The In Death Collection, Books 11-15

by J. D. Robb

  Working her way through the porn sites for names had begun to give her a headache, but she continued doggedly, concentrating on the titles and come-on, and the screen names of potential customers who took advantage of the thirty-second preview.

  McNab’s theory was that Yost might cruise the labyrinth of sex sites available online, make his selections through previews. It was possible he ordered them on-screen and that would be the luckiest of breaks as he’d have to use an ID and credit number to do so. But even if he simply scanned the previews, he’d have logged on under a screen name.

  Most were laughable and obvious. Bigkok, Cumlvr, Hornydog. She didn’t think Sylvester Yost would go for the crude or the foolish.

  She sat back, rubbed her gritty eyes then began to root through her bag for a pain blocker.

  Absently McNab reached over and rubbed her neck. “Want to take a break?”

  “I just need to ditch the headache. Maybe stretch my legs.”

  She rose, rolling her shoulders as she went to the kitchen for water.

  He knew she’d broken a date with Charles Monroe to work with him that night. McNab was darkly pleased that the suave LC had gotten the boot, even if it was for work. What he really wanted was to plant his own boot right in Monroe’s pretty face, and one of these days . . .

  The action on the screen scrambled his thoughts. He goggled as two men and two women began to roll and writhe on the floor in a mass of naked bodies and impossibly flexible limbs.

  “Holy Jesus.”

  “What? What? Did you hit on something?” Peabody rushed back, leaned down to the screen, then with an oath rapped McNab over the head with the flat of her hand. “Damn it, stop jerking off. I thought you’d found . . .” She trailed off, stupefied. “Wow” was the best she could do.

  Following the action both of them tilted their heads to the side.

  “She must be double-jointed.”

  “Triple,” McNab decided. “And it’s obvious nobody in this group has a spine, otherwise they couldn’t get in that position.”

  They turned their heads again, this time toward each other, and their eyes met with identical gleams of lust and challenge.

  “We can’t let a bunch of porn actors outdo us.” McNab was already pulling at the hook of her trousers.

  “Damn right we can’t. But it’s probably going to hurt.”

  “Cops feel no pain.”

  “Oh yeah? Try this.” She was laughing as she pulled him to the floor.

  In another part of town, Sylvester Yost finished his after-dinner brandy and cigar. He’d activated his single server droid for precisely twelve minutes, to deal with the disarray of his kitchen and dining room.

  Of course, he would check on the job himself. Even well-programmed droids usually failed to see that all was in the perfect order Yost demanded.

  He’d prepared himself a delightful veal picatta for dinner. Often after a job he liked to putter around his kitchen, enjoying the scents and textures of cooking, sipping an appropriate wine as his sauces thickened.

  But an indulgence like that dirtied pots and pans and so on. The droid came in handy there, as Yost preferred to relax with his brandy and cigar rather than loading the dishwasher.

  With his eyes half-closed and his big, muscular body draped in a long robe of black silk, he listened to the swelling strains of Beethoven.

  Such moments, he believed, were a man’s right after a successful day’s work.

  And soon, very soon, such moments would stretch to days, and days to weeks as he moved into quiet retirement. Oh, he would miss the work, he supposed. Now and then. Of course, if he missed it enough he could certainly take the occasional contract.

  Interesting ones, just to slay any dragons of tedium.

  But for the most part he was certain he would be quite content with his music and his art, his leisure and his solitude.

  When this contract had been offered, Yost had taken it as a sign. It was the perfect end to his career. Never before had he had occasion to come so close to a man of Roarke’s stature or capabilities. Because of that, he’d been able to demand, and receive, three times his usual fee for three targets.

  The fourth was to be acted on only at his discretion. If he saw his way clear to assassinating Roarke himself within two months after the initial contract was fulfilled, he would receive a lovely bonus of twenty-five million dollars.

  Such a pretty retirement nest, Yost thought.

  He had no doubt he would see his way clear, quite clear.

  It would be the most brilliant act of his career. And one he looked forward to with relish.

  chapter eleven

  Eve methodically picked her way through the first reel of red tape to access personal data on Justice Thomas Werner. According to official data, Werner had suffered a fatal heart attack and died at his home in an exclusive suburb of East Washington.

