The In Death Collection, Books 26-29

by J. D. Robb

  “So . . . the Chicago cops blackmailed your mother to infiltrate the Stallions.”

  “MacMasters set it up. She was worn out when she got out of prison, and he used that. He had an in with that crooked judge, and made her weasel for him or he’d send her back in.”

  “But she was killed in Chicago.”

  “She tried to get away, take me away, but he tracked her, and set her up with the Chicago cops.”

  “He must’ve been pretty obsessed with her to go to all that trouble.”

  “That’s the way it was.”

  “Your father gave you all this information.”

  “He had to raise me on his own, because they killed her. They humiliated her, locked her away, raped her. She was beautiful, and they killed her.”

  “And she loved you,” Peabody said, with a hint of sympathy. “She sacrificed for you.”

  “She lived for me. We had a good life. We didn’t have to play by anyone else’s rules.” Darrin balled his hands into fists on the table. “She was free, and beautiful. That’s why MacMasters wanted her, why he forced her. Then he had to cover it up. They had that bitch take me away.”

  “Jaynie Robins.”

  “In MacMasters’s pocket, like the rest of them. They tried to keep me from my father, but he fought to get me back. He promised my mother he’d take care of me.”

  “And Robins’s supervisor, the APA, the judge, the rest?”

  His face went cold again, blank again. “They were all responsible, one way or the other.”

  “So you and your father worked out how you’d avenge your mother, how you’d make those who’d hurt her pay.”

  “Why should they get away with it? Why should they have their lives, their families?”

  “So your father—Vance—picked the order. He picked Deena as the first target, the first kill.”

  “We decided together. We’re a team, we’ve always been a team.”

  “So he could do some of the research, the stalking on one target while you worked another. Very efficient.”

  “We’re a team,” Darrin repeated. “We’ve always been a team.”

  “Plus he could go to Colorado to research the APA while you stayed here to work Deena. How did he decide you’d plan to kill the sister there, and not the mother, for instance?”

  “For Christ’s sake, the sister’s in New Jersey. It’s basic geography.”

  “He did the preliminary stalking there then, right? Until the contact.”

  “Didn’t I say we’re a team? He’d start the field- and e-work, gather the data, then I . . .” His face tightened. “I’m not saying anything else about my father.”

  “Fine. Protect him like your mother did. You go down, he walks. There’s déjà vu. Only you don’t go away for a year and a half like she did. You’re going away for two life terms, no possibility of parole, with the extra twenty-five for intent on Mrs. Mimoto.”

  “Long time,” Peabody commented, “when you go in this young. You know, Dallas, I bet Vance had alibis set up for himself each time the kid here went on a kill. That’s his pattern.”

  “Doesn’t matter, the old man’s got no balls. We’ve got the big fish here, and he can flop and gasp on the shore alone.”

  “If you think I’ll turn on my father, you’re crazy. And you’ll never find him.”

  “Couldn’t care less. You’re all I need, Darrin. You’re young, and that just makes me want to sing and dance. Because that means you’ll be in a cage on a rock off planet for about a century. You’re going to have a really, really long time to think, to figure out how you’ve been screwed with.”

  “You think you scare me? It was worth it, just to see MacMasters standing there, and his dead daughter in a box. It’s better, even better, because now he knows why. He’ll know why, every day he sucks in air, that he killed his own daughter the day he killed my mother.”

  “I’ll give you the bonus. Make him suffer even more. Walk us through what you did to Deena.”

  His lips twitched into a smile. “You were right. She was easy.”

  It made her sick, turned her stomach into a raw, churning mass of revulsion. She’d seen it, most of it, in her head already. But now he spoke for the record, relaying every detail. Not reveling in it, Eve noted. Somehow his pragmatic step-by-step was worse than glee.

  He’d done what he had to do. What, she believed, he’d been created to do.

  When he’d finished relating the murders of Deena and Karlene, his framework and intentions for murdering the others, he sat back, eye ing Eve quietly.

  “Is that enough for you?”

