The In Death Collection, Books 16-20

by J. D. Robb

  His eyes gleamed with interest behind his goggles. “More and more interesting.”

  “Yeah. In fact, I’ll come back and pick up the data when you’re done. Don’t send it.”

  “Now I’m fascinated. Why don’t I bring it to you? That way you can offer me some of Roarke’s wonderful wine while you explain.”

  “Works for me.”

  He’d bought time and space. That was the important thing. Nothing was going exactly as he’d planned, but he could think on his feet. He could, would, keep his head and think on his feet.

  He’d thought on his feet with Chloe McCoy, hadn’t he? He’d tied that right up.

  The police weren’t buying it, weren’t buying any of it. And that made no sense. No damn sense.

  He couldn’t have handed them a sweeter package if he’d tied a damn ribbon around it.

  Sweat wormed down his back as he prowled the well-appointed rooms that were, for now, his prison and his sanctuary. They couldn’t tie him to the murders, and that was what counted. That was priority one.

  The rest, he’d fix. He just needed more time.

  So it was all right, for now it was all right. He was safe. And he’d figure a way out.

  He had some money—not enough, not enough even now and a far cry from what he’d been promised—but it gave him some breathing room.

  And no matter how maddening it was, parts of it were very exciting. He was the star of his own vid, and he was writing it as he went along. He wasn’t the patsy people had taken him for, oh no, he wasn’t.

  He toked a little Zeus, a small reward, and felt like the king of the world.

  He’d do what he had to do, and he’d be smart about it. Careful and smart.

  Nobody knew where he was, or that he was.

  He was going to keep it that way.

  11 ROARKE AND FEENEY stood contemplating a mixed-metal figure in the garden of the house in Queens.

  “What do you think it is?” Feeney asked at length.

  “I think it’s female. It may be partially reptilian. It may be partially arachnid. It seems to have been built out of copper and brass and steel. Bits of iron and perhaps tin.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, that’s a question, isn’t it? I imagine it’s symbolic of how woman can be as sly as a snake, as cruel as a spider or some such bullshit. I believe it’s unflattering to the female sex, and know it’s ugly.”

  “I got that part, the ugly part.” Feeney scratched his chin, then took out his bag of candied almonds. After dipping a hand in, he held it out for Roarke.

  So they munched nuts and studied the sculpture.

  “And people pay large bucks for this shit?” Feeney asked.

  “They do. Indeed they do.”

  “I don’t get that. Of course I don’t know nothing about art.”

  “Hmm.” Roarke circled the piece. “Sometimes it speaks to them on an emotional level, or an intellectual one. Whatever. That’s when the piece has found the appropriate home. Other times, more often than not, the money’s spent simply because the buyer feels it should speak to him, and is too idiotic or proud or afraid to admit the thing he’s just paid for speaks to no one because it’s, essentially, an insulting piece of crap.”

  Feeney pursed his lips, nodded. “I like pictures, the kind that look like what they’re supposed to be. A building, a tree, a bowl of fucking fruit. Looks to me like my grandson could’ve put this together.”

  “Strangely enough, I believe it takes considerable skill and talent and vision, however odd, to create something like this.”

  “You say so.” Feeney shrugged, but was far from convinced.

  “Canny way to conceal observation devices, if that’s what it’s about.”

  “Dallas thinks so.”

  “And she generally knows what she’s about.” Roarke opened the remote scanner he and Feeney had configured. “You want to run this, or shall I?”

  “Your tool.” Feeney cleared his throat. “Yeah, she knows what she’s about, like you said. A little nervy right now.”

  “Is she?”

  “Hit the jammer on that thing for a minute.”

  Roarke lifted a brow, but complied. “Are we about to have a private conversation?”

  “Yeah.” And Feeney didn’t relish it. “I said Dallas was a little nervy right now. About what you might do.”

  Roarke continued to set the gauges on the scanner. “About what?”

  “About the file on her father, about what the HSO pus buckets let happen to her back in Dallas.”

