by J. D. Robb
“It’s close, and we can talk without being interrupted or overheard. I have to trust you. I have to trust you’ll know what to do. I’ll be there in twenty minutes, and then I’ll tell you everything I know. You’re the only one I can tell.”
“Yeah, yeah, fine. It’d better be good, Dudley. I’ve had a shitty day.”
She cut him off, tapped the ’link against her palm. “They do think I’m stupid.”
“Pissed-faced and stupid,” Roarke added. “They’ll double-team you.”
“Absolutely. Feeney.”
“I’ve got it.”
“McNab, take the wheel while I bring in the teams. I want street level and I want no more than two blocks from the target site.”
“You got it.”
“What are you doing on that thing?” Eve asked as Roarke worked on his PPC.
“Bringing up the floor plans of the church again. You’ll want to refresh your sense of the place.”
“He thinks like a cop,” she said to Feeney. “He hates when I say that, but what’re you going to do? Dudley said twenty, so he’ll be there in fifteen or sooner. I’ll need to hoof it in those bastards for a block, from the east, in case one of them’s watching for me. Dudley’s using,” she added. “His pupils were the size of dinner plates. Moriarity’s likely had a few hits, too.”
“Don’t think that makes them less dangerous,” Roarke said.
“No, I don’t. But it’s what’s making them careless, what’s pushing them as much—more, I guess, than the show we put on for them earlier.” She took the PPC from Roarke, studied it. “Okay, as we laid out when Baxter’s team reported the droid’s movements, we put men here and here.”
She looked at Peabody, got a nod. “Second team outside, covering the exits. I want them kept back until we know both subjects are inside, and I don’t want anybody breaking cover until I give that go. Clear?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll go in now, take this position. McNab—”
“I’ll take the other.”
Peabody started to speak, but subsided when she saw the look in Roarke’s eyes.
“All right. The two of you take the inside positions.” Eve would have offered Roarke her clutch piece but she knew damn well if Summerset had gotten the change of clothes for her, he’d have gotten a weapon to Roarke. She didn’t want to know how he’d gotten one through security.
“I want inside, Dallas.”
She glanced up at McNab as he maneuvered the van to the curb. He could irritate the hell out of her, but she trusted him to the bone. “You take position with Peabody. I’d better not hear any sex giggles.”
She tapped her ear. “Copy that. Dudley’s on the move. Stay where you are, Carmichael, until Moriarity makes his move. Give him room. Team A better get its asses to church.”
Roarke leaned to her, spoke with his lips against her ear. “Think twice before you let them put a single mark on you if you want them in one piece and conscious for your arrest.”
Before she could speak, he turned his head, pressed his lips firmly to hers. “Take care of my cop,” he told her, and jumped out the back after Peabody.
Eve reached for the shoes, met Feeney’s bland stare. “What?”
“I didn’t say a word. We got some body armor if you want it.”
“Makes me look fat,” she said and made him laugh.
“Wouldn’t help anyway if they try a head shot. Here.” He reached in one of the drawers, pulled out a bottle.
“Christ, Feeney, I’m not going to drink that, and I’m sure as hell not going to drink before I run this op.”
“You’re going to swish it around in your mouth and spit it out.” He held a glass out along with the bottle of Irish. “You want them to think you’re drunk enough to fall for this crap, walk into their half-assed trap? You should smell drunk.”
“Good point.”
She took it, swished it, and while swishing dabbed some on her throat like perfume to make him laugh again. Then spat. Leaning forward she huffed out an exaggerated breath in his face. “How’s that?”
“You’ll do. Are we having cow meat burgers tomorrow?”
“Probably.”
“I could go for a fat one. How about pie? Is there going to be pie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lemon meringue pie. That’s what you want at a summer barbecue. Maybe strawberry shortcake.”
“I’ll get right on that—as soon as I avoid being murdered.”
“My granny used to make lemon meringue pie. It got these little beads of sugar on the meringue. She could bake a goddamn pie, my granny.”
