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

[Dalyia]

In Death series

book 23

Survivor in Death

Nora Roberts as J.D Robb

I guess I wouldn't have noticed* either* if I hadn't just finished reading Survivor before listening to the audio. A significant character mistake was made in the book (Katherine instead of Elizabeth) and a major scene of Roarke's is left completely out (Nixie's step-aunt). The character change was just confusing* especially since they mentioned Sharon* but leaving out an entire scene makes the book NOT unabridged. It's an excellent story still* and yes* Eve doesn't deal well with children* but that's not a big surprise considering her history. As a purist* I found the changes to the story disturbing* but still a great story

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[Dalyia]

PROLOGUE
A LATE-NIGHT URGE FOR AN ORANGE FIZZY SAVED NIXIE'S life. When she woke, she could see by the luminous dial of the jelly-roll wrist unit she was never without that it was after two in the morning.
She wasn't allowed to snack between meals, except for items on he mother's approved list. And two in the morning was way between.
But she was dying for an Orange Fizzy.
She rolled over and whispered to her best friend in the entire galaxy Linnie Dyson. They were having a school-night sleepover because Linnie's mom and dad were celebrating their anniversary in some fancy hotel.
So they could have sex. Mom and Mrs. Dyson said it was so the could have a fancy dinner and go dancing and crap-o, but it was for sex. Jee-zus, she and Linnie were nine, not two. They knew what was what-o.
Besides, like they gave a woo. The whole deal meant Mom--the Rule Monster--bent the rules about school nights. Even if they'd had to turn the lights out at nine-thirty--were they two?--she and Linnie had the most magolicious time.
And school was still hours away, and she was thirsty. So she poked Linnie and whispered again.
“Wake up!”
“Nuh. Not morning. Still dark.”
“It is morning. It's two in the morning.” That's why it was so frosty. “I want an Orange Fizzy. Let's go down and get one. We can split it.”
Linnie only made grunting, mumbling noises, rolled away, and tugged the covers nearly over her head.
“Well, I'm going,” Nixie said in the same hissy whisper.
It wasn't as much fun on her own, but she'd never get back to sleep now, thinking of the Fizzy. She had to go all the way down to the kitchen because her mother wouldn't allow her to have an AutoChef in her room. Might as well be in prison, Nixie thought, as she scooted out of bed. Might as well be in prison in 1950 or something instead of her own house in 2059.
Mom had even put child codes on all the household AutoChefs so the only thing Nixie or her brother, Coyle, could program was health sludge.
Might as well eat mud.
Her father said, “Rules is rules.” He liked to say that a lot. But sometimes he'd wink at her or Coyle when their mother was out and order up some ice cream or potato crispies.
Nixie sort of thought her mom knew and pretended she didn't.
She tiptoed out of her room, a pretty little girl, just going gangly, with a wavy mass of platinum blonde hair. Her eyes, a pale, pale blue, were already adjusted to the dark.
Still, her parents always kept a low light on in the bathroom at the end of the hall, in case anybody had to get up and pee or whatever.
She held her breath as she walked by her brother's room. If he woke, he might tell. He could be a complete butt-pain. Then again, sometimes he could be pretty chilly. For a moment, she hesitated, considered sneaking in, waking him, and talking him into keeping her company for the adventure.
Nah. It was sort of juicy to be creeping around the house by herself. She held her breath again as she eased by her parents' room, hoping she could stay--for once--under her mother's radar.
Nothing and no one stirred as she crept down the stairs.
But even when she got downstairs, she was mouse quiet. She still had to get by Inga, their housekeeper, who had rooms right off the kitchen. Right off the target. Inga was mostly okay, but she'd never let her get away with an Orange Fizzy in the middle of the night.
Rules is rules.
So she didn't turn on any lights, and snuck through the rooms, into the big kitchen like a thief. It only added to the thrill. No Orange Fizzy would ever taste as frigid as this one, she thought.
She eased open the refrigerator. It occurred to her, suddenly, that maybe her mother counted stuff like this. Maybe she kept a kind of tally of soft drinks and snack food.
But she was past the point of no return. If she had to pay a price for the prize, she'd worry about paying it later.
With the goal in hand, she shuffled to the far end of the kitchen where she could keep an eye on the door to Inga's rooms and duck behind the island counter if she had to.
In the shadows, she broke the seal on the tube, took the first forbidden sip.
It pleased her so much, she slipped onto the bench in what her mother called the breakfast area, and prepared to enjoy every drop.
She was just settling in when she heard a noise and dived down to lie on the bench. From beneath it, she saw a movement and thought: Busted!
But the shadow slipped along the far counter, to the door of Inga's room, and inside.
A man. Nixie had to slap a hand on her mouth to stifle a giggle. Inga had a boogie buddy! And she was so old--had to be at least forty. It looked like Mr. and Mrs. Dyson weren't the only ones having sex tonight.
Unable to resist, she left the Orange Fizzy on the bench and slid out. She just had to look, just had to see. So she crept over to the open door, eased inside Inga's little parlor, and toward the open bedroom door. She squatted down on all fours, poked her head in the opening.
Wait until she told Linnie! Linnie would be so jealous.
With her hand over her mouth again, her eyes bright with laughter, Nixie scooted, angled her head.
And saw the man slit Inga's throat.
She saw the blood, a wild gush of it. Heard a horrible, gurgling grunt. Eyes glazed now, she reared back, her breath hissing and hitching into her palm. Unable to move, she sat, her back pressed to the wall and her heart booming inside her chest.
He came out, walked right by her, and out the open door.
Tears spilled out of her eyes, down her spread fingers. Every part of her shook as she crawled over, using a chair as a shield, and reached up to the table for Inga's pocket link.
She hissed for emergency.
“He's killed her, he's killed her. You have to come.” She whispered the words, ignoring the questions the voice recited. “Right now. Come right now.” And gave the address.
She left the 'link on the floor, continued to crawl until she'd reached the narrow steps that led from Inga's parlor to the second level.
She wanted her mommy.
She didn't run, didn't dare. She didn't stand. Her legs felt funny, empty, like the bones in them had melted. She started to belly crawl across the hall, sobs stuck in her throat. And to her horror, she saw the shadow--two shadows now. One went into her room, the other into Coyle's.
She was whimpering when she dragged her body through her parents' bedroom doorway. She heard a sound, a kind of thump, and pressed her face into the carpet while her stomach heaved.
She saw the shadows pass the doorway, saw them. Heard them. Though they moved as if that's what they were. Only shadows.
Shuddering, she continued to crawl, past her mother's bedroom chair, past the little table with its colorful lamp. And her hand slid through something warm, something wet.
Pulling herself up, she stared at the bed. At her mother, at her father. At the blood that coated them.






1
MURDER WAS ALWAYS AN INSULT, AND HAD been since the first human hand had smashed a stone into the first human skull. But the murder, bloody and brutal, of an entire family in their own home, in their own beds, was a different form of evil.
Eve Dallas, NYPSD Homicide, pondered it as she stood studying Inga Snood, forty-two-year-old female. Domestic, divorced. Dead.
Blood spatter and the scene itself told her how it must have been. Snood's killer had walked in the door, crossed to the bed, yanked Snood's head up--probably by the mid-length blonde hair, raked the edge of the blade neatly--left to right--across her throat, severing the jugular.
Relatively tidy, certainly quick. Probably quiet. It was unlikely the victim had the time to comprehend what was happening. No defensive wounds, no other trauma, no signs of struggle. Just blood and the dead. Eve had beaten both her partner and Crime Scene to the house. The nine-one-one had gone to Emergency, relayed to a black-and-white on neighborhood patrol. The uniforms had called in the homicides, and she'd gotten the tag just before three in the morning.
She still had the rest of the dead, the rest of the scenes, to study. She stepped back out, glanced at the uniform on post in the kitchen.
“Keep this scene secure.”
“Yes, sir, Lieutenant.”
She moved through the kitchen out into a bisected space--living on one side, dining on the other. Upper-middle income, single-family residence. Nice,Upper West Side neighborhood. Decent security, which hadn't done the Swishers or their domestic a damn bit of good.
Good furniture--tasteful, she supposed. Everything neat and clean and in what appeared to be its place. No burglary, not with plenty of easily transported electronics.
She went upstairs, came to the parents' room first. Keelie and Grant Swisher, ages thirty-eight and forty, respectively. As with their housekeeper, there was no sign of struggle. Just two people who'd been asleep in their own bed and were now dead.
She gave the room a quick glance, saw a pricey man's wrist unit on a dresser, a pair of woman's gold earrings on another.
No, not burglary.
She stepped back out just as her partner, Detective Delia Peabody, came up the steps. Limping--just a little.
Had she put Peabody back on active too soon? Eve wondered. Her partner had taken a serious beating only three weeks before after being ambushed steps outside her own apartment building. And Eve still had the image of the stalwart Peabody bruised, broken, unconscious in a hospital bed.

[Dalyia]

