by J. D. Robb
‘You bet. The team’s moving into place now. I have to go.’
‘I’ll see you soon.’
He waited until she was gone, then walked outside himself and climbed casually into Feeney’s unit. ‘I’ll be riding with you.’
Feeney scratched his chin. ‘Dallas won’t like it.’
‘That’s a pity. I spent the last few hours studying the schematics for the security on the Palmer house. I can bypass it, by remote.’
‘Can you, now?’ Feeney said mildly.
Roarke turned his head, gave Feeney a level look. ‘I shouldn’t need more than twenty minutes clear to manage it.’
Feeney pursed his lips and started down the drive. ‘I’ll see what we can do about that.’
She went in at ten. It was best, she’d decided, not to cut it too close to the deadline. The old brownstone was lovely, in perfect repair. The security cameras and sensors were discreetly worked into the trim so as not to detract from its dignity.
As she walked to the door she was certain Palmer was watching. And that he was pleased. She gave the overhead camera a brief glance, then bypassed the locks with her master.
She closed the door at her back, heard the locks snick automatically back into place. As they did, the foyer lights flashed on.
‘Good evening, Dallas.’ Palmer’s voice flowed out of the intercom. ‘I’m so pleased you could make it. I was just assuring Doctor Mira that you’d be here soon so we could begin our end-of-year celebration. She’s fine, by the way. Now, if you’d just remove your weapon—’
‘No.’ She said it casually as she moved forward. ‘I’m not stripping down for you, Dave, so you can take me out as I come down the stairs. Let’s not insult each other.’
He laughed. ‘Well, I suppose you’re right. Keep it. Take it out. Engage it. It’s fine. Just remember, Doctor Mira’s fate is in your hands. Come join us, Lieutenant. Let’s party.’
She’d been in the house before, when she interviewed his parents. Even if the basic setup hadn’t come back to her, she’d taken time to study the blueprints. Still, she didn’t move too quickly, but scanned cautiously for booby traps on the way through the house.
She turned at the kitchen, opened the basement door. The sound of cheering blasted up at her. The lights were on bright. She could see streamers, balloons, festive decorations.
She took her weapon out and started down.
He had champagne chilling in a bucket, pretty canapés spread on silver trays on a table draped with a colorful cloth.
And he had Mira in a cage.
‘Lieutenant Dallas.’ Mira said it calmly, though her mind was screaming. She’d been careful to call Eve by her title, to keep their relationship professional, distant.
‘Doctor.’ Palmer clucked his tongue. ‘I told you I’d do the talking. Lieutenant, you see this control I’m holding. Just so we understand each other right away, if I press this button, a very strong current will pass through the metal of the doctor’s temporary home. She’ll be dead in seconds. Even with your weapon on full, I’ll have time to engage it. Actually, my nervous system will react in such a way to the shock that my finger will twitch involuntarily, and the doctor, shall we say, is toasted.’
‘Okay, Dave, but I intend to verify that Doctor Mira is unharmed. Are you hurt, Doctor?’
‘No.’ And she’d managed so far to hold back hysteria. ‘He hasn’t hurt me. And I don’t think he will. You won’t hurt me, will you, David? You know I want to help you. I understand how difficult all this has been for you, not having anyone who appreciates what you’ve been working to achieve.’
‘She’s really good, isn’t she?’ he said to Eve. ‘So soothing. Since I don’t want to show her any disrespect – you’ll note I didn’t remove her clothing for our little experiment – maybe you should tell her to shut the fuck up. Would you mind, Dallas?’
‘Dave and I need to handle this, Dr Mira.’ Eve moved closer. ‘Don’t we, Dave? It’s you and me.’
‘I’ve waited for this for so long. You can see I’ve gone to quite a bit of trouble.’ He gestured with his free hand. ‘Maybe you’d like a drink, an hors d’oeuvre. We have a celebration going on. The end of the old, the birth of the new. Oh, and before I jam that wire you’re wearing, tell the backup team that if anyone attempts entry, you both die.’
‘I’m sure they heard you. And they already have orders to hold back. You said to come alone,’ she reminded him. ‘So I did. I always played it straight with you.’
‘That’s right. We learned to trust each other.’
‘Why stop now? I’ve got a deal for you, Dave. A trade. Me for Mira. You let her out of there, you let her go, and I’ll get in. You’ll have what you want.’
‘Eve, don’t—’ Mira’s composure started to slip.
‘This is between me and Dave.’ She kept her eye on him, level and cool. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? To put me in a cage, the way I put you in one. You’ve been thinking about it for three years. You’ve been planning it, working for it, arranging it step by step. And you did a damn good job this time around. Let her go, Dave. She was just bait, you got me here by using her. Let her go and I’ll put down my weapon. I’ll get in, and you’ll have the kind of subject you’ve always wanted.’
She took another step toward him, watching his eyes now, watching them consider. Desire. ‘She’s a shrink, and she’s not in the kind of condition I’m in – mental or physical. She sits at a desk and pokes into other people’s minds. You start on her, she’ll go down fast, give you no satisfaction. Think how long I’ll last. Not just hours, days. Maybe weeks if you can hold the outside team off that long. You know it’s going to end here, for both of us.’
