In Death series - book 23 - Survivor in Death - Nora Roberts as J.D. Robb

[Dalyia]

The fact that he didn't appear to find the request odd told her Baxter sent the kid off on similar errands routinely. While he dashed out and into the shop, Eve sat, watched, tapped her fingers lightly on the butt of her weapon.
Trueheart came out with her Pepsi, and a cherry fizzy for himself She waited until he'd strapped in, then began to cruise as before.
“Do we have another stop to make, sir?” he asked a few moments later.
“Why do you ask?”
“You're well east now of your home.”
“That's right. Keep drinking that fizzy, Trueheart, keep facing front. But check the side mirror. You see that black panel van about five vehicles back?”
He did as ordered. “Yes, sir.”
“Same one's been on us since we left the scene. Not all the time, didn't pick us up until we were about four blocks south, but it keeps sliding in, four, five, six back. Gave them a chance to come at me when I sent you in for refreshing beverages.”
“Sir!”
“They didn't take it. They're just watching awhile. Just watching, maybe trying to catch a transmission, maybe thinking I might lead them to wherever we've got the kid stashed. Careful, careful, careful. Me, I'm getting a little tired of watching.”
“I'll call it in.”
“No! They're close enough, maybe they can monitor transmissions. You don't call anything in until I say different. You strapped in all right and tight, Trueheart?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Hold on to your fizzy.”
She'd gone as far east as Second, and now at an intersection, whipped the wheel, slapped into a steep vertical lift, and executed a rapid and airborne three-sixty.
“Hit the sirens,” she snapped at Trueheart. “Call it in now! Street and air support. Black panel van, New York plates. Abel-Abel-Delta-4-6-1-3. And up they go.”
The van shot into vertical, then blasted like cannon shot down Second. A white light exploded in front of Eve's windshield and shook the air like thunder.
“Shit on a stick. They've got laser rifles. Fricking armed and fricking dangerous, heading south on Second at Seventy-eight. Make that west on Seventy-seven, approaching Park. Look at that bastard move.”
“Juiced up.” Trueheart's voice was even as he spoke, as he gave dispatch a rapid-fire report of their direction. But it had gone up a full octave.
The van shot out another blast, then dropped to street level, punching up speed in a shower of sparks as they streamed onto Fifth and aimed south.
She saw two black-and-whites cut over from the west at Sixty-fifth, move to intercept. Pedestrians scattered, and some of them went airborne as the next blast boomed out. One of the black-and-whites was flung into the air to spiral like a top.
Eve was forced to slap vertical again to avoid collision and panicked civilians. She lost nearly half a block before she could set down and increase speed. Then she screamed downtown after the building-block red squares of the van's taillights.
Another blast knocked her back, had her fighting to keep control. Icy red liquid splattered over the dash. She was gaining. The shops of midtown were a colorful blur as she careened south. Lights and animated billboards were nothing but sparkle.
Overhead, one of the ad blimps boomed out about a buy-one get one half fall sale on winter coats.
She stayed on him, weaving, dodging, matching maneuver to maneuver as he swung west again. She heard the scream of sirens, her own and others.
She would tell herself later she should have anticipated, should have seen it coming.
The maxibus was lumbering in the right-hand lane. The blast from the van rolled it like a turtle, had it skidding over the street. Even as she switched to a straight lift, the maxi's spin caught a Rapid Cab, flipped it into the air like a big yellow ball.
On an oath, Eve whipped right, dived down, managed to thread between the bus, the cab, and a pocket of people on the sidewalk who were standing with eyes and mouths wide open at the free show.
“Abort standard safety factors!” she shouted and prayed the computer would act quickly enough. “Abort cushioning gel, goddamn it!” An instant later, she landed with a bone-crunching slap of tires to pavement.
Safety factors aborted. Please reset.
She was too busy swearing, shooting into reverse. But when she pulled out on Seventh, she saw nothing but chaos. And no sign of the van.
She yanked the harness clear, shoved out of the door, and slammed a fist on the roof. “Son of a bitch! Tell me air support's still got him. Tell me one of the black-and-whites still has him.”
“That's a negative, sir.”
She studied the overturned bus, the wrecked cars, the still screaming pedestrians. There was going to be hell to pay.
She looked over at Trueheart, and for one moment her heart stopped. His face, his uniform jacket, his hair were covered with red.
Then she let out a breath. “Told you to hold on to that damn fizzy.”

[Dalyia]

20
SUMMERSET GLANCED UP FROM HIS BOOK WHEN Roarke tapped on the jamb of his open parlor door. It was rare for Roarke to come into his private quarters, so he put the book aside, rose.
“No, don't get up. I ... have you got a minute?”
“Of course.” He looked over at the monitor, saw that Nixie was in bed, sleeping. “I was about to get a brandy. Would you like one?”
“Yes. I would, yes.”
As he picked up the decanter, Summerset pondered over the fact that Roarke continued to stand, trouble written on his face. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Yes. No.” Roarke let out a frustrated laugh. “Well now, I've been stepping on my own feet quite a bit the last days. I've something I want to say to you, and I'm not sure quite how to start it.”
Stiffly now, Summerset handed Roarke a snifter of brandy. “I realize the lieutenant and I have had a number of difficulties. However--”
“Christ, no, it's nothing to do with that. If I came around every time the two of you locked horns I'd put in a bleeding revolving door.” He stared down at the brandy a moment, decided maybe it would be better done sitting.
He took a chair, swirled the brandy while Summerset did the same. And the silence dragged on.
“Ah, well.” It annoyed him that he had to clear his throat. “These murders. This child--the children--they've made me think about things I'd rather not. Things I make a point of not thinking of. My father, my own early years.”
“I've gone back a few times myself.”
“You think of Marlena.” Of the daughter, the young, pretty girl who'd been murdered. Raped, tortured, murdered. “I told Nixie the pain lessens. I think it must. But it never goes completely, does it?”
“Should it?”
“I don't know. I'm still grieving for my mother. I didn't even know her, and I'm still grieving when I thought I'd be done. I wonder how long that little girl will grieve for hers.”
“In some part of her, always, but she'll go on.”
She's lost more than I ever had. It's humbling to think of. I don't know how . . . You saved my life,” Roarke blurted out. “No, don't say anything, not until I manage this. I might have lived through that beating, the one he gave me before you found me. I might have survived it, physically. But you saved me that day, and days after. You took me in, and tended to me. You gave me a home when you had no obligation. No one wanted me, and then . . . You did. I'm grateful.”
“If there was a debt, it was paid long ago.”
“It can never be paid. I might have lived through that beating, and the next, and whatever came after. But I wouldn't be the man I am, sitting here now. That's a debt I'm not looking to pay, or one you're looking to collect.”
Summerset sipped brandy, two slow sips. “I would have been lost without you, after Marlena. That's another debt that's not looking for payment.”
“There's been a weight inside me,” Roarke said quietly. “Since this began, since I found myself faced with the blood of children I didn't know. I could shift it aside, do whatever I needed to do, but it kept rolling back on me. I think, like grief, it might stay there awhile. But it's less now.”
He drank down the brandy, got to his feet. “Good night.”
“Good night.” When he was alone, Summerset went into his bedroom, opened a drawer, and took out a photograph taken a lifetime ago.
Marlena, fresh and sweet, smiling out at him. Roarke, young and tough, with his arms slung around her shoulder, a cocky grin on his face.
Some children you could save, you could keep, he thought. And some you couldn't.
She got home late enough to consider just going up and dropping fully dressed onto the bed. A headache clamped the back of her neck, digging its hot fingers into the base of her skull. To avoid increasing it with sheer irritation, she pushed Trueheart at Summerset the minute they came in the door.
“Do something with his uniform,” she said, already heading up the stairs. “And put him to bed. I want him daisy fresh by seven hundred.”
“Your jacket, Lieutenant.”
She peeled it off, still walking, and tossed it over her shoulder. He probably had some household magic that got cherry fizzy off leather.
She aimed straight for the bedroom, then only stood, rubbing the back of her neck, trying to dissolve the rocks that were forming a small mountain range from that point and out to her shoulders. The bed was empty. If he was still working, and likely on her behalf, she could hardly crawl into bed and pull the covers over her head until morning.
She turned, her hand automatically slapping to her weapon, when she saw the movement behind her.
“Christ on airskates, kid. What is it with you and skulking around in the dark?”
“I heard you come in.” Nixie stood, this time in a yellow nightgown, with those sleep-starved eyes locked on Eve's face.
“No, not yet.” Eve watched the gaze drop to the floor and didn't know whether to curse or sigh. “But I know who they are.”
Nixie's eyes flew up again. “Who?”
“You don't know them. I know who they are. And I know why.”
“Why?”
“Because your father was a good man who did good work. Because he was good, and these people aren't, they wanted to hurt him and everyone he loved.”
“I don't understand that.”
She looked, Eve thought, like a wounded angel with all that tangled blonde hair surrounding a face haunted by fatigue, and worse. “You're not supposed to understand it. Nobody's supposed to understand why some people decide to take lives instead of living decent ones of their own. But that's the way it is. You're supposed to understand that your father was a good man, your family was a good family. And the people who did this to them, to you, are wrong people. You're supposed to understand that I'll find them and put them in a goddamn cage where they'll spend what's left of their miserable, selfish lives. That has to be good enough, because that's all we've got.”
“Will it be soon?”
“Sooner if I'm working instead of standing here in the damn hallway talking to you.”
The slightest flicker of a smile curved Nixie's lips. “You're not really mean.”
Eve hooked her thumbs in her front pockets. “Am, too. Mean as spit, and don't you forget it.”
“Are not. Baxter says you're tough, and sometimes you're scary, but it's because you care about helping people, even when they're dead.”
“Yeah? Well, what does he know? Go back to bed.”
Nixie started toward her room, then paused. “I think, when you catch them, when you put them in a goddamn cage, my dad and my mom, and Coyle and Inga and Linnie, I think they'll be okay then. That's what I think.”
“Then I better get working on it.”
She waited until Nixie was back in her room, then walked away.
She found Roarke still working with the unregistered, and with barely a grunt of greeting crossed over to take the coffee he had on the console and gulp some down.
A second later she was coughing and shoving it back in his hand. “Oh, blech. Brandy.”
“If you'd asked, I'd have warned you there was brandy in it. You look a bit worse for wear, Lieutenant. Brandy might be a good idea.”
She shook her head and got herself a cup, strong and black and without additives. “How's it going here?”
“He's very good--or one of them is very good. Every thread I tug on leads to another knot, which leads to another set of threads. I'll unravel it--I'm bloody determined now--but it won't be quick. But a thought occurred while I've been picking these threads apart. I wonder how he'd feel if his funds were frozen.”
“I've got no forensics, nothing solid tying him to the murders. The best I've got is a composite from a street LC's perspective, which looks nothing like him. I know it's him, but I'll never get the flag to freeze his assets based on nothing much more than my gut.”
“It would be a fairly simple matter for me, at this point, to make a sizable withdrawal from these accounts.”
“Steal the money.”
“Let's say transfer the money. Steal is such a ... Well, it's a fine word, isn't it? But transfer would be more to your taste.”
She thought it over. Tempting, tempting, tempting. Still, it wasn't only not by the book, it exploded the book entirely. “Nixie intercepted me, for a change. She said she thought her family would be okay once I caught these guys, once I put them in a goddamn cage.”
“I see.”
“She probably shouldn't swear, I'm a bad influence. Spank me. But--” She broke off at the wide grin that spread over his face, and found herself laughing. She covered her face, rubbed it. “Just stop. Anyway, that kind of thing gives me a nudge to go out of bounds-- more out of bounds,” she added, looking around the room. “But say you did. Say it pisses him off enough to make the kind of mistake that opens him up to me. Hooray for our side. But it could, given his profile, piss him off enough to have him taking out a couple of Swiss bankers first, or a lawyer in--what was it? Eden. So let's just hold that in reserve.”
“You make a point.”
“You know, this day has just been crap.” She sprawled in the chair, stretched out her legs. “Making progress, I can feel it, but overall it's been weighed down with big piles of crap. And I finished it up with a cargo ship of shit.”
“Would it have something to do with the blood on your trousers?”
She looked down, saw the streaks and sprinkles of red. “It's not blood. It's cherry fizzy.”
She drank her coffee and began to take him through. “So when I made them, I pulled up at a twenty-four/seven, sent Trueheart inside for drinks, and--”
“Hold.” He held up a hand. “You realized one or more of these people, people responsible for several murders and who are, very likely, hoping to get to you, were trailing you, and you sent your backup off for sodas?”
She didn't squirm under his gaze, one she imagined he aimed at underlings who'd cocked up some deal and were about to be demolished by his iciest wrath.
But it was close.
“I wanted to see what they'd do.”
“You were hoping they'd move on you, and got Trueheart out of the way.”
“Not exactly. Close, but--”
“I asked one thing, Eve. That when you decided to use yourself as bait you'd tell me.”
“I wasn't--it was an immediate sort of. ..” She trailed off as the headache moved along from the base of her skull to squeeze into the top of her head. “Now you're pissed, at me.”
“What gave you your first clue?”
“You'll have to be pissed, then.” She shoved to her feet to prowl. “You'll just have to be pissed because I can't stop and check every move with you when I'm out there. I can't stop and say, 'Hmm, would Roarke approve of this action, or gee, should I tag Roarke and run this by him?'“