Best to put the image, and the guilt, aside. Best to remember how she herself hated being on medical, and that work was sometimes better than forced rest.
“Five dead? Home invasion?” Huffing a bit, Peabody gestured down the steps. “The uniform on the door gave me a quick run.”
“It looks like, but we don't call it yet. Domestic's downstairs, rooms off the kitchen. Got it in bed, throat slit. Owners in there. Same pattern. Two kids, girl and boy, in the other rooms on this level.”
“Kids? Jesus.”
“First on scene indicated this was the boy.” Eve moved to the next door, called for the lights.
“Records ID twelve-year-old Coyle Swisher.” There were framed sports posters on his walls. Baseball taking the lead. Some of his blood had spewed onto the torso of the Yankees current hot left fielder.
Though there was the debris of an adolescent on the floor, on the desk and dresser, she saw no sign Coyle had had any more warning than his parents.
Peabody pressed her lips together, cleared her throat. “Quick, efficient,” she said in flat tones.
“No forced entry. No alarms tripped. Either the Swishers neglected to set them--and I wouldn't bet on that--or somebody had their codes or a good jammer. Girl should be down here.”
“Okay.” Peabody squared her shoulders. “It's harder when it's kids.”
“It's supposed to be.” Eve stepped to the next room, called for lights, and studied the fluffy pink and white bed, the little girl with her blonde hair matted with blood. “Nine-year-old Nixie Swisher, according to the records.”
“Practically a baby.”
“Yeah.” Eve scanned the room, and her head cocked. “What do you see, Peabody ?”
“Some poor kid who'll never get the chance to grow up.”
“Two pair of shoes over there.”
“Kids, especially upper income, swim in shoes.”
“Two of those backpack deals kids haul their stuff in. You seal up yet?”
“No, I was just--”
“I have.” Eve walked into the crime scene, reached down with a sealed hand, and picked up the shoes. “Different sizes. Go get the first on scene.”
With the shoes still in her hand, Eve turned back to the bed, to the child, as Peabody hurried out. Then she set them aside, took an Identipad out of her field kit.
Yes, it was harder when it was a child. It was hard to take such a small hand in yours. Such a small, lifeless hand, to look down at the young who'd been robbed of so many years, and all the joys, all the pains that went in them.
She pressed the fingers to the pad, waited for the readout.
“Officer Grimes, Lieutenant,” Peabody said from the doorway. “First on scene.”
“Who called this in, Grimes?” Eve asked without turning around.
“Sir, unidentified female.”
“And where is this unidentified female?”
“I ... Lieutenant, I assumed it was one of the vies.”
She glanced back now, and Grimes saw the tall, lean woman in mannish trousers, a battered leather jacket. The cool brown eyes, flat cop's eyes, in a sharply featured face. Her hair was brown, like her eyes, short, choppy rather than sleek.
She had a rep, and when that icy gaze pinned him, he knew she'd earned it.
“So our nine-one-one calls in murder, then hops into bed so she can get her throat slashed?”
“Ah . . .” He was a beat cop, with two years under his belt. He wasn't ranking Homicide. “The kid here might've called it, Lieutenant, then tried to hide in bed.”
“How long you had a badge, Grimes?”
“Two years--in January, Lieutenant.”
“I know civilians who've got a better sense of crime scene than you. Fifth victim, identified as Linnie Dyson, age nine, who is not a fucking resident of this fucking address. Who is not one Nixie Swisher. Peabody , start a search of the residence. We're looking for another nine-year-old girl, living or dead. Grimes, you idiot, call in an Amber Alert. She may have been the reason for this. Possible abduction. Move!”
Peabody snagged a can of Seal-It out of her own kit, hurriedly sprayed her shoes and hands.
“She could be hiding. If the kid called it in, Dallas , she could be hiding. She could be afraid to come out, or she's in shock. She could be alive.”
“Start downstairs.” Eve dropped on her hands and knees to look under the bed. “Find out what unit, what 'link placed the nine-one-one.”
“On that.”
Eve strode to the closet, searched through it, pushed into any area of the room where a child might hide. She started out, moving toward the boy's room, then checked herself.
You were a little girl, with what seemed to be a nice family. Where did you go when things got bad?
Somewhere, Eve thought, she herself never had to go. Because when things got bad for her, the family was the cause.
But she bypassed the other rooms and walked back into the master bedroom.
“Nixie,” she said quietly, as her eyes scanned. “I'm Lieutenant Dallas, with the police. I'm here to help you. You call the police, Nixie?”
Abduction, she thought again. But why slaughter an entire household to snatch a little girl? Easier to boost her off the street somewhere, even to come in, tranq her, carry her out. More likely they'd found her trying to hide, and she'd be curled up somewhere, dead as the rest.
She called for lights, full, and saw the smears of blood on the carpet on the far side of the bed. A small, bloody handprint, another, and a trail of red leading to the master bath.
Didn't have to be the kid's blood. More likely the parents. More likely, but there was a hell of a lot of it. Crawled through the blood, Eve thought.
The tub was big and sexy, double sinks in a long peachy-colored counter, and a little closet-type deal for the toilet.
A smudged and bloody swath stained the pretty pastel floor tiles.
“Goddamn it,” Eve mumbled, and followed the trail toward the thick, green glass walls of a shower station.
She expected to find the bloodied body of a small dead girl.
Instead she found the trembling form of a live one.
There was blood on her hands, on her nightshirt, on her face.
For a moment, one hideous moment, Eve stared at the child and saw herself. Blood on her hands, her shirt, her face, huddled in a freezing room. For that moment, she saw the knife, still dripping, in her hand, and the body--the man--she'd hacked to pieces lying on the floor.
“Jesus. Oh Jesus.” She took a stumbling step back, primed to run, to scream. And the child lifted her head, locked glassy eyes on hers, and whimpered.
She came back, hard, as if someone had slapped her. Not me, she told herself as she fought to get her breathing under control. Nothing like me.
Nixie Swisher. She has a name. Nixie Swisher.
“Nixie Swisher.” Eve said it out loud, and felt herself settle. The kid was alive, and there was a job to do.
One quick survey told Eve none of the blood was the child's.
Even with the punch of relief, the stiffening of spine, she wished for Peabody . Kids weren't her strong suit.
“Hey.” She crouched, carefully tapped the badge she'd hooked to her waistband with a finger that was nearly steady now. “I'm Dallas . I'm a cop. You called us, Nixie.”
The child's eyes were wide and glazed. Her teeth chattered.
“I need you to come with me, so I can help you.” She reached out a hand, but the girl cringed back and made a sound like a trapped animal.
Know how you feel, kid. Just how.
“You don't have to be afraid. Nobody's going to hurt you.” Keeping one hand up, she reached in her pocket with the other for her communicator. “ Peabody , I've got her. Master bath. Get up here.”
Wracking her brain, Eve tried to think of the right approach. “You called us, Nixie. That was smart, that was brave. I know you're scared, but we're going to take care of you.”
“They killed, they killed, they killed ...”
“They?”
Her head shook, like an old woman with palsy. “They killed, they killed my mom. I saw, I saw. They killed my mom, my dad. They killed--”
“I know. I'm sorry.”
“I crawled through the blood.” Eyes huge and glassy, she held out her smeared hands. “Blood.”
“Are you hurt, Nixie? Did they see you? Did they hurt you?”
“They killed, they killed--” When Peabody turned into the room, Nixie screamed as if she'd been stabbed. And launched herself into Eve's arms.
Peabody stopped short, kept her voice very calm, very quiet. “I'll call Child Protection. Is she injured?”
“Not that I can see. Shocky, though.”
It felt awkward holding a child, but Eve wrapped her arms around Nixie and got to her feet. “She saw it. We've got not only a survivor, but an eye witness.”
“We've got a nine-year-old kid who saw--” Peabody spoke in undertones as Nixie wept on Eve's shoulder, and jerked her head toward the bedroom.
“I know. Here, take her and--” But when Eve tried to peel Nixie away, the child only wrapped herself tighter.
“I think you're going to have to.”
“Hell. Call GPS, get somebody over here. Start a record, room by room. I'll be back in a minute.”
She'd hoped to pass the kid to one of the uniforms, but Nixie seemed glued to her now. Resigned, and wary, she carted Nixie down to the first floor, looked for a neutral spot, and settled on what looked like a playroom.
“I want my mom. I want my mom.”
“Yeah, I got that. But here's the thing: You've got to let go. I'm not going to leave you, but you gotta loosen the grip.”
“Are they gone?” Nixie pushed her face into Eve's shoulder. “Are the shadows gone?”
“Yes. You have to let go, sit down here. I have to do a couple of things. I need to talk to you.”
“What if they come back?”
“I won't let them. I know this is hard. The hardest.” At wit's end, she sat on the floor with Nixie still clinging to her. “I need to do a job, that's how I can help. I need to . . .” Jesus. “I need to get a sample from your hand, and then you can clean up. You'd feel better if you got cleaned up, right?”
“I got their blood ...”
“I know. Here, this is my field kit. I'm just going to take a swab for evidence. And I need to take a recording. Then you can go to the washroom over there and clean up. Record on,” Eve said, quietly, then eased Nixie back. “You're Nixie Swisher, right? You live here?”
“Yeah, I want--”
“And I'm Lieutenant Dallas. I'm going to swab your hand here, so you can clean up. It won't hurt.”
“They killed my mom and my dad.”
“I know. I'm sorry. Did you see who they were? How many there were?”
“I have their blood on me.”
Sealing the swab, Eve looked at the child. She remembered what it was to be a little girl, covered in blood not her own. “How about you wash up?”
“I can't.”
“I'll help you. Maybe you want a drink or something. I can--” And when Nixie burst into tears, Eve's eyes began to ache.
“What? What?”
“ Orange Fizzy.”
“Okay, I'll see if--”
“No, I went down to get one. I'm not supposed to, but I went down to get one, and Linnie didn't want to wake up and come. I went down to the kitchen, and I saw.”
With blood smeared on both of them now, Eve decided washing up would have to wait. “What did you see, Nixie?”
“The shadow, the man, who went into Inga's room. I thought... I was going to watch, just for a minute, if they were going to do it, you know.”
“Do what?”
“Sex. I wasn't supposed to, but I did, and I saw!”
There were tears and snot as well as blood on the kid's face now. With nothing else handy, Eve pulled a wipe rag out of her field kit and passed it over.
“What did you see?”
“He had a big knife and he cut her, he cut her bad.” She closed her own hand over her throat. “And there was blood.”
“Can you tell me what happened then?”
As the tears gushed, she rubbed the wipe and her hands over her cheeks, smearing them with blood. “He left. He didn't see me, and he left and I got Inga's 'link and I called Emergency.”
“That's stand-up thinking, Nixie. That was really smart.”
“But I wanted Mom.” Her voice cracked with tears and mucus flowing. “I wanted Dad, and I went up the back way, Inga's way, and I saw them. Two of them. They were going into my room, and Coyle's room, and I knew what they would do, but I wanted my mom, and I crawled in, and I got their blood on me, and I saw them. They were dead. They're all dead, aren't they? Everybody. I couldn't go look. I went to hide.”
“You did right. You did exactly right. Look at me. Nixie.” She waited until those drenched eyes met hers. “You're alive, and you did everything right. Because you did, it's going to help me find the people who did this, and make them pay.”
“My mommy's dead.” Crawling into Eve's lap, she wept and wept and wept.
It was nearly five a.m. before Eve could get back to Peabody , and the work.
“How's the kid?”
“No better than you'd expect. Got the social worker and a doctor with her. Cleaning her up, doing a physical. I had to swear an oath I wouldn't leave the house before she'd unclamp herself.”
“You found her, came when she called for help kind of thing.”
“She made the nine-one-one on the housekeeper's pocket 'link, from down there.” She caught Peabody up with Nixie's timetable.
“From what she was able to tell me so far, it jibes with how it looks to me--efficient professional job. Come in. Bypass or jam alarms and security. One takes the housekeeper. That's the first hit. She's isolated, on another floor, and they need to deal with her first, insure she doesn't wake up, catch a whiff and tag the cops. Other guy's probably upstairs, ready to move if anybody up there wakes up. Then they do the parents together.”
“One for each,” Peabody agreed. “No noise, no struggle. Deal with the adults first. Kids aren't a big worry.”
“One takes the boy, one takes the girl. They're expecting one boy, one girl. It was dark, so the fact they killed the wrong kid doesn't necessarily mean they didn't know the family personally. They were expecting to find one small blonde girl, and they did. Job's done, and they walk out.”
“No blood trail leading out of the house.”
“Seal up in protective gear, strip it off when you're done. No muss, no fuss. You get time of deaths?”
“Oh two-fifteen on the housekeeper. Maybe three minutes later on Dad, Mom right after. Another minute or so for each kid. Whole deal took five, six minutes. Cold and clean.”
“Not so clean. They left a witness. Kid's messed up now, but I think we'll get more out of her. She's got a brain, and she's got spine. Doesn't scream when she sees her housekeeper get her throat cut.”
She put herself into the child, imagined those few minutes when murder cut quietly through the house.
“Terrified, she's got to be terrified, but she doesn't go running away so she can get caught and hacked up. She stays quiet, and she calls nine-one-one. Gutsy.”
“What happens to her now?”
“Safe house, sealed record, uniform guards, a rep from Child Protection.” The cold steps, the impersonal stages. The kid's life, as she knew it, had ended at approximately two-fifteen. “We'll need to see if she's got other family, or if there's legal guardianship. Later today, we'll talk to her again, see what more we can squeeze out. I want this house sealed up like a biodome, and we'll start running the adult vies.”
“Dad was a lawyer--family law--Mom was a nutritionist. Private practice, run primarily out of an office space on the lower level. Those locks are still in place, and it doesn't appear anything's been disturbed in that area.”
“We look at their work, their clients, their personals. This kind of hit, it's pro, and it's thorough. Maybe one or both of them--or the housekeeper--had a sideline that linked up with organized crime. Nutritionist, could be a front for Illegals. Keep the client thin and happy the easy way.”
“There's an easy way? A way that includes unlimited portions of pizza and no hideous stomach crunches?”
“A little Funk, a little Go as part of your basic food groups.” Eve lifted a shoulder. “Maybe she screwed with her supplier. Maybe one of them had an affair with a wrong number that ended bad. You're going to wipe out a whole family, you've got one hell of a motivation. We'll see if the sweepers turn up something on scene. Meanwhile, I want to go through each room again myself. I didn't get much of a . . .”
She broke off when she heard the steady clip of shoes, and turned to see the social worker, sleepy-eyed but neat as a church, walk into the room. Newman, Eve remembered. GPS drone, and from the looks of her not too happy with the early call.
“Lieutenant, the doctor has found no physical injuries. It would be best if we transported the minor subject now.”
“Give me a few minutes to arrange security. My partner can go up, pack some things for her. I want to--”
She broke off again. This time it wasn't a steady clip of shoes, but running bare feet. Still wearing the bloodied nightshirt, Nixie ran in, and threw herself at Eve.
“You said you wouldn't leave.”
“Hey, standing right here.”
“Don't let them take me. They said they were going to take me away. Don't let them.”
“You can't stay here.” She pried Nixie's fingers from her legs, crouched until they were eye-to-eye. “You know you can't.”
“Don't let them take me. I don't want to go with her. She's not the police.”
“I'm going to have police go with you, and stay with you.”
“You have to. You have to.”
“I can't. I have to work. I have to do what's right for your mom and dad, for your brother and your friend. For Inga.”
“I won't go with her. You can't make me go with her.”
“Nixie--”
“Hey.” Voice pleasant, a non-threatening smile on her face, Peabody stepped in. “Nixie, I need to talk to the lieutenant for a minute--just over here. Nobody's going anywhere yet, okay. I just need to talk to her. Dallas ?” Peabody walked to the far side of the room, where they were still in Nixie's line of sight.
Dallas joined her.
“What? Can I make a break for it?”
“You should take her.”
“ Peabody , I need to do a more thorough on-scene.”
“I've done one, and you can come back and do your own.”
“So I ride with her to the safe house? Then she wigs on me when I have to leave her with uniforms. What's the point?”
“I don't mean take her to a safe house. Take her home. No place safer in the city--probably on the planet--than your place.”
Eve said nothing for ten full seconds. “Are you out of your mind?”
“No, and just listen first. She trusts you. She knows you're in charge, and she trusts you to keep her safe. She's the eye witness, and she's a traumatized kid. We'll get more out of her, bound to, if she feels safe, if she's settled, at least as much as she can be. A few days, like a transition, before she ends up in the system. Put yourself in her shoes, Dallas . Would you feel better being with the icy, kick-ass cop, or the bored, overworked GPS drone?”
“I can't babysit a kid. I'm not equipped.”
“You're equipped to pull information out of a witness and this would give you full access. You wouldn't have to go through the annoyance of clearance from GPS every time you want to question her.”
Thoughtfully now, Eve glanced back at Nixie. “Probably only be a day, two tops. Summerset knows about kids. Even if he is an asshole. How much more traumatized could she get looking at his ugly face, considering? Basically I'd be housing a witness. Big house.”
“That's the spirit.”
Eve frowned, studied Peabody 's face. “Pretty clever for somebody who's only been back on the job for a couple of days.”
“I may not be up for chasing down suspects on foot quite yet, but my mind? Sharp as ever.”
“Too bad. I was hoping concussion and coma might have honed that area, but you get what you get.”
“Mean.”
“I could be meaner, but it's five in the morning and I haven't had enough coffee. I gotta make a call.”
She stepped away, and saw Nixie tense out of the corner of her eye. Eve just shook her head, and pulled out her pocket 'link.
Five minutes later she was signalling the social worker.
“Absolutely out of the question,” the woman said. “You're not qualified or approved to transport a child. I'm required to accompany--”
“What I'm doing is taking a witness into protective custody. She doesn't like you, and I need her settled in order to interview her more thoroughly.”
“The minor subject--”
“The kid had her family whacked in front of her eyes. She wants me. I say she gets what she wants--and as a ranking member of the New York City Police and Security Department, I'm seeing that she's taken to a safe place, and kept safe and secure until her safety is no longer an issue or other arrangements can be made. You can buck me on this, but why would you?”
“I'm obliged to consider what's in the best interests of--”
“The minor subject,” Eve concluded. “Then you know that it's in her best interests to feel safe, to avoid more stressful situations. She's scared shitless. Why add?”
The woman looked back. “My supervisor won't like it.”
“Your supervisor can deal with me. I'm taking the kid. Go file a report.”
“I need the location, the situation where--”
“I'll let you know. Peabody ? Pack what you figure Nixie needs.”
She walked back to Nixie. “You know you can't stay here anymore.”
“I don't want to go with her. I don't want--”
“And you've had it hit really hard tonight that you can't always have what you want. But for right now, you can come with me.”
“With you?”
While Newman stalked away, Eve drew Nixie across the room. “That's right. I can't stay with you, because I've got to work. But there'll be people there who'll look out for you. People I trust, so you can trust them, too.”
“But you'll be there? You'll come back?”
“I live there.”
“Okay.” Nixie took Eve's hand. “I'll go with you.”

[Dalyia]

