by J. D. Robb
“Gain initial entrance by posing as a client,” Roarke said. “Clone security. Enter again, when the victim is sleeping. Restrain, torture, rape, and mutilate, leaving a single red rose on the pillow beside them.”
“Marsonini got six women with that method between the late winter of 2023 and the spring of 2024. All brunettes, like Mitchell, all home workers, all between the ages of twenty-six and twenty-nine. All bearing a slight resemblance to his older sister who had, reputedly, sexually and physically abused him in childhood.”
She straightened. “We’ll get this Katie Mitchell under wraps. If we don’t find Renquist within the next forty-eight hours, he’s going to find us.”
Chapter 22
There was no choice but to risk going directly to Katie Mitchell’s apartment. If Renquist had it staked, it would spook him, but Eve couldn’t risk a life.
If he bolted, she’d hunt him down.
With help from EDD, she had a list of residents and a layout of the building where Mitchell had her third-floor loft. She left Feeney in charge of the ongoing search of Renquist’s home, and took Roarke along.
For ballast, she told him.
“You’re too good to me, darling. Really, I’ll get spoiled.”
“Fat chance. Anyway, you’ve got a good touch with women.”
“Now I’m blushing.”
“I’m going to laugh my ass off any minute, then where will I sit? This woman may become hysterical. You’re better with hysterical females than I am.”
“Excuse me, did you say something? I was busy thinking about your ass.”
She whipped her vehicle up a ramp and squeezed it into a second-level spot a half block from Mitchell’s loft. “I’m sure that’s entertaining—”
“You have no idea.”
“But let’s try to keep to the program. It’s possible if we go in as a couple, straight in, he won’t make me if he’s staking out the building. I don’t think he’s around tonight. I think he’s in some bolt-hole, putting it all together. Odds are we’ve got time, but I can’t be sure. Marsonini always hit his victims between two and three A.M. We’re plenty early if he’s marked her for tonight. But I want us to walk straight to the building, and in. How fast can you get through the security?”
“Time me.”
“Let’s move.”
“I think you should hold my hand,” he said as they started down the ramp. “You’ll look less like a cop.”
“Take the left.” She switched sides with him. “I want my weapon hand free.”
“Naturally.” Even as he gave her arm a playful little swing, he saw her eyes, those cop’s eyes, tracking, scanning, dissecting every shadow. “I’ll need my hands free at the door. You could ease behind me. It wouldn’t hurt to give my butt an affectionate little pat.”
“What for?”
“Because I like it.”
She ignored that, but did move behind him slightly as they climbed the short flight of steps to the building’s entrance.
“It’s cooled off considerably. I think we’re done with the worst of the heat for the year.”
“Hmm. Maybe.”
“Why don’t you lean in a bit, nuzzle my neck?”
“For cover, or because you like it?”
“As a kind of reward,” he said and opened the door.
She hadn’t even seen him finesse the lock. “You’re pretty fucking slick,” she commented and stepped in ahead of him.
She walked straight back to the steps rather than hassle with the elevator’s security system. That would open, once cleared, directly into Mitchell’s loft. Less traumatizing, Eve hoped, to knock on the hall door on the third level, and gain admittance that way.
“His log shows an appointment with her here, this afternoon,” Eve continued. “That tells me he’s already bunged up her loft security, and plans to move in tonight, tomorrow latest. I need to get her out, but I don’t want cops around yet. We’ll set up a unit in the morning, early.” She knocked on the door, held up her badge, then turned to smile at Roarke.
“So I’m giving her to you. You’ll transport her to Central, and she’ll be transferred to a safe house until this goes down.”
“And you plan to stay here tonight, alone? I don’t think so.”
“I outrank you.”
Eve heard the click of the speaker engage, and the puzzled Yes? that came through it.
“Police, Ms. Mitchell. We need to speak with you.”
“What’s this about?”
“I’d like to come in.”
“It’s nearly midnight.” Katie opened the door a crack. “Is something wrong? Has there been a break-in?”
“I’d like to discuss this inside.”
She studied Eve’s badge again, then glanced at Roarke. The double take was almost comical. “I know you.” It was reverent. “Oh my God.”
“Ms. Mitchell.” Eve had to order herself not to act annoyed as Katie brushed at her hair with her hand. “May we come in?”
“Um. Yes. Okay. I was just going to bed,” she said, apology in her voice as she tugged at the belt of a thin pink robe. “I wasn’t expecting . . . anybody.”
The living area was spacious and simple, with an opening on one side through which Eve could see a small bedroom. And through the opening on the other side was a larger, professional-looking office.
A long, galley-style kitchen was behind a low wall. She imagined the other door, which was discreetly closed, led to the bath.
Good windows, probably let in considerable light during the day, she judged. Two exits, including the elevator.
“Ms. Mitchell, you had an appointment today with this man.”
Eve took a photo of Renquist from her bag.
“No,” Katie said after a quick look. Her gaze went back to, and held on Roarke’s face. “Would you like to sit down?”
“Would you please look at this picture again, more carefully, and tell me if this man was your three o’clock appointment this afternoon.”
