by J. D. Robb
“Get started,” Eve ordered. “If they give you any grief, have the warden contact me. Dallas out.”
Eve drove into Cop Central, making three unnecessary stops on the way. If Palmer was going to make a move on her, he’d do it on the street. He’d know he would never be able to break through the defenses of Roarke’s fortress. But she spotted no tail, no shadow.
More, she didn’t feel him.
Would he go for her in the station? she wondered as she took the glide up to the EDD sector to consult with Feeney. He’d used a cop’s disguise to get to Carl. He could put it to use again, slip into the warrenlike building, blend with the uniforms.
It would be a risk, but a risk like that would increase the excitement, the satisfaction.
She studied faces as she went. Up glides, through breeze-ways, down corridors, past cubes and offices.
Once she’d updated Feeney and arranged for him to consult with McNab on the unit en route, she elbowed her way onto a packed elevator to make the trip to Commander Whitney’s office.
She spent the morning moving through the building, inviting a confrontation, then she took to the streets for the afternoon.
She recanvased the houses she and Peabody had already hit. Left herself in the open. She bought bad coffee from a glide cart, loitered in the cold and the smoke of grilling soydogs.
What the hell was he waiting for? she thought in disgust, tossing the coffee cup into a recycling bin. The sound of a revving engine had her glancing over her shoulder. And she looked directly into Palmer’s eyes.
He sat in his vehicle, grinned at her, blew her an exaggerated kiss. Even as she leaped forward, he hit vertical lift, shot up and streaked south.
She jumped into her car, going air as she squealed away from the curb. “Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. All units, all units in the vicinity of Park and Eighty respond. I’m in ground-to-air chase with murder suspect. Vehicle is a black new-issue Booster-6Z, New York license number Delta Able Zero-4821, temporary. Heading south on Park.”
“Dispatch, Dallas. Received and confirmed. Units dispatched. Is subject vehicle in visual range?”
“No. Subject vehicle went air at Park and Eighty, headed south at high speed. Subject should be considered armed and dangerous.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Where’d you go, where’d you go, you little son of a bitch?” Eve rapped the wheel with her fist as she zipped down Park, shot down cross streets, circled back. “Too fast,” she muttered. “You went under too fast. Your hole’s got to be close.”
She set down, did her best to bank her temper, to use her head and not her emotions. She’d let the search run another thirty minutes, though she’d already decided it was useless. He’d had the vehicle tucked away in a garage or lot minutes after she’d spotted him. After he’d made certain she’d spotted him.
That meant canvases of every parking facility in three sectors. Public and private. And with the budget, it would take days. The department wouldn’t spare the manpower necessary to handle the job any quicker.
She stayed parked where she was, on the off chance that Palmer would try another taunt. After aborting the search, she did slow sweeps through the sectors herself, working off frustration before she drove home through the dark and the snarling traffic.
She didn’t bother to snipe at Summerset, though he gave her ample opportunity. Instead, scooping up the cat, which circled her legs, she climbed the stairs. Her intent was to take a blistering-hot shower, drink a gallon of coffee, and go back to work.
Her reality was to fall facedown on the bed. Galahad climbed onto her butt, kneaded his way to comfort, curled up, and went on guard with his eyes slitted on the door.
That’s how Roarke found them an hour later.
“I’ll take over from here,” he murmured, giving the cat a quick scratch between the ears. But when he started to drape a blanket over his wife, Eve stirred.
“I’m awake. I’m just—”
“Resting your eyes. Yes, I know.” To keep her prone, Roarke stretched out beside her, stroked the hair away from her cheek. “Rest them a bit longer.”
“I saw him today. The son of a bitch was ten feet away, and I lost him.” She closed her eyes again. “He wants to piss me off so I stop thinking. Maybe I did, but I’m thinking now.”
“And what are you thinking, Lieutenant?”
“That I’ve been counting too much on the fact that I know him, that I’ve been inside his head. I’ve been tracking him without factoring in one vital element.”
