by J. D. Robb
Here there were signs of hurry. Here there were things out of place. A glass turned over on the desk, its contents spilled out on the brushed chrome surface. A jumble of discs, a disordered pile of clothes heaped on the floor. She recognized the suit Bayliss had been wearing at the meeting.
“He took him out here, from the front,” she began. “Surprised him at work. Bayliss had fixed himself a drink.” She lifted the glass, sniffed. “Smells like scotch. Settled himself down to go through his files. He hears something, looks up, sees someone in the doorway. Jumps to his feet, spills his drink. Maybe he even has time to say a name, then he’s out.”
She walked around the room, around the desk. “The killer undresses him here. He’s already got the plan. He came in upstairs, checked the place out. Hell, maybe he’s been to parties here before and knew the setup. He went out, disarmed the security cam, took the discs that recorded him. Did he bring the packing tape with him?”
She began opening compartments, drawers. “No, look. Here’s a roll of the same stuff, unopened. He got what he needed right here in Bayliss’s office. He’ll dispose of the rest of the roll and what he used to cut the tape. We won’t find it.”
“Lieutenant,” Roarke said quietly. “Look at the discs.”
“I’m getting to them. Then he carried Bayliss upstairs. He’s strong. I didn’t notice any signs the victim was dragged, no bruising or scrapes on the heels. Laid him in the tub. Didn’t toss him in. No bruising again. Laid him out, strapped him down. Took his shoes off to do it, but not his clothes. No scuff marks in the tub, and too much water outside of it for him to have dried off.”
Yes, she could see it that way. Patience, while the rage ate inside you. Meticulous patience coated over murderous fury.
“Then he waited for Bayliss to come around. When he did, a little conversation. This is why you’re going to die. This is why you deserve to die. To suffer fear and humiliation. And he starts the water, a hot gush, and listens to Bayliss plead for his life. As the water rises, and the motor kicks in churning into a hot froth, he stays cold. Ice cold. That’s how it is when you stand over death. You stay cold so it can’t get inside you. He stands there, right over it, and watches it come.
“It doesn’t thrill him, doesn’t make him sad. It’s just a job that needs to be done, and done well. Done with purpose. When water fills Bayliss’s lungs, when he stops struggling and his eyes are fixed and staring, he takes the coins and throws them in the water, over the body. The Judas coins.
“Then he gets out of the tub, dripping, picks up his shoes, and leaves the way he came in. He leaves the door open because he doesn’t want the murder to go undiscovered for long. He wants it known. Announced. Discussed. The job isn’t done until the department knows another cop is dead.”
“I can’t re-create the way you can,” Roarke said. “It’s admirable.”
“It’s basic.”
“Not the way you do it,” he murmured. How many scenes such as she’d described had a place in her memory? How many victims lived there with how many killers?
Stay cold, she’d said, so that it doesn’t get inside of you. That, he knew, was one skill she lacked. The very fact that it all got inside her was what made her brilliant. And haunted.
“Look at the discs, Eve.”
“I saw them.”
There were dozens, many of the names she recognized. Cops. Bayliss’s little rat file of cops. Reaching, she noted, all the way to The Tower.
“At least he was democratic in his witch hunt.” She saw the one with her name on the label. “We’ll bag them all. It’s going to be a tedious and nasty job to go through them. His machine’s still on.” She sat down, frowned at the blank screen.
“There’s a disc in. And not, I think, one of the victim’s.”
“You touched this?” She whirled in the chair, snarled at him. “I told you not—”
“Shut up, Eve, and run the disc.”
She had more to say, a great deal more. But it could wait until they were alone and she could pound on him in private. She turned back to the screen. “Run current disc,” she ordered.
Words swirled silently onto the screen. There was no audio backup or readout, but simply clear, cool letters on a smoke-gray background.
Lieutenant Dallas, as you are primary in the investigation of the deaths of Kohli, Mills, and now Bayliss, I address this message to you.