[Dalyia]

“Don't you swat away my concerns like they're gnats around your ears.” He got to his feet as well. “Don't you dare make light of them, Eve, or what it is to me to sit and wait.”
“I'm not.” But of course she was, a knee-jerk defense mechanism. Before she could say anything else, he was plowing on.
“I bury my own instincts every bloody day to stay out of your way as much as I do. Not to let myself think, every minute of every bloody day you're out there if tonight's the night you don't come back.”
“You can't think that way. You married a cop, you took the package.”
“I did, and I do.”
It wasn't ice in his eyes, she noted. It was fire, strong and blue. And that was somehow worse. “Then--”
“Have I asked you to change what you are, what you do? Have I complained when you're called away in the middle of the night, or when you come home smelling of death?”
“No. You're better at this than I am. Media flash.”
“Bollocks. We've both managed to fumble our way through nearly two years of each other, and quite well. But when you give your word to me, I expect you to keep it.”
The headache had reached behind her eyes now, stabbing fingers gleefully poking. “I guess that cargo ship hasn't quite finished dumping shit on me today. And you're right. I broke my word. It wasn't intentional. It was of the moment. And it was wrong. I let it get to me. The kid, the body in the alley, dead cops, children killed in their beds. I let it ball up in my throat, and I know better.”
She shoved the heels of her hands into her temples in a desperate attempt to relieve the pressure. “It was worth the chance, I believe it was worth the chance, but it turned out to be the wrong call. You're not the first one to scrape me over about it tonight. Whitney's already taken off a few layers of skin.”
Saying nothing, he moved back behind his console, pressed a button. He took a small bottle out of a drawer, tapped two little blue pills into his hand. Then he fetched a small bottle of water out of the friggie behind a panel.
“Take the blockers. Don't argue,” he snapped when she opened her mouth. “I can see the fucking headache pounding as I'm standing here.”
“It's past headache. It feels like my brains are being squeezed out my ears.” She took the blockers, dropped back into the chair, and dropped her head in her hands. “I fucked up. Goddamn clusterfuck. Cops and civilians in the hospital, private and city property damage up the wazoo. Three murder suspects still at large. Because I made the wrong call.”
“I guess that's why they call you lieutenant instead of God. Sit back now, relax a minute.”
“Don't baby me. I don't deserve it. I don't want it. They were too close. Had to figure they'd stick that close because they were trying to monitor any communications. The vehicle has screens, but they've got choice toys, so I had to figure they were within visual for a reason. If they could track me or monitor me, they needed to be close. I didn't want to risk calling it in.”
“That seems reasonable. Logical.”
“Yeah, seems. I call it in, they catch the signal, they poof. So I pulled over, sent Trueheart into the twenty-four/seven so it looked like I had a reason, so it looked casual. To see what they did. They drove by, circled around, and picked me up again. So then I figure I'll switch it on them. Get behind them, call in support, keep on them until we can box them in, take them down. But Jesus Christ, that van moved. I don't know how they've juiced it up, but I clocked it at one-twenty-six, airborne. Then there were the laser rifles, and God knows. They took out a couple of black-and-whites, a number of civilian vehicles, and a maxibus. And I lost them.”
“All by yourself?”
“It was my call. The wrong call. Best I got was make and model of the van. And the plate. Turns out the plate belongs to a black panel van of that make and model, but not that panel van. Dupe plates, and they were smart enough to dupe them from the same type of vehicle. Guy who owns the legal van--which was legally parked at his place of business--is a licensed home handy. He's clean, and he was home watching screen with his wife.”
She took a swig of water. “So we got injuries, property destruction, possible--hell, probable--civil suits against the department, and the suspects know I've made their ride.”
“And Whitney dressed you down right and proper.”
“Ho boy.”
“I doubt he'd have done differently than you, under the same circumstances.”
“Maybe not. Probably not. Still a wrong call. And the mayor will chew out the chief, the chief will chew out the commander, and down to me. Nobody below me on this particular feeding chain. The media will have a feeding frenzy.”
“So, you got your ass kicked a bit. A little ass kicking from time to time builds character.”
“Hell it does. It results in a sore ass.” She let out a sigh. “I've got data on all purchases of that make and model. Popular. I left the color open. Figured it'd be easy to paint. I don't expect to have bells ring on that angle. If it were me, I'd've bought it out of town. Or jacked it off some lot outside New York. There won't be a record, there won't be a bill of sale.”
“You're discouraged.” And he hated to see it. “You shouldn't be.”
“No, just feeling a little beat up tonight. Sorry for my sorry self.”
“So get some sleep. Start fresh in the morning.”
“You're not.”
“Actually, I will.” He gave commands to save, lock, and shut down.
“You've got your own work tomorrow.”
“I've rescheduled some things.” He walked her out, secured the doors. “I spoke with Richard and Beth. They're coming to meet Nixie tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I'd asked for quick but I didn't expect immediate.”
“Actually, they've been talking about taking another child. Have just put in applications. And Richard tells me Beth hoped for a girl this time. They both see this as a kind of sign.”
He laid his hand on the base of her neck as they walked to the bedroom and rubbed what she thought of as his magic fingers on the dulling ache. “Fate's a fickle and often insensitive bitch, isn't she?” he commented. “And yet, there are moments you see the work. If their daughter hadn't been murdered, they would never have looked to take a child into their home. If a friend of mine hadn't met the same fate, I wouldn't have met that little boy, or paid mind to him, thought of suggesting they might give him a home.”
“If Grant Swisher hadn't helped Dian Kirkendall, he and his family would still be alive.”
“Insensitive, yes. Still, now Nixie will have a chance for a life with Richard and Beth. She'll grow up knowing there are people in the world who try to balance the scales.”
“You don't say if Sharon DeBlass hadn't been murdered, you and I wouldn't have met in the first place.”
“Because we would have. Another time, another place. Every step of my life was bringing me to you.” He turned her, kissed her forehead. “Even the ones on the darkest road.”
“Death brought us here.”
“No. That's discouragement talking. It's love that brought us here.” He unhooked her weapon harness himself. “Come now, you're asleep on your feet. Into bed.”
She stripped, climbed the platform, slid in. And when his arm came around her, she closed her eyes. “I would've found you,” she murmured, “even on the darkest road.”
The nightmare crept in, stealthy feet tiptoeing over her mind. She saw herself, the small, bloody child, packed into a blinding white room with other small, bloody children. Fear and despair, pain and weariness were thick in the room, crowding it like yet more small, bloody children.
No one spoke, no one cried. They only stood, bruised shoulder to bruised shoulder. Waiting for their fate.
One by one they were led away by stone-faced adults with dead eyes. Led away without protest, without a whimper, the way sick dogs are led away by those charged with ending their misery.
She saw this, and waited her turn.
But no one came for her. She stood alone in the white room, with the blood that coated her face, her hands, her arms, dripping almost musically onto the floor.
It didn't surprise her when he walked into the room. He always came, this man she'd killed. The man who'd broken her and ripped her and beaten her down into a quivering animal.
He smiled, and she smelled it on him. The whiskey and candy.
They want the pretty ones, he told her. The good ones, the sweet ones. They leave the ones like you for me. No one will ever want you. Do you wonder where they go when they leave?
She didn't want to know. Tears slid down, mixed with the blood. But she didn't make a sound. If she was quiet, very quiet, maybe he would go and someone else would come. Anyone else.
They take them to the pit, didn't I tell you? Didn't I warn you if you screwed with me, they'd throw you into the pit with the spiders and snakes? They say: Oh, let me help you, little girl. But what they do is eat you alive, bite by chomp by bite. But they don't want you. You're too scrawny for them, too bony. Do you thinly they don't know what you did?
He came closer, and now she could smell something else. Rot. And her breath began to hitch even as she fought to hold it in.
Killer. Murderer. And they leave you to me.
When he fell on her, she screamed.
“No. Eve, no. Shhh.”
Fighting for breath, she locked her arms around him. “Hold on. Just hold on to me.”I've got you.” He pressed his cheek to hers. “Easy now. I won't let go.”
“They left me alone, and he came for me.”
“You're not alone. I won't leave you alone.”
“They didn't want me. No one ever did. He did.”
“I want you.” He stroked her hair, her back, calming the tremors. “From the first moment I saw you, I wanted you.”
“There were so many other children.” She loosened her grip, let him lay her back, hold her close. “Then only me, and I knew he'd come. Why won't he leave me alone?”
“He won't come back tonight.” Roarke took her hand, pressed it to his chest so she could feel his heart beating. “He won't come back because there's the both of us here, and he's too much the coward.”
“Both of us,” she repeated, and left her hand on his heart while she slept.
He was up and dressed when she woke, and monitoring the stock reports on-screen in the sitting area over a cup of coffee. He turned as she rolled out of bed. “How are you?”
“About half,” she said. “I think I can make three-quarters after a shower.”
She started to walk toward the bath, then paused, changed directions, and walked to him. She bent, touched her lips to his forehead in a simple gesture of affection that left him moved and puzzled.
“You're there with me even when you're not. So thanks.”
“You're welcome.”
She crossed to the bath, glanced over her shoulder. “Sometimes you being there is annoying. But mostly it's not.”
The worry in his own mind cleared. With a laugh he turned back to the financial news and drank his coffee.
Just before seven, Eve opened her own office door to find Baxter at her desk, enjoying what appeared to be a hearty breakfast.
“Detective Baxter, your ass seems to have somehow ended up in my chair. I'd like it removed immediately so I can kick every inch of it.”
“Soon as I'm done. This is actual ham in these actual eggs.” He jerked a chin toward the wall screen where updated reports were displayed. “You don't sleep much, do you, Dallas? Damn busy night. I see you took my boy for a hell of a ride.”
“Your boy complain?”
“Hey, Trueheart's no whiner.”
His instinctive defense of his aide cooled Eve's temper. “Oh right. I must've mixed him up with you.”
“Must've been some flight.”
“Yeah, fun while it lasted.” Since he'd been courteous--or greedy-- enough to program an entire pot of coffee, she poured herself a cup. “Whitney ripped me a new one over it.”
“He's been off the street a long time. You had a call to make and made it.”
She jerked a shoulder. “Maybe he'd have done the same, and maybe he knows I'd do the same again, given the same circumstances. But it was a hell of a screwup, and a righteous ripping. It won't come down on Trueheart.”
“He'd handle it if he had do. Appreciate you seeing it doesn't. How much of a punch are you going to take?”
“Written and oral reports to the review board. Fuck. Might get myself a departmental censure in my file. I can back up my actions, justify the call, but they won't like it, and will like it less when the civil suits start piling up.”
“You collar three mercenary terrorists responsible for the deaths of twelve people--including cops--the heat gets turned way down.”
“Yeah. The same way if I don't get them soon, the heat keeps heading up. I'll handle it; I'm not a whiner either. But I want these fucking guys, Baxter.”
She turned to the door as the rest of the team began to arrive. “If you're going to eat, get it and chow it down fast,” she ordered. “We've got a lot to go over in a short amount of time.”
Briefings and reports, cop chatter and coffee. And the chatter cut off, as if a knife had sliced down, when Don Webster, Internal Affairs Bureau, strolled in.
“Morning, boys and girls. Dallas, you should've sold tickets to that show last night.”
“I thought this briefing was reserved for real cops.”
At Baxter's comment, Eve shook her head in warning. She'd been expecting IAB to poke its sharp nose in. If it had to be IAB, Webster was a mixed bag. She trusted him, as she trusted no one else in that sector. But they had a dicey personal history, and she didn't need a former lover and Roarke butting heads again.
“There's data on this case that's on a need-to-know basis,” she began.
“The Tower,” he said, referring to Chief of Police Tibbie's office, “has decided I need to know. You've got considerable OF banked on this, multiple injuries civilian and department, property damage. You've got multiple dead civilians and two dead cops.”
He waited a moment, scanned the faces in the room. “You've been questioning the investigating officers on other cases, one of which is closed. IAB needs to know. And I'm going to say this here and now, to all of you before the record goes on, that I'm not here to bust anybody's balls for doing what needs to be done to get the bastards responsible for Knight and Preston. I pulled some levers to get this duty. I've worked Homicide. I've worked with you,” he said to Eve. “It's me or somebody who hasn't.”
“The devil we know,” Eve said.
“That's right.”
“Find a seat. You'll have to catch up.”
She continued the briefing, picking her way carefully now through data Roarke had gained. “We believe Kirkendall, Clinton, and Isenberry executed individuals on a freelance basis for various covert agencies. We have reason to believe they were connected to the terrorist group Cassandra.”
“How do you come by that?” Webster asked.
She'd barely hesitated when Feeney spoke up. “It's data we were able to extrapolate from the military files provided,” he said smoothly. “EDD knows how to do its job, and this team knows how to put a case together.”
“With the Cassandra connection,” Eve continued, “these individuals had access to weaponry, electronics, and funds. The philosophy of this group--a world order in their image--correlates to the personal philosophy displayed by Kirkendall. His family was made to perform according to his specifications, his orders, or was disciplined accordingly. We know, through the statement given to Detectives Peabody and McNab by Roxanne Turnbill, that she was abducted and tortured by Kirkendall after his wife's disappearance. The time elapsed makes it likely she was taken to a location in or near the city. Cassandra operated and had a base in New York last year.”
“The current murders don't seem to be part of a terrorist threat,” Webster put in.
“No, they're personal. Screw with me, I don't just screw with you-- I kill you and your whole family. It's not revenge. It's pride. Who insulted his pride?”
“Everyone he's killed had a part in it,” Peabody commented.
“No, not everyone.”
“Well, the kid.” McNab glanced toward the door as if she might be listening on the other side.