“Which is?”
She opened her eyes again. “He’s fucking crazy.” She rolled over, stared at the sky window and the dark beyond it. “You can’t predict insanity. Whatever the head shrinkers call it, it comes down to crazy. There’s no physical, no psychological reason for it. It just is. He just is. I’ve been trying to predict the unpredictable. So I keep missing. It’s not his work this time. It’s payback. The other names on the list are incidental. It’s me. He needed them to get to me.”
“You’d already concluded that.”
“Yeah, but what I didn’t conclude, and what I’m concluding now, is he’s willing to die, as long as he takes me out. He doesn’t intend to go back to prison. I saw his eyes today. They were already dead.”
“Which only makes him more dangerous.”
“He has to find a way to get to me, so he’ll take risks. But he won’t risk going down before he’s finished with me. He needs bait. Good bait. He must know about you.”
She sat up now, raking her hair back. “I want you to wear a bracelet.”
He lifted a brow. “I will if you will.”
A muscle in her cheek jumped as she set her teeth. “I phrased that incorrectly. You’re going to wear a bracelet.”
“I believe such things are voluntary unless the subject has committed a crime.” He sat up himself, caught her chin in his hand. “He won’t get to you through me. That I can promise. But if you expect me to wear NYPSD accessories, you’ll have to wear a matching one. Since you won’t, I don’t believe this conversation has a point.”
“Goddamn it, Roarke. I can slap you into protective custody. I can order taps on all your communications, have you shadowed—”
“No,” he interrupted, and infuriated her by kissing her lightly. “You can’t. My lawyers will tap-dance all over your warrants. Stop.” He tightened his grip on her chin before she could curse him again. And this time there was no light kiss, no flicker of amusement in his eyes. “You leave here every day to do a job that puts you in constant physical jeopardy. I don’t ask you to change that. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you. Who you are, what you do, why you do it. I don’t ask you to change,” he repeated. “Don’t you ask me.”
“It’s just a precaution.”
“No, it’s a capitulation. If it was less, you’d be wearing one yourself.”
She opened her mouth, shut it again, then shoved away and rose. “I hate when you’re right. I really hate it. I’m going to take a shower. And don’t even think about joining me and trying anything because I’m not too happy with you right now.”
He merely reached out, snagged her hand, and yanked her back onto the bed. “I dare you to say that again in five minutes,” he challenged and rolled on top of her.
She didn’t say anything in five minutes, could barely speak in thirty. And when she did finally make it to the shower, her blood was still buzzing. She decided it was wiser not to comment when he joined her there. It would only appeal to his competitive streak.
She kept her silence and stepped out of the shower and into the drying tube. It gave her a very nice view. She let herself relax enough to enjoy it, watching the jets of water pulse and pound over Roarke as the hot air swirled around her.
She was back in the bedroom, just tugging on an ancient NYPSD sweatshirt and thinking about coffee and a long evening of work when her palm-link rang. Vaguely irritated with a call on her personal, she plucked it up from
where she’d dumped it on the bedside table.
“Dallas.”
“It was nice to see you today. In person. Face-to-face.”
“Hello, Dave.” With her free hand, she reached in her pocket, switched her communicator on, and plugged in Feeney’s code. “Nice vehicle.”
“Yes, I like it very much. Fast, efficient, spacious. You’re looking a bit tired, Lieutenant. A bit pale. Overworked, as usual? Too bad you haven’t been able to enjoy the holidays.”
“They’ve had their moments.”
“Mine have been very rewarding.” His handsome face glowed with a smile. “It’s so good to be back at work. Though I did manage to keep my hand in while I was away. But you and I—I’m sure we’ll agree—know there’s nothing like New York. Nothing like being home and doing what we love best.”
“Too bad you won’t be able to stay long.”
“Oh, I intend to be here long enough to see the celebration in Times Square tomorrow night. To ring in the new year. In fact, I’m hoping we’ll watch it together.”