“Yum. Dudley’s heading toward the church.” She rose, practiced pulling open the jacket, pulling her weapon. “That’ll work. All teams hold positions. Dallas, on the move.”
“You ought to wobble some, in case they get eyes on you.”
She stepped out the back. “That’s no problem in these shoes.”
“Good hunting.”
She shot him a grin as she shut the door.
She took her time, played her attitude in her head. She spotted her cops, but she knew where to look. She staggered into the church.
He’d lit some of the fake candles, she noted, so the light shifted and swayed. She took a couple more unsteady steps until she stood in the aisle formed by the back pews. “Dudley, you asshole.” Her voice echoed. “You better not be wasting my time.”
“I’m here.” His voice shook. She supposed he hoped it sounded fearful, but she caught the edge of laughter. “I—I wanted to be sure it was you. That he didn’t follow me.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you. I get paid to protect the city’s assholes.”
“It can’t be enough.” He eased out of the shadows at the far end of the church.
“You’re damn skippy. It’s not the pay, it’s the power. Nothing like watching suspects piss themselves when I lean on them. You got five minutes,” she said as Carmichael murmured in her ear that Moriarity was on his way.
“You can’t know what it means to me that you’d come like this. I know you’re under terrible pressure.”
“That’s what drinking’s for. And screw pressure. I close this one, I’ll be on-screen for weeks. Maybe get another book out of it. Couple of rich assholes like you and Moriarity, the media’s going to slather all over me.”
“Sly’s the one.” He moved toward her, stopped again. “I covered for him, but I didn’t know what he’d done. If I had . . . I didn’t know, not until tonight.”
“You’re eating up your five, Dudley. Lay it out or I’m going to haul you in for annoying an officer. Believe me, I’m not in the mood to haul your ass or mine down to Central.”
Moriarity at the door, she heard in her ear, even as she caught the faint vibration from the ’link in Dudley’s pocket. He slid his hand in.
“Hey, hands where I can see them!” She reached clumsily in her bag.
“I’m sorry.” He tossed his hands up. “I’m nervous. I’m sick at heart. You have to help me!” He grabbed her wrists as if in desperation.
The door burst open behind her. She had to squelch her instinct to defend, staggered instead. Then felt the stunner press to her throat.
“Hold very still,” Moriarity ordered.
“Not yet, not yet!” Dudley shouted it. “Damn it, Sly. No cheating.”
“Just getting her attention.” He slid the stunner down to her shoulder.
It would take her down, Eve thought, but it wouldn’t kill her.
“What the hell kind of game is this?”
“Not a game, Lieutenant,” Dudley told her. “Games are for children. This is adventure. It’s competition. Drop that very attractive evening bag, or Sly will give you a very nasty jolt. Very nasty,” he repeated when she hesitated.
“Let’s all take it easy.” She let the bag drop.
“I wish we had more time.” Dudley walked down a few pews, bent down. “We’d hoped to have more time when we got to you. And we’d planned o
n using St. Pat’s. Wouldn’t that have been glorious?”
“It would’ve made a statement.” She felt Sly shift slightly. “This place? It’s nothing important.”
“It will be after this.” Dudley straightened, whipped the sword in the air. “We’ll have made it important.”
“What the hell is that?” Eve demanded.
“This.” Dudley struck a fencing pose, tore the air with the blade. “It’s a foil, you ignorant bitch. Italian, very old and very valuable. It’s the blade of an aristocrat.”
“You won’t get away with this. My partner knows where I am, who I was going to meet.”
“Lies won’t help. You’re so drunk you barely knew your own name when I talked you out of whatever bar you were in. And you came just like I told you to.”
“You killed them. All of them. Houston, Crampton, Delaflote, Jonas. Both of you, working together, just like I thought.”
“It wasn’t work,” Dudley corrected.
“It was pleasure.”
“We had another round planned before you, but . . .”
“I knew it!” Still playing the helpless drunk, she swayed a little in Moriarity’s hold. “The two of you conspired to kill four people.”