I deeply regret the death of Detective Taj Kohli. I was misled, largely by the efforts of the man I am about to execute for his crimes. Crimes against the badge he has misused in his own thirst for power. Is that any less a sin against his oath than that of Mills, who betrayed his badge for money?
Whether or not you agree with me is not my concern. I have pledged to do what I have done and will continue to do.
Because of our connection, I took the time to read the file Bayliss generated on you. If the allegations, the accusations, the data he has compiled is based in fact, you have dishonored your badge. I am not willing to trust the words of a liar, of a twisted, power-hungry cop. But they must be considered.
I will give you seventy-two hours to exonerate yourself. If you are involved with Max Ricker through your husband, you will die. If these allegations are false, and you are as skilled and dedicated as your reputation indicates, you will find the way to break Ricker and his organization in the time allotted. It will require your full focus and all your skills. To be fair, as fairness is my goal, I give you my word that I will make no move against you or anyone else during this time period.
Take down Max Ricker, Lieutenant. Or I will take you.
chapter eighteen
Eve made copies of the message, took the disc and the files into evidence, and turned the computer over to Feeney. He’d haul it into EDD, take it apart, run his scans and checks. That was for form, she knew. The killer had left nothing of himself on the machine but his single personal message to her.
Ricker was on her list, and she meant to take him down. But he couldn’t be, wouldn’t be a priority. Whatever his connection to the killer, Ricker wasn’t the one at the controls.
She was after a rogue cop, and if he wanted to go head-to-head with her, that was fine. But he wouldn’t threaten her into shifting her focus. There was a process to be gone through, and she meant to take it step by meticulous step.
She harassed the sweepers, called the lab personally and issued a few threats of her own along with her demand for priority on the samples she was sending in. As far as she was concerned, if she had to work twenty-four/seven until the case was closed, she would do so. And so would everyone on her team.
Roarke had a different process to work through, a different priority. And an entirely different style. He hadn’t wasted time asking what Eve intended to do or arguing with her over taking precautions for her personal safety.
He left her with her work and made the trip back to New York alone. By the time he’d arrived, he’d already begun the groundwork on his own plans.
He pulled up in front of Purgatory, uncoded the door. The wreckage had been removed, and the first layers of repair were already under way. It wasn’t the elegant arena of sin it had been, but it would be. Very soon.
The lights were on, shimmering over the floor with its newly laid squares of reflective silver squares and circles. The mirrors behind the bar had been replaced, in a deep blue glass per his instructions. The overall effect was somewhat otherworldly.
Or perhaps, he thought, underworldly, which was his intent.
He moved to the bar and was pouring two snifters of brandy when Rue MacLean came down the long, curving stairs.
“I ran a security check,” she said, smiling a little. “We’re up and running. You work fast.”
“We’ll be open for business within seventy-two hours.”
“Seventy—” She picked up the snifter he nudged over the bar, blew out a breath. “How?”
“I’ll deal with it. I want you to put the staff on notice in the morning, g
et the work schedules done tonight. We reopen Friday night, and we reopen with a bang.” He lifted his snifter, watching her.
“You’re the boss.”
“That’s right.” He took out his cigarettes, left the case on the bar as he lighted one. “How did he get to you?”
He saw just the barest glint of panic before puzzlement slid over her face. “What?”
“He’s been using my place to do a little business. Oh, nothing too overt, nothing too important. Just enough so he can sit smug in his little fortress and imagine fucking me over with my own. He’ll get sloppy after a bit, if he hasn’t already. That’s his pattern. Makes him dangerous, that carelessness of his. Might be that the cop who died here began to sniff something, just a whiff of it. Then he was dead before he could follow through.”
She’d gone pale, so pale her skin was nearly translucent. “You think Ricker had the cop killed?”
