by J. D. Robb
She bagged the memo book, sealed and labeled it as she contacted her bullpen.
“Yo, LT,” Detective Baxter said.
“Are you and Trueheart clear?”
“Clear enough. What do you need?”
“I need you at Quantum Air, coordinating with Lieutenant Salazar.”
“On the boomer.”
She sealed the office as she barked out orders.
“Bring a couple of uniforms. Peabody started getting statements. You finish. Everybody, down to the cleaning service. Two honchos are coming in—family of CEO. I’m going to want to talk to them as soon as possible.”
“How many dead?” Baxter asked.
“Eleven, so far. Nine injured.”
“It could’ve been worse. I’ll contact Salazar, let her know we’re coming in. Are you on scene?”
“I won’t be. I’ve got a second crime scene. I’ll brief you when I know more. Dallas, out.”
It could’ve been worse. Baxter said it, she’d thought it. The thing was, when things could be worse, they usually got there.
* * *
Eve beat Peabody to the car, and peeled out of the slot the minute Peabody hopped in. She wove through the underground lot at a speed that had her partner gripping the chicken stick.
“You said it added up.” Peabody’s eyes, dark brown and widening at every swerve, closed to spare her brain the visual of a crash. “I’m putting some of the numbers in columns. Somebody broke into Rogan’s house, threatened his wife and kid, and forced him to kill himself? I don’t get the two-plus-two.”
“Somebody says take this boom vest to work Monday morning, strap it on, and wear it to the meeting at nine. Blow it up. Do that, or we kill your amazing girls.”
“His amazing girls?”
“That’s what he called his wife and kid. In his memo book. I don’t know why this guy, why this meeting, why this company, or why this method, but that part adds up.”
“Wit statements say he was alone in his office, at least for a few minutes before the meeting. He doesn’t call for help?”
“Could’ve had him wired. I would have. Let him hear the wife getting slapped around, or the kid crying for her daddy.”
“That’s unbelievably cruel.”
“Nothing cruel’s unbelievable.” She arrowed out of the underground, zipped into traffic. “Why the marketing guy? They needed somebody who’d not only kill for his wife and kid, but die for them. But how did they know he would? We need to know more about this Quantum-Econo deal. Was the deal the thing? Was there something about it that made someone willing to kill—to use what appears to be an innocent man and his family as the weapon?”
“I use Econo a lot,” Peabody said. “Or did before I had a mag partner with a magalish husband who lets me use Roarke’s private shuttles.”
She’d used Econo herself, Eve thought, before Roarke. They were as bare as bare bones got, and therefore affordable if you had to use air travel. She wondered if Roarke had ever used them, before becoming one of the richest men in the known universe—and one who had his own transpo lines as well.
She’d tap that source, she thought, that expert consultant, civilian. If anybody knew the ins and outs of the QuantumAir-EconoLift deal outside of the particulars in the deal, it would be Roarke.
She swung in behind the mobile medical unit. Since it was already double-parked, horns and curses were already blasting anyway.
As she stepped out, the Rapid Cab driver behind her laid on his horn, stuck his head out the window. “Gimme a fucking break, girlie!”
Eve held up her badge, smiled with all the warmth of the early March wind. “Lieutenant Girlie. What would you like me to break?”
He steered around her, shooting her his middle finger on the way.
“You know Charles and Louise live just down the block,” Peabody commented.
“Yeah.” The doctor and the former licensed companion had an elegant brownstone within easy walking distance. “Nice neighborhood.”
Upper-class, Eve thought. Reasonably quiet and safe. Brownstones and townhomes tucked back from the sidewalk, often with little front gardens or paved rear courtyards.
This one had a front garden—dormant now, but neat—with a walkway leading to a short set of stairs, a pair of bold blue double doors. One of the doors hung crookedly.
The house rose up three stories—decorative (and she’d wager effective) bars on the lower windows. All the privacy screens were engaged but for one on the second floor. Someone had broken that window. She noted the shards of glass and some sort of good-size ball, cracked, in shades of red and orange and brown.