  Roarke looked over now and saw Feeney’s face was tight. Rage, he thought, and embarrassment. “She spoke to you?”

  “She circled around it some. She doesn’t know how much I know about it. Doesn’t want to. It’s not something I want to talk to her about either, if it comes to that. Since she feels the same, I didn’t have to say that you’d told me.”

  “The two of you amaze me,” Roarke replied. “You’re aware of what happened to her, and with her instincts she’d know you are. But the two of you can’t say the words to each other. You can’t say them, though you’re her father, more than that son of Satan ever was.”

  Feeney hunched his shoulders and stared at the mixed media ugliness of a squat toadlike creature several feet away. “Maybe that’s why, and it’s not the point. If she’s worried enough about you going after some asshole spook, then she’s plenty worried. You’re not fixing anything if you twist her up.”

  Roarke set the scanner to analyze the dimensions, weight, and chemical contents of the sculpture. “I don’t hear you saying I’m wrong to go after him. That he, or his superiors, don’t deserve to pay for standing back while a child was raped, beaten, and brutalized.”

  “No, I’m not going to say it.” Feeney folded his mouth firm, then met Roarke’s eyes. “First, it’d be a fucking lie, the sort that’d burn my tongue clean off because there’s part of me that’d like to give you a hand with it.”

  Feeney stuffed the bag back in his sagging pocket, then kicked the base of the sculpture. The gesture was so like Eve, Roarke felt a smile tug at his mouth.

  “And second?”

  “Second, you wouldn’t give a good goddamn about the right or wrong of it. But you give one about Dallas. You give one about how she feels, about what she needs from you.” His color came up as he spoke, staining his cheeks with embarrassment. “I don’t want to get into that whole thing. Makes me feel like an asshole. But I’m saying you should think, you should think long and hard about what it’d do to her before you do anything.”

  “I am. And I will.”

  “Okay. Then let’s just move on.”

  Though he was both touched and amused, Roarke nodded. “Moving on, then.” He disengaged the jammer, then studied the readout from the scan. “I’m getting the expected metals, solvents, finishes, and sealants. That’s using the strongest setting corporations and facilities would use in high-risk or sensitive areas.”

  “Bump it up. Let’s see what it’ll do with the bells and whistles we added.”

  “Best move aside,” Roarke warned. “The beam may not be friendly to cloth and flesh.”

  Feeney stepped back from the sculpture, then decided the best place was behind the scanner.

  The red beam shot out with a insectile hum. As it struck the metal, the entire sculpture seemed to shimmer.

  “Shit. Shit! If we set it too high it might melt that crap down to a puddle.”

  “It’s not too high,” Roarke responded. “It may soften a few joints, but other than that . . .” Still he pushed it, upping the speed so the beam scanned the piece faster than he’d planned. Even from behind the unit, he could feel the heat and smell the electric buzz in the air.

  When he shut down, Feeney gave a whistling breath. “That is some son of a bitch! Some son of a bitch. I’m doing the next one.”

  “Might be wise to wear goggles next run.” Roarke blinked. “I’ve dots in front of my eyes.” But he was grinning, as F
eeney was. “Nice rush, wasn’t it?”

  “You got that right. And look here.” Feeney slapped Roarke on the back as he leaned over to scan the readout. “I’m seeing chips, and I’m seeing fiber optics, and some goddamn silicon.”

  “Bugs.”

  Feeney straightened, flexed his fingers. “Bugs. Give the girl the brass ring.”

  When Eve walked back into her office, she wasn’t particularly surprised to see on-air reporter Nadine Furst sitting in her visitor’s chair and carefully redoing her lip dye.

  She fluttered her long, silky lashes and turned that freshly tinted mouth up into a smile. “Cookies,” Nadine said with a gesture toward the little bag on Eve’s desk. “I culled six for you before bribing your men.”

  Eve poked into the box, and came out with chocolate chip. “There’s an oatmeal cookie in there. I see no reason for the existence of oatmeal, particularly in cookies.”