[Dalyia]

“No. He wants her dead because his mission isn't complete until that time. His wife. It's his wife who dared to oppose him, dared to not only walk out with his kids, but who took him through the embarrassment of a custody trial. Who won. And who got away clean.”
“He can't find her.” Peabody spread her hands. “Neither can we.”
Eve thought of Roarke. He could, given the time, he could. But she wasn't going to endanger another family. “We can make him think we have her. It'll take a while to set up. Find a female cop who can handle it, one close to her build. We can use some enhancements, but she doesn't have to look identical. If he can have facial sculpting, he'd buy she could, too. We'd have to leak it so he didn't suspect it's a leak. And we've been pretty damn careful so far, so we'd need to trickle it.”
“Need a location.” Feeney pulled on his lip as he took up the thought. “Secure, so he'd buy we were holding her. Lure him in, box him in, shut him down. With the equipment and know-how he's got, you've got a hell of a trick on your hands, Dallas.”
“We put it together. I want it together within thirty-six hours, another twelve for sims. When we lay this trap out, I want it to spring shut right on their necks. Feeney, you and McNab take the computer lab.”
“We'll get on it.”
“The rest of you, give me five minutes with Lieutenant Webster.”
She waited until the room emptied and the door clicked closed. “This investigation, and last night's events, are my responsibility. The chief, IAB, or God Himself wants to file a complaint, it's on me.”
“So noted. I said I wasn't here to bust balls, and I meant it. The Duberry case, I've had a look at the files. While I wouldn't call the investigation sloppy, I'd call it narrow. Brenegan? It looked like a righteous bust that resulted in a righteous conviction. But this data calls that into question.”
“The cops on those cases complained to IAB?”
“Cops don't complain to IAB,” he returned with the slightest of sneers. “You avoid us like a case of the clap. But we get wind. Fact is, Dallas, if the primary on Duberry had done a more thorough job, scratched out that connection to Moss, then back to Brenegan, this hunt might've started a year ago.”
“Figuring a connect between a strangulation and a car bomb's a stretch.”
“You made the stretch.”
“I had more. If you're looking for fuel against another cop on this from me, you're not going to get it.”
“That's up to his superiors, not IAB. Regarding the media that's going to ... has already started to explode on the incident last night, you spin that right--and you've got excellent media connections--you can circle it into a positive. Heroic cop risks life to protect the city from baby killers.”
“Oh fuck that.”
“Don't think that's not just how Tibbie will have it spun. Not just your ass in the sling if you don't get some shine on this. Turn it around, get that sexy, fierce-eyed face on camera. Shake this off so you can get back to work.”
“I am back to work.” But she considered. “The spin lower the heat on the rest of the team, on the investigation?”
“Couldn't hurt. It couldn't hurt if you tell the rest of your team to cut me some serious slack. I was a good murder cop.”
“Yeah, too bad you didn't stick with that.”
“Your opinion. I can help, and that's why I'm here. Not to roust you, and not because I've still got a torch going. Maybe just a little smoulder now and then,” he added with an easy smile.
“Cut it out.”
The door between the offices opened. Though Roarke leaned against the jamb, he looked about as lazy as a wolf eyeballing quarry. “Webster,” he said in the coolest of tones.
Eve had a flash of the two of them beating the crap out of each other right where she now stood. She felt the tickle that might have been panic in the back of her throat as she stepped between them.
“Lieutenant Webster is here--at the directive of Chief Tibbie--as a representative of IAB and for the purposes of--”
“Christ, Dallas, I can talk for myself.” And he held his hands up, palms out. “Never touched her, don't intend to.”
“Good. She's on a difficult investigation, as I'm sure you're aware. She hardly needs either of us complicating things.”
“I'm not here to complicate things for her, or you.”
“Standing right here,” Eve said sharply. “You can stop talking around me.”
“Just clearing the air, Lieutenant.” Roarke nodded to her, to Webster. “I'll let you get back to work.”
“A minute,” she muttered and stalked into the office behind Roarke, shut the door with a decisive click. “Listen--”
He cut her off, pressing his lips to hers, then eased back. “I like to wind him up--and you as well. It's small of me, but there you are. I know perfectly well that he won't move on you, and if he lost his mind and did, you'd bloody him. Well, unless I got there first, which I sincerely hope would be the case. Actually, as I've told you before, I like him.”
“You like him.”
“Yes. He has superb taste in women, and a rather fine left jab.”
“Great. Good.” She shook her head. You figured you knew what made men tick, she thought. But you never did. “I'm going back to work.”

[Dalyia]