“I think maybe that’s Jupiter.” Peabody frowned at the ball, tipping her head back to look up at the window.
Eve avoided the shards, studied the security as they approached the doors. “It’s one of Roarke’s systems, so it’s good. Palm plate, voice ID, solid locks and alarm, double cameras.”
The door opened. “Lieutenant. Officer Vols.”
“Status.”
“Sir. Officer Gregg and I arrived, rang and knocked. Automated security engaged. The comp said no one was currently in residence. Before we attempted a bypass, Gregg stepped down to check windows, go around to the back. And the ball back there? Planet Jupiter?”
“I knew it,” Peabody said with quick triumph before Eve shut her down with a cold stare.
“Well, it nearly beaned Gregg. And the kid who managed to throw it through the window started screaming for help. Gregg called up to her, told her we were the police. She said she couldn’t get out of her room.
“We couldn’t get through security, LT, had to use the battering ram.”
“Did the alarm go off?”
“No, sir, it didn’t. Disengaged. We found the kid upstairs—holding on to herself pretty well. She said they’d hurt her mom, and had taken her away. They’d taken her dad away. Then we heard the pipes. The mother managed to bang on the pipes in the basement room. We found her down there, beat up, tied up. The kid fell apart a little then.”
A ripple of emotion ran over his stony cop’s face. “She thought they’d killed her mom. Two men, they both state, broke into the house sometime in the early hours of Saturday after all three were in bed. From what the wife said, it sounds like they may have drugged the husband while he slept, taken him out that way, then they dragged the wife out of bed, smacked her around a little, tied her up, hauled the kid in. Tied her and the father up.”
“Did you get a description?”
“Masks. Both say white, featureless masks. Hoods, gloves. They both say male going by voice and build, but they can’t give us race, facial features, hair or eye color. I’ll tell you, we didn’t push too hard, Lieutenant. The mother needed medical attention, and the kid … She holds it together, like I said, but she’s pretty shaken up. We haven’t given Greenspan notification on Rogan. She and the kid asked about him, but we didn’t want to step in it on that.”
“Okay. You and Gregg stand by. I’ve got an e-man coming to evaluate the security breach and pick up all electronics. Where do you have them?”
“There’s a family area in the back of the house, off the kitchen. Gregg’s sitting on them.”
The two MTs walked out from the rear of the house, equipment in hand. “She won’t go to the hospital,” one of them announced. “The adult female. The minor’s mostly just shaken up, but the adult female could use the hospital.”
“What’s her status?”
“Two cracked ribs, bruised kidney, sprained wrist, deep lacerations on both wrists and ankles from fighting against the zip ties, broken nose, severe facial and torso bruising, and lacerations from repeated blows. She was dehydrated, suffered a mild concussion.”
“We’ll see what we can do about getting her to agree to the hospital.”
The other MT shook his head. “Won’t budge. Wouldn’t take a tranq, either. We’ve got her splinted, wanded, stabilized, but she needs to go in.”
“Got it,
” Eve said as the MTs walked out.
“She’s afraid to be a foot away from the kid,” Vols told Eve. “Like the kid’s afraid to be a foot away from the mom. You can’t blame them.”
“Yeah. I got that, too. Good work, Officer.”
With Peabody, Eve started back to tell a woman that her husband was dead, and a child that her father wouldn’t be coming home again.
2
The kid sat, hollow-eyed, glued to her mother’s side on a wide sofa covered with big, bold red flowers. She wore baggy cotton pants, thick pink socks, a purple sweatshirt. The bruises on her wrists added more purple.
Her mother kept a protective arm wrapped around her.
Bruises rioted over Cecily’s face. Eve noted the swelling and blackened rays at the edges of the ice patch on her left eye.
NuSkin bandages wrapped around both of her wrists. Violet-and-yellow bruises spread around her unpatched right eye.
When she shifted, the flicker over her face told Eve there was still considerable pain.
“Ms. Greenspan, I’m Lieutenant Dallas. This is Detective Peabody. We have some questions. We can speak to you at the health center of your choice, as the medics who treated you strongly recommend further examination and treatment.”
