by J. D. Robb
“Yes. I have everything he knows about your investigation, about what was done and what’s planned. It won’t be much help to you regarding Yost. Mick didn’t know Yost had been brought in.”
“There’s a lot of I-didn’t-know going around. You had no right to let him go. No right to interfere in police business. And no goddamn sense to toss him back out on the street.”
“Eve—”
“Goddamn it, Roarke, goddamn it. Two people are dead. Summerset might have been. I’ve just finished sweating Vincent Lane for two hours to get details, to get closer, and to scare him into keeping his mouth shut so the rest of the players aren’t alerted. I had to get the PA to deal him down to a single charge and offer witness protection to get him to agree to fake a medical emergency. The asshole’s in a posh room at the hospital, zoned out on drugs so he can’t talk to anyone.”
“That was clever of you. He certainly wouldn’t have managed to maintain his role unless he was drugged. And since Liza is part of this, it’s best he’s out of her bed.”
She lifted her hands, felt them clench, then whirled away before she could do something violent. “Yeah, real clever. And now you set Connelly loose. He’ll spring to Naples, and they’ll abort the job. Your reputation will be safe and sound. And I’ve lost another link to Yost.”
“He won’t go to Naples.”
“Bullshit. He’ll—”
“He won’t,” Roarke repeated. “If I believed that, or if I had any doubt he was out of the loop on Yost, I’d have done worse than turn him over to you. But I have none. I couldn’t give him to you, Eve. I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Oh, that’s real considerate of you. Let’s hope you understand the next time we find a silver wire on a body that your skewed sense of loyalty cost someone their life.”
He didn’t speak, but his eyes, hot and blue, held hers for a long moment. In them she saw her lance had found its mark.
Oh yeah, she thought miserably, I got some great aim.
He turned back to the console. “I have all the data on the plans. I’ve made copies for you. Forewarned, my security will be able to handle it, but I assume you’ll want to be there with your team. You’ll have Naples and the rest within thirty-six hours.”
And if someone died before then? he thought. If I’ve cost a friend’s life to save a friend?
“If you have any questions,” he began, then simply stopped. “I can’t be other than what I am,” he said quietly. “Whatever I’ve done to distance myself, I can’t be other than what I am. Computer, copy all data on disc.”
She waited while the computer completed the task, then took the discs from Roarke when he offered them.
“I hope to God he was worth it,” she said, and left him alone.
She called her team first, requested they convene at her home office, then headed to Mick’s room to toss it in hopes she’d find some clue where he’d gone.
She was ripping through the bureau when Summerset came in and froze in absolute horror.
“Lieutenant! That is a Chippendale, a valuable antique that must be treated with respect.”
“A lot of things need to be treated with respect, and don’t get it.”
She dumped the empty drawer aside, and turned to drag the bedspread and sheets off the bed.
“Stop it! Stop it at once.” He snagged the duvet, tugged. “This is antique Irish lace over silk.”
“Look, ace, I’m in the mood to bash someone’s face in, and yours is looking pretty good to me.” She yanked, he yanked, and they snarled at each other over the tug-of-war.
She let go abruptly and had the satisfaction of watching him stumble back three steps before coming up hard against the wall.
“When did he leave? Connelly? What did he take with him? What was his transpo?”
Summerset merely sucked air through his nose.
“Look, you know what he did, what he planned to do. Roarke would have filled you in by now.” You, she thought with some bitterness, but not me. “You want him to get away with it?”
“It’s not my decision.”
“Hell with that. They sent Yost after you.”
“Mick would not have had a part in that arrangement.”
She threw up her hands, kicked the bed hard enough to make Summerset leap forward to check for damage. “What is wrong with you people? Connelly is involved up to his teeth. You had no business, Roarke had no damn right, to let him walk out of this house.”
“What choice did he have?” Satisfied the antique footboard had sustained no damage, he turned to study her. “Do you understand him so little, after all?”
“Does he understand me so little,” she shot back. “After all.”
Summerset laid the now-wrinkled duvet on the bed. He owed her something, he thought, for the morning. “You feel he betrayed you by standing for his friend.”
“A friend doesn’t plot to steal from a friend.”
Summerset smiled. “Mick wouldn’t have thought of it that way. Neither, at the bottom of it, would Roarke. You do. You’re angry, and you have a right to your anger. But it will burn off. Roarke suffers, and that will fester. Is that what you want for him?”
He stepped out of the room.
Tired, frustrated, Eve sat on the bed. The cat padded in, leaped up. He turned three tight circles, kneaded the silk and lace duvet with some enthusiasm, then curled up and stared directly into her face.
“Don’t you start on me. You slept with the guy, for God’s sake. What does that make you?”
She put out an all-points on Michael Connelly, though she expected he would be well into the wind. Her only hope was that word didn’t spread from Mick to Naples to Yost before she closed in.
But even if the heist was aborted, she believed Yost would stick. He’d contracted for Summerset, and he wasn’t the type to leave a job unfinished. It would give her time.
And if she was lucky, very lucky, she could use Yost to hook Naples. Her case would not be closed in her mind until she had them both.