“Sorry, Dave. I have plans.” From the corner of her eye, she watched Roarke come out of the bath. Watched him keep out of range, move directly to the bedroom computer, and begin to work manually.
“I think you’ll change them. When you know who else I’ve invited to the party. I picked her up just a little while ago. You should be getting a call shortly from the guards you’d posted. The police haven’t gotten any smarter since I’ve been gone.” He let out a charming laugh. “I took a little video for you, Dallas. Take a look. I’ll be in touch later to tell you what you need to do to keep her alive.”
The image shifted. Eve’s blood iced as she saw the woman in the cage. Unconscious, pale, one slim hand dangling through the bars.
“Transmitted from a public ’link,” Roarke said from behind her. “Grand Central.”
Dimly she heard Feeney giving her the same information through her communicator. Units were already on their way to the location.
He’d be gone. Of course they knew he’d already be gone.
“He has Mira.” It was all she could say. “He has Mira.”
TEN
Panic wanted to win. It crawled in her belly, snaked up her throat. It made her hands shake until she balled them into fists.
It wanted to swallow her when she moved through Mira’s house, when she found the broken security bracelet on the floor of the office.
“He used laser tools.” Her voice was steady and cool as she bagged the bracelet. “He anticipated that she’d be wearing one and brought what was necessary to remove it.”
“The MTs are taking the guards in. The two from outside were just stunned. But one of the inside team’s in bad shape.” Feeney crouched down next to her. “Looks like Palmer got in the back, bypassed the security system like a pro. He hit the one guard in the kitchen, used a stunner to take him out quick and quiet. From the looks of the living area, the second one gave him more trouble. They went a round in there. Mira must have been up here. If she had the door closed and was working, she wouldn’t have heard anything. Room’s fully soundproofed.”
“So he takes out the security, four experienced cops, waltzes right in, dismantles her bracelet, and waltzes out with her. We underestimated him, Feeney.” And for that she would forever blame herself. “He’s not what he was when I took him down before. He’s studied up, he’s learned, he’s gotten himself into condition. He made good use of three years in a cage.”
“She knows how his mind works.” Feeney laid his hand on her shoulder. “Mira knows how to handle this kind of guy. She’ll use that. She’ll keep her cool and use it.”
“No one knows how his mind works this time around. Thinking I did was part of the problem all along. I fucked up here, Feeney, and Mira’s going to pay for it.”
“You’re wrong. The only fucking up you’re doing is thinking that way now.”
“I thought he might use Roarke as bait. Because if he’s been studying me he knows that’s where he could hit me the hardest.” She made herself breathe slow as she got to her feet. “But he knows me better than I figured. He knows she matters to me.”
“And he’ll count on that messing you up. You gonna let it?”
“No.” She breathed in again, exhaled. “No. I need McNab to shake something loose. What’s their ETA?”
“Midday tomorrow. They had some transpo delays. The transmissions are full of blips, but I got that he’s dug into some financials.”
“Shoot whatever you’ve got to my home unit. I’ll be working from there.”
“We’ll want to tap your palm-link.”
“Yeah, he’ll have figured that, but we’ll do it anyway.” She met Feeney’s eyes. “We take the steps.”
“We’ll get her back, Dallas.”
“Yeah, we will.” She turned the sealed bracelet over in her hand. “If he hurts her, I’m taking him out.” She lifted her gaze again. “Whatever line I have to cross, I take him out.”
When she walked outside, Roarke was waiting. She hadn’t argued when he’d come with her and could only be grateful that he was there to drive home so her mind could be free to think.
“Feeney’s going to be sending me data,” she began as she climbed into the car. “Financials. You’ll be able to extrapolate faster. The sweepers will go through Mira’s house, but he won’t have left much, if anything. Anyway, it’s not a question of IDing him. Peabody and McNab won’t be back until midday tomorrow, so we’ll be working with whatever they can send us while they’re en route.”