21
WITH A FROWN ON HER FACE, EVE SURVEYED Roarke's computer lab. Several of the units were up and running, several of the screens had words, codes, strange symbols that might as well have been hieroglyphics whizzing over them. Computerized voices intoned incomprehensible statements, questions, comments.
And the rumpled Feeney, the neon McNab, scooted around on wheeled chairs, somehow miraculously avoiding collision with work stations and each other, like a couple of kids in a strange, strange game.
Stepping into the room was, for her, like stepping into an alternate universe.
“Yo.” Feeney gave her a finger point, then tapped icons on a screen that slid up out of the counter. “Got something going.”
“Okay. I assume it's not Maximum Force 2200.”
“Hey.” McNab looked over. “You cruise MF?”
“No.” Well, maybe she'd played it a couple of times, but just to test her comp skills. “What's going?”
“What we've got over here is a diagnostic on the Swisher security system. We ran all the standards on it, stripped her down. Nice system, by the way.”
“We already know it was jammed, remote. Bypassed the failsafes and backups.”
“Yeah, yeah, but not how, not what they used. We're getting that. You work back from the system, code by code, signal by signal, and maybe you put together, code by code, signal by signal, the device that pulled it off.”
“They had to get it somewhere.” Eve nodded. “Even if they reconfigured, added flourishes, they had to get the basic device somewhere.”
“Yep. And what we got going over there is the security on the hospital lot where Jaynene Brenegan was taken out--and the system on the apartment where Karin Duberry was murdered. Hitting correlations. Gonna be the same device, or one configured the same way. When you get them, it'll help burn them.”
“Have you got room for one more deal?”
“Shoot.”
“I need you to alter my communicator. A fault, but nothing that I'd reasonably notice as a non-EDD cop. Just a blip, so that someone who's trying to monitor communications might get through, catch a transmission.”
“You want to leak data?”
“Once we get this set up, select our location, put the op together, I want them to be able to monitor my communicator. Maybe it's fuzzy, but they should get the details. Like the communicator's going bad on me. Like the shield's thinning out. It happens, right?”
“Yeah, but there's a default warning.”
“Wouldn't be the first time departmental equipment went bad. You should see my damn computer.”
“Still giving you grief?” McNab asked.
“It's holding. I haven't gotten any foreign porn when I ask for a file. Lately.”
“Hand it over.” Feeney held up his palm. “We'll play with it. You got your backup?”
“Yeah.” She pulled both out of her pocket. “Just dink with the one. Can you make it so the signal coming into it is still shielded? So they only get bits of what I transmit?”
“We'll get you covered.”
There were enough rooms in the house to billet a military battalion. It was risky tucking Webster away with Baxter, but she didn't want IAB strolling around her office. He wanted to observe, she thought, he could observe Baxter and Trueheart. Before rounding up Peabody, Eve slipped into her bedroom to make a private call.
“How about some more tit for tat?” she asked when Nadine came on-screen. “I need a spin, apparently. An incident last night--”
“Your air show through midtown?” Nadine gave a wicked laugh. “We got some extreme footage on that. Bought it off a tourist from Tokyo. It's aired twice this morning.”
“Great.”
“You're taking some heat on that? I've never known you to worry about a little sweat.”
“They've sicced IAB on me, and it could get in the way of the investigation. Trueheart was with me, and shit trickles even if you plug the dam. I'm advised to spin this around so it's the courageous cop in pursuit of kid killers. Risking life and limb to apprehend cop killers and protect the known universe.”
“Boy, that's killing you.” But Nadine angled her head. “That's what you were doing, wasn't it?”
“The point is this kind of thing doesn't reflect well on the department.”
“And the department will take a sacrifice, if deemed necessary.”
“It'll be Trueheart, Nadine. They'll give me a slap, maybe a smudge on my record, but if they have to roast somebody, it'll be him. He's more disposable. I put him on the line.”
“So you're asking me to spin the story so the crap doesn't clog up the momentum of your investigation, and so the cutie-pie doesn't get his tight little ass fried.”
“That's the idea. And in return--”
“No, don't tell me.” Nadine sat back, held up both hands. “Because it'll kill me to turn it down.”
“Look, Nadine, it's not that big a spin.”
“Obviously you didn't catch my pithy and insightful morning report. Spin's already spun. The cool-headed, nerveless Lieutenant Dallas and the young, dedicated Officer Trueheart, risking their lives in pursuit of the vicious killers of children and their fellow officers. Killers who discharge weapons with no thought to the welfare of innocent strangers--men, women, and children who live in or visit our great city. And so on.”
“Okay. You've got another IOU.”
“Slate's clear. This played better--and the vid showed the blasts coming out of that van. Most of the competition worked the same angle, but there's still some heat, some stirring of the urban terrorism pot and why aren't we safe walking the streets, in our own homes.”
“It's a good question. Could it be because a portion of society sucks?”
“Can I quote you? Better, how about a quick talking head while you repeat that?”
Eve considered. “How about you say, 'When contacted, Lieutenant Dallas stated that every member of the NYPSD will work diligently to identify and apprehend those responsible for the deaths of their fellow officers, for Grant, Keelie, and Coyle Swisher, for Inga Snood, for Linnie Dyson. We serve them, we serve New York. We serve Nixie Swisher because surviving the brutality that was brought into her home isn't enough. She deserves justice, and we'll get it for her.'“
“Good. Got it. As for the other IOU, toasting these bastards from my media vantage point? I'd be doing it now anyway. I'd be doing it for Knight and Preston. Both of their memorials are tomorrow.”
“I'll see you there.” Eve hesitated. “An unnamed source at Cop Central has confirmed that the abduction and murder of Meredith Newman has been connected to the recent home invasion and murder of five people, including two children, on the Upper West Side. Meredith Newman, a Child Protection Services caseworker, was abducted-- fill in the rest.”
“Can I say Newman was assigned to the invasion survivor, nine year old Nixie Swisher?”
“Yes, get it out there. And that multiple premortem burns on Newman's body indicate she was tortured before her throat was cut in the same manner as the members of the Swisher household. Ms. Newman's body was discovered in an alley--”
“We've got all that.”
“Say it again. Say it again--her naked body, covered with electrical burns, with its throat slit, was discovered after being dumped in an alley. Witnesses saw a black FourStar van, forged New York license AAD-4613, exiting the alley moments before the body was discovered. Lieutenant Eve Dallas, primary, and Officer Troy Trueheart, acting as aide, encountered a van of this description when leaving the scene.”
“And pursued,” Nadine finished. “Which leads right back to the flight show. Good. Solid. Thanks. How many witnesses?”
One, Eve thought, and only on the taillights. But why quibble. “When contacted, Lieutenant Dallas would neither confirm nor deny the report.”
“A formal one-on-one would round this off sweet.”
“I'm cutting back on sweets. Later.”
Juggling plans in her head, Eve headed to her office, then swung toward Roarke's. She gave a quick knock, opened the door. And winced.
It was full of people. Or more accurately, it was full of Roarke and holos. His admin, Caro, sat in her tidy way, her hands folded in her lap. Two men in square, collarless suit jackets, and three women in similar conservative corporate gear studied yet another holo of some sort of elaborate development, complete with winding river and a sheer tower ringed with people glides.