“In New York,” Dudley confirmed with a wide, wide grin. “But we’ve racked up more points elsewhere.”
“But why? Who were they to you?”
“Old nobodies, new luxuries.” Dudley laughed until he shook.
“Winnie, we have to get back.”
“You’re right. It’s a shame we can’t play with her awhile. It has to be at the same time, remember. At exactly the same time so the score stays tied. Your trigger, my blade. Let’s say on three.”
Moriarity leaned in, let his lips caress her ear. “Who’s the asshole now?” he said to Eve.
“That would be you.”
She knocked Moriarity’s weapon hand with an elbow strike, slammed the sharp point of her left shoe into his instep. As she pivoted, Dudley charged. The blade skipped lightly over her biceps, jerked as she finished the turn. And ran Moriarity through.
Eyes wide, Moriarity looked down at the blood seeping through the snow white of his shirt. “Winnie, you killed me.”
As he fell, Dudley let out a howl, a wild combination of grief and rage. While cops flooded the room, weapons drawn, she indulged herself with one short-armed, vicious punch to his face.
Roarke barely glanced at Dudley as he stepped over the man. “That’s two jackets ruined this week.”
“It’s not my fault.”
“Whose then, I’d like to know? And look here, you’ve bruised your knuckles.”
“Don’t—” She hissed it when he lifted her hand, and winced when he kissed her knuckles.
“You deserved that,” he said, “for knocking him out when you knew I wanted to.”
“Bus and wagon on the way.” Peabody glanced back at Moriarity. “That was a nice move. It’s too bad about the jacket.”
Eve pressed a hand to the tear, in the cloth and her arm. “It was worth it. All right, people, let’s finish this up. Peabody, book an interview room. Oh, and tell the MTs to try to keep that one breathing. It may be poetic if it turns out his pal killed him, but I’m not looking for poetry. I’m going back to Central to change, and update the commander.”
“Not until the MTs have tended that wound,” Roarke corrected.
“He barely nicked me—and he wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t had to deal with these idiot shoes.”
“Two choices. Sit and wait for a medic, or I’ll embarrass you in front of your men and kiss you.”
She sat.
Since Dudley demanded a lawyer with his first conscious breath, Eve had time to shower and change, update Whitney, debrief, and dismiss her team.
She stood in the conference room, alone, in front of the board, in front of the faces of the dead. She thought of Jamal Houston’s wife, of his partner and friend, of Adrianne Jonas’s weeping parents, the trembling control of her assistant, and of all the others she’d had to crush with news of death.
She would speak to them, all of them again, tell them the men who’d taken those lives, shattered those worlds had been stopped. Would, she was determined, pay for their actions.
She had to hope it would help the living, and continued to believe, for reasons she didn’t fully understand, it gave solace to the dead.
“Eve.”
“Doctor Mira.” Eve turned from the board. “What are you still doing here?”
“I wanted to see this through.” She stepped beside Eve, and studied those faces in turn. “So many. Such utter selfishness.”
“There would be more. We stopped them tonight and we’re sealing that cage door. A lot of that’s because of you. If I’d clicked to them targeting me earlier, there might not be so many faces on this board.”
“You know that’s wrong, both in reality and in thinking. It could just as easily be said there would be more if you hadn’t intuited the pattern so quickly. You worked the case, and tonight you’ll close it. I’d like to observe your interview with Dudley.”
“It may be a while yet. He’s conferring with his bevy of lawyers.”
“I can wait. I’m told you were hurt.”
“Just a scratch, seriously. It was the shoes. They screwed up my balance. Still.” She tapped her arm. “It was an antique Italian fencing foil. That’s pretty frosty.”
Peabody stepped in. “Hey, Doctor Mira. Dallas, Dudley’s head lawyer’s asking to talk to you.”
“This ought to be good. I’ll meet him outside the interview room.”
An imposing man with white wings flowing back from his mane of black hair, Bentley Sorenson nodded curtly to Eve.