“We proceed on the assumption that the hotel will be the target,” she told her team. “Everything is set for it. Even if Connelly has bolted, Naples can still implement. He has all the data, and has gone to considerable expense. He’ll want to make good on his investment.”
“If Connelly goes to him,” Feeney put in, “they may still try for it, but they’ll shift strategy. They may hit sooner, or wait, come at it from another angle.”
“Agreed. We put our counter-plan into place expecting adjustments, and expecting them to hit at any time.”
“We’ll need Roarke and his top security team,” McNab commented.
“I’m aware of that. Feeney, would you discuss that level with Roarke?” She gestured to the adjoining door.
He got up, knocked, and passed through.
“Study the Connelly data until you know it backwards,” Eve ordered, then went into the kitchen for coffee, and a moment alone.
Peabody slid her eyes toward McNab, away, then back again. She was getting damn sick of the silent treatment. She hadn’t done anything. He was the one who had jumped right on some redhead. Oh yeah, she’d gotten the word on that minor orgy through the grapevine. Little prick.
“Have a good time on your date?”
“Oh yeah. It rocked.”
“You bite.”
“Is that an invitation?
She sniffed. “I don’t go around with jerks who bounce on bimbos.”
“I don’t go around with jerkettes who bounce on LCs,” he tossed back.
“At least an LC knows how to treat a woman.”
“Sure, if you pay him enough.” He crossed his legs, examined the toes of his new Airstream boots. “What’s the matter, Peabody, Charles’s calendar too full? You sound like a woman who isn’t getting any.”
“Screw you.”
“Any time, Peabody. You can even have it for free.”
She leaped up. So did he. “I wouldn’t let you touch me agai
n if you paid me.”
“Fine. I don’t have time on some stiff-assed, cornbread uniform.”
“Break it up,” Eve ordered. “Now!” If she wasn’t mistaken, her aide was on the verge of tears. And McNab didn’t look far behind. They were both giving her a bitch of a headache. “Private business on your own time, damn it. The two of you will work together through this, around this, or under this, I don’t give a damn how you manage it. But when you’re on my watch, you stand up and do the job. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.” It came from both of them, at a mumble, and would have to satisfy.
“Peabody, check on Lane at the hospital, and see that the tag on Liza is still in place. I want an update on both. McNab, run a full analysis of Connelly’s data. I want all possible adjustment scenarios on my desk within two hours.”
“Sir, Roarke—”
“Did I give you an order, Detective, or ask for a discussion?”
“An order, Lieutenant.”
“Then follow it.” She marched to Roarke’s door, pushed it open. Both he and Feeney were behind the console. Both looked up.
“Feeney, I’ve started McNab on an analysis. Will you see he gets started?”
“No problem.”
She waited until the door shut after him. “I’m tired,” she said, “I have a headache, and I’m pissed off at you.”
“Well, that should about cover it.”
“No, it doesn’t. I don’t have the time or the energy to waste having a sniping match with you like the one I just had the misfortune to overhear between Peabody and McNab. You were wrong to let Connelly go. But that’s from where I stand. From where you stand, you did what you had to. We can’t come together on that, but we need each other to finish this job. When it’s finished, we’ll have to deal with the fact that we’re standing on opposite sides of a line. Until then, it’s tabled.”
She turned for the door, gave it a shove, and found it locked. “Unlock this door. Don’t mess with me now.”
“I’d prefer you shouted and got this done, but since it’s not the anger so much that’s driving you, you won’t. I’ll need a few moments of your time.”
“I’ve done all the personal business I’m going to do right now.”
“I hurt you. You see it as me choosing him over you. It wasn’t.”
“You’re wrong.” She turned around now, faced him across the room. “He hurt you, and you won’t let me stand for you. You took it out of my hands and gave me no way to make it right.”
“You’d have put him in a cage. Darling Eve, that wouldn’t have made it right for me. You know some of what I was, and where I came from. But not all.”
No, not all. He wasn’t sure he himself knew or understood the all. But he could give her another part of it. “Your past comes to you in nightmares that try to eat you up from the inside. Mine, it lives in me. In corners of me. Do you know how many years it was before I ever went back to Ireland after I’d left? I don’t. And it was some time after that before I ever stepped on a Dublin street. It wasn’t until you went back with me to bury my friend that I went again to that part of Dublin that birthed me.”
He looked down at his hands. “I used these, and my brain, and whatever else I could find to claw and steal and cheat my way out of that. And I left behind those who’d come through it all with me just as much as I left behind the dead bastard who’d made my life a misery. He damaged me, Eve, and might have made me what he was.”
“No.” She came forward then.
“Oh yes. He could have. Without the friends I made, and those pockets of escape I had with them, he would have. I was able to go my own way because there were those I could count on in the worst of times. When I took you with me to Dublin last year so I could wake and bury Jenny, I realized I’d never paid that back. I couldn’t have turned him over, Eve, not even to you, and lived with it.”
She hissed out a breath, swore. “I know it. I’m not calling off the all-points on him.”
“I wouldn’t expect it. Neither would he. I was to give you his apologies for the trouble he’s caused, and his not saying his good-byes in person.”
“Oh, please,” she replied.