2
ALL THINGS BEING EQUAL, EVE WOULD RATHER have been transporting a three-hundred-pound psycho hopped on Zeus in the back of her police issue than a little girl. She knew how to handle a homicidal chemihead.
But it was a short ride, and she'd be able to pass the kid off soon enough, and get back to work.
“After we notify . . .” Eve glanced in the rearview, and though Nixie's eyes were drooping, she left off next of kin. “We'll set up in my home office. I'll swing back to the scene later. For now, we'll work with your record.”
“EDD's picking up all the home and personal 'links and comps, and they'll run a check on house security.” Peabody shifted so she could keep Nixie in the corner of her eye. “Maybe they'll have something by the time we do a second pass through the scene.”
Had to get back in the field, Eve thought. Work to do. Interviews, reports, runs. She needed to get back to the scene. Her concentration had been fractured by finding the child. She needed to get back there, get the vibe.
Walked in the front door, she thought, going back in her head. Kid was in the kitchen, would've seen if someone had come in the back. Through the front, through security like it wasn't there. One up, one down. Fast and efficient.
Housekeeper first. But she wasn't the target, she wasn't the goal. Otherwise, why go upstairs at all? The family was the target. Parents and kids. Don't even deviate for a second and scoop up an expensive wrist unit lying in plain sight.
Straight kill, she thought. Impersonal. No torture, no talk, no mutilation.
Just a job, so--
“You live here?”
Nixie's sleepy question broke Eve's rhythm as she drove through the gates toward home.
“Yeah.”
“In a castle?”
“It's not a castle.” Okay, maybe it looked like one, she admitted. The vastness of it, the stones gleaming in the early light, with all those juts and towers, all that space of green and the trees shimmering with the last sparks of fall.
But that was Roarke for you. He didn't do ordinary.
“It's just a really big house.”
“It's a mag house,” Peabody added, with a smile for Nixie. “Lots of rooms, tons of wall screens and games, even a pool.”
“In the house?”
“Yeah. Can you swim?”
“Dad taught us. We get to go on vacation for a week after Christmas to this hotel in Miami . There's the ocean, and there's a pool, and we're going to ...”
She trailed off, teared up, as she remembered there would be no family vacation after Christmas. No family vacation ever again.
“Did it hurt, when they got dead?”
“No,” Peabody said, gently.
“Did it?” Unsatisfied, Nixie stared hard at the back of Eve's head.
Eve parked in front of the house. “No.”
“How do you know? You never died before. You never had somebody take a big knife and cut you open in your throat. How do you know--”
“Because it's my job.” Eve spoke briskly as Nixie's voice rose up the register toward hysterics. She shifted, looked back at the child. “They never even woke up, and it was over in a second. It didn't hurt.”
“But they're still dead, aren't they? They're all still dead.”
“Yeah, they are, and that blows wide.” Typical, Eve thought, letting the fury roll off her. Anger usually held hands with grief. “You can't bring them back. But I'm going to find out who did it, and put them away.”
“You could kill them.”
“That's not my job.”
Eve got out of the car, opened the back. “Let's go.”
Even as she reached out a hand for Nixie's, Roarke opened the front door, stepped out. Nixie's fingers curled into hers like little wires.
“Is he the prince?” she whispered.
As the house looked like a castle, Eve supposed the man who'd built it looked like its prince. Tall and lean, dark and gorgeous. The flow of black hair around a face designed to make a woman whimper with lust. Strong, sharp bones, full, firm mouth, and eyes of bold and brilliant blue.
“He's Roarke,” Eve answered. “He's just a guy.”
A lie, of course. Roarke wasn't just anything. But he was hers.
“Lieutenant.”Ireland cruised out of his voice as he came down the steps and walked toward them. “Detective.” He crouched. Eve noted that as he looked into Nixie's eyes he didn't smile.
He saw a pretty, pale little girl, with dried blood in her sunlight blonde hair, and bruises of fatigue and grief under eyes of quiet blue.
“You'd be Nixie. I'm Roarke. I'm sorry to meet you under such terrible circumstances.”
“They killed everybody.”
“Yes, I know. Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody will find who did this horrible thing, and see that they're punished for it.”
“How do you know?”
“It's what they do, what they do better than anyone. Will you come inside now?”
Nixie tugged on Eve's hand, kept tugging until Eve rolled her eyes and bent down. “What?”
“Why does he talk like that?”
“He's not from around here, originally.”
“I was born across the sea, inIreland .” Now he did smile, just a little. “I've never quite shaken the accent.”
Roarke gestured them inside the spacious foyer, where Summerset stood, with the fat cat sprawled at his feet. “Nixie, this is Summerset,” Roarke said. “He runs the house. He'll be looking after you, for the most part.”
“I don't know him.” And eyeing Summerset, Nixie cringed back against Eve.
“I do.” It was a big cup of bile to swallow, but Eve gulped it down. “He's okay.”
“Welcome, Miss Nixie.” Like Roarke, his face was sober. Eve had to give them both credit for not plastering on those big, scary smiles adults often wore around vulnerable kids. “Would you like me to show you where you'll sleep?”
“I don't know.”
He reached down, picked up the cat. “Perhaps you'd like some refreshment first. Galahad would keep you company.”
“We had a cat. He was old and he died. We're going to get a kitten next. . .”
“Galahad would be pleased to have a new friend.” Summerset sat the cat down again, waiting while Nixie loosened her grip on Eve's hand and moved closer. When the cat bumped his head against her leg, a ghost of a smile trembled on her lips. She sat on the floor, buried her face in his fur.
“Appreciate this,” Eve said to Roarke under her breath. “I know it's a major.”
“It's not.” There was blood on her as well. And the faint scent of death. “We'll talk of it later.”
“I need to go. I'm sorry to dump this on you.”
“I'll be working here most of the morning. Summerset and I will deal well enough.”
“Full security.”
“Without question.”
“I'll get back as soon as I can, work out of here as much as possible. Right now, we need to go notify the parents of the minor female vie. Peabody , you have the Dysons' address?”
“They're not home.” Nixie spoke with her voice muffled against Galahad's fur.
“Nothing wrong with your hearing,” Eve commented, and walked across the foyer. “Where are they?”
“They went to a big hotel, for their anniversary. That's why we could have a sleepover on a school night, me and Linnie. Now you have to tell them she's dead instead of me.”
“Not instead of. If you'd been in the room, you'd both be dead. Where does that get you?”
“Lieutenant.” The irritated shock in Summerset's voice had her doing no more than lifting a hand to jab a finger at him for silence.
“She's not dead because you're not. This is going to be hard on the Dysons, just like it is on you. But you know who's to blame for what happened.”
Nixie looked up now, and those quiet blue eyes hardened like glass. “The men with the knives.”
“Yeah. Do you know what hotel?”
“The Palace, because it's the best. Mr. Dyson said.”
“Okay.” It was the best, Eve thought, because it was one of Roarke's. She shot him a look, got a nod.
“I'll clear the way.”
“Thanks. I've got to go,” she said to Nixie. “You're going to hang with Summerset.”
“The men with knives could come looking for me.”
“I don't think so, but if they do, they can't get in. There's a gate, and it's secure, and the house is secure. And Summerset? I know he looks like a bony, ugly old man, but he's tough, and you're safe with him. This is the deal if you're staying here,” she added as she rose. “It's the best I've got.”
“You're coming back.”
“I live here, remember? Peabody , with me.”
“Her bag's right here.” Peabody gestured to the duffle she'd packed. “Nixie, if I forgot anything you want, or you need something else, you can have Summerset contact me. We'll get it for you.”
Eve's last look was of the child sitting on the floor between the two men, and seeking comfort from the cat.
The minute she was outside, Eve rolled her shoulders, rolled the weight off. “Jesus” was all she said.
“I can't imagine what's going on inside that kid.”
“I can. I'm alone, I'm scared and hurt, and nothing makes sense. And I'm surrounded by strangers.” It made her sick, just a little sick, but she pushed past it. “Check in with EDD, see where they are.”
As she drove back toward the gate, Eve used the dash 'link to contact Dr. Charlotte Mira, at home.
“Sorry. I know it's early.”
“No, I was up.”
On screen Eve could see Mira dab a white towel at her soft sable hair. There was a dew--either sweat or water--on her face.
“Doing my morning yoga. What's the matter?”
“Multiple homicide--home invasion. An entire family, save the nine year-old daughter. Sleepover friend murdered through mistaken ID. Kid's a witness. I've got her stashed at my place.”
“Yours?”
“Fill you in later, but that's how it stands. I'm heading over to notify next of kin on the daughter's friend.”
“God's pity.”
“I know you've probably got a full slate, but I'm going to need to interview this kid today. I'm going to need a shrink--sorry.”
“No problem.”
“I'm going to need a psychiatrist on hand, one who's got experience with children and police procedure.”
“What time do you want me?”
“Thanks.” And relief rolled in where the weight had rolled off. “I'd prefer you, but if you're squeezed I'll take your best recommendation.”
“I'll make room.”
“Ah.” Eve checked her wrist unit, tried to gauge the timing. “Can we make it noon? I've got a lot to push through before then.”
“Noon.” Mira began to make notes in a mini memo book. “What's her condition?”
“She wasn't injured.”
“Emotional condition.”
“Ah, she's fair, I guess.”
“Is she able to communicate?”
“Yeah. I'm going to need an eval for Child Protection Services. I'm going to need a lot of things for the red tape brigade. I'm on borrowed time here since I went over the rep's head. Have to notify the supervisor there. Soon.”
“Then I'll let you get to it, and see you at noon.”
“EDD's on scene,” Peabody said when Eve ended transmission. “Their team's going through security and checking 'links and data centers on site. They'll transport the units to Central.”
“Okay. Next of kin on the other vies?”
“Grant Swisher's parents divorced. Father's whereabouts currently unknown. Mother remarried--third time--and living on Vegas II. Works as a blackjack dealer. Keelie Swisher's parents are deceased-- back when she was six. Foster care and state schools.”
And that, Eve knew, was just tons of fun. “When we've talked to the Dysons, contact Grant Swisher's next of kin and inform. She may have legal guardianship of the kid, and we'll need to deal with that. You got an addy on Swisher's law firm?”
“Swisher and Rangle, on West Sixty-first.”
“Close to the hotel. We'll hit there after the Dysons. See how it goes and tap in another pass at the scene if it fits.”
This, as hard as it was, she knew how to do. Shattering the lives of those left behind was a job she did all too often. Roarke had, as promised, cleared the way. Since she was expected, she avoided the usual wrangle with the doorman, the time-consuming conversation with desk clerks and hotel security.
She almost missed it.
But she and Peabody were efficiently escorted to the elevators and given the Dysons' room number.
“Only child, right?”
“Yeah, just Linnie. He's a lawyer, too, corporate. She's a pediatrician. Reside about two blocks south of the Swishers. Daughters go to the same school, same class.”
“You've been busy,” Eve commented as they rode up to the forty second floor.
“You were wrapped up with the kid awhile. We detectives do what we can.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Eve saw Peabody shift her stance, wince just a bit. Ribs still bothering her, she thought. Should've taken a few more days medical. But she let it pass.
“Get any financials on the Swishers?”
“Not yet. We detectives are not miracle workers.”
“Slacker.” Eve stepped off, walked straight to 4215. She didn't allow herself to think, to feel. What good would it do?
She pressed the buzzer, held her badge up to the security peep. Waited.
The man who answered was wrapped in a plush hotel robe. His thatch of dark brown hair stuck up in wild tufts and his square, attractive face held the sleepy, satisfied look of someone who'd just enjoyed some early morning nookie.
“Officer?”
“Lieutenant Dallas. Matthew Dyson?”
“Yeah. Sorry, we're not up yet.” He cupped his hand over a huge yawn. “What time is it?”
“Just after seven. Mr. Dyson--”
“Is there a problem in the hotel?”
“Can we come in, Mr. Dyson, speak to you and your wife?”
“Jenny's still in bed.” The sleepy look was fading into mild irritation. “What's the problem?”
“We'd like to come in, Mr. Dyson.”
“All right, all right. Hell.” He stepped back, waved at them to shut the door.
They'd sprung for a suite--one of the dreamy, romantic ones with banks of real flowers, real candles, fireplace, deep sofas. There was a bottle of champagne upended in a silver bucket on the coffee table. Two flutes, and she noted, some lacy portion of female lingerie draped like a flag over the back of the sofa.
“Would you get your wife, Mr. Dyson?”
His eyes were brown like his hair. And irritation flashed into them. “Look, she's sleeping. It's our anniversary--or was yesterday--and we celebrated. My wife's a doctor, and she works long hours. She never gets to sleep in. So tell me what the hell you want.”
“I'm sorry, we need to speak with both of you.”
“If there's a problem with the hotel--”
“Matt?” A woman opened the bedroom door. She was sleep-tousled and robed, and smiling as she shoved a hand through her short, disordered blonde curls. “Oh, I thought you must've ordered room service. I heard voices.”
“Mrs. Dyson, I'm Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD. This is my partner, Detective Peabody.”
“The police.” Her smile became uncertain as she walked to her husband, hooked an arm through his. “We weren't that loud last night.”
“I'm sorry. There was an incident at the Swishers' early this morning.”
“Keelie and Grant?” Matt Dyson went stiff and straight. “What kind of incident? Is everyone all right? Linnie. Did something happen to Linnie?”
Fast, Eve knew. Like a short-armed punch to the face. “I'm sorry to tell you that your daughter was killed.”
While Jenny's eyes went blank and frozen, Matt's went hot with rage. “That's ridiculous. What is this, some sort of sick joke? I want you out of here, I want you to get out.”
“Linnie? Linnie?” Jenny shook her head. “This can't be true. This can't be right. Keelie and Grant are too careful. They love her like their own. They'd never let anything happen to her. I need to call Keelie.”
“Mrs. Swisher is dead,” Eve said flatly. “Persons unknown entered the residence last night. Mr. and Mrs. Swisher, their housekeeper, their son Coyle, your daughter were murdered. Their daughter Nixie was overlooked, and is now under protective custody.”
“This is a mistake.”
Jenny squeezed a hand on her husband's arm as he began to shake. “But they have security. They have good security.”
“It was compromised. We're investigating. I'm sorry for your loss. I'm extremely sorry.”
“Not my baby.” It wasn't a cry so much as a wail as Matt Dyson crumbled, as he turned to his wife and collapsed against her. “Not our baby.”
“She's just a little girl.” Jenny rocked, herself, her husband, as her shattered eyes clung to Eve's. “Who would hurt an innocent little girl?”
“I intend to find out. Peabody .”
On cue, Peabody stepped forward. “Why don't we sit down? Can I get you something. Water? Tea?”
“Nothing, nothing.” With her arm still wrapped around her husband, Jenny sank with him onto the couch. “Are you sure it was my Linnie? Maybe--”
“She's been identified. There's no mistake. I'm sorry I have to intrude at this time, but I need to ask you a few questions. Did you know the Swishers well?”
“We ... Oh God, dead?” The barrage of shock had turned skin to paste. “All?”
“You were friends?”
“We were, God, like family. We .. . Keelie and I shared patients, and we . . . we all ... the girls, the girls are like sisters, and we--Matt.” She encirled him, rocked again. Said his name over and over.
“Can you think of anyone who wished them harm? Who wished anyone in the family harm?”
“No. No. No.”
“Did any of them mention being worried about anything? About being threatened or bothered by someone.”
“No. I can't think. No. Oh God, my baby.”
“Was either of them involved with someone, outside of the marriage?”
“I don't know what you .. . Oh.” She closed her eyes as her husband continued to weep on her shoulder. “No. They had a good marriage. They loved each other, enjoyed each other. Their children. Coyle. Oh my God. Nixie.”
“She's all right. She's safe.”
“How? How did she get away?”
“She'd gone downstairs for a drink. She wasn't in bed at the time of the murders. I don't believe she was seen.”
“She wasn't in bed,” Jenny said softly. “But my Linnie was. My baby was.” Tears flooded her cheeks. “I don't understand. I can't understand. We need to ... Where is Linnie?”
“She's with the Medical Examiner. I'll arrange for you to be taken to see her, when you're ready.”
“I need to know, but I can't.” She turned her head so her shoulder rested on her husband's as his did on hers. “We need to be alone now.”
Eve dug a card out of her pocket, laid it on the coffee table. “Contact me when you're ready. I'll arrange the rest.”
She walked away from their grief, and she and Peabody rode down to the lobby in silence.

[Dalyia]