‘Yes, I’m prepared for that.’
‘But this way, you can get your payback and finish your work. Two for one. But you have to let her out.’
Music crashed out of the entertainment unit. On screen the revelers in Times Square swarmed like feverish ants.
‘Put down the weapon now.’
‘Tell me it’s a deal.’ She held her breath, lifted her weapon, aimed it at the center of his body. ‘Tell me it’s a deal or I take you down. She goes, but I live. And you lose all around. Take the deal, Dave. You’ll never get a better one.’
‘I’ll take the deal.’ All but quivering with excitement, he rubbed a hand over his mouth. ‘Put the weapon down. Put it down and move away from it.’
‘Bring the cage down first. Bring it down to the floor so I know you mean it.’
‘I can still kill her.’ But he reached out to the console, touched a switch. The cage began to sway and lower.
‘I know it. You’ve got the power here. I’ve just got a job. I’m sworn to protect her. Unlock the cage.’
‘Put the weapon down!’ He shouted it out now, raising his voice over the music and cheers. ‘You said you’d put it down, now do it!’
‘Okay. We’ve got a deal.’ Sweat slid down her back as she bent to lay the weapon on the floor. ‘You don’t kill for the hell of it. It’s for science. Unlock the cage and let her go.’ Eve lifted her hands, palms out.
On a bright laugh, he grabbed up a stunner, jabbed the air with it. ‘Just in case. You stay where you are, Dallas.’
Her heart began to beat again when he put the control down, hit the button to release the locks. ‘Sorry you have to leave the party, Doctor Mira. But I promised this dance to the lieutenant.’
‘I need to help her out.’ Eve crouched to take Mira’s hand. ‘Her muscles are stiff. She wouldn’t have lasted for you, Dave.’ She gave Mira’s hand one hard squeeze.
‘Get in, get in now.’
‘As soon as she’s clear.’ Eve remained crouched, pushed Mira aside. As she used her body as a shield, she had time to register a movement on the stairs, then her clinch piece was in her hand.
‘I lied, Dave.’ She watched his eyes go round with shock, saw him grab for the control, lower the stunner. The crowd cheered wildly as her blast took hi
m full in the chest.
His body jerked, a quick and obscene dance. He was right, she noted, about the finger twitch. It depressed convulsively on the control even as he fell onto the cage.
Sparks showered from it, from his quaking body as she dragged Mira clear and curled herself over her.
‘Your jacket’s caught fire, Lieutenant.’ With admirable calm, Roarke bent over and patted out the spark that burned the leather at her shoulder.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Just picking up my wife for our date.’ He reached down gently and helped Mira to her feet. ‘He’s gone,’ Roarke murmured, and brushed tears from her cheeks.
‘I couldn’t reach him. I tried, for hours after I woke up in that … in that thing. But I couldn’t reach him.’ Mira turned to Eve. ‘You could, in the only way that was left. I was afraid you’d—’ She broke off, shook her head. ‘I was afraid you’d come, and afraid you wouldn’t. I should have trusted you to do what had to be done.’
When she caught Eve in a hard embrace, pressed her cheek against hers, Eve held on, just held on, then eased away, awkwardly patting Mira’s back. ‘It was a team effort – including this civilian this time around. Go spend New Year’s with your family. We’ll worry about the routine later.’
‘Thank you for my life.’ She kissed Eve’s cheek, then turned and kissed Roarke’s. And didn’t begin to weep again until she was upstairs.
‘Well, Lieutenant, it’s a very fitting end.’
She followed Roarke’s gaze, studied Palmer, and felt nothing but quiet relief. ‘To the man or the year?’
‘To both.’ He stepped to the champagne, sniffing it as he drew it from the bucket. ‘Your team’s on the way in. But I think we could take time for a toast.’
‘Not here. Not with that.’ She took the bottle, dumped it back into the bucket. On impulse, she took the badge off her shirt, pinned it on his. ‘Routine can wait. I want to collect on my present.’
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘Just home.’ She slid an arm around his waist, moving toward the stairs as cops started down. ‘Just home, with you.’ She heard the crowd erupt with another cheer. ‘Happy New Year.’
‘Not quite yet. But it will be.’
Festive in Death
J. D. ROBB
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year.
THOMAS TUSSER
1
Men, Sima thought, can’t live with them, can’t beat them to death with a nine iron.
But a girl could exact some revenge, and she was a girl bent on just that.
Nobody deserved a good dose of revenge – or a beating with a nine iron as much as Trey Ziegler. The fuckball had booted her out of the apartment they’d shared, even though she had the same territorial rights to the place as he did.
In the seven and a half weeks of their unofficial cohabitation, she’d paid half the rent, half the expenses, including food and beverage. She’d done all the cleaning (lazy bastard), all the marketing. And in that seven and a half weeks had given him the best years of her life.
Plus sex.
After considerable thought, in-depth conversations with close friends and confidants, two ten-minute sessions of meditation and six tequila shots, she’d outlined precisely how, where, and when to exact her revenge.