  “We’re done. You’ll be taken back to a cell. The court will appoint counsel for you if you don’t select an attorney of your own.”

  “I don’t need a lawyer. I don’t need a trial. Your laws mean nothing to me. I’m young, like you said. Eventually I’ll find my way out, my way back. And I’ll finish what I started.”

  “Sure you will.” Eve rose. “Record off. Peabody, get someone to take Darrin back to his cage.”

  She waited until Peabody stepped out. “He set you up, Darrin, this man you worship. He twisted your mind from the time you were a baby, so he could cover his own actions, maybe his own guilt. He set you up, like he set your mother up, his brother up. He set your mother up, here in New York, and again in Chicago. Because he wanted quick money. Because he wanted her to do the work. Because he was, is, a coward.”

  “You’re a lying cunt.” He spat at her, with that vicious smile in place.

  “Why would I lie? You’ll ask yourself that eventually. Vance Pauley? He’s a user.”

  “You don’t know shit.”

  “More than you can imagine,” she said, thinking of the first eight years of her life. “The reason I’m telling you this is because sometime in the long, long decades you’re in that concrete cage, you’re going to think about it. You’re going to think, and wonder, and maybe realize the truth. I really hope you realize the truth. Because it’ll make you suffer. Your father killed your mother.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  She only shook her head. “No gain in it for me. I’ve closed this case, and you’re finished. You’ll have a long time to think about that.” She turned to the door, nodded to the pair of uniforms who stepped in. “Take this worthless shit back to his cage.”

  Eve stood where she was, pressed her hands to her face. Rubbed hard as if to scrub away a film of ugly memories.

  She turned to MacMasters when he came to the door. “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

  “Don’t be. She was mine, and I needed to know . . . everything. I needed to know. You’re going after the father now.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  He nodded. “This is enough for me, has to be. I’m taking a leave of absence. My wife and I need time. She asked me to apologize to you.”

  “There’s no need.”

  His face was unbearably sad, unbearably weary. “There is, for her. Please accept.”

  “Then I do.”

  He nodded again. “Good-bye, Lieutenant.”

  “Good-bye, Captain.”

  She made a copy of the recording, gathered her files. When she walked into her office, Roarke turned from her window.

  “This is getting to be a habit. I didn’t know you were here.”

  “I haven’t been here long. Long enough to have heard the last of that.” He came to her, stroked her cheek. “Difficult for you. Hideous to hear him go step-by-step on what he did to that girl, and to that young woman.”

  “There’ll be worse. There’s always worse.” For a moment she felt inside her what she’d seen in MacMasters’s eyes. Unbearable sadness. Unbearable weariness. “Something like that, like him? It makes you realize there’s never a limit on cruel.”

  “Dallas?” Peabody hesitated at the door. “I just wanted to tell you I’d write this up. Mira was in Observation as requested, and she’ll write up her findings.”

  “Good. Don’t worry about t
he paperwork. Go. I’ve got a few things left to deal with. Do me a favor and go take care of the Louise thing. Whatever’s left of the rehearsal, the rest of it.”

  “We can be late. She’ll get it.”

  “Yeah, she will. But there’s no point. Go. If you’re handling it I don’t have to feel guilty for being late.”

  “Okay. It’ll be good to shake this off, just shake all this off and do something . . . bright.”

  “Yeah. I’ll be another hour or two.” She let out a long breath when Peabody’s footsteps echoed away. “Bright. I’m not in the mood for bright. Computer, display map of Manhattan, Lower West.”

  “Why?” Roarke asked when the computer acknowledged.

  “You weren’t there for the whole thing. He gave me the old man. Gave me conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to attempted. I’m not sure he realized it. He didn’t give me where the nest is. Not directly. But he said he walked home. After he killed Robins, he walked home.”

  She rubbed the rocks of tension in the back of her neck. “And the coffee. The go-cup. Those Hotz Cafés are all over the place. But figuring he didn’t walk from one side of the island to the other, he picked up the coffee between his nest and the scene. Probably closer to his nest. And the nest is going to be within reasonable walking distance of the loft.”