The law offices boasted a comfortable waiting area, divided by theme rather than walls into distinct parts. A child's corner, with a mini comp and a lot of bright toys, flowed into a section designed, Eve imagined, with the older child in mind. Mag vids, puzzles, trendy comp games. Across the room, adults could wait their turn in pastel chairs, and watch vids on parenting, sports, fashion, or gourmet cooking.
The receptionist was young, with a cheerful smile and a shrewd eye. She wore her streaked red and gold hair in what Eve assumed to be a stylish fringe of varying lengths.
“No appointment, but then cops don't usually need one.” She made them as cops before badges were shown, and angled her head. “What's up?”
“We need to speak to Rangle,” Eve said and pulled out her badge for form.
“Dave's not in yet. He in trouble?”
“When do you expect him?”
“He'll swing in any minute. Early bird. We don't open for business until nine.” She made a point to gesture to the clock. “Still nearly an hour shy.”
“That makes you an early bird, too.”
The woman smiled, toothily. “I like coming in early, when it's quiet. I get a lot done.”
“What do you do here?”
“Me, personally? Manage the office, assist. I'm a paralegal. What's up with Dave?”
“We'll wait for him.”
“Suit yourself. He's got an appointment at.. .” She turned to a data unit, tapped the screen with short, square-shaped nails painted gold like the streaks in her hair. “Nine-thirty. But he likes to get here, line up his ducks beforehand like me. Should be in soon.”
“Fine.” Because she wanted Peabody off her feet, Eve gestured her partner to the chairs, then leaned casually on the reception counter. “And you'd be?”
“Sade Tully.”
“Got an eye for cops, Sade?”
“Mother's on the job.”
“That so? Where?”
“ Trenton . She's a sergeant, city beat. My grandfather, too. And his daddy before him. Me, I broke tradition. Seriously, is Dave in trouble?”
“Not that I know of. Anybody else here, in the office?”
“Dave's assistant isn't due until ten. Health appointment. Receptionist generally clocks in about quarter to nine. Grant Swisher, Dave's partner, should be in pretty soon. Grant's between assistants, so I'm filling in that slot. We got a droid clerk, but I haven't activated it yet today. Law student comes in about noon--after class--today. Well, if you're going to hang, you want coffee?”
“I would. We would,” Eve corrected. “Thanks.”
“No prob.” Sade popped up, walked two steps to an AutoChef. “How you take it?”
“Black for me, sweet and light for my partner.” As she spoke, Eve wandered, gave herself the chance to study the setup. Friendlier than most law offices, she decided. Little touches of hominess in the toys, the cityscape wall art. “How long's your mother been on the job?”
“Eighteen. She freaking loves it, except when she hates it.”
“Yeah, that's the way.”
Eve turned when the outer door opened.
The man who came in was black and trim, in a trendy suit of rusty brown with pencil thin lapels and a flashy striped tie. He carried a jumbo cup of takeout coffee in one hand, and was biting into a loaded bagel.
He made a mmm sound, nodded to Eve and Peabody, winked at Sade. “Minute,” he managed with his mouth full, then swallowed. “Morning.”
“Cops, Dave. Want to talk to you.”
“Sure. Okay. Wanna come back?”
“We would. Sade, would you join us?”
“Me?” The paralegal blinked, then something came into her eyes. A knowledge of trouble, bad trouble. She might have broken tradition, Eve thought, but she had cop in the blood. “Something happened. Did something happen to Grant?”
No point in going back to an office, Eve decided. “ Peabody , on the door.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I'm sorry, Grant Swisher is dead. He, his wife, and his son were killed last night.”
Coffee streamed out of Dave's cup as it tipped in his hand and spilled a pool onto the company carpet. “What? What?”
“An accident?” Sade demanded. “Were they in an accident?”
“No. They were murdered, along with their housekeeper and a young girl named Linnie Dyson.”
“Linnie, oh God. Nixie.” Sade was around the counter and gripping Eve's arm in a flash. “Where's Nixie?”
“Safe.”
“Mother of God.” Dave staggered to the sofa, slid onto it, crossed himself. “Merciful Jesus. What happened?”
“We're investigating. How long have you worked with Swisher?”
“Urn, God. Ah, five years. Two as a partner.”
“Let's get this out of the way. Can you give me your whereabouts between midnight and three a.m.?”
“Shit. Shit. Home. Well, I got home just after midnight.”
“Alone?”
“No. Overnight guest. I'll give you her name. We were up and ... occupied until around two. She left about eight this morning.” His eyes were dark, and when they met Eve's again, they were shattered. “He wasn't just my partner.”
Sade sat beside him, took his hand. “It's just what she has to ask, Dave. You know. Nobody thinks you'd hurt Grant or his family. I was home. I've got a roommate,” she added, “but she wasn't home last night. I was talking to a friend on the 'link until just after midnight. She's got man trouble. You can check my machine.”
“Appreciate it. I'm going to want the name of your overnight guest, Mr. Rangle. It's routine. Ms. Tully, you said Mr. Swisher was between assistants. What happened to his assistant?”
“She just had a baby last month. She took maternity, but was planning to come back, so we did the temp thing. But a few days ago, she opted for professional mother status. There wasn't any friction, if that's what you're after. God, I'll have to tell her.”
“I'll need her name, and the names of all the staff. Just routine,” Eve added. “Now I want you to think, to tell me if you know of anyone who'd wish Mr. Swisher or his family harm. Mr. Rangle?”
“I don't have to think. I don't.”
“A client he'd pissed off?”
“Honest to God, I can't think of anybody who's ever walked in that door who would do something like this. His kid? Coyle? My God.” Tears swam into his eyes. “I played softball with Coyle. The kid loved baseball. It was like his religion.”
“Swisher ever cheat on his wife?”
“Hey.” When Dave started to rise, Sade pressed a hand on his thigh.
“You can never say a hundred percent, you know that. But I'd give you a ninety-nine point nine percent no, and that goes for her, too.
They were tight, they were happy. They believed in family, since neither of them had much of one before they hooked up. And they worked to keep it together.”
Sade took a steadying breath. “You work as close as we work in this firm, you know that kind of thing. You get the vibes. Grant loved his wife.”
“Okay. I want access to his office, his files, his client list, court transcripts, the works.”
“Don't make her get a warrant, Dave,” Sade said quietly. “Grant wouldn't if it had been one of us. He'd cooperate. He'd help.”
He nodded. “You said Nixie was safe. She wasn't hurt.”
“No. She wasn't injured, and she's in protective custody.”
“But Linnie . . .” He passed a hand over his face. “Have you told the Dysons?”
“Yes. Do you know them?”
“Yeah, God, yeah. Parties at Grant's, weekends at this place they have in the Hamptons on time share. Grant and Matt and I golfed a couple times a month. Sade, can you make calls, close things down for the day ?”
“Sure. Don't worry.”
“I'll show you Grant's office--sorry, I can't remember if I got your name.”
“Dallas, Lieutenant Dallas.”
“Urn, they didn't have close family. Arrangements ... Will we be able to make arrangements?”
“I'll see if I can clear that for you.”
When they got back in their vehicle, they had a box full of discs, several files of hard copies, Swisher's office calendar, address, and memo books.
Peabody strapped in. “Picture's coming clear of a nice, happy family, nicely secured financially, good circle of friends, close relationships with associates, satisfying careers. Not the sort you expect to get murdered in their beds.”
“Plenty of layers to pick through. A lot of families might look happy on the surface, even to friends and coworkers. And they hate each other like poison in private.”
“Cheery thought.” Peabody pursed her lips. “That makes you the cynical cop, and me the naive one.”
“That's about right.”

[Dalyia]

3
SHE FELT SQUEEZED FOR TIME, BUT GOING back to the scene, moving through it,feeling it was essential.
A nice three-story single-family, she thought, bumped up against other nice two- or three-story single- or multiple families in a tonyUpper West Side neighborhood.
More solid than flashy.
Kids went to private schools, one live-in domestic. Two full-time careers, one outside the home, one based in it. Two front entrances, one rear.
Security, she noted, on all doors and windows, with the addition of decorative--but efficient--riot bars on the below street level where Keelie Swisher based her office.
“They didn't come in from below,” Eve noted as she scoped out the house from the sidewalk. “Security was active on the office entrance, and on the rear.” She turned, scanned the street, the curbs. “Parking's a bitch in neighborhoods like this. You need a permit, curb scanners verify. If you park at the curb without one, it's an automatic ticket. We'll check, but I can't see these guys making it that easy for us. Either they walked from another point, or had a permit. Or they live right around here.
“Walked, more likely walked. Block or two anyway,” she said as she crossed, opened the useless little iron gate and stepped up to the door. “Walked to the front door. Jammed the security, the alarms, the cameras, the ID pads by remote before they moved into scanning distance. Had the codes, or knew how to bypass locks quickly.”
She used her police master to deactivate the seal, open the locks. “Not a lot of people on the street around here that time of night, but some. You could have some. Walking a dog, taking a stroll, coming home from a night out. People watch people in this kind of area. Had to be slick, move fast, and casual.”
She stepped inside the narrow hall that separated living from dining areas. “Whatcha got? A couple of bags, likely. Nothing big or bold. Soft black bags, probably, to carry the weapons, the jammers, protective gear. Couldn't gear up outside, too risky. Right here, I'd wager, right here just inside the door. Pull on the gear, split up. One upstairs, one straight back to the housekeeper. No talking, just business.”
“Hand signals maybe,” Peabody suggested. “Night vision equipment.”
“Yeah. Tools in the pouch, but you know the route, the routine. You've done sims. Bet your ass you've done sims.” She walked back toward the kitchen, imagining the dark, the utter quiet. Straight back, she thought. Been here before or had a blueprint. She flicked a glance toward the table and benches where Nixie had been.
“Wouldn't see the kid, wouldn't be looking.”
She went into a crouch, and had to angle her body to see the police marker where Nixie's soda had been found. “And even if you glanced around, you wouldn't see a little girl lying on the bench. Attention's this way, toward the housekeeper's rooms.”
Inga had been neat, as she'd expect of someone who made her living cleaning up other people's debris. She could see the order under the disorder caused by the sweepers. Catch the fresh scents, and the death scents, under the smear of chemicals. And she imagined Nixie creeping in, the excitement of a child hoping to catch adults in a forbidden act.
In the bedroom, blood patterned the walls, the bedside table and lamp, pooled on the sheets, had dripped to the floor.
“She liked the right side of the bed, probably a side sleeper. See?” Eve moved into the murder zone, gestured to the spatter pattern.
“He walks up to this side, has to--or wants to--lift her head up. The spatter shows that her head was turned a little, so her body's on her left side, facing away from the bed--the way he left her after he cut her throat. Her blood's on him now, but he doesn't worry about that. Take care of that before he leaves. Walks right out again, walks right by the kid.”
Illustrating, Eve turns, heads out. “Must've passed inches away from her. Smart kid, scared kid. She doesn't make a peep.”
Turning again, she studied the bedroom. “Nothing out of place. He doesn't touch anything but her. Isn't interested in anything but her, and the rest of the mission.”
“Is that how you see it? A mission?”
“What else?” Eve shrugged. “Leaves, work's done here. Why doesn't he take the back steps?”
“Ah .. .” Peabody frowned in concentration, looked at the layout. “Positioning? Master bedroom's actually closer to the main stairs. That's probably where his partner was stationed. Does another sweep by going around that way.”
“Adults have to come first, have to be done at the same time.” Eve nodded as they made the trip around. “He probably has a way to signal his partner that the first wave is complete and he's on his way.”
She glanced at the blood, the occasional drops of it staining floor or carpet, stair treads. “He leaves a little trail, but no big. It's her blood, not his. This down here, on the right, will all be the housekeeper's. They removed the bloody gear, stuffed it in the bags before they came down again.”
“Cold,” Peabody commented. “No hand slapping, no good job. Slice five people, strip off the gear, and move on.”
“Straight up, straight in while the kid pulls it together enough to get the pocket 'link and call nine-one-one. 'Y' off in here, in the main bedroom, one to each side of the bed. Same pattern as the housekeeper. They've got a rhythm down. Terminate the targets, move out and on.”
“They slept back-to-back,” Peabody pointed out. “The ass-to-ass snuggle. McNab and I do that, mostly.”
Eve was seeing them, husband and wife, mother and father, sleeping butt-to-butt on the big bed with its sea green sheets, its downy quilt. Sleeping in a tidy, relaxing room, with its windows facing the back patio. Him in black boxers, her in a white sleepshirt.
“Lift the head, expose the throat. Slice, drop, head out. No chatter. They're out and heading for the two other bedrooms as the kid's coming up the stairs. They've already designated who takes which room. Split off. One takes the boy--going in as Nixie crawls across the hall behind them.”
Eve walked out as she spoke, and into Coyle's room. “Boy's a sprawler, flat on the back, covers kicked off. Don't have to touch this one to do the job. Take him out while he's flat.”
She saw it in her head, the cold horror of it as she walked across the hall to the other bedroom. “Girl's room, girl in bed. Too sure of yourself to think twice. Too steeped in the routine to deviate. Just cross over. Why would you notice the shoes, the extra backpack? You're not looking at anything but the target. She's mostly buried under the covers--stomach sleeper. Yank her up, by the hair probably. A lot of blonde hair, as advertised. Slice her throat, dump her back, walk away.”
“Not as much spatter here,” Peabody commented. “He probably took most of it on his person, and the rest went on the bed and covers.”
“Steps out into the hall, coordinating with his partner. See the blood in this spot. From their gear, dripping off the gear as they strip it off. Shove it in the bags with the knives. Go downstairs and out, clean. Walk away. Mission accomplished.”
“Except it wasn't.”
Eve nodded. “Except it wasn't. And if they'd taken a few more minutes, just a few, if they'd taken time to pick up a few goodies on the way out, or linger over the job, the black-and-white would have pulled up before they walked out. As it was, it was close. The kid acted fast, but they acted faster.”
“Why kill the kids?” Peabody asked. “What threat were they?” “For all we know at this point, one or both of the kids was the main target. Saw something, heard something, knew something--was into something. We can't assume the adults were the primary. The point is they all had to go, the entire household. That's where we start.”
She was late for Mira, but it couldn't be helped. Eve found her sitting in the parlor, drinking tea and working on her PPC.
“Sorry. I got hung up.”
“It's all right.” Mira set the PPC aside. She wore a simply cut suit in a smokey color that wasn't quite blue, wasn't quite gray. Somehow her shoes managed to be the exact same in-between tone. There were twists of silver at her ears and a trio of hair-thin chains around her neck.
Eve wondered if she had to strategize to put herself together with such elegant perfection, or if it came naturally.
“She's sleeping. The child,” Mira said. “Summerset has her on monitor.”
“Oh, good. Okay. Listen, I've got to get some real coffee or my brain's going to melt. You good?”
“Fine, thanks.”
Eve walked over to a wall panel and, opening it, revealed a mini AutoChef. “You got the report.”
“Yes, it's what I was going over when you got here.”
“It's sketchy yet, but I haven't had time to fill in the fine points. Peabody 's getting the clearance for the minor victims' data--heading to their schools, see what we can find there.”
“Do you expect to find anything there? Do you think the children were the targets?”
Eve lifted a shoulder, then closed her eyes and let the jolt of coffee do its work. “The boy was old enough, certainly, to be involved in illegals, gangs, and all sorts of bad behavior. Can't discount that. Or the possibility he and/or his sister witnessed something or were told something that required their termination. Odds are higher it was one of the adults, but it's not a certainty, especially this early on.”
“There was no additional violence, no destruction of property.”
“None, and if anything was taken from the premises, we don't know about it yet. The timing was quick and slick. Teamwork, timetable. Damn good job.”
“From anyone else, I'd say that was a cold and heartless remark.”
Eve's eyes flattened. “From their point of view, it was. Cold, heartless, and a damn good job. Except they missed. They'll know they missed soon, once the media gets going on this.”
“And they may try to finish the job,” Mira said with a nod. “So you brought the child here.”
“One of the reasons. This place is a fucking fort. And if I keep GPS at a distance, I've got unlimited access to the eye witness. Plus, the kid freaked at the idea of going with the social worker. She's no good to me if she's hysterical.”
“Remember who you're talking to,” Mira said mildly. “You would have managed full access even if she'd been placed under GPS and put in a safe house. Feeling for her doesn't make you less of a cop.”
Eve slid one hand into her pocket. “She called nine-one-one. She crawled through her parents' blood. Yeah, I feel for her. I also know a kid who can do that can stand up to what comes next.”
She sat across from Mira. “I don't want to push the wrong buttons on her. I could do that, and if I do, she's going to pull in, shut down. But I need details from her, information from her. Everything I can get. I need you to help me.”
“And I will.” She sipped her tea. “My preliminary profile of your killers is that they were indeed a team. Have likely worked together before, and have certainly killed before. They would be mature, and likely have some training. Military or paramilitary, or organized crime. There was nothing personal in this act, but the murder of the children--a family as a unit--is certainly personal. I'm sure it wasn't a thrill kill, nor was it sexual.”
“For profit?”
“Very possibly, or because they were given orders, or simply because it had to be done. The motive?” She sipped her tea thoughtfully. “We'll need more on the victims to speculate on the why. But the who? They'll be experienced, and they'll trust each other. They're organized and confident.”
“It was an op. That's how it ran for me. An operation, planned and practiced.”
“You think they had access to the house before last night?” Mira asked.
“Maybe. In any case, they knew the layout, where everyone slept. If the housekeeper was primary, there was no reason to take the second floor and vice versa. So it was a clean sweep.”
Eve checked her wrist unit. “How long do you figure she'll be out? The kid?”
“I couldn't say.”
“I don't want to hold you up.”
“And you're anxious to get to work yourself.”
“I haven't talked to the ME, or finished my report, harassed the lab, or yelled at the sweepers. People are going to think I'm on vacation.”
With a smile, Mira rose. “Why don't you contact me when . . . Ah,” she added when Summerset stepped into the doorway.
“Lieutenant, your young charge is awake.”
“Oh. Right. Fine. You still got time to start this now?” she asked Mira.
“Yes. Where would you like to speak with her?”
“I figured my office.”
“Why don't you bring her down here? It's a nice, comfortable space, and might help put her at ease.”
“I'll bring her down.” Summerset faded out of the doorway, and left Eve frowning.
“Am I going to owe him for this?” she wondered. “For, you know, riding herd or whatever you'd call it. Because I'd really hate that.”
“I think you're fortunate to have someone on premises who's willing and able to tend to a young, traumatized girl.”
“Yeah, shit.” Eve sighed. “I was afraid of that.”
“It might help to remember the child's welfare and state of mind is priority.”
“Looking at him on a regular basis might send her back into shock.”
But when Nixie came in, the cat on her heels, she had her hand firmly in Summerset's bony one, releasing it only when she saw Eve. Nixie walked directly to her. “Did you find them?”
“Working on it. This is Dr. Mira. She's going to help--”
“I already saw a doctor. I don't want to see a doctor.” Nixie's voice began to rise. “I don't want--”
“Throttle back,” Eve ordered. “Mira's a friend of mine, and she's not only a doctor, she works with the cops.”
Nixie slid her eyes toward Mira. “She doesn't look like the police.”
“I work with the police,” Mira said in calm, quiet tones. “I try to help them understand the people who commit crimes. I've known Lieutenant Dallas quite a while. I want to help her, and you, find the people who hurt your family.”
“They didn't hurt them, they killed them. They're all dead.”
“Yes, I know. It's horrible.” Mira's gaze and her tone stayed level. “The worst thing that can happen.”
“I wish it didn't.”
“So do I. I think if we sit down and talk, we might be able to help.”
“They killed Linnie.” Nixie's bottom lip began to tremble. “They thought she was me, and now she's dead. I wasn't supposed to go downstairs.”
“We all do things we're not really supposed to sometimes.”
“But Linnie didn't. I was bad, and she wasn't. And she's dead.”
“Not so very bad,” Mira said gently, and taking Nixie's hand led her to a chair. “Why did you go downstairs?”
“I wanted an Orange Fizzy. I'm not supposed to have them without permission. I'm not supposed to snack at night. My mom--” she broke off, knuckled her eyes.
“Your mom would have said no, so yes, it was wrong of you to go behind her back. But she'd be very glad you weren't hurt, wouldn't she? She'd be happy that, this once, you broke the rules.”
“I guess.” Galahad leaped into her lap, and Nixie stroked his wide back. “But Linnie--”
“It wasn't your fault. Nothing that happened was your fault. You didn't cause it, and you couldn't have stopped it.”
Nixie looked up. “Maybe if I'd yelled really loud, I'd've woken everyone up. My dad could've fought the bad guys.”
“Did your father have a weapon?” Eve demanded before Mira could speak.
“No, but--”
“Two men with knives, and him unarmed. Maybe if you'd yelled he'd have woken up. And he'd still be dead. Only difference is they'd have known someone else was in the house, hunted you down, and killed you, too.”
Mira shot Eve a warning look and turned her attention back to Nixie. “Lieutenant Dallas told me you were very brave and very strong. Because she's both of those things, I know she's telling the truth.”
“She found me. I was hiding.”
“It was good that you hid. It was good that she found you. I know what Lieutenant Dallas just said is hard for you to hear, but she's right. There was nothing more you could have done last night to help your family. But there are things you can do now.” Mira glanced at Eve, signalling her.
“Listen, Nixie,” Eve said, “this is rough, but the more you can tell me, the more I know. This is my recorder.” She set it on the table, sat across from Mira and the child. “I'm going to ask you some questions. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in interview with Swisher, Nixie, minor female, with Mira, Dr. Charlotte, in attendance. Okay, Nixie?”
“Okay.”
“Do you know about what time it was that you got out of bed?”
“It was more than two o'clock. Like ten after, about. I had my Jelly-Roll on.”
“Wrist unit,” Mira translated.
“What did you do when you got up? Exactly.”
“I went downstairs--really quiet. I thought, for a minute, since Linnie didn't want to wake up, I'd get Coyle. But maybe he'd tell, and I liked being up by myself. I went to the kitchen and got an Orange Fizzy out of the friggie, even though I'm not supposed to. And I went to sit down and drink it in the breakfast area.”
“What happened then?”
“I saw the shadow come in, but it didn't see me. I got down on the bench. It went into Inga's room.”
“What did the shadow look like?”
“It looked like a man, I guess. It was dark.”
“Was he tall or short?”
“As tall as the lieutenant?” Mira prompted and gestured for Eve to stand up.
“Taller, probably. I don't know.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Dark stuff.”
“What about his hair?” Eve tugged her own. “Short, long?”
On a short sigh, Nixie nuzzled the cat. “It must've been short, 'cause I couldn't really see it. It was... it was... covered. Like.” She made a gesture, as if pulling something over her head. “It covered him up. His whole face, and his eyes, they were all black and shiny.”
Protective gear, Eve surmised. Night goggles. “Did you hear him say anything?”
“No. He killed her, with the knife. He killed her, and there was blood. And he didn't say anything.”
“Where were you?”
“On the floor, at the door. I wanted to look inside and see . . .”
“It was dark. How could you see?”
Her eyebrows came together a moment. “From the window. The streetlight through the window. He had a light.”
“Like a flashlight?”
“No, a little dot, a little green light. It was blinking. On his hand. On his . . . here.” She closed her fingers around her wrist.
“Okay, what happened then?”
“I got against the wall. I think. I was so scared. He killed Inga, and he had a knife, and I was so scared.”
“You don't have to be scared now,” Mira said. “You're safe now.”
“He didn't see me, like I wasn't there. Like hide-and-seek, but he didn't look for me. I got the 'link and I called. Dad says if you see somebody getting hurt, you call Emergency and the police will come and help. You gotta call, you gotta be a good neighbor. My dad--” She broke off, bowed her head as tears dripped.
“He would be very proud of you.” Mira reached for her own bag, took a tissue from it. “Very proud that you did just what he taught you, even when you were scared.”
“I wanted to tell him, to tell him and Mom. I wanted Mom. But they were dead.”
“You saw the man again, and someone else,” Eve prompted, “when you went upstairs. You went up the back way.”
“The man who killed Inga was going into Coyle's room.”
“How do you know? Nixie, how do you know it was the man from Inga's room who went into Coyle's?”
“Because . . .” She looked up again, blinking against the tears. “The light. The green light. The other didn't have one.”
“Okay. What else was different?”
“The one who killed Inga was bigger.”
“Taller?”
“A little bit, but bigger.” She flexed her arms, indicating muscle.
“Did they talk to each other?”
“They didn't say anything. They didn't make any noise. I couldn't hear anything. I wanted Mom.”
Her eyes went dull again, and a tremor shook her voice. “I knew what they were going to do and I wanted Mom and Dad, but... And there was blood, and it got on me. I hid in the bathroom, and I didn't come out. I heard people come in, but I didn't come out. You came.”
“Okay. Do you remember, before any of this happened, if your parents said anything about being concerned, about anybody who was mad at them, or if they'd seen somebody hanging around who shouldn't be?”
“Dad said Dave said he was going to beat him unconscious with his nine iron because he won the golf game.”
“Did they fight a lot, your dad and Dave?”
“Nuh-uh, not for real.” She knuckled her eyes. “Just ripping.”
“Was there anybody he did fight with? Not just ripping?”
“No. I don't know.”
“Or your mom?” When Nixie shook her head, Eve eased into a dicey area. “Did your mom and dad fight, with each other?”
“Sometimes, but not like bad. Gemmie's mom and dad used to yell at each other all the time, and Gemmie said they threw things. And they got divorced because her dad couldn't keep his pants zipped. That means he screwed around.”
“Got that. But your parents didn't fight like that.”
“They didn't, and they didn't screw around either. They danced on the beach.”
“Sorry?”
“In the summer, when we went to the beach and got the house. Sometimes they went out to walk at night, and I could see them from my window. They'd dance on the beach. They weren't going to get divorced.”