The how involved that nine iron, an extensive collection of cashmere socks, and itching powder. The where was that one-bedroom apartment over Little Mike’s Tattoo and Piercing Parlor in the West Village.
The when was right fucking now.
He wouldn’t have changed the locks – cheap bastard – and didn’t know she’d given a copy of her swipe to one of those friends and confidants, who also happened to be her boss, right after they’d moved in together.
And if he had changed the lock, her friend said she knew people who knew people, would tag one up, and it would be done.
Sima wasn’t sure she wanted to know the people who knew people or how they would gain access to the apartment. But she knew she wanted in.
So with her friend beside her for moral support, she pulled out her swipe key to open the main door to the apartments over the tat parlor.
Her tequila-fueled grin spread wider when the locks clicked open.
“I knew it! He’d never bother springing for the money to have me deactivated.”
“Maybe not on this door. We still have to see about the apartment.” Her friend gave her a long, hard look. “You’re abso-poso he’s not in there?”
“Totally. His supervisor sprang for the weekend seminar, been in the works for weeks. No way he’d blow it off. Free hotel room, free food, and a chance to show off for two days.”
Sima turned toward the skinny elevator, started to take off her gloves.
“We’ll walk up. Leave your gloves on, remember? No fingerprints.”
“Right, right. It’s my first break-in.” With a nervous giggle Sima started up the stairs.
“It’s not a break-in. You have a key, and you paid the rent.”
“Half.”
“He said it was half. Did you ever check for sure how much the rent was?”
“Well, no, but —”
“Sima, you’ve got to stop letting yourself get pushed around. What you were paying for the squeeze box up here probably covered the whole cha-cha.”
“I know. I know.”
“You’re going to feel a lot better after you cut out the toes in his socks. Remember the plan – one sock from each pair, a little nip so it starts to unravel. You start on that while I put the itching powder in his moisturizer. Then we replace the golf club with the toy one, and we book. We don’t touch anything else. In and out.”
“And he won’t know what the hell. He’s not going to golf until he gets somebody to pay the indoor fee, so that can’t come back on me. The socks will make him crazy.”
“He’ll figure it happened at the dry cleaners. He deserves it. A guy who has his socks dry-cleaned deserves it.”
“Yeah. And the itching powder? He’ll go screaming to the doctor, figuring he’s got a new allergy. Fuckball.”
“Fuckball,” her friend agreed, righteously, as they finally reached the fourth floor. “Moment of truth, Sima.”
On a long breath, Sima steadied herself. Climbing three flights, dressed in her winter coat, scarf, boots, hat – December 2060 was as bitter as her heart – she had worked up a little sweat.
She pulled out the key again, crossed the fingers of her free hand, swiped.
Locks thumped open.
Sima gave a triumphant hoot, and was immediately shushed.
“You want the neighbors poking out?”
“No, but —” Before she could finish, Sima found herself pushed inside with the door quietly, firmly closed behind her.
“Turn on the lights, Sim.”
“Right.” She hit the switch, then hissed, “Look at this mess! I haven’t been gone a week, and he’s already got crap tossed everywhere. Look in there!” She walked toward the kitchen bump as she pointed. “Dirty dishes, takeout boxes. I bet there’re bugs. Ew, I bet there’re bugs in here.”
“What do you care? You don’t live here, so you don’t have to pick up his mess or worry about bugs.”
“But still. And look at the living room. Clothes tossed all over, shoes just – Hey!” She marched over, picked up a scarlet-red high heel, then scooped up a bra with yellow polka dots over purple lace.
“I never noticed any trany tendencies.”
“Because he doesn’t have any!”
“I know, Sim. It’s like we all told you. He only booted you because he sniffed up a new skirt. And jeez, it’s been like a week since he did the booting, so you have to figure… Don’t blubber,” she ordered as Sima started to do just that. “Get even! Come on.”
Focused on the task at hand, she pull
ed the shoe, the bra away, tossed them down again, took Sima’s arm. “I’ll get you started on the socks.”
“I sort of loved him.”
“Sort of is sort of. He treated you like crap, so you pay him back, then you can move on. Trust me.”
Sima’s tears-and-tequila-blurred eyes tracked back to the bra. “I want to bust something up.”
“You’re not going to. You’re going to be smart and hit him where it hurts. Vanity and wallet, then we’re going to go do some more shots.”
“Lots of them.”
“Bunches of lots of them.”
Sima squared her shoulders and nodded. With her hand in her friend’s – moral support – they started toward the bedroom she’d shared for seven and a half weeks with her cheap, cheating, callous boyfriend.
“He didn’t even put up any Christmas decorations. He has a cold heart.”
She couldn’t have been more right.
Trey Ziegler sat propped on the bed, the long chestnut-and-gold-streaked hair he was so proud of matted with blood. His eyes – most recently tinted emerald green – staring.
The kitchen knife jammed in his cold heart pinned a cardboard sign to his well-toned chest. It read:
Santa Says You’ve Been Bad!!!