He drew in smoke, watching her through the veil of it as he exhaled. “No, I don’t, at least not directly. But the timing’s interesting. Bad timing for the cop. Potentially for me, and certainly for you, Rue.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She started to step back, but Roarke simply laid a hand over hers, the pressure firm enough to warn her to hold her place. “Don’t.” He spoke softly, and she shivered. “You’ll only piss me off. I’m asking how he got to you. I’m asking because we’ve been in the way of being friends for a considerable amount of time now.”
“You know there’s nothing between me and Ricker.”
“I’d hoped there wasn’t.” He angled his head. “You’re trembling. Do you think I’ll hurt you? Have you ever seen me strike a woman, Rue?”
“No.” One tear, huge, glistening, spilled over and trailed down her white cheek. “No, you wouldn’t. It’s not your way.”
“But it’s his. How did he hurt you?”
It was shame now that pushed tears from her eyes, had her voice choked with them. “Oh God, Roarke. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. He had me picked up off the street, two of his men, right on the street. They took me out to his place, and he—Jesus, he had lunch, this fancy lunch all spread out in his solarium. He told me how it was going to be, and what would happen to me if I didn’t go along.”
“So you went along.”
“Not at first.” She fumbled one of his cigarettes out, tried to light one. Roarke took her hand, held it steady until the flame caught. “You’ve been good to me. Treated me with respect and with fairness. I know you don’t have to believe me, but I told him to go to hell. I told him that when you found out what he’d tried to do, you’d . . . well, I made up all sorts of interesting, nasty things you’d do. He just sat there, that vicious little smile on his face, until I ran down. I was scared. I was so scared, the way he watched me. Like I was a bug he was contemplating squashing if the mood struck. Then he said a name, and an address. My mother’s name. My mother’s address.”
Her breath hitched as she picked up the snifter, drank quick and drank deep to steady herself. “He showed me videos. He’d had her watched—her in the little house upstate I bought her—that you helped me buy her. Shopping, going to a friend’s house, just day-to-day stuff. I wanted to be enraged, I wanted to be furious, but I couldn’t get through the terror of it. I would go along, he told me—and really, he said, what harm was it—and my mother wouldn’t be raped and tortured and disfigured.”
“I would have seen her safe, Rue. You could have trusted me to see her safe.”
She shook her head. “He always knows the weak spot. Always knows. It’s his gift. And he presses down on that spot, until you’d do anything to make him stop. So I betrayed you to make him stop.” She brushed tears away. “I’m sorry.”
“He won’t touch your mother, I promise you. I’ve a place she can go and be safe until we’re done with this.”
Rue stared at him. “I don’t understand.”
“You’ll feel better once she’s seen to, and I need your energies focused on the club for the next few days.”
“You’re keeping me on? After this?”
“I don’t have a mother, but I know what it is to love beyond yourself, and just what you’d do to keep that love safe from harm. I’ll say you should have trusted me, Rue, and so you should. But I don’t blame you.”
She sat then, buried her face in her hands. He topped off the brandy as she wept soundlessly, then got a bottle of water, opened it, set it in front of her.
“Go on, drink that first, clear your head a bit.”
“This is why he hates you.” Her voice was raw but steady. “Because of everything you are, everything he could never be. He can’t understand what’s inside you, what makes you. So he hates. He doesn’t just want you dead. He wants you ruined.”
“I’m counting on it. Now, I’m going to tell you what it is we’re going to do.”
Eve figured she’d been playing the marriage game for going on a year, so she knew the moves. The easiest way to dodge a problem with Roarke over her handling of the case was not to talk to him about it for as long as humanly possible.
To buy time, she called home on her car-link, shifting to silent mode. She channeled the call to the bedside ’link, figuring he’d most likely be in his office. This way when the message light blinked on, he wouldn’t be there to see it and intercept.
“Hey.” She gave the screen a quick, distracted smile. “Figured I should let you know I’ll be at Central. I’ll catch some sleep there. Mostly I’ll be working straight through after a swing by the lab to nag Dickhead for results. I’ll tag you when I get a chance. See you.”
She broke transmission and wasn’t aware she let out a quiet, relieved breath until she caught Peabody’s gimlet stare. “What?”