  It had taken a little time to identify the judge from the scanty data she’d been given, but she’d run through the archives of the screen news bulletins for the previous winter and had finally hit on Werner’s death.

  Now, it was a matter of winding her way around and through the Privacy Act that shielded a man of Werner’s standing from curiosity seekers. And, even with proper identification, hampered an official inquiry.

  “You stupid son of a bitch,” she muttered. “I’m a cop. You’ve got my badge number, my case file code, my voice print. What do you want now, blood?”

  “Problem, Lieutenant?”

  She didn’t bother to glance over at Roarke’s question. “East Washington bureaucracy bullshit. It wants me to submit my request again during working hours. Well, I’m working, aren’t I?”

  “Perhaps I could—”

  She snarled at him, hunched protectively over her unit. “You just want to show off.”

  “Would I be that small?”

  “To cut me down on this, you’d shrink to microscopic.”

  “Just to show how big I really am, I’m going to overlook that insult. Why don’t you take a look at the purchase list I’ve printed out for you, and I’ll see if I can unravel some of your red tape.”

  YOUR REQUEST, THE COMPUTER ANNOUNCED IN DULCET TONES, FOR PERSONAL AND MEDICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JUSTICE THOMAS WERNER CANNOT BE PROCESSED AT THIS TIME. PLEASE SUBMIT REQUEST THROUGH THIS AGENCY BETWEEN THE HOURS OF EIGHT A.M., AND THREE P.M. EST, MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY. REQUESTS OF THIS NATURE MUST BE SUBMITTED IN TRIPLICATE AND ACCOMPANIED BY THE ATTACHED FORM, WITH ALL QUESTIONS ANSWERED THEREON. AN INCOMPLETE OR MISSING FORM WILL DELAY PROCESSING. NO REQUESTS WILL BE CONSIDERED OTHER THAN THOSE MADE BY PROPERLY AUTHORIZED PERSONS. IDENTIFICATION MUST BE INCLUDED AND VERIFIED. NORMAL PROCESSING TIME FOR RECORD REQUESTS IS THREE WORKING DAYS.

  WARNING!!! ANY ATTEMPTS MADE TO ACCESS RECORDS WITHOUT PROPER REQUEST, PROPER IDENTIFICATION AND VERIFICATION OF SAME IS A FEDERAL VIOLATION AND WILL RESULT IN ARREST, A FINE NO LESS THAN FIVE THOUSAND U.S. DOLLARS, AND POSSIBLE IMPRISONMENT.

  “Not very friendly, is it?” Roarke murmured.

  She said nothing, merely pushed to her feet, stalked around the desk, and picked up the hard copy he’d brought with him. Deliberately, she took it with her to the kitchen on the pretext of getting coffee when he took her place.

  Damned if she’d watch how easily he cut through the tape.

  She stood, scanning the lists as she reached in the AutoChef for her mug of coffee. He’d already done the work there, she noted, highlighting the range of cash purchases made on a single date in February.

  It fits Yost’s style, she thought. Another little shopping spree. New briefcase, new shoes—six pairs—new wallet, four leather belts, several pairs of socks—silk or cashmere. He’d ordered two shirts, tailored to his measurements, from the fancy shop Roarke had identified from the Talbot disc.

  In only two stores, two stops, he’d dropped over thirty thousand Euro dollars.

  Roarke had added the data from the jeweler in London. The New York clerk’s cooperative
cousin had confirmed that Yost had purchased, for cash, two two-foot lengths of silver wire.

  No backup tool, she thought. That was his arrogance again. He was confident in his skill.

  And according to the best estimate on time of death of the smugglers in Cornwall, he’d done his shopping two days, three at most, before he’d headed north and killed two people.

  He’d had to get north, she thought. Did he keep a car in London? A house? Did he stay at some swank hotel, then rent transpo, take the train, fly?

  Since it was a good bet he hadn’t walked, she might be able to track his movements.

  “Question,” Eve said as she stepped back into her office. “Do you have a house in London?”