“My three o’clock? No, he was . . . oh, wait. It is Mr. Marsonini. But he had red hair. Long red hair done in a braid. And he wore these little blue sunshades the entire time. A little affected, I thought, but he was Italian.”
“Was he?”
“Yes. He had a really charming accent. He’s relocating here, from Rome, though he’ll still have some business interests in Europe. He’s in oil. Olive oil. He needs a personal accountant to work with his corporate people. Oh my. Has something happened to him? Is that why you’re here?”
“No.” She was measuring Katie as she’d measured the loft. As she’d concluded from the data and ID picture, Katie Mitchell was the same general build and coloring as Peabody. That might come in handy.
“Ms. Mitchell, this man’s name isn’t Marsonini. It’s Renquist, and he’s suspected of murdering at least five women.”
“Oh, you must be mistaken. Mr. Marsonini was perfectly charming. I spent nearly two hours with him today.”
“There’s no mistake. Posing as a potential client, Renquist gained entrance to this loft for the purposes of cloning your security, having personal contact with you, and assuring himself that you did, still, live alone. Which I assume you do.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“He has stalked you for some time, as is his pattern with his victims, gathering information on your routines and habits. He intends to enter this residence within the next forty-eight hours, most likely when you’re sleeping. He would then restrain you, rape and torture you before using your own kitchen utensils to mutilate and kill you in the most painful way he could devise.”
Eve listened to the little choked sound that creaked in Katie’s throat, than watched the brunette’s eyes roll back in her head.
“All yours,” she said as Roarke swore and stepped in to catch Katie before she toppled over.
“You could have done that in a more sensitive and delicate way.”
“Sure. But this was quicker. When she comes to, she c
an pack what she needs. Then you get her out.”
He hefted Katie, headed with her to a sofa. “You’re not staying here alone and waiting for him to come hunting.”
“That’s my job,” she began. “But I’m calling for backup.”
“Call for it now, and I’ll have her out of your way inside twenty minutes.”
“Deal.”
She pulled out her communicator and prepared to set up the next stage of her operation.
She spent the hours until dawn sitting in the dark, waiting. A surveillance vehicle sat outside, and two armed uniforms were stationed in the living area of the Mitchell apartment. But the watch team had its orders.
Renquist, when he came, was hers.
And he sat in his quiet room in a small apartment on the edge of the Village. He’d decorated it carefully, selecting each piece so that it would have a European feel, and a rich one, rich and colorful and sexy.
So unlike the cool, stagnant home he shared with his wife when he was Niles.
When he was in this warm, deeply toned room, he was Victor Clarence. A small, amusing joke and a play on His Royal Highness Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, who some credited with the Ripper murders of Whitechapel.
Renquist liked to believe it, enjoyed the notion of a killer prince. He considered himself no less.
A prince among men. A king among killers.
And like that famed stylist of death, he would never be caught. But he was more than his prototypes. Because he would never stop.
He drank a brandy and smoked a thin cigar laced with just a whiff of Zoner. He loved these times alone, the quiet, reflective times when all the preparation was done.
He was pleased he’d decided to feign a business trip, to get away on his own for a few days. Pamela was irritating him more than usual with her long, speculative stares, her pointed questions.
Who was she to question him, to look at him?
If she only knew how many times he’d imagined killing her. The many and creative ways he’d devised. She’d run screaming. The image of his cold and rigid wife running for her life made him chuckle.
Of course, he would never do it. It would bring it all too close to home, and he was no fool. Pamela was safe simply because he was stuck with her. Besides, if he killed her, who would handle all the annoying details of his social life?
No, it was enough just to have these periodic rests from her, and the female she’d saddled him with. Irritating, sneaky little brat. Children were, as he’d learned from his dear old nanny, meant to be neither seen nor heard.
If they rebelled or failed to obey smartly, they were to be put somewhere, in the dark. Where they were no longer seen, where they couldn’t be heard no matter how loud they screamed.
Oh yes, he remembered—remembered the dark room. Nanny Gable had had a way about her. He would like to kill her, slowly, painfully, while she screamed and screamed as he’d once done.
But that wouldn’t be wise. Like Pamela, she was safe because he was stuck with her.
In any case, she’d taught him, hadn’t she? Nanny Gable had certainly taught him. Children were meant to be raised by someone paid and paid well to discipline and tutor. Not that the sly little Italian thing disciplined his girl. Spoiled her, coddled her. But she was convenient. Her fear and loathing of him gave him such a rush of pleasure.
Everything in his life had finally fallen into place. He was respected, admired, obeyed. He was comfortable financially, and had an active and rarified social life. He had a wife who presented the proper image, and a young mistress who was just fearful enough to do anything, absolutely anything, he required.
And he had the most fascinating and entertaining hobby.
Years of study, of planning, of strategy. Of practice. It was all coming to fruition now in ways even he hadn’t anticipated. How could he have known how much fun it would be to assume the guise of one of his heroes, and follow in their bloody footsteps?