[Dalyia]

“It's good to have a memory like that,” Mira said. “When you start to feel too sad, or scared, you can try to see them dancing on the beach. You did very well. I'd like to come back and talk to you again some time.”
“I guess it's okay. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now.”
“I think you should have some lunch. I have to go soon, but Lieutenant Dallas will be here, working upstairs in her office. Do you know where the kitchen is?”
“No, the house is too big.”
“Tell me about it,” Eve muttered.
Mira rose, held out a hand. “I'll take you back, and maybe you can help Summerset for a little while. I'll be back in a minute,” she said to Eve.
Alone, Eve paced to the windows, to the fireplace, back to the windows. She wanted to get to it, start the process. She needed to set up her board, do the runs, write her report and file it. Calls to make, people to see, she thought, jingling loose credits in her pocket.
Shit, how was she going to deal with this kid?
She wondered if the cops who'd had to interview her all those years ago had been equally unsure of their footing.
“She's coping very well.” Mira came back into the room. “Better than most would. But you should expect mood swings, tears, anger, difficulty sleeping. She's going to require counseling.”
“Can you handle that?”
“For the moment, and we'll see how it goes. She may require a specialist, someone trained primarily in children. I'll look into it.”
“Thanks. I was thinking I should check the department, Youth Services, find a couple of officers who I can assign to her.”
“Take it slow. She's dealing with a lot of strangers at once.” She touched Eve's arm, then picked up her bag. “You'll handle it.”
Maybe, Eve thought when Mira left. Hopefully. But at the moment, she had plenty of doubts. She headed upstairs, detoured into Roarke's office.
He was at his desk, with three of his wall screens scrolling various data, and his desk unit humming. “Pause operations,” he said, and smiled. “Lieutenant, you look beat up.”
“Feel that way. Listen, I didn't have a chance to really run all this by you. I know I just more or less dumped some strange kid on you and blew.”
“Is she awake?”
“Yeah. She's with Summerset. I did a second interview with her, with Mira in attendance. She holds up pretty well. The kid, I mean.”
“I've had the news on. The names haven't been released yet.”
“I've got that blocked--for the moment. It's going to break soon.”
Knowing his wife, he went to the AutoChef, programmed two coffees, black. “Why don't you run it for me now?”
“Quick version, because I'm behind.”
She gave him the details, brief and stark.
“Poor child. No evidence, as yet, that anyone in the household was into something that could bring down this kind of payback?”
“Not yet. But it's early.”
“Professional, as I'm sure you've already concluded. Someone trained in wet work. The green light she saw was most likely the jammer-- green for go--as the security had been bypassed.”
“Figured. On the surface, these people seem ordinary, ordinary family. Straight arrows. But we haven't done much scratching on that surface yet.”
“Sophisticated electronics, special forces--type invasion, quick, clean hits.” Sipping coffee, he ignored the beep of his laser fax. “In and out... in, what, ten or fifteen minutes? It's not something for nothing. Home terrorism would have left a mark, and the targets would have been higher profile. On the surface,” he added.
“You still have some contacts in organized crime.”
A smile ghosted around his mouth. “Do I?”
“You know people who know people who know scum of the earth.”
He tapped a fingertip on the dent in her chin. “Is that any way to talk of my friends and business associates? Former.”
“Damn straight. You could make some inquiries.”
“I can, and I will. But I can tell you I never associated with child killers. Or anyone who would slaughter a family in their sleep.”
“Not saying. I mean that. But I need every angle on this. The little girl? The one he killed in place of the kid downstairs? She was wearing a little pink nightgown with--what do you call it--frills around the neck. I could see it was pink from the bottom. The rest was red, soaked through with blood. He'd slit her throat open like it was an apple.”
He set his coffee down, walked to her. He put his hands on her hips, laid his brow on her brow. “Anything I can do, I will.”
“It makes you think. You and me, we had the worst most kids can get. Abuse, neglect, rape, beatings, hate. These kids, they had what it's supposed to be, in a perfect world: nice homes, parents who loved them, took care of them.”
“We survived,” he finished. “They didn't. Except for the one downstairs.”
“One day, when she looks back on this, I want her to know the people who did this are in a cage. That's the best I can do. That's all I can do.”
She eased back. “So, I'd better get to work.”