“He left something for you.” He pulled a small vial out of his pocket, handed it to her.
“Dirt?”
“Soil, he claimed, dug from the Hill of Tara. That place of Irish kings long dead. Knowing Mick, it likely came out of our own gardens, but it’s the thought, after all. It’s for luck, he said, as you were the most regal of cops he’d ever had the pleasure of meeting.”
“Regal, my ass.”
“Well, as I said, it’s the thought.”
She jammed the vial in her pocket. “This regal cop hopes to have the pleasure of meeting him again, very soon. But meanwhile, we need our expert consultant, civilian, on this data analysis. I need to focus on Yost, and leave you compudroids to the tech work.”
“Absolutely, Lieutenant.” He came around the console, took her hand. “One other thing I think you’ll be in the mood for.”
“I don’t have time for sex.”
“There’s always time for sex, but that wasn’t what I meant. Just now. Yost, as Roles, holds the deed to beach-front property, and the house just completed on it in the Tropics Sector of Olympus.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“If you don’t get him here, you’ll get him there. He’s contracted one of our own site decorators to outfit the place, and has a consult set four days from now. He’s reserved a suite at the main casino hotel in three days’ time. I’ve a line on private craft booked into the transpo station there. There’s only one scheduled in from New York. I’ve transferred all the information to your home unit.”
“I’m on it.”
They separated into two teams, with McNab working with Roarke in his office on the security analysis. Eve kept Peabody with her as she outlined the best strategy for moving in on Yost. Feeney moved between the teams.
“The timing makes it clear Yost is waiting to go off planet until after the heist. Feeney, ask Roarke if Yost would be entitled to a share of the take over and above the assassin’s fee, since one hooked to the other.”
If he found anything odd about her consulting Roarke on that sort of criminal ethics, he didn’t mention it.
“Says Yost could be entitled to a bonus based on the take, but that would be transferred to him after the merchandise was transported and fenced.”
“Okay, so why’s he hanging? Probably wants to be certain it goes off smooth, and he’s not required for any more work. And there’s still Summerset on his slate. He’ll be tuned to the media for news of the theft. I need to bring in Nadine.”
They worked straight through until her team threatened to revolt without proper nourishment. Eve ate half a sandwich while working at her computer. She refused to budge until she’d read everything through one last time.
“Lieutenant, your eyes are going to bleed. Computer, save and hold data.” Then Roarke swung her chair around before she could countermand his order. “It’s after eight. You’re exhausted, and the mind will only hold so much at a go. Send your team home and take a break.”
“They can go. There are just a few more things I want to look over. Is Nadine still here?”
“No, she had to be on-air. You covered it with her, and she’ll plant your story. You’ve covered everything twice over and more.”
“Maybe. Where is everybody?”
“McNab’s down in the kitchen talking Summerset out of a second dessert before he heads to the hotel. Peabody’s taking a swim at my suggestion to clear her head, and Feeney’s in my office working because his head’s very nearly as hard as your own. There’s nothing more you can do tonight.”
“If there’s not it’s because I’ve overlooked it. I want to get some men up to Olympus, into the transpo station in case Yost gets by us here. I’ll let Agent Stowe decide which end she wants to take when I fill her in.”
“Which won’t be unt
il tomorrow, as you don’t want her filled in too soon. Feeney,” he called out and began to knead his wife’s knotted shoulders. “Go home.”
“In a minute. Dallas, we ought to alert Space Traffic Control in case Yost detours on his way to Olympus.”
“We alert STC, it’s one more tongue to wag,” she called back. “You got any secure contacts with them?”
“I’ll work on it. I used to have this . . .” He trailed off as he stepped in and saw Roarke bent over Eve, rubbing her shoulders. “Ah, well, you know, I think I’ll head out now. I can give Peabody a lift.”
“She’s in the pool,” Roarke told him, not so gently holding his wife down when she tried to rise.
“Yeah.” Feeney’s face brightened. “Wouldn’t mind a quick dip myself.”
“Go right ahead. You’re going to eat,” Roarke said to Eve.
“I did.”
“A half-sandwich isn’t sufficient.” He glanced over as he heard voices. “Fine. We have company. You can have some soup while Mavis entertains you.”
“I don’t have time for—” She broke off, sighed. Mavis was already whirling into the room on six-inch platform slides that exploded with colored lights at every bouncing step.
“Hey, Dallas, hey, Roarke. Just ran into Feeney, and he said you were wrapped for the day.”
“Not really, I still have some stuff. Why don’t you play with Roarke while I finish up?” Her pleasure at the inspiration fractured when another woman, this one with twelve-inch coils shooting out of her head in screaming red, strolled in.
“Trina,” Eve managed, and her stomach clutched with dread.
“We came by to give you the scoop and poop up close and personal,” Mavis announced. “Trina got the line on the products and all, like you asked me. Right, Trina?”
“Right, and right down the line.”
“That’s great.” It’s going to be okay, Eve thought. It’s just business. “What have you got?”
“Tell her, Trina. Oh, wine! Roarke, you are total.” She plunked her pretty butt in its crotch-shot skirt on Eve’s desk and beamed at him as he handed around glasses of wine.