagon. I was determined not to, but it was, it is hard. Mom saw me fighting the booze, she saw me following in her footsteps and that pushed her to change. We did AA together.”
“And she’s still sober?”
“Ten years later we both are. She’s down south now. Comes back for the summer.”
“You love her,” Eve said quietly, a little enviously. “I’m glad.” And she was.
“Me, too. Eve, I grew up with chaos. Discipline, or the illusion of it, is important to me. I sat in the bar, watched you, and was pretty damn proud of myself for not talking to you, not saddling you with my demons. But I think I was just afraid. That if I let you in, I’d lose what control I’ve managed to keep. So I kept my distance.”
“For a whole year?”
“You didn’t help,” he countered dryly. “You wouldn’t even look at me. Why?”
He’d been honest. She could be no less. “Because I wanted to,” she said. “I wanted you. And it scared me. It still does.”
“I know it does,” he said softly. “But we have time to deal with that.” He returned his attention to the man on her screen. “Why should I recognize him?”
She forced her eyes away from Noah’s face and her mind back to the work at hand. “This is the father of a man you and Jack almost arrested about a year ago. His name is Harvey Farmer. His son was Harvey Farmer, Jr., but folks called him V.”
Noah nodded slowly. “Yeah, okay. I remember V Farmer. He robbed a convenience store and killed the owner, shot him in the face. We found V hiding in a friend’s house. He ran, we pursued. Jack chased him and V ran across a highway to escape.”
“At night, in the snow,” Eve said, recalling the Buckland article she’d finally found after pages of search results. “The truck that hit him tried to stop, but couldn’t.”
“Right. V was dead at the scene and we closed the case. How do you know this?”
“Kurt Buckland covered V’s funeral. In the Metro section.” She toggled to the article. “ ‘Harvey Farmer, Jr., known as V to his friends, was buried today. He is survived by his father, Harvey Farmer, Sr., and his brother, Dell Farmer.’ Who you’ve met.”