“Sorry.” She started to back out, but Roarke lifted a hand.
“Ladies, gentlemen, my wife.”
They all looked over at her. She saw, clearly enough, the measuring of the females--and the reactions of puzzlement, even amusement. And she could understand it. There was Roarke, rangy and stunning in his dark suit, power like an aura around him.
And here she was, banged-up boots, hair she couldn't quite remember if she'd even finger-combed that morning, and a weapon harness over her shirt.
“We're just wrapping up,” he told Eve, then turned back to the group. “If you have any further questions, relay them through Caro. I want the changes discussed and implemented by this time tomorrow. Thank you. Caro, stay a moment.”
The holos, save Caro's, winked off. Caro rose. “Lieutenant Dallas. It's good to see you.”
“Good to see you, too.” Now, Eve thought, she'd have to make chatty talk. “Ah, how's Reva?”
“She's very well. She's moved back to the city.”
“Well, good. Tell her hi.”
Caro turned to Roarke. “You're conferencing again at eleven with the engineers on the project. And have a one o'clock with Yule Hiser that we've switched to 'link. Your two o'clock is Ava McCoy and her team. Then you're clear for your five o'clock. The Fitch Communications meeting is tentatively scheduled for nine p.m., via holo.”
“Thank you, Caro. Anything urgent, you know where to reach me.”
She nodded. “Lieutenant,” she said, and winked out.
“Who were the suits?” Eve asked.
“Architects. I'm still making some refinements on a new development on Olympus.”
“Six architects for one development.”
“A rather large and complex one--and that includes buildings, landscape, water, interiors . . . And you don't care.”
She felt a little pinch of guilt, right between the shoulder blades. “Not much, but that's not the same as not being interested. Which I am, in a supportive kind of way.”
He chuckled. “What do you need?”
Now annoyance slapped over the guilt. “Just because I said I was interested and supportive doesn't mean I need something from you.”
“It doesn't, no.” He leaned back on his desk. “But you came in here because you did. There's no need to feel guilty about it, or to start worrying that I'm carving off my own worktime to help with yours. I wouldn't if I didn't want to do it.”
“Well, how do you feel about giving me a building downtown?”
“Which would you like?”
This time she chuckled. “Showoff. Have you got something untenanted? Something we can secure and wire up within twenty-four?”
“I imagine we can come up with something. That's your trap. Why downtown?”
“Because I know they're based uptown. Because when this goes down, I want it as far away from the kid as I can make it and stay in the city. I need a place where I can post up to a dozen men inside, where I can place snipers and tech response in select locations. I need to make it look like a safe house--cop security on doors and windows. And I need to be able to lock the place down tight as soon as I have them inside.”
“I'll give you some possibilities by this afternoon. That soon enough?”
“Good. There's this other thing. I'll make it quick. You said Richard and Elizabeth were coming today.”
“Yes, at four. I'll take care of that.”
“Much as I'd like to let you, it's not right.” She didn't have to be told the meetings Caro had rattled off weren't all he had on the big, shiny plate of Roarke Industries. “I dumped her here, I've got to do my part in it. I figure you've dealt with their security.”
“It's done.”
“I'm bringing Mavis in.”
“Excuse me ?”
“The kid's a big fan. She brightened up when she heard I knew Mavis, and before I knew it I'd said something about yeah, she could meet her. Anyway, it seems like if I had Mavis come in, Mira--we'd need Mira to give an opinion on the kid's reaction to the fostering--it would look more causal. Like we're having guests over.”
His communication system beeped and buzzed, lights signalling incoming data. She wondered how he stood all the interruptions. Of which, she knew, she was one.
“In the real world of good and evil, good doesn't have a party if they've got a reason to think evil might try to crash.”
He gave her an easy nod. “Thereby giving the impression that there's certainly no young girl evil might want to get its hands on around here.”
“It's sort of braining a lot of birds with one stone. Leonardo's in Milan or Paris or someplace over there.” She gestured vaguely in what might've been the direction of Europe. “So if I bring her in, it'd be best to keep her here. Just in case.”
“I'd say the more the merrier--and merrier it tends to be with Mavis around--but it's not quite the phrase that comes to mind with a houseful of cops.”
There came the guilt again, with a more enthusiastic pinch. “I'll get them all out as soon as I can.”
“Holding you to that. Oh, I caught your performance on a media Bash right before my meeting.”
“Yeah. Heard it got screen time.”
“Some impressive maneuvers, both air and ground. Still you're lucky you didn't splat that new police issue of yours into the face of a building.”
“I couldn't. I wreck another ride this soon, even with Peabody offering a variety of perverted, possibly illegal sexual favors, I'd be lucky to score an airboard out of Requisitions.”
“An offer of a variety of perverted, possibly illegal sexual favors would score you any vehicle you might like from me.”
“Peabody doesn't need the incentive. She already wants to jump you.”
“Flattering. But I was actually thinking of you in regard to those favors. But I'm sure Peabody and I can work something out.”
“I'd hate to put her back in the hospital this soon. Catch you at four.”
With Peabody, Eve made a point of going back to every crime scene she attributed to Kirkendall. She stood on the sidewalk, studied the building where Judge Moss and his family had once lived. Another family lived in the pretty brownstone now.
Did they think about it? Talk about it? Entertain their friends with the horror story?
“Baxter and Trueheart recanvassed here,” Peabody commented. “Showed off the composite and the military ID photos. Nobody remembers seeing them around. Two years since,” she added. “It was a long shot.”
“He didn't go after the wife on this one. You could speculate that he was more focused in on the judge. Or that he opted to leave her alive, to suffer. But he knew the routine, so he'd watched them.” She turned a circle. “A lot of places around here a guy could rent or buy, settle in, stake out. Isenberry probably handled this end. Smarter. Original canvass probably interviewed her. We'll re-evaluate the reports, see if we see anything on that.”
She got back in the car, drove toward the Swisher's. “Property around here's a good investment. He likes good investments. Maybe he bought in somewhere near the Moss residence, held on to it, rents it out. He partners up with Master Lu for investment, for income. Why not do some real estate?”
“Vary your portfolio.”
“Let's tug that line. See if we can find a property bought after the trial, before the bomb. It may not lead us to him, but it builds evidence. When these bastards go to trial, I'm going to have them sewn in a titanium shroud. Goddamn it!” She punched the accelerator as the Swisher house came into view. “Look at those idiot kids.”
The trio--teenagers, at her guess--were huddled together at the police seal on the front entrance. Their lookout, a curvy little number in a black skin-suit and wrap shades, let out a shout and took off on a silver airboard.
Kids scattered, leaping solo or in tandem on other boards, plowing through shrubbery, onto the sidewalk, into the street between vehicles that squealed and honked.
Eve heard looney, loopy laughter as they whipped around the corner.
“You're not going after them?” Peabody asked when Eve zipped to the curb. “Squish them like bugs?”