  Roarke stepped behind her, gave her neck and shoulders a good, hard rub. “Then you’re going to like the data I brought you.”

  “What data?”

  “On the security system. No, try to relax for one damn minute,” he ordered. “Let’s get a couple of these boulders out of here. I’ve been running various data streams on that, adding some Nadine’s research team came up with. And I’d refined it to about a dozen most likelies, which I assumed you’d want to check out.”

  “That’s good. Excellent. The data,” she added. “The shoulder rub’s not so bad either.”

  “Just doing my job. There now, that’s a little better.” Stepping back, he took out his PPC. “If we add the geographical element to the data I have . . . We have not a dozen, but . . . one.”

  Her eyes lit with purpose. “Give me that.”

  “This is my job, too.” He held it out of reach. “A Peredyne Company in the West Village.”

  “Not an individual, not the usual initials. Just the P, which could be why I kept missing it.”

  “It may also be because Peredyne’s listed as an arm of Iris Sommer Memorial.”

  “I.S. Clever. Well, you’re more clever since you found it. I need to run it to make sure it’s not—”

  “Already doing it,” he told her. “And . . . there’s no listing in New York for either of those companies. It’s a shell within a shell.”

  She turned, rushed out to the bullpen. “Baxter.”

  “Nice job, Dallas.” He gave her a wink, a salute. “I love going off the roll on the upside.”

  “You’re not going off the roll. Conference room, five minutes. Trueheart, with Baxter.”

  “But—”

  She simply turned and pulled her new communicator out of her pocket as she got moving. “Feeney,” she said. “We found the bastard’s hole. Conference room. Now.”

  “I want to play,” Roarke told her.

  “You’ve earned it.” She caught herself before she grabbed him, kissed him, right in front of a corridor full of cops. Instead, she sent him a fierce grin. “Get me a tube of Pepsi, will you?”

  In under ninety minutes, Eve had the pretty brick town house in the West Village covered. Cops in soft clothes sat at a bistro table outside a tiny restaurant, hunched in vehicles, strolled the sidewalks. Eve bought a soy dog from a glide-cart manned by Jenkinson.

  “Some of them give tips,” he said. “I’m keeping the tips.”

  “I don’t want to hear about it.”

  “Maybe he rabbited, LT.” He handed her the dog.

  “No reason to. The son didn’t make a call, hasn’t asked to yet. If he thinks about it, makes the demand, we can stall him. As far as Pauley knows, the fruit of his fucking loins is busy killing an old woman.”

  Roarke took the second dog, strolled away with Eve. “I could easily get in the place.”

  “Yeah, and that’s what we’ll do if he doesn’t show in another hour. We’ve got our warrant. But since the sensors show the place is empty, I’d rather wait.”

  She bit into the dog. “We wait until he comes back, until he’s in that little gated area. Nowhere to run. Jesus, Louise’s place is only a block away. I practically walked by this place a few days ago. I might’ve passed the bastard on the street.”

  Roarke took her hand, laced his fingers with hers. “Part of our cover,” he said easily.

  “Sure. He’s not home because he’s out somewhere he can be seen, where he can buy something, get a time-stamped receipt. Just in case. It’s always been about covering his own ass.”

  A difficult topic for a pretty summer evening, Roarke thought, but she needed to talk it through. “Why mold the boy into a killer?”

  “Maybe he didn’t have to mold that much. Hell if I know. That’s for Mira or someone like her. I have to figure, maybe it ate at him some. Maybe it was his way to turn it around, not just so he’d be a hero to Darrin, but so he could believe what he was spewing. Everyone else’s fault, everyone else is to blame. Punish them.”

  “Will the reasons matter to you?”

  “No. I don’t think they will.”

  “Dallas?”

  She turned, saw Charles Monroe, groom-to-be, smiling as he hurried toward them. “Shit.”

  “What in the world are you two doing around here? I left your place less than an hour ago. I thought there were major plans for the ladies tonight.”