4
HER FIRST STEP WAS CONTACTING FEENEY, captain of the Electronic Detectives Division. He popped on her 'link screen, wiry ginger hair threaded with silver, saggy face, rumpled shirt.
It was a relief to her that his wife's recent attempt to spruce him up with eye-popping suits had gone belly-up.
“I'm catching up,” she said briskly. “You got word on the Swisher case, home invasion?”
“Two kids.” His face, comfortably morose, hardened. “When I got wind, I went to the scene myself. I got a team working on the 'links and data centers. I'm doing the security personally.”
“I like getting the best. What can you tell me?” .
“Good, solid home system. Top of the line. Took some know-how to bypass. Camera shows squat after one hundred fifty-eight hours. Remote jammer, with secondary jam as the system had an auto backup.”
He tugged on his earlobe as he read data from another screen. “Visual security shuts down, backup pops within ten seconds, with alarms both in-house and at security center. Compromised the works.”
“They knew the system.”
“Oh yeah, they knew the system. Deactivated camera alarm, lock alarm, motion alarm. I'm going to pin it for you, but my prelim indicated entrance ten minutes after the camera blanked, four minutes after the secondary jam.”
“Ten minutes? That's a stretch of time. Might've held, insurance the system didn't make the signal, in-house, to the security company. Four after hitting the secondary. Is that as slick as I think it is?”
“Slick enough. They worked fast.”
“Did they know the code?”
“Can't tell you that yet.” He lifted a mug to his lips that had MINE printed on it in murderous red. “Either knew it or had a first-class code breaker. Couple of kids not safe in their own bed, Dallas , it's a fucked up world.”
“It's always been a fucked-up world. I'm going to need all the transmissions, in and out, personal and household. All security discs.”
“You'll have them. I'm putting weight on this one. Got grandchildren that age, for Chrissake. Whatever you need on this one, you got it.”
“Thanks.” Her eyes narrowed as he sipped again. “That real coffee?”
He blinked, eased the mug out of sight. “Why?”
“Because I can see it on your face. I can see it in your eyes.”
“What if it is?”
“Where'd you get it?”
He shifted. Even with her screen view she could tell he squirmed. “Maybe I swung by your office, to update you, and you weren't there. And maybe since you've got a damn unlimited supply of the stuff I got myself one lousy mug. Don't see why you have to be so stingy when you've--”
“You help yourself to anything else while you were there? Such as candy?”
“What candy? You got candy in there? What kind?”
“That's for me to know, and you to keep your hands off. I'll get back to you.”
Thinking of coffee and candy reminded her she'd missed breakfast and lunch. She ordered up data on Grant Swisher, then strode into her office kitchen to grab a nutribar and another hit of caffeine.
Settling, she ordered the data on wall screen, and scanned.
Swisher, Grant Edward, DOB March 2, 2019. Residence 310 West Eighty-first, New York City , September 22, 2051 to present. Married Getz, Keelie Rose, May 6, 2046. Two children of the marriage: Coyle Edward, DOB August 15, 2047, male. Nixie Fran, DOB February 21, 2050, female.
Three of those names would be listed as deceased by end of the day in Vital Records, she thought.
She read through the basic data, requested any and all criminal records, and got a pop for possession of Zoner when Grant Swisher had been nineteen. Medical was just as ordinary.
She dug into finances.
He did well. Family law paid enough to handle the mortgage on the house, a time share place in the Hamptons , private schools for both kids. With the wife's income factored in, you had a cozy buffer for a live-in domestic, family vacations, restaurants, and other recreational activities--including a hefty golf tab--and enough left over for a reasonable savings or emergency account.
Nothing over the top, she mused. Nothing, from the looks of it, under the table.
Keelie Swisher, two years younger than her husband, no criminal, standard medical, had a master's degree in Nutrition and Health. She'd put it to use, prior to children, with a position on staff at a high-end city spa. After the first kid, she'd done the professional mother gig for a year, then gone back to the same employment. Repeated the routine with kid number two, but instead of going back as an employee, she'd opened her own business.
Living Well, Eve mused. Didn't sound much like Nutrition, but it must have worked. She tracked the business, shaky first year, middling second. But by the third year, Keelie Swisher had developed a solid clientele, and was cruising.
She ran the boy. No criminal, no Hag for sealed juvenile records. No flags on the medical to indicate violence or abuse--though there were some bumps, some breaks. Sports related, according to the medicals. And it fit.
He had his own bank account with his parents listed on it. She pursed her lips over the regular monthly deposits, but the amounts weren't enough to arrow toward illegals sales or criminal profits.
She found the same pattern, with smaller amounts, in Nixie's account.
She was pondering it when Peabody came in carrying a white bag, stained with grease and smelling like glory. “Picked up a couple of gyros. Ate mine, so if you don't want yours, I'll be happy to take it off your hands.”
“I want it, and nobody should eat two gyros.”
“Hey, I lost five pounds when I was on medical. Okay, I put three back on, but that's still two by anybody's math.” She dropped the bag on Eve's desk. “Where's Nixie?”
“Summerset.” Eve dumped the nutribar she'd yet to open in her desk drawer and pulled out the gyro. She took a huge bite and mumbled something that sounded like “Slool ressa.”
“Got the school records on both.” Translating, Peabody pulled out two discs. “Their school officials were pretty broken up when I notified. Nice schools. Coyle did well, no suspicious dips in grades or attendance. And Nixie? That kid's a blade. Aces all the way. Both scored high on IQ tests, but she's a level up from her brother, and makes the most of it. No disciplinary problems on either. A couple of warnings about talking in class or sneaking game vids, but no major. Coyle played Softball and basketball. Nixie's into school plays, does the school media flash, school band--plays the piccolo.”
“What the hell is that?”
“It's a wind instrument. Kinda like a flute. These kids have a lot of extracurricular, good grades. Didn't have time to get in trouble, from my view.”
“They both have their own bank accounts, and make regular monthly deposits. Where do kids get up to a hundred bucks a month?”
Peabody turned to the wall screen, scanned the data. “Allowance.”
“Allowance for what?”
She looked back, shook her head at Eve. “Their parents probably gave them a weekly allowance, spending money, saving money, that sort of thing.”
Eve swallowed more gyro. “They get paid for being a kid?”
“More or less.”
“Nice work if you can get it.”
“Household like that, the way this is shaping up, the kids probably had regular chores, even with a full-time domestic. Keeping their rooms clean, clearing the table, loading the recycler. Then you got your birthday or holiday money, your school report money. Being a Free-Ager, we did bartering more than pay, but it comes to the same.”
“So if everybody stayed a kid, nobody'd have to get a job. They could have seen something at school,” she continued before Peabody could comment. “Heard something. Something off. We'll take a look at teachers and staff. We can run the adults' business associates and clients, fan out from there to friends, neighbors, social acquaintances. These people weren't picked out of a hat.”
“Doesn't feel like it, but can we discount straight urban terrorism?”
“It's too clean.” Roarke had it right on that one, she thought. “You want to terrorize, you're messy. Kill the family, rape and torture first, wreck the house, slice up their little dog.”
“They didn't have a little dog, but I get you. And if it was terrorism, some whacked-out group would be taking credit by now. Did we get any reports in? EDD, sweepers, ME?”
“I talked to Feeney. He's on it. Fill you in on the way.”
“To?”
“Morgue, then Central.” She rose, stuffing the last of the gyro in her mouth.
“Want me to let Summerset know we're leaving?”
“Why? Oh. Hell. Yeah, do that.” She crossed to the door joining her office with Roarke's. “Hey.”
He was rising from his desk, slipping on one of his dark suit jackets.
“I'm heading out,” she told him.
“So am I. I've rearranged a few things. Should be back no later than seven.”
“I don't know when.” She leaned against the jamb, frowning at him. “I should put the kid in a safe house.”
“This house is safe, and she's fine with Summerset. A more detailed media bulletin's come through. It doesn't list the names, as yet, but reports on anUpper West Side family, including two children, killed early this morning, in their home. Lists you as primary. Details to follow.”
“I'll have to deal with that.”
“And so you will.” He came to her, cupped her face, kissed her. “You'll do your job, and we'll figure out the rest. Take care of my cop.”
As she'd expected, the chief medical examiner had taken charge of the Swisher homicides. It wasn't the sort of detail Morris would pass to someone else, however qualified or skilled.
Eve found him, suited up, over the body of Linnie Dyson. “I've taken them in order of death.” Behind his microgoggles his dark eyes were cool and hard.
There was music playing. Morris rarely worked without it, but this was somber, funereal. One of those composers, she imagined, who'd worn white wigs.
“I've ordered tox screens on all victims. Cause of death is the same in all. There are no secondary wounds or injuries, though the minor male vie had several old bruises, two fresh, with minor lacerations--long bruising scrapes on his right hip and upper thigh. His right index finger had been broken, set, and healed at some point within the last two years. All injuries look consistent to me with a young boy who played sports.”
“Softball primarily. Fresh deal sounds like he got it sliding into base.”
“Yes, that fits.”
He looked down at the little girl, at the long slice in her throat. “Both minor vies were healthy. All vies had a meal at approximately seven p.m., of white fish, brown rice, green beans, and mixed-grain bread. There was an apple dish with wheat and brown sugar topping for dessert. The adults had a glass of white wine, the children soy milk.”
“The mother, the second adult female, was a nutritionist.”
“Practiced what she preached. The boy had a cache somewhere,” Morris added with a faint smile. “He'd consumed two ounces of red licorice at about ten p.m.”
Somehow it cheered her to know it. At least the kid got a last taste of sweet. “Murder weapons?”
“Identical. Most likely a ten-inch blade. See here.”
He gestured to the screen, magnified the wound on the child's throat. “See the jags? There, on the edge of the diagonal. Swipe down, from his left to his right. Not a full smooth blade, or a full jagged. Three teeth serrating from the handle, the rest smooth-bladed.”
“Sounds like a combat knife.”
“That would be my take. It was employed by a right-handed individual.”
“There were two.”
“So I'm told. Eyeballing it, I'd have said the same hand delivered the killing blows, but as you can see . . .” He turned to another screen, called for pictures, split screen on Grant and Keelie Swisher. Magnified the wounds.
“There're slight deviations. Male vic's wound is deeper, more of a slicing motion, more jagged, while the female's is more of a draw across. When all five are put up ...” He nodded as the screen shifted to show five throat wounds. “You can see that the housekeeper, the father, and the boy have the same slicing wound, while the mother and the girl have the more horizontal drawing across. You'll want the lab to run some reconstructs, but it's going to be a ten-inch blade, twelve at the max, with those three teeth near the handle.”
“Military style,” she stated. “Not that you have to be military to obtain one. But it's just one more piece of the operation. Military tactics, equipment, and weapons. None of the adults did military time, or appear to have any connection to the military. Can't link any of them, at this point, to paramilitary or game playing.”
Then again, she thought, sometimes a cozy family was the perfect cover for covert or dark deeds.
“I've cleared the Dysons.” Eve glanced back at Linnie. “Have they seen her yet?”
“Yes. An hour ago. It was . . . hideous. Look at her,” he urged. “So small. We get smaller, of course. Infants barely out of the womb. It's amazing what we enlightened adults can do to those who need us most.”
“You don't have any kids, right?” Eve asked.
“No, no chick nor child. There was a woman once, and we were together long enough to consider it. But that was . . . ago.”
She studied his face, slickly framed by black hair pulled cleanly back in one sleek tail that was bound in crisscrossing silver twine. Under the clear, protective suit, stained now with body fluids, his shirt was silver as well.
“I've got the kid, the one they didn't get. I don't know what to do with her.”
“Keep her alive. I would think that would be priority.”
“Got that part handled. I'll need those tox reports, and anything that pops, as soon as.”
“You'll have them. They wore wedding rings.”
“Sorry?”
“The parents. Not everyone does these days.” Morris nodded toward the scribed band Eve wore on the ring finger of her left hand. “It's not very fashionable. Wearing them is a statement. I belong. They'd made love, about three hours prior to death. They used a spermicide rather than long-term or permanent birth control, which tells me they hadn't ruled out the possibility of more children in the future. That, and the rings, Dallas ? I find that both comforts and angers me.”
“Anger's better. Keeps you sharper.”
When she walked toward Homicide in the massive beehive of Cop Central, she spotted Detective Baxter at a vending unit, getting what passed for coffee. She dug out credits, flipped them to him. “Tube of Pepsi.”
“Still avoiding contact with vending machines?”
“It's working. They don't piss me off, I don't kick them into rubble.”
“Heard about your case,” he said as he plugged in her credits. “And so did every reporter in the city. You got most of them hassling the media liaison and hammering for an interview with the primary.”
“Reporters aren't on my to-do list right at the moment.” She took the tube of Pepsi he offered, frowned. “You said most. Why is Nadine Furst of Channel 75 even now sitting on her well-toned ass in my office?”
“How do you know? Not about the ass, anybody could see Furst's got an excellent ass.”
“You've got cookie crumbs on your shirt, you putz. You let her into my office.”
With some dignity, he brushed off his shirt. “I'd like to see you turn down a bribe of Hunka-Chunka Chips. Every man has his weakness, Dallas .”
“Yeah, yeah. I'll kick your well-toned ass later.”
“Sweetheart, you noticed.”
“Bite me.” But she studied him as she broke the tube's seal. “Listen, how's your caseload?”
“Well, as you're my lieutenant I should say I'm ridiculously overworked. I was just coming in from court when I was distracted by Furst's ass and cookies.”
Keying in his code, he ordered a tube of ginger ale from the machine. “My boy's writing up the three's on one we caught last night. Double D that went nasty. Guy'd been out drinking and whoring, according to the spouse. They got into it when he crawled home, smacked each other around--as per usual according to the neighbors and previous reports. But this time she waited until he'd passed out, then cut off his dick with a pair of sheers.”
“Ow.”
“Fucking A,” Baxter agreed, and took a long gulp. “Guy bled out before the MTs got there. Damn ugly mess, let me tell you. And the guy's dick? She'd stuffed it in the recycler, just to make sure it didn't get in any more trouble.”
“Pays to be thorough.”
“You women are cold and terrifying creatures. This one? She's damn proud of it. Says she's going to be a hero to neofems throughout our fair land. Maybe so.”
“You got that closed. Anything else hot?”
“We don't have any more actives than we can handle right now.”
“Anything you don't feel comfortable passing on?”
“You want me to dump my caseloads on somebody else. I'm your boy.”
“I want you and Trueheart on witness duty. My residence.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“I'll get my boy. They did two kids?” His face sobered as they walked toward the bull pen. “Did them while they slept?”
“It'd have been worse if they'd been awake. You and Trueheart are baby-sitting the eyewitness. Nine-year-old female. Keep it off the log for now. I still have to report to Whitney.”
She moved through the bull pen, then into the glorified closet that was her office.
As predicted, Nadine Furst, Channel 75's on-air ace, sat in Eve's ratty desk chair. She was perfectly groomed, her streaky blonde hair swept back from her foxy face. Her jacket and pants were the color of ripe pumpkin, with a stark white shirt beneath that somehow made the whole getup more female.

[Dalyia]

She stopped recording notes into her memo book when Eve walked in. “Don't hurt me. I saved you a cookie.”
Saying nothing, Eve jerked a thumb, then took the chair Nadine vacated. When the silence went on, Nadine cocked her head. “Don't I get a lecture? Aren't you going to yell at me? Don't you want your cookie?”
“I just came from the morgue. There's a little girl on a slab. Her throat's cut from here, to about here.” Eve tapped a finger on both sides of her own throat.
“I know.” Nadine sat in the single visitor's chair. “Or I know some of it. A whole family, Dallas. However hard-shelled you and I might be, that gets through. And with a home invasion like this, the public needs some of the details, so they can protect themselves.”
Eve said nothing, just lifted her eyebrows.
“That's part of it,” Nadine insisted. “I'm not saying ratings aren't involved, or I don't want my journalistic teeth in something this juicy. But the sanctity of the home should mean something. Keeping your kids safe matters.”
“See the media liaison.”
“The ML doesn't have squat.”
“Should tell you something, Nadine.” Eve lifted a hand before Nadine could sound off. “What I've got at this point isn't going to help the public, and I'm not inclined to give you the inside edge. Unless . . .”
Nadine settled back, crossed her exceptional legs. “Name the terms.”
Eve stretched out, flipping the door shut, then turned around in her chair so that she and Nadine were face-to-face. “You know how to slant reports, how to spin stories to influence the public who you love to claim has a right to know.”
“Excuse me, objective reporter.”
“Bullshit. The media's no more objective than the last ratings term. You want details, you want the inside track, one-on-ones, and your other items on your reporter's checklist? I'll feed you. And when this goes down and I get them--and I will get them--I want you to bloody them in the media. I want you to skew the stories so these fuckers are the monsters the villagers go after with axes and torches.”
“You want them tried in the press.”
“No.” It wasn't a smile that moved over Eve's face. Nothing that feral could be called a smile. “I want them hanged by it. You're my secondary line, if the system gives them a loophole even an anorectic bloodworm has trouble wiggling through. Yes or no.”
“Yes. Was there sexual assault on any or all of the victims?”
“None.”
“Torture? Mutilation?”
“No. Straight kills. Clean.”
“Professional?”
“Possibly. Two killers.”
“Two?” The excitement of the hunt flushed onto Nadine's cheek. “How do you know?”
“I get paid to know. Two,” Eve repeated. “No vandalism, destruction of property, no burglary that can be determined at this time. And at this time, it is the opinion of the primary investigator that the family in question was target specific. I've got a report to write, and I have to speak to my commander. I'm cooking on three hours' sleep. Go away, Nadine.”
“Suspects, leads?”
“At this time we are pursuing any and all blah, blah, blah. You know the drill. Disappear now.”
Nadine rose. “Watch my evening report. I'll start bloodying them now.”
“Good. And Nadine?” Eve said as Nadine opened the office door. “Thanks for the cookie.”
She set up her office case board, wrote her report, read those submitted by EDD and Crime Scene. She drank more coffee, then closed her eyes and went through the scene, yet again, in her mind.
“Computer. Probability run, multiple homicides, case file H-226989SD,” Eve ordered.
Acknowledged.
“Probability, given known data, that the killers were known by one or more of the victims.”
Working .. . Probability is 88.32 percent that one or more of the victims knew one or more of the killers.
“Probability that the killers were professional assassins.”
Working . . . Probability is 96.93 percent that the killers were professional and/or trained.
“Yeah, I'm with you there. Probability that killers were hired or assigned to assassinate victims by another source.”
Working . . . Wholly speculative inquiry with insufficient data to project.
“Let's try this. Given current known data on all victims, what is the probability any or all would be marked for professional assassination?”
Working ... 100 percent probability as victims have been assassinated.
“Work with me here, you moron. Speculation. Victims have not yet been assassinated. Given current known data--deleting any data after midnight--what is the probability any or all members of the Swisher household would be marked for professional assassination?”
Working . . . Probability is less than five percent, and therefore these subjects would not be so marked.
“Yeah, my take, too. So what don't we know about this nice family?” She swiveled around to the board. “Because you're dead, aren't you?” She shoved another disc in the data slot. “Computer, do a sort and run on subsequent data pertaining to Swisher, Grant, client list. Follow with sort and run on Swisher, Keelie, client list. Highlight any and all subjects with criminal or psych evals, highlight all with military or paramilitary training. Copy results to my home unit when complete.”
Acknowledged. Working .. .
“Yeah, you keep doing that.” She rose, walked out.
“ Peabody .” She gave a come-ahead that had Peabody pushing back from her desk in the bull pen.
“I've got a complaint. How come Baxter and most of the other guys always get the good bribes? How come being your partner means I get shafted on the goodies?”
“Price you pay. We're heading to Whitney. Do you have anything new I should know about before we report?”
“I talked with McNab. Purely professional,” Peabody added quickly. “We hardly made any kissy noises. Feeney put him on the household 'links and d and c's, and Grant Swisher's units from his office. He's running all transmissions from the last thirty days. So far, nothing pops. Did you see the sweepers' report?”
“Yeah. Nothing. Not a skin cell, not a follicle.”
“I'm doing runs on the school staff,” Peabody continued as they squeezed onto an elevator. “Pulling out anything winky.”
“Winky?”
“You know, not quite quite. Both schools are pretty tight. You gotta practically be pure enough for sainthood to work there, but a few little slips got in. Nothing major at this point.”
“Pull out military, paramilitary backgrounds. Even those--what are they?--combat camps. Those recreational places where you pay to run around playing war. Take a hard look at teachers in the e-departments.”
Eve rubbed her temple as they stepped off the elevator. “The housekeeper was divorced. Let's eyeball the ex. We'll get the names of the kids' pals. See if any of those family members should be checked out.”
“He's waiting for you.” Whitney's admin gestured even as Eve strode toward her desk. “Detective Peabody , it's good to have you back. How are you feeling?”
“Good, thanks.”
But she drew in a deep breath before they entered Whitney's office. The commander still intimidated her.
He sat, a big man at a big desk, his face the color of cocoa, his short cropped black hair liberally dusted with gray. Peabody knew he'd done his time on the streets, nearly as much time as she'd been alive. And he rode his desk with the same fervor and skill.
“Lieutenant. Detective, it's good to see you back on the job.”
“Thank you, sir. It's good to be back.”
“I have your writtens. Lieutenant, you're walking a thin line taking a minor witness into your own custody.”
“Safest place I know, Commander. And the minor was emotionally distressed. More so at the prospect of going with GPS. As she's our only witness, I felt it best to keep her close, to have her monitored, and to attempt to keep her emotionally stable in order to gain more information from her. I've assigned Detective Baxter and Officer Trueheart to witness protection, off the log.”
“Baxter and Trueheart.”
“Baxter's experience, Trueheart's youth. Trueheart has a kind of Officer Friendly way about him, and Baxter won't miss the details.”
“Agreed. Why off the log?”
“At this time the media is unaware there was a survivor. It won't take much longer, but it gives us more of a window. Once they know, the killers know. These men are trained and skilled. It's highly possible this was an operation executed under orders.”
“Do you have evidence of that?”
“No, sir. None to the contrary either. There is, at this time, no clear motive.”
It was going to be the why, Eve thought, that led to the who.
“Nothing that pops in any of the victims' data or background,” she added. “We're beginning further runs, and I will continue to interview the witness. Mira has agreed to supervise, and to counsel.”
“Nothing in your report indicates this as a spree killing or home terrorism.”
“No, sir. We're running like crimes through IRCCA, but haven't hit anything with these details.”
“I want your witness under supervision twenty-four/seven.”
“It's done, sir.”
“Mira's name will have considerable weight with GPS. I'll add mine.” The chair creaked when he leaned back. “What about legal guardians?” Sir?
“The minor. Who are her legal guardians?”
“The Dysons, Commander,” Peabody said when Eve hesitated. “The parents of the minor female who was killed.”
“Jesus. Well, they're unlikely to give us any trouble over the situation, but you'd do better to get their permission, officially. Doesn't the child have any family left?”
“Grandparent. One on the father's side who lives off planet. Maternal grandparents are dead. No siblings on either side.”
“Kid can't catch a break, can she?” Whitney muttered.
She caught one, Eve thought. She lived. “Detective Peabody ? You spoke with the grandmother.”
“Yes, Lieutenant. I notified next of kin. At that time, I was told the paternal grandmother was not legal guardian in case of parental death or disability. And, to be frank, while shocked and upset, she made no statement to indicate she intended to come here and attempt custody of the minor.”
“All right then. Dallas , speak with the Dysons at the first opportunity, and tidy this up. Keep me updated.”
“Yes, sir.”
When they were walking back toward the elevator, Peabody shook her head. “I don't think now's the best time--for the Dysons. I'd let that slide another twenty-four anyway.”
The longer the better, Eve thought.