  “Yes, though I rarely use it. I generally prefer my suite at The New Savoy. The service is impeccable.”

  “Got a car there?”

  “Two. Garaged.”

  “How long a drive to Cornwall?”

  “I’ve never done it, so I’d have to check.” He spared her a glance now, turning in the chair and looking, she thought, entirely too comfortable at her work station. “If I were going that far north, I’d likely save time and take the jet-copter from one of my offices. Unless I was in the mood to see the countryside.”

  “If you wanted to keep a low profile?”

  “I’d probably rent a discreet, well-built vehicle.”

  “That’s what I think, because if you took the train or an air shuttle, you’d have to arrange for transpo on the other end. That adds an unnecessary step. He doesn’t like unnecessary steps. The New Savoy’s the top digs in London?”

  “I like to think so.”

  “Yours?”

  “Mmmm. Do you want to see this data?”

  “Are we going to be arrested, fined, and imprisoned?”

  “We can insist on adjoining cells.”

  “Gee, that’s real funny.” She walked to the desk, leaned over his shoulder, and scanned the data. “This just confirms the heart attack. If the Feebie’s info was right, there’s got to be something under it.”

  “Accessing private hospital records.” He clucked his tongue. And since it was there, he turned his head a fraction to nip her jaw. “I’m quite sure there’s a law against it.”

  “If it’s good enough for the feds, it’s good enough for me. Dig them out.”

  “I love when you say that.” He simply executed one keystroke, and had the files he’d already accessed popping on-screen.

  “You did that before I told you to.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I merely followed the orders of the primary investigator, in my capacity as expert consultant, civilian. But if you feel you must discipline me—”

  She leaned over just a little more, and bit his ear.

  “Oh, thank you, Lieutenant.”

  She stifled the laugh, but stayed where she was. “Broken nose, fractured jaw, separated eye socket, four broken ribs, two broken fingers. Subdural this and hemorrhaging that. A lot of damage for a bad heart.”

  “Sodomized as well.”

  “But alive through it. Cause of death’s the strangulation. The feds fed me straight on this. While we’re in here, let’s see if they brought the girl in for exam and treatment. Look on this date, same time frame, for a female, under eighteen. Probably examined for sexual molestation, for shock. Maybe minor bruises and lacerations, possible illegals consumption.”

  He set the scan, then picked up her coffee. “What does finding her matter? You know who killed Werner.”

  “It ties an end. And there’s a possibility she helped set him up for the hit.”

  “There she is,” Roarke murmured when the data popped. “Mollie Newman, female, age sixteen. You hit it down the line, even to the traces of Exotica and Zoner in her system.”

  “She’s the only one we know of who’s seen Yost on the job, and lived.”

  Zoner, she thought. That wouldn’t have come from Werner. Why screw around with a kid who’s zoned? That would have been Yost’s addition to the mix.

  “I want to find Mollie. She should have parents or guardians listed here. . . Freda Newman, mother. We’ll run her, see what we get.”

  “Lieutenant? Your federal friends already have this data, and in all likelihood know where she is. They tossed you this to bog you down.”

  “I know it. But I still want to run it down. And I want to find where he bought the wire in East Washington. Habitually, he buys it near the hit. Let’s see where—” She broke off, turned to the signaling ’link. “Yeah, Dallas.”

  “Lieutenant, I think we’ve got something from the porn sites.”

  “Peabody, what the hell are you wearing?”

  Her aide flushed, looked down at herself and the wildly flowered ankle-skimmer she’d installed in McNab’s closet for convenience. “Um, it’s a robe type thing.”

  “And quite fetching,” Roarke put in.

  Peabody’s flush turned into a glow as she fiddled with the bright pink lapels. “Oh, well, thanks. It’s just for comfort, really. I—”

  “Save it,” Eve ordered. “What have you got?”

  “I’ve run through the sites, pulling screen names and hits until my eyes fell out. You wouldn’t believe some of the handles these jerks use. Anyhow, going by profile, I figured this guy would use something classier. I started picking up hits on Sterling. Just Sterling. You know, like—”

  “Silver. I get it. Did you trace source location?”