  “There are. They should be doing some . . . thing right now.” What the hell, she thought, it was good cover. Just some friends running into each other on the street. “This isn’t your block.”

  “No. I’m just out walking off some nerves. Tomorrow’s . . . it.”

  “You don’t look a bit nervous to me,” Roarke commented.

  He didn’t, Eve agreed. He looked stupid with happy, just like Louise. And elegant despite the casual shirt and pants.

  “I take it the rehearsal went off okay. Sorry about needing stand-ins.”

  “No problem, and it went very well. As far as I could tell.” He laughed a little. “I want it to be perfect for her. I caught myself checking the weather forecasts every ten minutes on my way home, and once I got there. So I got out of the house. You should come back, come have a drink, save me from my weather obsession.”

  “Can’t. I’m on an op, and subject sighted,” she said. “Hold positions. Let him get inside the gate, then move in.”

  “What?”

  “Just keep talking,” she said to Charles. “Roarke, talk to Charles.”

  “Have you made your honeymoon plans?” Roarke asked pleasantly even as his eyes tracked over to the man who strolled down the sidewalk carrying a shopping bag.

  “Ah, yes. We’re going to Tuscany.”

  “Don’t look around, Charles. Talk to Roarke.”

  “We . . . have a villa there for a couple of weeks. Then we—”

  “It was great to see you.” Eve shot him a huge smile, lifting her voice as Pauley reached out for his garden gate. “Wish we had more time, but we have to . . . Go!”

  She sprinted, caught the gate Pauley left to swing shut behind him. And pressed her weapon to the back of his neck. “You don’t want to move.”

  Ten armed officers surrounded the courtyard, weapons aimed. The bag Pauley held fell to the ground, shattering the contents.

  “What’s going on? What’s the problem?”

  “Hands behind your back. Oh, please hesitate. Please try to run or resist. Give me an excuse.”

  “I’m cooperating.” He put his hands behind his back, and Eve cuffed him. “I don’t want any trouble. I don’t understand.”

  “Then I’ll explain.” She jerked him around to face her. “Vance
Pauley, you’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, two counts, and conspiracy with intent to murder, one count. You have the right to remain silent.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Shut up. Didn’t I just tell you you have the right to remain silent?” She completed the Revised Miranda, then kicked at the shards of glass on the ground. “Bought some prime brew. I guess you planned a little celebration for your son when he got home tonight. The thing is, he won’t be coming home, for the rest of his life. And he flipped on you, Daddy.”

  He went pale, and his eyes dark and angry. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where is my son? I have a right to—”

  “I gave you all the rights you’re going to get. Like father, like son. When push came to shove, he covered his own ass.”

  “That’s bullshit. He’d never say anything against me.”

  She smiled. “Take this delusional asshole into Central. Book him on the counts charged and put him in a cage. We’ll be talking soon, Vance. Real soon.”

  She turned to Roarke and a fascinated Charles. “Now you and the e-geeks can bypass security. By the numbers, people,” she called out. “Records on, I want top to bottom, inside and out. Bag it, tag it, log it.”

  “Well.” Charles smiled at her. “This was certainly an exciting walk around the neighborhood.”

  “Making your streets safer for newlyweds. I gotta go. I’ll see you to morrow.”

  “I’ll be there. Oh, tell Louise, when you see her, tell her I can’t wait.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  She took him alone. She saw no reason to keep any of the team on the clock any longer. Carrying a large box, she went into Interview.

  “Record on,” she began.

  “This is some sort of ridiculous mistake. I haven’t asked for a lawyer—yet—because I don’t want to make it more complicated. Now, I demand to see my son.”

  “No. Shut up and listen, because this really isn’t going to take that long. And I’ve got things to do. We’ve confiscated all your electronics, and we already have all the data you accumulated on Deena MacMasters, Karlene Robins, Charity Mimoto, Elysse—well, you know who they are. You kept excellent records of your research, your video documentation. Oh, just for the hell of it, we’re throwing in the ID fraud charges and all that. We brought your workshop in, too. Plus, there’s the illegals. It just keeps piling on, Vance.”