[Dalyia]

5
SECURITY AND STREETLIGHTS WERE POPPING ON by the time Eve headed back uptown from Central. Normally, the vicious traffic would have given her plenty of reason to snarl and bitch, but tonight she was grateful for the distraction, and the extra drive time.
It was gelling for her.
She could see the method, the type of killers. She could walk through the scene over and over in her mind and follow the steps. But she couldn't find motive.
She sat in stalled traffic behind a flatulent maxibus and circled around the case again. Violence without passion. Murder without rage.
Where was the kick? The profit? The reason?
Going with instinct, she called up Roarke's personal 'link on her dash unit.
“Lieutenant.”
“What's your status?” she asked him.
“Healthy, wealthy, and wise. What's yours?”
“Ha. Mean, crafty, and rude.”
His laugh filled her vehicle, and made her feel slightly less irritable. “Just the way I like you best.”
“Location, Roarke?”
“Maneuvering through this sodding traffic toward hearth and home. I hope you're doing the same.”
“As it happens. How about a detour?”
“Will it involve food and sex?” His smile was slow, and just a little wicked. “I'm really hoping for both.”
Odd, damn odd, she thought, that after nearly two years of him that smile could still give her heart a jolt. “It might later, but first on our lineup is multiple murder.”
“Teach me to marry a cop.”
“What did I tell you? Hold on a minute.” She leaned out the window, shouted at the messenger who'd nearly sideswiped her vehicle with his jet-board. “Police property, asshole. If I had time I'd hunt you down and use that board to beat your balls black.”
“Darling Eve, you know how that kind of talk thrills and excites me. How can I keep my mind off sex now?”
Eve pulled her head back in, eyed the screen. “Think pure thoughts. I need to do another walk-through of the crime scene. I wouldn't mind having another pair of eyes.”
“A cop's work is never done, and neither is the man's who's lucky enough to call her his own. What's the address?”
She gave it to him. “See you there. And if you beat me to the scene, for God's sake don't tamper with the seal. Just wait. Oh, shit, parking. You need a permit. I'll--”
“Please” was all he said, and signed off.
“Right,” she said to dead air. “Forgot who I was talking to for a minute.”
She didn't know how Roarke dispensed with such pesky details as parking permits, and didn't really want to. He was just stepping onto the sidewalk when she arrived. She pulled up behind his vehicle, flipped on her on-duty light.
“Pretty street,” he said. “Especially this time of year with the leaves scattered about.” He nodded toward the Swisher house. “Prime property. If they had any equity in it, at least the child won't be penniless as well as orphaned.”
“They had a chunk, plus standard life policies, some savings, investments. She'll be okay. That's one of the deals, actually. She'll be set pretty well, coming into the bulk of it when she hits twenty-one. They both had wills. Trust-fund deal for the kids, supervised by legal guardians and a financial firm. It's not mega-dough, but people kill for subway credits.”
“Did they make contingencies for alternate beneficiaries should something happen to the children as well?”
“Yeah.” Her mind had gone there, too. Wipe out the family, rake in some easy money. “Charities. Shelters, pediatric centers. Spread it out, too. Nobody gets an overly big slice of the pie. And no individual gets much above jack.”
“The law firm?”
“Rangle, the partner, gets the shot there. His alibi is solid. And if he has the connections, or the stomach, to order a hit like this, I'll toast my badge for breakfast. This family wasn't erased for money. Not that I can see.”
He stood on the sidewalk, studying the house as she did. The old tree in front, busily shedding its leaves onto the stamp-sized courtyard, the attractive urban lines, the sturdy pot filled with what he thought were geraniums beside the door.
It looked quiet, settled, and comfortable. Until you saw the small red eyes of the police seal, the harsh yellow strip of it marring the front doors.
“If it were money,” he added, “one would think it would take a fat vat of it to push anyone to do what was done here. The erasing, as you put it, of an entire family.”
He walked with her to the main entrance. “Put my ear to the ground, as requested. There's no buzz about a contract on these people.”
Eve shook her head. “No. They weren't connected. But it's good to cross that off the list, at least the probability of it. They didn't have ties to any level of the underworld. Or government agencies. I played around with the idea that one of them had a double life going, thinking of what Reva dealt with a couple months ago.” Reva Ewing, one of Roarke's employees, had had the misfortune of being married to a double agent who'd framed her for a double murder. “Just doesn't slide. No excessive travel; not much travel at all without the kids. Nothing that sends up a flag on their 'links or comps. These people lived on schedules. Work, home, family, friends. They didn't have time to mess around. Plus ...”
She stopped, shook her head. “No. I'll let you make your own impressions.”
“All right. By the way, I've arranged to have my ride picked up. That way I can have my lovely wife drive me home.”
“We're ten minutes from our own gate.”
“Every minute with you, Darling Eve, is a minute to treasure.”
She slid a glance toward him as she uncoded the seal. “You really do want sex.”
“I'm still breathing, so that would be yes.”
He stepped inside with her, scanning when she called for lights. “Homey,” he decided. “Tastefully so. Thoughtfully. Nice colors, nice space. Urban family style.”
“They came in this door.”
He nodded. “It's a damn good system. Took some skill to bypass without tripping the backups and auto alarms.”
“Is it one of yours?”
“It is, yes. How long did it take them to get in?”
“Minutes. Feeney figures about four.”
“They knew the system, possibly the codes, but certainly the system. And what they were about,” he added, studying the alarm panel. “It's a tricky one, and would take good, cool hands, and just the right equipment. You see, the backups are designed to engage almost instantly if there's any sort of tampering. They had to know they were there, and deal with them simultaneously, even before they read or input the codes.”
“Pros then.”
“Well, it certainly wasn't their first day on the job. Likely they had an identical system to work with. That would take time, money, planning.” He stepped back from the panel, trying to ignore the outrage he felt that one of his designs had failed to serve. “But you never supposed this was random.”
“No. What I put together from the scene and the witness report is that one went upstairs--or at least stayed back--while the other went through here.”
She led the way, moving directly to the kitchen. “It was dark--some glow from security and streetlights through the windows--but they had night vision. Had to. Plus the witness described blank, shiny eyes.”
“Which could be a child's imagination. Monster eyes. But,” he said with another nod, “more likely night vision. Where was she?”
“Over there, lying on the bench.” Eve gestured. “If he'd looked, taken enough time to do a sweep through the kitchen, he'd have seen her. The way she tells it, he just walked straight to the domestic's door.”
“So he knew where he was going. Knew the layout, or had been here at some time.”
“Checking on household repairs, deliveries, but that doesn't feel like it. How do you get the layout of the whole house if you, what, install a new AutoChef or fix a toilet? How do you know the layout of the domestic's quarters?”
“Someone involved with the domestic?”
“She wasn't seeing anyone, hadn't been for several months. A few friends outside the family, but they pan out. So far.”
“You don't think she was the primary target.”
“Can't rule it out, but no. He moved straight in,” she repeated, and did so. “Sealed all the way. Had to be. Sweepers didn't find a fricking skin cell that wasn't accounted for. Witness said he didn't make any noise, so I'm thinking stealth shoes. Went directly to the bed, gave the head a quick yank up by the hair, sliced down, right-handed.”
Roarke watched her mime the moves, quick and sure, cop's eyes flat.
“Combat knife from Morris's report--lab should be able to reconstruct. Then he lets her drop, turns, walks out. Witness is there, just outside the doorway, down on the floor, back to the wall. If he looks, he sees. But he doesn't.”
“Confident or careless?” Roarke asked.
“I'd go with the first. Added to it, he's not looking because he doesn't expect to see anything.” She paused a moment. “Why doesn't he expect to see anything?”
“Why would he?”
“People don't always stay tucked in through the night. They get up to whiz, or because they're worried about their work and can't sleep. Or because they want a damn Orange Fizzy. How come you're this thorough, this much a pro, but you don't sweep an area when you enter?”
Frowning, Roarke considered, studied the layout again. Yes, he thought as he pictured himself moving through the house in the dark. He would have. Yes, and he had on those occasions when he'd lifted locks and helped himself to what was behind them.
“Good question, now that you pose it. He--they--expect everything, everyone in their proper place because that's how it works in their world?”
“It's a theory. Goes out,” she continued, “goes back to the main stairs and up. Why? Why, when there are back stairs right over there.”
She gestured to a door. “That's how the witness got up to the second floor. Back stairs. Peabody 's take was that the front steps were closer to the adults' room, and it's not implausible. But you know what, it's a waste of time, steps, and effort.”
“And they wasted nothing. They didn't know there was a second set of steps.”
“Yeah. But how did they miss that detail when they knew everything else?”
Roarke walked over to the door, ran a hand over the jamb, examined the steps. “Well, they're not original.”
“How do you know?”
“The house is late nineteenth century, with considerable rehab work. But these are newer. This rail here, it's manmade material. Twenty-first century material.” He crouched down. “So are the treads. And the workmanship's a bit shoddy. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a home job--something they added themselves without all the permits and what have you. Without filing the work, so it wouldn't show on any record, any blueprint your killers might have studied.”
“How smart are you? You're right. They're not on the on-file blueprints. I checked. Still, that doesn't mean one or both of the killers wasn't in the house, wasn't even a friend or neighbor. This is the domestic's room, and her stairs.”
“That would, however, go further to eliminating the housekeeper as primary target. And it would be less likely the killers were close acquaintances of hers, or privy to her quarters.”
“She was excess. It was the family that mattered.”
“Not one of them,” he put in, “but all.”
“If it wasn't all, why kill all?”
She took him back through, following the assumed path of the known killer. “Blood trail from domestic's, through here, up the right side of the steps. More concentrated blood pattern here, see?”
“And none coming back down the stairs. Removing protective gear here, before going down.”
“Another point for the civilian.”
“I think you should have another term for me. Civilian's so ordinary, and just a bit snarky when you say it. Something like 'non police specialist on all things'.”
“Yeah, sure, my personal NPS. Focus in, ace. They'd done the adults before the witness got up to this level. She saw them walking away from this room, then split off. One in each of the other bedrooms. Two more rooms up here--one a home office, the other a playroom deal. Kids' bathroom, end of hall. But they went straight for the bedrooms. You couldn't be a hundred percent from a blueprint which room was which up here.”
“No.” To satisfy his curiosity, he walked over, glanced into one of the rooms. Home office--work station, minifriggie, shelves holding equipment, dust catchers, family photos. A small daybed, all coated now with the sweepers' residue.
“This is certainly large enough to be used as a bedroom.”
She let him wander, watched him step to the doorway of the boy's room and saw his face harden. Blood spatter on sports posters, she thought, blood staining the mattress.
“How old was the boy?” he asked.
“Twelve.”
“Where were we at that age, Eve? Not in a nice room, surrounded by our little treasures, that's for bloody sure. But Christ Jesus, what does it take to walk into a room like this and end some sleeping boy?”
“I'm going to find out.”
“You will, yes. Well.” He stepped back. He'd seen blood before, had shed it. He'd stood and studied murder when it was chilled. But this, standing in this house where a family had lived their ordinary lives, seeing a young boy's room where such a tender life had been taken, left him sickened and shaken.
So he turned away from it. “The office has as much space as this bedroom. The boy could easily have been across the hall.”
“So they had to surveil the house--or know it from the inside, enough to know who slept where. If they cased it from outside, they'd need to watch the patterns. Which lights went on, what time. Night vision and surveillance equipment, and they could see through the curtains easy enough.”
She moved to the master bedroom. “Morris tells me the same hand that did the domestic did both males. The other took the females. So they had their individual targets worked out in advance. No conversations, no chatter, no excess movements. Thought about droids, assassin droids.”
“Very costly,” Roarke told her. “And unreliable in a situation like this. And why have two--double the cost and detail of programming, when one could do it all? That's if you had the wherewithal and the skill to access an illegal droid, and program it to bypass security and terminate multiple subjects.”
“I don't think it was droids.” She walked out, into the little girl's bedroom. “I think human hands did this. And no matter how it looks on the surface, no matter how cold and efficient, it was personal. It was fucking personal. You don't slice a child's throat without it being personal.”
“Very personal.” He put a hand on her back, rubbed it gently up and down. “Sleeping children were no threat to them.” There were demons in this house now, he thought. Brutal ghosts of them with children's blood staining their hands. Lurking ones in him, and in her, that muttered, constantly muttered, of the horrors they'd survived.
“Maybe the kids were the targets. Or there's the possibility one or more of the household had some information that was a threat, so they all had to go in case that information had been shared.”
“No.”
“No.” She sighed, shook her head. “If the killers were afraid of information or knowledge, they would need to ascertain, by intimidation, threat, or torture, that the information hadn't been passed outside of the household. They would need to check the data centers, the whole fricking house, to be certain such information wasn't logged somewhere. The tight timing--entrance, murders, exit, doesn't leave room for them to have searched for anything. It's made to look like business. But it's personal.”
“Not as smart as they think,” Roarke commented.
“Because?”
“Smarter to have taken the valuables, to have torn the house up a bit. The entire horror would point more to burglary. Or to have hacked away at the victims, to make it seem like a psychopath, or a burglary gone very wrong.”
She let out a half laugh. “You know, you're right. You're damn right. And why didn't they? Pride. Pride in the work. That's good, that's good, because it's something, and I've got nothing. Fucking bupkus. I knew there was a reason I liked having you around.”
“Any little thing I can do.” He took her hand as they started downstairs. “And it's not true you have nothing. You have your instincts, your skill, your determination. And a witness.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She didn't want to think about her witness quite yet. “Why would you wipe out an entire family? Not you you, but hypothetically.”
“I appreciate the qualification. Because they'd messed with mine, had been or were a threat to what's mine.”
“Swisher was a lawyer. Family law.”
Roarke tilted his head as they went out the front door. “That's interesting, isn't it?”
“And she was a nutritionist, did a lot of families, or had clients with families. So maybe Swisher lost a case--or won one--that pissed one of his clients or opposings off. Or she pushed the wrong buttons on somebody's fat kid, or had a client die. And the kids went to private schools. Maybe one of the kids screwed with somebody else's kid.”
“A lot of avenues.”
“Just have to find the right one.”
“One of the adults might have had an affair with someone else's spouse. It's been known to annoy.”
“Looking there.” She slid behind the wheel of her vehicle. “But it's not solidifying. These two, they had what looks like a pretty solid marriage, and a lot of focus on family. Took trips together, went out together. Like a group. The picture I'm getting doesn't leave much time for extramarital. And sex takes time.”
“Done well, certainly.”
“I haven't found anything in their data, their possessions, their schedules that points to an affair. Not yet, anyway. Neighborhood canvass didn't shake out anything,” she added as she pulled away from the curb. “Nobody saw anything. I figure one of them lives in the area, or they had a bogus permit, or--Jesus--they took the goddamn subway, hailed a cab a couple of blocks away. I can't pin any of it down.”
“Eve, it's been less than twenty-four hours.”
She glanced in the rearview, thought of the quiet house on the quiet street. “Feels longer.”
It was always weird, in Eve's opinion, to have Summerset materialize in the foyer like a recurring nightmare the minute she walked in the door, but it was weirder yet to see him there, with a small blonde girl at his side.
The kid's hair was shiny, wavy blonde, as if it had been freshly washed and brushed. Who did that? Eve wondered. Did the kid deal with her own hair, or had Summerset done it? And the thought of that gave her the heebies.
But the kid looked comfortable enough with him, even had her hand in his, and the cat at her feet.