  “So noted. Why don’t you give it back to me, then it won’t offend your sensibilities?”

  Eve pulled out the fat round cookie, handed it over before closing her door. The closed door had Nadine lifting her perfectly arched brows before nibbling on the cookie.

  “Is that so you can yell at me for being in your office, or is it so we can exchange juicy girl secrets.”

  “I don’t have any juicy girl secrets.”

  “You’re married to Roarke. You’d have the juiciest on or off planet.”

  Eve sat, rested her boots on the desk. “Have I ever told you what he can do to the female body with a single fingertip?”

  Nadine leaned forward. “No.”

  “Good. Just wanted to be sure.”

  “Bitch,” Nadine said with a laugh. “Now about this double homicide, and Reva Ewing.”

  “The charges about Ewing are about to be dropped.”

  “Dropped.” Nadine all but jumped out of the chair. “Let me get my camera, set up an on-the-spot. Take me less than—”

  “Sit down, Nadine.”

  “Dallas, Ewing’s huge. The former American hero gone bad and now about to be exonerated? Add in the handsome artist and gorgeous socialite, the sex, the passion.”

  “It’s bigger than Ewing, and it’s not about sex and passion.”

  Nadine sat again. “What could be bigger than that?”

  “I’m going to tell you what you can go on-air with, and what you can’t.”

  Nadine’s expression went sharp as a blade. “Wait just a minute.”

  “Or I’m going to tell you nothing.”

  “You know, Dallas, one of these days you’re going to trust me to know what can go on-air and what can’t.”

  “If I didn’t trust you, you and your cookies wouldn’t be here.” She rose as she spoke, and took the scanner EDD had provided her—one Roarke and Feeney had upgraded—to check the office space for any new electronics.

  “What are you doing with that?”

  “Just being anal. But as I was saying,” she continued, when she was satisfied the room was clean, “the fact is, if you hadn’t been sitting here playing with your pretty face when I walked in, I was going to contact you. I’ve got reasons for wanting some of this to go public, Nadine, and they’re not all professional.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Eve shook her head. “I have to clear every word of the story, and any follow-ups, before you go out with them. I need your word on it. I trust your word, but I have to have it. You have to say it.”

  Nadine’s fingers itched for her recorder, but she curled them into her palm. “This must be big. You’ve got my word, on all of it.”

  “Bissel and Kade were HSO.”

  “You are shitting me.”

  “This information comes from an unnamed source, and it’s gold. Bissel’s marriage to Ewing was part of an op, and it was without her knowledge or consent. She was used and was framed for the murder of Bissel and Kade to cover up the op, and potentially more.”

  “Something this hot from an unnamed—gold or not—I need hard facts.”

  “I’m going to give them to you. No recorder,” she said and dug into her desk drawers until she unearthed a stingy pad of recycled paper and an ancient pencil. “Write it down, and keep it and any transcribed discs from your notes in a secure location until you’re cleared to air.”

  Nadine made a few testing squiggles with the pencil. “Let’s see how much of that shorthand my mother made me learn is still in my head. Go.”

  It took an hour, then Nadine flew out of the office to lock herself in at Channel 75 to write the story.

  It would explode, Eve knew, even when the initial pieces she cleared hit the airwaves. It deserved to explode. Innocent lives taken or ruined in the name of what? Global security? The sexiness of espionage?

  It didn’t matter, not when those lives, those innocent lives, looked to her.

  Eve finished up most of the grunt work she’d once dumped on Peabody. She had to admit, having an aide the last year or so had come in handy.

  Not that she’d gotten spoiled, she assured herself.

  She could, of course, pull rank, and continue to dump most of the grunt work on Peabody. And really, it was a learning experience. In the long run, she’d be doing Peabody a favor.

  She checked the time and decided to close up shop for the day. She could get considerably more work done at home. With the remaining cookies safe in her jacket pocket, she headed out.