“Want a single woman’s take on that marriage-go-round?”
“No.”
“You know he’s going to have some choice words to say about you ignoring the threat,” Peabody went on, unperturbed by Eve’s scowl. “So you’re dancing around him. Too busy to talk, don’t wait up.” She couldn’t resist a snort. “Like that’s going to work.”
“Shut up.” Eve shifted in her seat, tried biting her tongue, then gave up. “Why won’t it work?”
“Because you’re slick, Dallas, but he is way slicker. He might even let you tango awhile, then . . . bop.”
“Bop? What the hell is bop?”
“I don’t know, because I’m not as slick as either one of you. But we’ll both know it when we see it.” Peabody stifled a yawn as they pulled up to the lab. “I haven’t ridden in a black and white for awhile.” She patted the thin, miserably uncomfortable seat. “I haven’t missed it.”
“It was the best I could do. I’m going to get grief for commandeering this at the scene, but my unit’s trash.”
“Nah.” Peabody yawned again, rubbed her eyes. “The uniform you snagged it from’s too much in awe. He’ll probably put a plaque in this thing. Eve Dallas sat here.”
“Give me a break.” But the idea made her snicker as they climbed out. “I want you to contact Maintenance. They don’t hate you as much as me. Yet. Get them to put my unit back in shape.”
“It’ll go quicker if I lie and put in the request under another badge number.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Use Baxter’s. You’re punchy,” she added when Peabody yawned again. “When we’re done here, take an hour’s down time, or pop some Wake-Up, whatever. I need you focused.”
“I’ll get my second wind.”
The guard at the door looked as if he’d missed his second wind altogether and was sliding under his third. His eyes were half closed, his uniform wrinkled, and he had a sleep crease deep into his right cheek.
“You’re coded in,” was all he said and lumbered back to his station.
“This place is like a tomb at night.” Peabody gave a little shudder. “Worse than the morgue.”
“We’ll liven things up.”
She didn’t expect Dickie t
o be happy to see her. But then again, she hadn’t expected to once again hear Mavis’s voice blasting into the air when she stepped into the main lab.
Chief Lab Tech Berenski, not so affectionately known as Dickhead, was hunched over a compu-scope, his skinny butt twitching as he sang tunelessly along.
At that moment, Eve knew she could ask for the moon and the stars. She had a solid-gold bargaining chip.
“Hey, Dickie.”
“That’s Mister Dickie to you.” He lifted his head and she saw she’d been right. Happy, he was not. His eyes were puffy, his oversized lips snarling. And, she noted, his shirt was on inside out. “Get me out of bed middle of the night. Everything’s always an emergency with you, Dallas. Everything’s priority one. Just keep off my ass. You’ll get results when I got results and not a minute before. Go somewhere and stop breathing down my neck.”
“But I get off just being near you.”
He slid his eyes up and over, studied her dubiously. Usually she came in with both feet poised to kick him in the ass. You just couldn’t trust her when she was smiling and joking around.
“You’re in a pretty chipper mood for somebody who’s got bodies piling up and the brass ready to crawl down your drawers.”
“What can I say? This music just gives me happy feet. You know Mavis has a gig coming up here next week. I heard it was sold out. Did you hear it was sold out, Peabody?”
“Yeah.” She might have been tired, but Peabody clued in quickly. “A one-night-only, too. She’s pretty hot.”
“She’s beyond hot,” Dickie said. “I got me two tickets. Pulled a few strings. Second balcony.”
“Those kind of strings make your nose bleed.” Eve examined her fingernails. “I can get two in the orchestra, with backstage passes. If I had a pal, that is.”
His head shot up, and his clever spider’s fingers gripped her arm. “Is that straight shit?”
“The straightest. If I had a pal,” she repeated, “and that pal was busting his ass to get me data I needed, I’d get him those tickets and those passes.”
Dickie’s puffy eyes went moist. “I’m your new best friend.”