[Dalyia]

“No. It's just as likely one of them will end up getting squished by a cab while I'm chasing them. Pricks.” She slammed out, jogged to the entrance to check the seal. “Tinkered with it, didn't get through far enough to set off the alarm. Slap on a fresh one anyway, Peabody. Asshole kids. What did they plan to do, break in and have a party in the death house? Why aren't they in school, or better yet in juvie?”
“Saturday.”
“What day?”
“Today's Saturday, Dallas. No school on the weekends.”
“There ought to be,” she said darkly. “There ought to be school twenty-four/seven for little disrespectful creeps like that. Give them a day out, all they do is cause trouble.”
“You'd have felt better if you'd gone after and squished them.”
“Yeah.” She let out a breath. “Next time.” She forced herself to set it aside. “Recanvass was zip here, too. But we know Isenberry used the paralegal to get inside, get close to the family. We know the killers walked away, headed down the block, not into a neighboring building. Still, we'll try the same investment angle here, too. They might have bought one, rented one, used it for stakeout previously.”
Her last stop was the hospital parking lot. “Not just a quick slice here. Multiple stab wounds, defensive wounds. She put up a fight, or tried to. Played with her some. Jab here, jab there. I think this was girl on girl. They let Isenberry do this one. Her file says she likes to mix it up. Clinton, he likes a silent kill--manual strangulation a specialty. Kirkendall let his brother take point there. But the other kills were his. Cold and clean. But everybody got bloody. You trust your comrades more when they get bloody along with you.”
“Easiest one to take here.” Peabody frowned at the lot, the health center. “You either hack in, get her schedule, or you hang around-- who notices?--get a feel. Both, probably. You do it end of shift, late. And yeah, if it's another woman walking your way, you don't get the alarm bells. Little friendly nod, or Isenberry stops her, asks for directions. How do I get to the surgery wing? Vic turns, knife comes out. Sticks here, vie tries to block or run, gives her another jab. Works her back, away from the building. Some of the wounds were shallow, just nasty little sticks. Finishes her off. Rendezvous, and you're gone.”
Yeah, Eve thought, that was the way. “They'd have watched. Kirkendall and Clinton. Close enough for visual, or Isenberry wore a recorder. You're not part of the kill unless you see the kill. We find their base, we're going to find vids of every murder. They'd study them like Arena Ball players study the vid of a game. Looking for flaws, for moves, ways to improve.”
“Sick. Dallas, it's going on fifteen hundred.”
“And?”
“We're due to get Mavis at fifteen hundred.”
“Right. I got this buzz.” She rocked on her heels, studying the spot where Brenegan's body had been found years before. “I know we're close. We push the right buttons, we pull them in, and they're gone. They're smart, they're crafty, but they're vulnerable because they won't walk away until they're done. They'd rather fail than walk away without the mission complete.”
“It's hard to stop, change tracks, and deal with the other areas.”
“Yeah, it's a pisser all right. Let's go get Mavis.”
Eve had been to some of Mavis's concerts. She'd been backstage and watched the adoring fans lucky enough to gain entrance. But she'd never seen a nine-year-old girl rendered speechless by the mere sight of her friend.
Not that the sight couldn't render anyone incapable of speech. Mavis wore her hair in hundreds of ringlets, bright gold and shimmery green, that spilled around her face like some sort of electric mop. Her eyes were gold today as well, tipped with green lashes. She wore a deep purple calf-length coat, which she peeled off upon entering the house to reveal a crotch-length dress in swirls of purple and gold. Her green tights were accented with shiny knee and ankle bracelets and a pair of gold shoes with transparent heels filled with those same colorful swirls.
Her pregnancy had progressed far enough that her belly popped out of the swirls in a small, neat lump.
Her bracelets--knee, ankle, wrist--rang like bells as she danced across the floor toward a slack-jawed Nixie.
“Hi! I'm Mavis.”
Nixie only nodded, her head like a puppet's on a string.
“Dallas says you like my music.”
At the next nod, Mavis grinned. “I thought maybe you'd like this.” Apparently there was a pocket somewhere in the dizzying swirls as Mavis drew out a disc. “It's my new vid, for 'Inside Out Over You.' It's not hitting until next month.”
“I can have it?”
“Sure. You want to watch it? Okay if we go plug it in, Dallas?”
“Go ahead.”
“This is the ult,” Nixie exclaimed. “The serious ult. Linnie and I ...” She trailed off, stared hard at the disc. “Linnie's my best friend, and we watch your vids all the time. But she's . . .”
“I know.” Mavis's voice softened. “I'm really sorry. Dallas is my best friend. I'd feel so bad if anything happened to her. It would hurt for a long time. I guess I'd have to think about the fun we had together whenever I could, so it didn't hurt so much.”
She nodded. “You're having a baby. Can I touch it?”
“You bet. Sometimes it bumps around in there, and it feels really frosty.” Mavis laid her hand over Nixie's. “Gotta cook a while longer. In the new vid I've got this totally mag belly painting going on. Why don't you go plug the disc in. I'll come watch it with you.”
“Okay, thanks.” Nixie looked up at Eve. “You said you'd bring her, and you did. Thanks.”
When Nixie raced off to the parlor, Eve stepped up, laid a hand on Mavis's shoulder. “I appreciate this.”
“Poor kid. Man, makes you misty.” She laid a hand on her belly, blinked her emerald lashes. “Look, if I can give her a couple hours of fun, that's what it's all about. Hey! Bump!” She grabbed Eve's hand, slapped it to the side of her belly.
“Jesus, don't! Whoa!” She jerked when something kicked against her palm.
“Is that uptown or what?”
“Or what.”
But curiosity had her eyeing the ball of Mavis's belly as the little kicks continued. It was kind of. . . she wasn't sure. A happy little beat, and not nearly as creepy as she'd expected. “What the hell's it doing in there, dancing?”
“It's swimming and stretching and rolling. I'm so knocked up now its nostrils are opening, and he's got these little air sacs--”
Eve whipped her hand clear, tucked it safely behind her back as Mavis laughed. And her own hands gently caressed her belly as she looked toward the stairs. “Hi, Dr. Mira.”
“Mavis. I'd say you're glowing, but I've never known you otherwise. I will say you look wonderfully healthy.”
“Feeling TIT these days. Totally In Tune.”
“I didn't know you were already here,” Eve said.
“A few minutes before you. I've been upstairs speaking to Roarke. He'll be right down. Ms. Barrister, Mr. DeBlass, and their son have just been cleared through the gate.”
“I'll go keep Nixie entertained.” Mavis gave Eve a bolstering pat on the arm and swirled her way into the parlor. “Hit it, Nix!” she called out, and there was a blast of what could be called, in some cultures, music.
“I guess that's showtime,” Eve declared, and walked to the front door.

[Dalyia]