  “Well, we—”

  She was bumped rudely aside as McNab came on-screen. He wasn’t wearing a robe. Or, Eve noticed with a scowl, a shirt either.

  “That’s when the excitement started. Now, some of these pervs use some cloaking, especially the ones with families or high-powered jobs. Don’t want people to know they’re getting off watching sex discs. But when I started running Sterling, the beam bounces all over hell and back. Nobody goes to that much trouble, especially on legal sites. I got him zipping transmission from Hong Kong to Prague, from Prague to Chicago, from there to Vegas II, and on.”

  “Give me bottom line here, McNab.”

  “I can’t even come close to true source, especially on my home units. I’m going to take it into EDD. Better toys there. I might be able to smoke him out. I can’t tell you how long, but I’ll head in now and get started.”

  “No, you’ve already put in fifteen, sixteen hours today.” Though it was a good bet some of the activities hadn’t been of a professional nature. “I’ll do it from here.”

  “Ah, no offense, Lieutenant, but you need pretty sharp tech skills to get through the primary layers, and after that, you gotta have magic.”

  Roarke simply shifted again, so that he came on-screen. “McNab” was all he said.

  “Oh. Well, if you’re doing it, frigid. I’ll shoot what I’ve got going over. Like I said, the hits we got with this Sterling are on legal sites. A couple of them are on the edge, but hold up. Nothing’s popped on the real nasty stuff yet, but we’ve got a long way to go.”

  “Good work. Take a break.”

  “We already did.” He couldn’t help but grin. “We’re pretty recharged now.”

  “Thank you for sharing,” Eve said dryly. “Send the data to Roarke’s home office unit.”

  She broke transmission, wandered away to let her mind clear.

  “I’ll leave the tracking to you. You can pass it, at whatever stage you might be in, to Feeney and McNab in the morning. I know you’ve got other stuff going on.”

  “I’ll deal with it.”

  “I should have told you, I have a press conference tomorrow. You might want to squeeze in one of your own.”

  “Already scheduled. Don’t worry about me, Eve.”

  “Who said I was?” She heard the beep from his office. “That’s your data coming in.”

  She tracked the wire. Now that she knew where and how to look it was remarkably simple. One length, cash purchase, the day before Werner had his “heart attack.” The store, Silv
erworks, carried a Georgetown address. Its ad page boasted of seventy-five years in business, serving the discerning.

  She imagined she would find that Yost had dropped in on several other shops that day, treating himself to a few gifts.

  She did a travel search, requesting the top five hotels in the East Washington area, then switched to transpo, picking out companies who offered rentals on high-end vehicles.

  She ordered her computer to cross-reference, and list any names that appeared on both scans.

  While it processed, she got more coffee and decided to give her overworked eyes a rest. She didn’t know how the drones in EDD managed it. She kicked back in her sleep chair, closed her eyes, and went through her mental list of priorities for the morning.

  Contact the silver shops, the hotels, and vehicle rentals in East Washington and London. Request proper authority to locate Freda and Mollie Newman. Won’t get it, but ask anyway. Prep for stupid damn press conference. Check Mira’s progress on profile and Feeney’s on the wire.

  Real estate holdings. Private estates. She’d ask Roarke about that.

  The lab. Pound Dickhead. The morgue. Check if remains of Jonah Talbot are ready to be released to next of kin.

  Better see how Roarke’s doing now. Check on that in just a minute, she thought. And it was her last thought before she dropped into sleep.

  Into the dark.

  Shivering in the dark, but not from the cold. Fear was like a skin of ice over her small and fragile bones, rattling them together so she could almost hear the helpless, hollow sound of them.

  No place to hide. There was never anywhere to hide. Not from him. He was coming. She could hear the heavy, deliberate footsteps growing louder outside her door. She glanced toward the window and wondered what it would be like if she just leaped from the bed, threw herself through the glass, and let herself fall. Fall free.

  Freedom in death.

  But she was too afraid, even with what would walk into her room, she was more afraid of the leap.

  She was only eight.

  The door opened, nightmare within nightmare, dark against dark with only the faintest of light washing behind the shadow of him, giving her his shape without a face.