Men who took charge, who took life. Who did what they wished to women because they understood, as others couldn’t, that women needed to be debased, hurt, killed. They asked for death with their first breath.
Trying to run the world. Trying to run him.
He took a slow drag of the cigar, letting the Zoner calm him before one of his rages could take over. It wasn’t the time for rage, but for cool, calculating action.
He worried that he’d been too clever. But really, could one be too clever? Some might consider it a mistake to have deliberately put himself forward as a suspect. But it was so much more satisfying, so much more exciting that way. It allowed him to participate on two levels and made it all so intimate.
In a way, he’d already fucked the whore cop. What a thrill it was to watch her scramble around, unable to outthink him, to anticipate him. Being forced to come to him and apologize. He hugged himself as he played that scene over in his head. Oh, that had been a moment.
Selecting Eve Dallas had been a brilliant stroke, if he did say so himself. And oh, he did.
A man wouldn’t have given him nearly the same buzz. But a woman, a woman who like most of her kind considered herself superior to a man simply because she could trap him between her legs. That added spice to the brew.
He could think about choking her, beating her, raping her, gutting her even as she watched him with those cool, flat eyes.
He would never have known the same level of excitement with a male adversary.
She would be punished, of course, when she failed to stop him. When others were killed, as the accountant bitch would be killed. The lieutenant would be punished and disciplined by her superiors, as it should be.
And she would suffer, never knowing who’d bested her, she would suffer until the laser blast struck her in the back of the head.
If only he could find a way to let her know, to tell her, reveal himself to her an instant before her death. Then it would be perfect.
There was time, of course, to work that out.
Content, he settled into bed, to dream his terrible dreams.
They had obviously been off by a night, Eve thought, as she set up the morning briefing in her home office with a small, tight team. She didn’t want to risk Central, or a larger operation. A leak, even a trickle might send Renquist into the wind. Now they could tighten the trap so he’d never get away.
She used her board, the wall screens, and one of Roarke’s new toys, a portable holo-unit.
“We’ll have units set here, and here.” She highlighted the map on-screen with a laser pointer. “They are for observation only. I want to take Renquist inside the loft where he can be contained and no civilians are at risk. We moved Mitchell’s across-the-hall neighbor out at oh seven hundred on the pretext of a broken water pipe. The cooperation of the building super is ensured and we’ve got him under wraps in case he gets an itch to share any of this with the media. The empty loft will be Observation Post C.”
She highlighted the third floor of the building blueprint on the second screen. “We’re installing cameras. The loft will be under constant observation. It’s unlikely Renquist will use the elevator, but we’ll have cameras there as well. And once he’s inside the loft, the power to the elevator will be shut down, giving him only one exit. A team will move in to block that exit, another will be set on the street below in case he decides to take a header from the windows.”
“Rat in a trap,” Feeney commented.
“That’s the idea. I’ll be inside the loft, as will Officer Peabody, who will be briefed when her examination is finished. Captain Feeney will run electronics from Mitchell’s home office inside the loft, and Detective McNab will head Observation Post C.”
She ordered up the holo and brought a scaled-down version of the Mitchell loft into her office. “Memorize it,” she ordered. “Officer Peabody will be decoy. She and the target are approximately the same size and coloring. She’ll be in the bed here, I’ll be posted in this closet. Getting Renquist in the bedroom is optimum. No wind
ows, no escape route.”
“He’ll be armed,” McNab put in.
She nodded, noting the worry in his eyes. That was the trouble, she thought, when a cop fell for another cop. “So will we. It’s possible he’ll bring his own blades, or that he’ll detour into the kitchen first to avail himself of Mitchell’s kitchen stock. He may have a blaster or another weapon, though he has yet to utilize one. We will go into this assuming he’s armed, as Marsonini habitually carried a blaster or stunner, and act accordingly.”
She waited a beat. “We’re working on finding him before tonight. He’s in the city, and as he’s emulating Marsonini, it’s likely he’s settled in somewhere near his target’s home. Marsonini habitually had a good meal, with wine, on the evening before a murder. He dressed well, generally in suits by Italian designers, and carried his tools in an expensive briefcase. He did his work to opera, again Italian. He spoke with an accent, though it was affected as he was born in St. Louis. History, details, and a complete bio of this subject are in your packs.”
She waited again while members of the team shuffled and took out the bio. “Renquist will become Marsonini, attempt and likely succeed in copying his mannerisms, habits, and routines. You also have, in your packs, the projected image of how he’ll look wearing the long red hair and sunshades. Now let’s go over the details. If Renquist follows this pattern, this is going down tonight.”
She spent another hour before dismissing her team. Since she’d seen McNab look at his purple-banded wrist unit three times during the briefing, she held him back.
“She’s got another two hours. You’d better chill.”
“Sorry. She was just so wigged this morning. She’s going into the sims now. She keeps choking on the sims.”
“If she chokes, she’s not ready to make the grade. The timing blows on this, McNab, but the fact is we’ve got a lot more at stake here than Peabody getting her detective shield.”
“I know it. She’s so damn worried about letting you down she’s turned her guts inside out.”
“Jesus. It’s not about me.”