22
IT WAS AN ODD GROUP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, Eve supposed. Odder yet when she was trying to pay attention to the chitchat, watch the kid for reactions, structure a major operation, coordinate her team, and play hostess.
Richard and Elizabeth had weathered the storm of murder, scandal, and horror, and looked the stronger for it. She watched them both engage Nixie in conversation, together and separately. The kid was polite, and distracted enough, Eve thought, by both Mavis and a child near her own age, to enjoy herself.
It was a strange group. But from the sound of conversation, Eve seemed to be the only one who thought so.
She slipped away long enough to check on Peabody's progress with the real estate angle, and thought it showed strength of character to leave the comfort of cop work to head back down to social hour.
Elizabeth Barrister waylaid her in the foyer. “She's a beautiful child.”
“She's got spine.”
“She must, and she'll need it as time goes on. Grief comes in waves. Just when you think you've weathered one, another swamps you again.”
Elizabeth Barrister, Eve thought, knew plenty about grief. “It's a lot to take on, from your position.”
Elizabeth shook her head as she glanced toward the parlor. “We made mistakes, Richard and I. So many. Too many. And we've accepted that our daughter paid for them.”
“Senator DeBlass was responsible.”
“From your position,” Elizabeth agreed. “But she was our child, and we made mistakes. We've been given another chance with Kevin. He's lit up our lives.”
There was no question of that, Eve noted, when just saying his name lit Elizabeth 's face.
“We'd give Nixie a home, if she wants it. Give her a chance to heal. We'd be good for her, I think. Kevin certainly would. They're already making friends. She's been telling him about the game room, which is, apparently, the ult. I wonder if I could take them in for a while.”
“Sure. I'll show you where it is.”
Eve remembered Kevin as a scrawny kid of about six with ragged clothes and a bony cat in tow. He'd filled out, cleaned up, grown a couple of inches, and showed a gap-toothed grin as he clutched a pudgy Galahad in his arms.
“He's fat,” Kevin said cheerfully. “But he's soft.”
“Yeah, well...” Galahad aimed his dual-colored eyes at Eve in a way that promised payback for the indignity. “You don't have to carry him.”
“I like to. I have a cat named Dopey, and now I have a puppy, too, named Butch. I go to school and I eat like a horse.”
Behind them, Elizabeth laughed. “He certainly does.”
“If I had a horse.” The way Kevin slid his eyes slyly in his mother's direction told Eve he knew where the butter was best slathered. “I would ride him like a cowboy.”
“One step at a time, little man. Let's see how you handle Butch. Do you like horses, Nixie?”
“I got to pet one that pulls a carriage around the park. It was nice.”
At his first sight of the nirvana of Roarke's game room, Kevin let out a shout, dumped Galahad on the floor, and raced to the closest arcade game.
“I'll take it from here,” Elizabeth told Eve. “I've become an expert in this arena.”
With considerable relief, Eve left her to it. And took the opportunity to head back upstairs.
This time, Webster was leaning over Peabody's shoulder.
“Stop crowding my partner,” Eve snapped.
Webster straightened, but held his ground. “I have to head downtown shortly, give my report.”
“Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. What've you got?” she asked Peabody.
“Looks like you hit on something with the properties. I've got what you call a townstone on the Moss's block. Purchased three months after the custody resolution in the name of the Triangle Group. No financing, so they plunked down the whole--considerable--shot. No income until six weeks after Moss's death. Got rentals coming in after that. Tenants are clean and unconnected as far as I can tell. Triangle Group also owns, since March 2054, a two-family building two blocks south of the hospital where Brenegan was murdered. Tenants in and out, every six months like clockwork. I think we might find some of the names from Cassandra or Doomsday in here.”
“Kirkendall, Clinton, Isenberry. Triangle Group. Cute. We tie them to it.”
“It's a tangle, Dallas.”
She paced away, paced back. Webster was a solid cop, she knew. But he was still IAB. Overtime was racking up, and nothing made the review board, the brass, the nut crunchers bitch like unauthorized OF.
But there were ways around it.
“You're past shift,” she said to Peabody. “You and the rest of the team. Clock out.”
“But we've got--”
“You're off the clock.” She smiled thinly at Webster as she spoke. “What you do with your own time, in your own home, isn't my business. Or the department's. You want to do something useful,” Eve told Webster. “Go file your report. Get them off my back for the next forty-eight.”
“I can do that. Give the detective her orders. I've gone suddenly and strangely deaf.”
“Shoot this to your desk unit and get down to Central.”
“Do you want to move on these buildings?”
“Tomorrow. Try for at least six hours' downtime. We're going to put this in place tomorrow. We move this team back to Central, avoid inquiries from IAB about what the hell we're doing here. Get a conference room booked for seven hundred tomorrow. Tell the rest of the team to do the same or work from home.”
She could see it, and in her head was already outlining strategy.
“Start looking for other properties under that name or similar ones. Under any of the tenants' names who lived in the building near the hospital. I want their base. We get their base, we change this op around, and that's where we move on them.”
“Will you work from here?”
“I'll be pursuing the same data. I want your unit talking to mine. Something breaks, I'll come downtown. Got all that?”
“Got it.”
“Then get all these cops out of my house.”
“Dallas.” Webster stopped her as she turned to the door. “Nobody's business what I do on my own time, either. If I happened to get copies of this data Detective Peabody's finessed, I could entertain myself by seeing if I could beat her, or you, to the rest.”
“Peabody, have you got any problem having a race with an IAB suit?”
“I thrive on competition.”
“There you go. Beat his ass.”
Better yet, she thought as she walked out. She'd get Roarke to work unraveling. And she'd work with him, and they'd ring the goddamn bell. There had to be enough civilians in the damn house to ride the controls on a couple of kids while she worked.
She swung by the computer lab, and the lounge where Baxter and Trueheart were set up to relay the data. “Check out the owners before the buy,” she ordered. “See if there's a connect--military, paramilitary-- siblings, spouses, offspring in same. Get current status. Let's see if we can squeeze out a weasel. But do it from home. You're officially off the clock.”
She veered off to start downstairs, and Summerset intercepted.
“Lieutenant, your guests require some of your attention.”
“Cram the etiquette lesson. Tell Roarke I'm working in his office and I require some of his attention. Now.”
Pleased to save time, and to have been able to tell Summerset to cram anything, she backtracked and sat at Roarke's desk.
“Engage computer.”
One moment, please, to verify authorization by voice scan. Verified, Darling Eve. Engaged.
“Christ, what if somebody hears that? Don't you know there are cops in the damn woodwork around here? Search all data, Triangle Group.”
Searching . . . Triangle Group, licensed real estate brokerage company, subsidiary of Five-By Corporation.
“Location or locations of Triangle Group's offices or company headquarters.”
Working ... Triangle Group is listed as an electronic company with base office 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, East Washington.
“Display map, East Washington. Highlight given address.”
Map displayed. Highlighted location is The White House.
“Yeah, even I knew that. Little power trip. Search data on Five-By Corporation.”
She leaned back as the computer fed her data, then glanced over as Roarke came in.
“You needed something?”
“Kirkendall acquired real estate near two of the targets. Prime stuff, good investment. Looks like he kept them. Using a couple of blinds, or a couple we've got so far. Triangle Group out of Five-By Corporation.”
“Triangle.” He moved toward her, brushed her out of his chair. “Logical. Five-By? Is that an indication there are two more prime players in this?”
“Five-by-five.”
“Is twenty-five?”
“No, not math. Military term.”
“You've got one on me.”
“It's like loud and clear. Like I hear you fine. Everything's solid. Like that.”
“Ah.” He looked over what she'd already done. “The White House. Don't we think a lot of ourselves? And the parent organization is ostensibly housed in the Pentagon and the UN, and I believe this is Buckingham Palace. However grand their delusions, they don't make much of a blip in the business world. I've never heard of either company. Let's just see what we see.”
“Can I leave you on this a minute? I need to update the commander. It might keep them off my ass a while longer.”
“Go on, but pop downstairs and see if all's well, will you? I left Mavis as acting host, and Christ knows what she might think up.”
She made the call, and put off her social obligations long enough to pop in on Feeney as he was wrapping up.

[Dalyia]