  She squeezed into an overburdened elevator, which reminded her why she rarely left at change of shifts. Before the door closed, a hand shot through, yanking it open again to a chorus of groans and nasty curses from the occupants.

  “Always room for one more.” Detective Baxter elbowed his way on. “You never call, you never write,” he said to Eve.

  “If you can leave on the dot of COS, you must not have enough paperwork.”

  “I got a trainee.” He flashed his grin. “Trueheart likes paperwork, and it’s good for him.”

  Since she’d had the same thoughts about Peabody, it was hard to argue.

  “We got a manual strangulation, Upper East Side,” he told her. “Corpse had enough money to choke a herd of wild horses.”

  “Do horses come in herds or packs?”

  “I don’t know, but I think herds. Anyway, she had a miserable disposition, a mile-wide mean streak, and a dozen heirs who are all glad to see her dead. I’m letting Trueheart act as primary.”

  “He ready for it?”

  “It’s a good time to find out. I’m staying close. I told him I thought the butler did it, and he just nodded, all serious, and said he’d do a probability. Christ, he’s a sweet kid.”

  Cops popped out like corks on every level. There was almost breathable air by the time the elevator reached the garage.

  “Heard you had to spring the prime suspect on the double homicide. That’s gotta sting.”

  “It only stings if she did it.” She paused by Baxter’s shiny sports car. “How do you afford this ride?”

  “It’s not about afford, it’s about the deft juggling of numbers.” He looked over to where her pitiful police issue sat dolefully in its slot. “Me, I wouldn’t be caught driving that heap if I was wearing a toe tag. You’ve got rank enough to pull better.”

  “Maintenance and Requisitions both hate me. Besides, it gets me where I’m going.”

  “But not in style.” He slid into his car, gunned the engine so it roared like a mad bull, then, with another wide grin, zoomed off.

  “What is it about guys and cars?” she wondered. “I just don’t get how their dicks are attached to cars.”

  With a shake of her head, she started across the garage.

  “Lieutenant Dallas.”

  Instinctively, her hand slipped inside her jacket and onto the butt of her weapon. She held it there as she pivoted, and studied the man who stepped out from between parked cars.

  “This garage facility is NYPSD property, for authorized personnel only.”

  “Quinn Sparrow, Assi
stant Director, Data Resources, HSO.” He held up his right hand. “I’m going to reach, with my off hand, for my identification.”

  “Reach slow, AD Sparrow.”

  He did, drawing out the flip case with two fingers. He held it up, waiting for her to approach. Eve studied the ID, then his face.

  He looked young for any real juice in the HSO, but then she had no idea how early they recruited. He might’ve been forty, she supposed, but calculated he was missing a few years from that date. But he wasn’t green. His calm demeanor told her he’d had some seasoning.

  His body had the compact, ready look under its black, government employee suit that made her think boxer or ballplayer. His voice had no discernible accent, and he waited, without movement or word, until she’d finished summing him up.

  “What do you want, Sparrow?”

  “I’m told you want a conversation. Why don’t we have one. My car’s beside yours.”

  She glanced over at the black sedan. “I don’t think so. Let’s take a walk instead.”

  “No problem.” He started to dip a hand in his right pocket. She had her weapon out and at his throat. She heard him suck in air, let it out. She saw the quick flicker of surprise and alarm on his face before it settled into passive lines again.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “That’s no problem either.” He held them out, and up. “You’re jumpy, Lieutenant.”

  “I’ve got reason, Assistant Director. Let’s walk.” Rather than holstering her weapon, she slid it inside her jacket as they walked toward the garage exit. “What makes you think I want a conversation?”

  “Reva Ewing spoke with a mutual contact in the Secret Service. Given the current situation, I was assigned to come over from the New York base and speak with you.”

  “What’s your function?”

  “Data cruncher, primarily. Administrative area.”

  “You knew Bissel?”

  “Not personally, no.”

  She turned, moved briskly down the sidewalk. “I assume this conversation is being recorded.”

  He gave her a very easy, very pleasant smile. “Is there something you don’t want on record?”