“The MTs treated us here. We want to be home.” She looked down at her daughter, who cuddled a little closer, nodded. “No one will tell us about Paul, about my husband, Melody’s father. We’ll answer all your questions, but you have to answer one first. Where is Paul?”
Eve sat. Eye-to-eye was better, though there was never a better. “I regret to inform you, your husband’s dead. We’re very sorry for your loss.”
The girl stared at Eve for a long, trembling moment, then pressed her face to her mother’s side. She made a sound like a small animal in terrible pain.
Cecily turned to gather her daughter in, and the pain, all the levels of it, drained her face of color until the bruises stood out like banners.
“Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you—”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but we’re sure.”
“Is there someone we can call for you?” Peabody asked. “Can I get you something? Water, some tea?”
“How? How?”
“Detective Peabody can take Melody into another room,” Eve began, and Melody pushed away from her mother, aimed a ferocious look at Eve.
“I’m not leaving my mom. They made me leave her, and they kept hurting her and Daddy. I’m not going to leave. They made him do something awful. They made him because they kept hurting Mom and said how they’d do things to me. One of them had a knife and told Daddy he’d cut me, and he pulled my hair really hard to make me yell. I tried not to, I tried, but it hurt.”
“It’s okay, Melly. It’s okay, my baby.”
“They killed Daddy, and he didn’t do anything. They hurt Mom, and she didn’t do anything.”
“Neither did you,” Eve said. “Did they do anything else to hurt you?”
“They put the plastic tie things on my wrists and my feet, really tight. They hurt. When the one took Daddy away, the other came in and … he made the ties looser so they didn’t hurt so much. But he said if I didn’t yell for Daddy to help me in the ’link, he’d kill Mom.”
“Oh, Melly, oh, baby.”
“I had to do it. I had to. And I could hear Daddy crying. He was crying, but he said it would be okay. It’s not okay. They killed Daddy.”
“Tell us what happened,” Eve said to Cecily, “from the beginning.”
“I heard Melly scream. We were all in bed. I don’t know what time exactly, late Friday night, early Saturday morning. I know it was after midnight because Paul and I didn’t go to bed until about midnight. I heard her scream, and I started to get up and run to her room. Something hit me. Someone.”
She touched a hand to her face.
“I fell, and he pulled my arms behind me, used the zip ties. I called for Paul, but he dragged me back to the bed, hit me again, and bound me to the headboard. I could see that Paul was still sleeping. At first I thought he was somehow sleeping through it, but I realized they’d used something—a pressure syringe. He was unconscious, helpless. The other one came in with Melly, bound her to the chair.
“I kept asking what they wanted, begged them not to hurt my baby, told them to take whatever they wanted. They didn’t say anything, didn’t speak. They dragged Paul to the other chair. They tied him, then used another syringe. It brought him around. He tried to fight, but…”
“They hurt Mom again. They kept hurting Mom.”
“I’m all right now, Melly. I’m okay now. They hurt me, threatened to hurt Melly to torture Paul. They laughed when he cursed them, threatened them, begged them. They just laughed. Then one sat on the side of the bed, beside me—touched me.”
Cecily’s eyes met Eve’s, said all.
“He said it would get worse, a lot worse. And did Paul want to save his wife and child? Did he want to protect them? Would he do anything to save them? Of course Paul said yes. He said he’d do anything.”
“They took me away, even though Mom and Daddy begged,” Melody said. “One of them carried me into my room and used another of the zip things to tie me to my bed so I couldn’t get up. I was scared, and I kept calling for Mom and Daddy, but the one who locked me in, before he did, he said everything was going to be okay. He told me not to be scared, but to stop calling for my mom and dad. So I stopped calling for them. He wanted me to, so I stopped.”
“You’re smart and you’re brave,” Peabody told her.
“They still killed Daddy.”