“I took a look at the alarms and security. It’s a very good system. He used a sophisticated bypass unit to take it out without triggering the auto. It’s not something your average citizen can access easily. I can help you trace the source.”
“Doesn’t matter at this point. Later we can deal with it. It’s just another thread he left dangling, figuring I’d waste time pulling it and getting nowhere.”
She rubbed at the headache behind her eyes. “I’ve got uniforms canvasing. One of the neighbors might have seen or heard something. It’s useless, but it’s routine and we might get lucky.”
She closed her eyes, forced herself to think past the fear. “She’s got until tomorrow, midnight. Dave wants some tradition and symbolism. He wants to welcome in the new year with me, and he needs her to get me there.”
Her voice was too cool, Roarke thought. Too controlled. He’d seen the hint of panic in her eyes, and the grief. He let her hold in both as they arrived home, as she walked directly up to her office and called up all necessary files.
She added hard-copy data to the investigator’s board she’d set up. And when she shifted Mira’s photo from one area to the other, her fingers shook.
“Eve.” He took her shoulders, turned her around. “Let it out.”
“Can’t. Don’t talk to me.”
“You can’t work around it.” He only tightened his grip when she tried to jerk away. “Let it out. Let it out,” he said in a gentler tone. “I know what she means to you.”
“God.” She wrapped her arms around him, curling her hands up over his shoulders as she pressed her face into his neck. “Oh, God. Hold on. Just for a minute, hold on.”
Her body shook, one hard wave of shudders after another. She didn’t weep, but her breath hitched as he held her close. “I can’t think about what he might do to her. If I think about it, I’ll lose it.”
“Then remember she’s strong, and she’s smart. She’ll know what she has to do.”
“Yeah.” Her ’link signaled incoming data. “That’ll be the financials.”
“I’ll start on them.” He eased her back. “He won’t win this round.”
“Damn right.”
She worked until her eyes and mind went blurry, then fueled up with coffee and worked some more. At just after two A.M. Feeney shot her more data. It told her that he, Peabody, and McNab were all still on the job.
“Basically,” Roarke said, “this is just
confirming what we already have. The accounts, the transfers. You need to find more. You need to look from a different angle.” He glanced up to see Eve all but swaying on her feet. “And you need to sleep.”
She would have argued, but it would have wasted time. “We both do. Just a little while. We can share the sleep chair. I want to stay close to this unit.”
The caffeine in her system couldn’t fight off exhaustion. Moments after closing her eyes, she fell into sleep. Where nightmares chased her.
Images of Mira trapped in a cage mixed and melded with memories of herself as a child, locked in a room. Horror, pain, fear lived in both places. He would come—Palmer, her father—he would come and he would hurt her because he could. Because he enjoyed it. Because she couldn’t stop him.
Until she killed him.
But even then he came back and did it all again in her dreams.
She moaned in sleep, curled into Roarke.
It was the smell of coffee and food that woke her. She sat up with a jerk, blinked blindly in the dark, and found herself alone in the chair. She stumbled into the kitchen and saw Roarke already taking food from the AutoChef.
“You need to eat.”
“Yeah, okay.” But she went for the coffee first. “I was thinking about what you said, looking at a different angle.” She sat, because he nudged her into a chair, and shoveled in food because it was in front of her. “What if he bought or rented this place he’s got before he got to New York? A year ago, two years ago?”
“It’s possible. I still haven’t found any payments.”
“Has to be there. Somewhere.” She heard the ring of her palm-link from the other room and was on her feet. “Stay in here, do what you can to trace.”
Deliberately she moved behind her desk, sat, composed her face. “Dallas.”
“Good morning, Lieutenant. I hope you slept well.”
“Like a top, Dave.” She curled a hand under the desk.
“Good. I want you rested up for our date tonight. You’ve got, oh, let’s see, just over sixteen and a half hours to get here. I have every confidence in you.”