Page 72 of Bonded in Death

“I didn’t mean that. What we’re saying is, the face. Too smooth. It’s like faces have flaws, right? Or something. A freckle, a blemish, something. But not this guy.”

“He’s got a few lines, right?” McNab said. “Eye corners, expression lines, but the smooth is there. You can cover the flaws, get me, with enhancements, but we’re not detecting any enhancements, or not enough to show.”

“We want to bring in Carmine from the main lab.”

“Who’s Carmine?” Eve demanded.

“Solid tech,” McNab told her. “He’s mega solid on flesh, face structure with it. Like he’s got a way of detecting if you had a nose job or whatever when you were twenty.”

“He’s not Harvo, Queen of Hair and Fiber,” Callendar put in. “But he could be, say, a prince of skin and flesh. It’s hinky, Cap, and we need Carmine. You gotta figure the guy had face work, right? He doesn’t pop for us, so he changed his face. Carmine could maybe see more what and where, and find the hinky.”

“They say they need Carmine,” Feeney said to Eve, “they need Carmine.”

“Okay.” She didn’t like spreading it out, but she needed answers. “Pull him in. I’ve got to get out of here. Anybody hits anything, tag me.”

She escaped.

She needed five minutes, just five minutes of absolute quiet in her office, in her own space—alone. Then another five to let all the information, opinions, questions, and conclusions settle in.

Since she couldn’t even think about jamming herself in an elevator, she stuck with the glides.

In the bullpen, Jenkinson wasn’t at his desk, so no assault by tie. She saw Quilla huddled with Baxter at his.

She looked at him, Eve noted, as if every word out of his mouth fascinated.

Either it did, or she was damn good playing to a man’s ego. And Eve wasn’t sure which she hoped it was.

Before Peabody could speak, Eve held up a hand. “Unless it breaks this case open, I need ten.”

“It doesn’t. I sent you two full backgrounds, and I’m finishing the third.”

“Good. I need ten.”

She went to her office, to the coffee. And drinking, let the quiet slide over her.

She could wish more fieldwork was required, more angles that took her out, put her on the street. Her last major case involved plenty of that. This one? More a head game.

Easier on the boots, she supposed. But the closet fairy always had another pair waiting.

She walked to her window, drank her coffee while she looked out, scanned her view of New York.

“Where the hell are you? You’re out there. I know you’re out there. And I’ll find you.”

Chapter Ten

Eve took her ten, then sat to read Peabody’s background reports. She’d started with Alice Dormer first, so Eve did the same.

Not a great deal of data there, as Alice’s life had been cut so short. And the life she’d lived seemed usual, even ordinary. No mention, none at all, about her work for the Underground.

A London native—no siblings, parents divorced. Her father died in a fire that may or may not have been arson in the months before the Urbans had been termed war. Her mother left London while Alice remained, continued her career as a teacher. And the mother had died of injuries from a vehicular accident just over a year later.

Her data claimed she married, not a man named Basil Kolchek, but one called Lawrence Summerset, and continued to teach throughout the conflict. She gave birth to a daughter in November of 2025. And died in May 2026 from injuries sustained in a bombing.

Nothing about it being Dominion headquarters. Nothing about her setting the charges herself, giving her life to complete her mission.

Peabody had done good work, finding small details—Alice’s education, her residences. Even a mention of the bombed school, and her rescue work there.

But her partner found nothing that added a link in the chain to Potter.

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