“Daddy saved us,” Cecily murmured as she pressed her lips to her daughter’s hair. “The one sitting on the bed told Paul he had to do one thing to save his wife and child. One thing, and they’d leave us alone. If he didn’t do what they said, they’d keep hurting me, they’d … violate me, and then they’d start on Melody. If he still wouldn’t do it, they’d kill all of us, him last so he could watch them kill his wife and child. They kept saying that—or the one did—wife and child.”
“What did they say he had to do?”
“Kill. Take lives to save lives. His wife and child, didn’t they mean more to him than anyone else? Paul said he would but he was lying, and they knew it. The one said he needed more time, more persuasion to make the deal. Then he advised me to convince my husband to save me and my child. They left us alone. I don’t know how long.”
“They left you and your husband alone in the bedroom?”
“Yes. Paul tried to get free. I tried. He kept asking if I was all right, telling me he’d find a way. We told each other we loved each other. He swore he’d never let anything happen to Melly.”
Cecily shuddered, took a moment to try to regulate her breathing that had gone ragged. “I think they had a recorder in the room because the one, when he came back in, mocked some of what we’d said to each other.
“It went on and on and on. One would come in, hit me or touch me. Then do something to make Melody call out. Ask Paul if he’d do anything to save his wife and child. Hours. Hours and hours. Then they dragged me out. I fought, and one of them hit me and knocked me out, I think. They took me to the basement, locked me up, but they put up a camera. I think they wanted Paul to see me, locked in, cold and hurt, afraid. I was so afraid. I never saw them again. I never saw Paul again.”
Tears streamed down her face, a river of grief, as she rocked her daughter, stroked Melody’s hair.
“I was alone down there until the police came. Now I know Paul did what they asked. He did what they asked to save us. They tortured a good man, a good husband and father, until he did what they asked.”
Turning, Cecily tipped Melody’s face up to hers. “Don’t ever forget that. Whatever Daddy did, whatever people say about him, he loved you more than anything in the world. He did what he had to do to protect us, to save us.”
“They made him wear a bomb.”
Cecily jerked back. “What? How do you—”
> “Ms. Greenspan,” Eve interrupted. Focusing on Melody, she asked, “You saw the explosives?”
“No, but I heard them talking. One came in, and I pretended to be asleep. It was dark in the room—they kept it dark a lot, but it was dark outside, too—and I pretended to be asleep. And the other one came, like, to the door. They talked about the bombs, and the one—the one that hurt Mom—he said how my daddy would wear it, how he was almost there, how he’d do what they said.”
“Do you remember anything else they said?”
“They were talking really quiet, but I guess, like, they were really excited, too. I don’t know how to say it.”
“I get it. Anything else?”
“They were going to Fat City.”
“Fat City?”
“They’d be in Fat City at nine. And the one who came in my room most of the time came over and sort of nudged me. I just sort of rolled over and kept pretending I was asleep. He said he was glad I was getting some sleep. And the other said…”
She looked at her mother, tipped her head to her mother’s arm. “He said the bad word that starts with ‘f.’ The bad ‘f’ word and ‘the kid.’ And they went out. Then I did fall asleep, I think, because it got light out. The one that mostly came in let me get up and pee. It’s embarrassing. Then he put the tie things on my wrists again, and I had to get back on the bed. But he got tagged on his ’link, and he got excited and said the bad word again, a lot, but excited, not mad, and he walked out, still talking—he locked the door.”
Melody took a long breath. “He didn’t come back. Everything got really quiet. I almost fell back to sleep, or maybe I did, but then I saw he hadn’t tied up my feet again, or tied me to the bed like before. He was excited. He forgot, maybe. So I tried to get out, but I couldn’t get the door open. I couldn’t get the windows open. I yelled, but nobody could hear me. I saw Mr. Benson across the street going out of his house, and I yelled and tried to bang on the windows but he didn’t look up. And I saw the police, and they came to the door, but nobody was going to answer. I saw my solar system, and I knocked Jupiter off, and I picked it up. I dropped it at first because it was hard to hold it, but then I threw it as hard as I could at the window. It broke the window, and I yelled and yelled for help. And the police came in.”