“Lieutenant, I’m informing you that I intend to file formal complaints over your treatment of my client, and your use of excessive force, entrapment, and harassment. Additionally, I’ve already contacted the governor, who will be speaking with the prosecuting attorney about falsifying information for an improper search of my client’s residence, business, and vehicles. I want my client released until these matters can be fully resolved.”
“You can file all the papers you want. You can call the governor, your congressman, or the freaking president, but your client’s not walking out of here. You can stonewall me, Mr. Sorenson.” She added a careless shrug. “I’ll go home to bed and have a nice relaxing weekend. Your client will spend his in a cage.”
“Mr. Dudley is a respected and valued businessman from one of the premier families in this country. He has no prior record and has cooperated fully with you and this department. Additionally, he contacted you for help, and to offer his, and you abused him.”
“You know it’s a toss-up as to whether you’re an idiot or just doing your job. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and going with doing your job. You’re going to decide now if you’re going to block this interview tonight—which means he’ll chill behind bars until Monday—or if we go in there and talk.”
“I can have a hearing before a judge set within the hour.”
“Go ahead. I’ll go take a nap while you set it up. It’s been a long week.”
“Are you seriously willing to risk your career over this?”
She shifted, stood hip-shot, hooked her thumbs in her front pockets. “Is that a threat, Counselor?”
“It’s a question, Lieutenant.”
“I’ll tell you what I’m not willing to risk. Your client stepping out of that room unless it’s into a cage before I’ve interviewed him. I’m not willing to risk him going poof because he has the money and means to do so. In or out. You know very well I can hold him until Monday, so let’s stop wasting each other’s time. I talk to him now, or I go home.”
“Have it your way.”
Eve used her wrist unit. “Detective Peabody, report to Interview. Frosty, huh?” she said when she noted Sorenson studying her unit. She opened the door, stepped in.
Dudley sported a bruised and swolle
n jaw and eyes red and puffy from weeping. He’d had enough time to come down from his high, she noted, and that could be useful. Flanking him were two other lawyer types. Young, female, attractive. One of them actually held his hand.
“Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in interview with Dudley, Winston—the Fourth.” She dropped a thick file on her side of the table. “Also present is Mr. Dudley’s attorney of record, Sorenson, Bentley, and two other representatives. Would each of you state your name for the record?”
As they did, she simply delegated them to Blonde and Redhead. “Peabody, Detective Delia, entering Interview. So, the gang’s all here. How’s the face, Winnie?”
“You struck me. I saved your life and you struck me and dragged me in here like a criminal.”
“Saved my life? Gosh, my recollection, and my recording, which was—as is proper procedure—engaged throughout our meeting, have a different take. As do the recordings and statements of the officers in Our Lady of Shadows Church.”
“And those recordings and statements will be questioned,” Sorenson put in, “as we can document your vendetta against my client.”
“Yeah, you do that little thing, see where it gets you. So let’s start from there. You contacted me at just past twenty hundred hours.”
“She was drunk,” he said to Sorenson. “But I was desperate. She could barely speak coherently, and when she arrived, she could hardly stand up she was so inebriated.”
Eve opened the file, pulled out a hard copy, tossed it on the table. “My tox screens, taken at hour intervals from nineteen hundred hours to twenty-one hundred hours. Clear and clean.”
“Falsified, just like the rest! You were already drunk when you accosted me and Sly at Lionel’s. A dozen witnesses would corroborate that, and your abusive attitude. Your own husband was disgusted with you.”
“Roarke says hi, by the way. You might not have noticed him in the church.” She smiled as fury reddened Dudley’s face.
“You entrapped my client,” Sorenson began.
“Bullshit. Your client contacted me, which is verified by both our ’link logs. I met him, as he requested. My backup was not only within procedure, but recommended by departmental policy. You confessed, Winnie, during our meeting—when your pal had a stunner to my throat—that the two of you had engaged in a competition that involved killing selected targets.”