Once she made it down, she found all the adults, including Elizabeth, in the parlor.
“They're fine,” Elizabeth told her. “Having such a good time I thought I'd let them hang together, as Kevin says, for a little while.”
“Good. Okay. Fine.”
“Don't worry about us,” Mira told her. “It's obvious you've had something come up. We can easily entertain ourselves for a while.”
“Even better.”
In the game room Nixie and Kevin took a break from the machines. She liked having another kid around, even if he was a boy. And his mother and father seemed nice. His mother had even played Intergalactic War with them. And nearly won, too.
But she was glad she'd gone away for a while. There were things you couldn't say with adults around.
“How come you don't talk like your mom and dad?” Nixie wanted to know.
“I talk like everybody.”
“No, they have a sort of accent. It's different. How come you don't?”
“Maybe because they haven't been my mom and dad the whole time. But they are now.”
“They, like, adopted you?”
“We had a party when they did. Almost like a birthday. There was chocolate cake.”
“That's nice.” She thought it was, but there was a jittery feeling in her stomach. “Did somebody kill your real mom and dad?”
“My other mom,” he corrected. “Because I have a real mom. You get to be real when you're adopted.”
“I mean your other. Did somebody kill her?”
“Nuh-uh.” He began to pet Galahad, who'd deigned to stay and have his belly rubbed. “Sometimes she'd go away, and I'd get hungry. Sometimes she'd be nice, and sometimes she'd hit me. 'Smack the crap out of you, little bastard.'“ He grinned when he said it, but it wasn't a pleasant expression. “That's how her face looked when she hit. But my mom now, she never hits, and she never has that face. My dad either. Sometimes they get this one.”
He drew his eyebrows together and tried to look stern. “But mostly they don't. And they don't go away, and I don't get hungry, not like before.”
“How did they find you?”
“They came and got me from the place where you have to go if you don't have a mom or something. You get to eat there, and they've got games, but I didn't want to stay there--and I didn't for very long. Then they came and we got to go live in Virginia. We have a big house. Not as big as this,” he said, stringently honest. “But it's big and I have my own room, and Dopey came with us.”
Nixie moistened her lips. “Are they going to take me to Virginia?” She knew where that was, sort of. She knew the capital was Richmond because she had to learn all the states and their capitals in school. But it wasn't New York. It wasn't here. It wasn't home.
“I don't know.” Obviously intrigued, Kevin cocked his head and studied her. “Don't you live here?”
“No. I don't live anywhere. People came in our house and killed my mom and dad.”
“Killed them dead?” Kevin's eyes popped wide. “How come?”
“Because my dad was good and they were wrong people. That's what Dallas said.”
“That's the doom.” He gave her a pat, as he had Galahad. “Were you scared?”
“What do you think?” she snapped back, but the sympathy on Kevin's face didn't fade.
“I think I'da been so scared I wouldn't even be able to breathe”
The little flash of anger died. “I was. They killed them, and they didn't kill me, and I have to stay here for protection. Dallas is going to find them and put them in a goddamn cage.”
He slapped a hand over his mouth and slid his gaze to the door.
“You're not supposed to say goddamn,” he whispered. “Mom gets that look on her face if you forget and say it.”
“She's not my mom.”
When tears glimmered, Kevin scooted over and put an arm around her. “It's okay. She can be your mom, too, if you want.”
“I want my own mom.”
“She got dead.”
Nixie dropped her head to her drawn-up knees. “They won't let me go back to my house. They won't let me go to school. And I don't know where Virginia is, exactly.”
“We have a big yard, and we have a puppy. Sometimes he pees on the floor. It's pretty funny.”
She sighed, rested her cheek on her knees. “I want to ask Dallas if I have to go to Virginia.” She swiped at her cheeks, rose, and used the house scanner. “Where is Dallas?”
Dallas is in Roarke's office.
“You have to keep this.” Carefully, she unpinned the homer from her shirt, pinned it on Kevin's. “It's how Summerset knows where I am. I just want to talk to Dallas and nobody else, so you have to stay here and play games until I get back.”
“Okay. When you come back, we can look Virginia up on a map, then you can see.”
“Maybe.”
She knew the house, or at least the parts of it Summerset had shown her. To avoid the parlor, she took the elevator up a floor, then dashed down the corridor, and used the steps.
Part of her wanted to run away. But where would she go? She didn't want to be alone. She knew kids were sometimes. Coyle had told her there were places like Sidewalk City where kids nobody wanted lived in boxes and had to beg for food. She didn't want to live in a box, but it wasn't right, it wasn't fair that they were going to send her away. No one even asked.
Creeping past a door, she paused to listen.
She heard nothing inside, so eased around to look. It was Dallas's office, and no one was there.
She crept to the next door.
“Gonna nail those sons of bitches. Look at the tenant list, two blocks from the Brenegan murder scene, and we've got a fucking revolving door.”
There was a sound in Dallas's voice, Nixie thought. Kind of mean, and kind of excited, too. Like she'd heard one of the bigger kids sound at free-time in school when he talked about punching another kid.
“Two of those names are known aliases for Cassandra disciples. And one of them's a face sculptor--a dead one. Bet your excellent ass he's the one who did the work on Kirkendall and Clinton. The other's off planet doing life. I'm going to have to go squeeze him, and I hate going off planet.”
“We get lucky here, you won't have to. Every property or company I find is one away from pinning their base. Just give us some room here, Lieutenant.”
“Right, right.”
Nixie heard footsteps, crouched.
“And stop pacing about. It's annoying. Why don't you leave me to this for a half hour, go downstairs--or at the very least go hound someone.”
“I sent my team home. You're what's left for me to hound.”
“Just my lucky day.”
There was a beeping, an oath that would have gotten Nixie grounded for a month if she'd so much as thought it.
“Dallas.”
Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Compromised police seal, main front entrance, Swisher murder scene.
“Goddamn kids.”
Patrol dispatched. Acknowledge you have been informed of compromise.
“Acknowledged. Have the patrol hold at scene. Have officers in light armor as precautionary measure. I want to check it out myself. ETA, ten minutes.”
Acknowledged. Seal requires replacement. Dispatch out.
“If there's a patrol heading there, it seems unnecessary for you to go as well.”
“I chased a bunch of kids away earlier. Should've kicked some butt, but I didn't want to chance another chase. If they're inside, I want to correct that error in judgment, personally. If they're nearby, I'm going to take a few minutes of my time to round them up, and kick said butt.”
“I'll go with you, then.”
“Jesus, Roarke, it's a kid butt-kicking detail. I can handle it.” There was a long pause, a hiss of breath. “Okay, okay, no unnecessary risks. I'll catch Baxter, take him along. I need you to stay on this and coordinate with Peabody once she gets to Central.”
“Wear your vest.”
“Oh Christ!” There was a sharp thud, as if something had been kicked. “Yes, mommy.”
“And later when I take it off of you, you'll be calling me something entirely different.”
“Ha-ha. Ten minutes there, ten back, ten to kick teenage butt. Back in thirty.”
In the hall, Nixie streaked away. With her heart drumming, she raced down the stairs, found an elevator, and ordered it to take her to the ground-floor library.
There was an outside door there, and she knew which car Dallas drove.
Eve caught Baxter on the stairs. “I need you to ride with me. Seal's compromised at the Swisher house. I chased a bunch of teenagers away from it this afternoon. Looks like they came back. Trueheart, take the vehicle. I'll stick your partner in a cab when we're done slapping around a bunch of kids.” She tossed Baxter a vest. “Suit up. I take no chances.”
He started to take off his jacket.
“Upstairs. Jesus, you think I want to see what you refer to as your manly chest?” She took a small remote out of her pocket, tapped in a code.
“What's that?”
She felt the heat rise up the back of her neck. “It's a remote, brings my ride around on auto.”
“Sweet. Let me--”
She stuck it back in her pocket. “Just suit up, Baxter. I'd like to get this annoying little detail accomplished so I can get back to work.”
She took enough time to signal Mavis out of the parlor. “Listen, I've got to go out for a few, and I might be pretty jammed up when I get back. Can you keep everybody happy?”
“It's what I do best. Hey, maybe I'll get everybody down to the pool before we eat. That chilly with you?”
“It's great.” She tried to envision Mavis cavorting in the water with Elizabeth and Mira. “Ah ... But wear a suit, okay?”
Outside, Nixie dashed behind a tree when she heard the engine. She watched, breath quick and short as Dallas's car streamed out of the garage and toward the front of the house. She watched it stop, heard locks click.
It was wrong. She shouldn't do it. But she wanted to go home. Even for a little while. Before they sent her away, before they made her have another mom and dad.
She took one last glance toward the house, then ran for the car and crawled onto the floor of the backseat. She pulled the door shut only a moment before the door of the house opened. And she lay there, eyes squeezed shut.
“Some smooth ride you scored this time, Dallas.”
Baxter. He was nice, funny. He wouldn't be too mad if they found her.
“Don't play with my controls. When we're done with this, I need you to hook up with Peabody, keep pushing the property angle. We're going to find them Upper West. Shit, they could be a fucking block away.”
“There goes the neighborhood. We scattering for the night because of the IAB hound?”
“Webster's okay--but if I've got the team officially on the clock, and working out of my home, it's a gray area. Politicians grumbling, and they don't like gray unless they're painting it. We got dead cops, we got injured cops, we're poking into other cops' cases--one of them closed with a guy doing cage time for it. And I'm not shutting it down fast enough to suit them. I'm not going to give them a reason to pull me off.”
“Taking the kid into your place opened you up to it.”
“I know it.”
“It was the right thing, Dallas. The right thing for her. Kid didn't just need protection. She needed ... comfort.”
“She needs me to close this thing, and I can't if I get jammed up with bullshit. So we straddle the line, and Webster will keep the brass off our ass until we do. There's the black-and-white. Let's get this done.”
Eve strode to the two uniforms. “Either of you go inside?”
“No, sir. We were ordered to hold. Light was on up there, right front window, second floor.” One of them nodded toward the house. “Switched off when we pulled up. No one's come out.”
“You check the back?”
“We were told to hold.”
“Jesus, don't either of you have possession of a brain today? Kids've probably scrambled. Baxter, go around the back. I'll take the front. The two of you stand here and give the appearance of being cops.”
She approached the front entrance, examined the seal and lock. Both had been hacked and mangled. It screamed kids, but she followed the suggestion of the tingle at the base of her spine and drew her weapon before she booted the door.
She swept, center, right, left, back to center. Called for lights and listened. There was some debris scattered around. Home brew bottles, bags of soy chips. Snack food littered the floor, and had been crushed underfoot. It all said kids, disrespect, party.
When she heard a soft creak overhead, she crossed to the stairs.
Because she couldn't hear anything, Nixie risked easing her head up, peeking out the window. She saw the two policemen and bit her lip when her eyes welled with tears. They wouldn't let her go inside. If she tried to, they'd see her.
Even as she thought it, there were two bright flashes, and the policemen flew backwards and fell down the steps to her mother's office. So quickly it seemed like pretend, two figures in black ran across the sidewalk and into her house.
The shadows.
She wanted to scream, to scream so loud, but nothing came out of her throat as she squeezed her body down onto the floor again. The shadows would kill Dallas and Baxter, just like they'd killed everybody. While she hid. They would cut them up while she hid.
Then she remembered what was in her pocket, and fumbled out the 'link Roarke had given her. She pushed the button, hard, and began to weep as she crawled out of the car. “You have to come, you have to help. They're here! They're going to kill Dallas. Hurry and come.”
Then she ran home.
At his desk Roarke felt the cool satisfaction of outwitting a foe. He was peeling away layers. He didn't have the core yet, not yet, but it was only a matter of time. Dig deeply enough, and there were always footprints under the muck. He could follow them now. Triangle to Five-By, Five-By to Unified Action--another military term. And all the crisscrossing threads between. He came across the name Clarissa Branson, listed as president of Unified. Jolt from the past, he thought. One of Cassandra's top-level operatives.
Eve had caught her, he remembered, before the crazy bitch could kill them both and blow up the Statue of Liberty for good measure. Clarissa and William Henson, the man who'd trained her. Both dead now. But. . .
He pulled up another program and ordered a search for New York properties under Clarissa Branson, William Henson, or any combination thereof.
He checked the time, judged Eve would have arrived at the Swisher house. No point in interrupting her fun, he decided. Which she would gain, whatever she said, from busting down on a bunch of foolish kids.
“Ah, well now, there you are you shagging bastards. Branson Williams, West Seventy-third. My cop's right again. Best interrupt her after all.”
“Roarke.” Summerset, normally the most restrained of men, rushed into the office without knocking. “Nixie's missing.”
“Be specific.”
“She's not in the house. She took off the homer, put it on the boy. She told him she wanted to talk with the lieutenant, and left him in the game room. I've checked the scanners. She's not in the house.”
“Well, she could hardly get off the property. Likely she's just. . .” He thought of Eve leaving with Baxter. “Oh bloody hell.”
As he swung to his desk 'link, the one in his pocket signalled. He yanked it out, heard the child's voice.
“Call for backup,” he snapped out and uncoded a drawer. “Contact Peabody and the rest, give them the situation.”
“I'll do it on the way. I'm going with you. That child was my responsibility.”
Rather than argue, Roarke checked the weapon he'd taken out, tossed it to Summerset, and chose another. “You'll have to keep up.”

[Dalyia]

محتوى مخفي

يجب عليك الرد لرؤية النص المخفي

[soul-of-life]

thanks a lot