[Dalyia]

“Isn't this a fine welcome?” Roarke shrugged out of his coat. “How are you, Nixie?”
She looked at him--all blue eyes--and nearly smiled. “Okay. We made apple pie.”
“Did you now?” Roarke bent to pick up the cat when Galahad slithered over to rub against his legs. “That's a favorite of mine.”
“You can make a little one with the leftovers. That's what I did.” Then those eyes, big and blue, lasered into Eve's. “Did you catch them yet?”
“No.” Eve tossed her jacket over the newel post, and for once Summerset didn't snark or sneer at the habit. “Investigations like this take some time.”
“Why? Screen shows with cops don't take very long.”
“This isn't a vid.” She wanted to go upstairs, clear her mind for five minutes, then start back over the case, point by point. But those eyes stayed on her face, both accusing and pleading.
“I told you I'd get them, and I will.”
“When?”
She started to swear, might not have choked it back in time, but Roarke played a hand gently down her arm and spoke first. “Do you know, Nixie, that Lieutenant Dallas is the best cop in the city?”
Something, maybe it was speculation, passed over Nixie's face. “Why?”
“Because she won't stop. Because it matters so much to her that she takes care of people who've been hurt, she can't stop. If someone of mine had been hurt, I'd want her to be the one in charge.”
“Baxter says she's a major butt-kicker.”
“Well, then.” Now Roarke smiled fully. “He'd be right.”
“Where are they?” Eve asked. “Baxter and Trueheart?”
“In your office,” Summerset told her. “Dinner will be served in fifteen minutes. Nixie, we need to set the table.”
“I'm just going to--”
This time Roarke took Eve's hand, squeezed. “We'll be down.”
“I've got work,” Eve began as they went up the stairs. “I don't have time to--”
“I think we need to make time. An hour won't hurt, Eve, and I'd say that child needs as much normalcy as we can manage. Dinner, at the table, is normal.”
“I don't see what's more normal about shoveling in food off a big flat surface than shoveling it in at your desk. It's multitasking. It's efficient.”
“She scares you.”
She stopped dead, and her eyes went to lethal slits. “Just where the hell do you come off saying that?”
"Because she scares me, too."
Temper flickered over her face for a moment, then everything relaxed. "Really? Really? You're not just saying that?"
"Those big eyes, full of courage and terror and grief. What could be more frightening? There she stands, such a little thing, all that pretty hair, tidy jeans and jumper--sweater," he corrected. "And that need just radiating out of her. We're supposed to have the answers, and we don't."
Eve let out a breath as she looked back toward the stairs. "I haven't even figured out all the questions."
"So we'll have dinner with her, and do what we can to show her that there's normalcy and decency left in the world."
"Okay, okay, but I need to debrief my men."
"I'll meet you downstairs. Fifteen minutes."
She found normal in her office, where a couple of cops--who'd obviously raided her AutoChef--were chowing down while they studied murder. On her wall screens, each Swisher bedroom, each victim, was displayed while Baxter and Trueheart chomped on cow meat.
"Steak." Baxter forked up another bite. "Do you know the last time I had real cow? I'd kiss you, Dallas , but my mouth's full."
"Summerset said it was okay." Trueheart, young and fresh in his uniform, offered her a hopeful grin.
She merely shrugged, then turned so that she, too, had full view of the screens. “What's your take?”
“Big red check to everything in your report.” Baxter continued to eat, but his expression was sober now. “Slick job. And a mean one. Even without the eyewit, I'd have said two or more to pull it off, and even then it went down damn fast. The tox came in from the ME. No illegals, no drugs of any kind in any of them. No illegals on the premises. Even the pain remedies were herbal and holistic.”
“Fits with the adult female's career choice,” Eve murmured. “No defensives, no struggle, no missing valuables.”
“No trace,” she added. “Sweepers got zip. You dump your currents?”
“With pleasure.” Baxter stabbed his fork into another bite of steak. “Carmichaelnow hates me like a case of genital warts. Made my day.”
“The two of you are relieved here. Report back at oh eight hundred. Double duty. You babysit, and start running the names I pulled out of the Swishers' client lists. Anybody with so much as a parking violation gets a deeper look. We look at them, their family, their friends and associates, their next-door neighbors, and their little pets. We look until we find.”
“The housekeeper?” Baxter asked.
“I'll do her tonight. We look at them all, kids included. School, activities, neighbors, where they shopped, where they ate, where they worked, where they played. Before we're done, we'll know these people better than they knew themselves.”
“A lot of names,” Baxter commented.
“It's only going to take one.”
Though she now had steak and murder on her mind, Eve ate roasted chicken and tried to keep her conversation away from the investigation. But what the hell were you supposed to talk to a kid about over dinner?
They didn't use the dining room often--well, she didn't, she admitted. So much easier to grab something upstairs. But she couldn't call it a hardship to sit at the big, gleaming table, with a fire simmering in the grate, the scent of food and candles in the air.
“How come you eat so fancy?” Nixie wanted to know.
“Don't ask me.” Eve jabbed a fork toward Roarke. “It's his house.”
“Do I have to go to school tomorrow?”
Eve blinked twice, then realized the question was directed at her, and Roarke wasn't stepping in to field the ball.
“No.”
“When do I go back to school?”
Eve felt the back of her neck begin to ache. “I don't know.”
“But if I don't do my work, I'll get behind. If you get behind, you can't be in the band or the plays.” Tears started to shimmer.
“Oh. Well.” Shit.
“We can arrange for you to do your school work here, for now.”
Roarke spoke matter-of-factly. As if, Eve thought, he'd been born answering thorny questions. “You enjoy school?”
“Mostly. Who'll help me with my work? Dad always did.”
No, Eve thought. Absolutely not. She wasn't moving into that area if somebody planted a boomer under her ass.
“The lieutenant and I weren't the best of students. But Summerset could help you, for the time being.”
“I'll never get to go home again. Or see my mom and dad, or Coyle or Linnie. I don't want them to be dead.”
Okay, Eve decided. Maybe she was a kid, but she was still the eye wit. The case was back on the table along with the chicken.
Thank God.
“Tell me what everybody was doing. The whole day before it happened.” When Roarke started to object, Eve only shook her head. “Everything you remember.”
“Dad had to yell at Coyle because he got up late. He's always getting up late, then everybody has to rush. Mom gets mad if you rush your breakfast because it's important you eat right.”
“What did you eat?”
“We had fruit and cereal in the kitchen.” Nixie cut a spear of asparagus neatly, and ate without complaint. “Inga fixes it. And juice. Dad had coffee, 'cause he gets to have one cup. And Coyle wanted new airskids, and Mom said no, and he said that sucked, and she gave him the look because you're not supposed to say 'suck,' especially at the table. Then we got our things and went to school.”
“Did anyone use the link?”
“No.”
“Did anyone come to the door?”
She ate a bite of chicken in the same tidy way. Chewed and swallowed before she answered. “No.”
“How did you get to school?”
“Dad walked us, because it wasn't too cold. If it's too cold, we can take a cab. Then he goes to work. Mom goes downstairs to work. And Inga was going shopping because Linnie was coming after school and Mom wanted more fresh fruit.”
“Did either your mother or father seem upset by anything?”
“Coyle said 'suck' and didn't finish his juice, so Mom was down on him. Can I see them even though they're dead?” Her lips trembled. “Can I?”
It was a human need, Eve knew. Why should it be different for a child? “I'll arrange it. It may take a little while. You do okay today with Baxter and Trueheart?”
“Baxter's funny, and Trueheart's nice. He knows how to play a lot of games. When you catch the bad guys, can I see them, too?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Nixie looked back down at her plate, nodded slowly. “Okay.”
I feel like I've been in the Interview box, getting sweated by a pro. Eve rolled her shoulders when she walked into her office.
“You handled it, and very well. I thought you'd overstepped when you asked her to go over the day before the murders, but you were right. She'll need to talk about this. All of this.”
“She'll think about it anyway. She talks, maybe she'll remember something.” She sat at her desk, brooded a minute. “Now here's something I never thought would come out of my mouth--and if you ever repeat it, I'll twist your tongue into a square knot, but thank God Summerset's around.”
He grinned as he eased a hip onto the corner of her desk. “Sorry, I don't think I quite heard that.”
Her look, her voice, went dark. “I meant it about the square knot. I'm just saying the kid's easy with him, and he seems to know what to do with her.”
“Well, he raised one of his own, then took me on besides. He has a soft spot for troubled children.”
“He has no soft spots whatsoever, but he's good with the kid. So yay.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “I'll be talking with the Dysons again tomorrow. Depending on how things go, we could be moving her into a safe house with them in a day or two. Tonight, I'm going to focus on the housekeeper, see where that takes me. Need to send a memo to Peabody ,” she remembered. “She's already hit the school, so she can swing by there in the morning, get the kid's work and whatever. Listen, let me ask you, why would you want, I mean, actually want to do the school thing if you had an escape hatch?”
“On that, I have absolutely no idea. Maybe it's like your work is to you, mine is to me. Somehow essential.”
“It's school. It's like prison.”
“So I always thought, too. Maybe we're wrong.” He leaned over, traced his finger down the dent in her chin. “Want some help with this?”
“Don't you have work?”
“A bit of this, a bit of that, but nothing I can't do while assisting New York 's best cop.”
“Yeah, that was a good one. You know the security at the scene. Maybe you could tag Feeney at home, exchange data. See if you can figure out what kind of equipment these bastards needed to bypass. And where they might've come by it.”
“All right.” This time he brushed her cheek. “You've put in a long day already.”
“I've got another couple hours in me.”
“Save some for me,” he said, and walked into his own office.
Alone, she set up a second murder board, programmed a short pot of coffee, then ordered Inga's data onscreen.
She studied the ID photo. Attractive, but in a non threatening, homey sort of way. She wondered if Swisher had specified non threatening, nothing too young and pretty to tempt her husband.
Whatever the requirements, the match seemed to have worked. Inga had put plenty of years in with the Swishers. Enough, Eve noted, to see the kids grow up.
None of her own, Eve saw. One marriage, one divorce, full-time domestic since she was in her twenties. Though Eve couldn't understand why anyone would volunteer to clean up for someone else, she supposed it took all kinds.
Her financials were steady, reasonable considering her occupation, and her outlays within the normal range.
Normal, normal, normal, Eve thought. Well, Inga, let's go deeper.
An hour later she was circling her board.
Nothing, she thought. If there were hidden pockets, they were expertly concealed. Inga's life had been so utterly normal it was bordering on boring. She worked, she shopped, she took two vacations a year--one with the family she worked for, and the other, at least for the last five years, with a couple of other women to the same relaxation spa in upstate New York .
She'd check with, and on, the other women, but nothing had popped out on them when she'd run their data.
The ex lived in Chicago , had remarried, and had one offspring, male. He was a drone for a restaurant supply company, and had made no on-record trips to New York in over seven years.
The idea that the housekeeper had heard or seen something dire while buying plums or cleaning supplies just seemed ludicrous.
But life was full of the ludicrous that ended in bloody murder.
She acknowledged Roarke when he came in. “Nothing jingles my bell on this one.” She nodded toward the screen. “Still a lot of legwork to do to cover the bases, but I think she's going down as innocent bystander.”
“Feeney and I are of the same opinion regarding the bypass equipment. It could have been homemade by someone expert in the field, with access to prime materials. If it was purchased, it had to come from military, police, or security sources. Or black market. It's not something you'd find in your local electronics store.”
“Doesn't narrow the field much, but it jibes.”
“Let's shut it down for the night.”
“Nothing much more I can do.” She ordered her machine to save, file, close. “I'm going to start here tomorrow, then leave Baxter and Trueheart on wit duty.”
“I'll take it to some of my R&D people tomorrow, see if anybody in my brain trust comes up with something more specific on the security system.”
“None of the vies had any military or security training--or as far as I've found, any connections thereto.” She pushed it around in her head as they walked toward their bedroom. “I can't find any link with organized crime, with paramilitary. As far as my data shows, they didn't gamble, fool around, were not overly political. The closest to an obsession I can get is the woman's devotion to nutrition.”
“Maybe something had come into their possession, even by accident, that had to be reclaimed.”
“Then if you're so damn good at B&E, you go in when the house is empty and you take it. You don't go in, kill everybody. The only thing taken from the house was lives. The Swishers are dead because someone wanted them dead.”
“Agreed. What do you say we have a glass of wine and relax for a bit?”
She nearly refused. She could just think, let it all wind around in her head awhile. Pace and let it play until something jiggled loose, or she was too damn fried to do anything but pass out for a few hours.
Their lives would never be like the Swishers'. She didn't want them to be, didn't think she could handle trying to navigate something quite that straightforward. But they did have a life. And lives deserved attention.
“I'd say you've got a pretty good idea. I've got to let it simmer.” She tapped the back of her head. “Since boiling it up front isn't doing the job.”
“How about this for a better idea?” He shifted so they faced each other and a dip of his head had his teeth closing lightly over her jaw.
“Getting me naked is your usual idea.”
“But with variation, and that's the key.”
It made her laugh. “Sooner or later even you have to run out of variations.”
“Now there's a challenge. Why don't we take that wine down to the pool, have a little water sport?”
“I'd say your ideas get better and--” She broke off, and sprinted when she heard Nixie scream.