by J. D. Robb
“Likes sticking with her own initials.” He rose to take McNab’s place at Eve’s desk. “Those are the little foibles that screw bad guys to the wall.”
“I’m going to be the foible that screws her.” Eve went to her ’link and requested the search-and-seize warrant, and the manpower to enforce it.
In under an hour, she was moving down the corridor toward the offices of Daily Enterprises. The stairways were blocked, the elevators shut down. All exits were covered.
And she knew in her gut they wouldn’t find Julianna Dunne.
Still, she would see it through, and motioned her team into place with hand signals. She drew her weapon, then flipped out her master and prepared to bypass the locks.
Pulled back.
“Wait. She’d have thought of this. She’d have counted on this.” She stared hard at the cheap door, the cheap locks, then crouched down for a closer study. “I need some microgoggles here. A boom scan.”
“You figure she booby-trapped the door?” Feeney pursed his lips, crouched down with her. “She never worked with explosives before.”
“You learn a lot of handy household hints in prison.”
Feeney nodded. “Yeah, that you do.”
“You see anything hinky?”
“Old locks. Feeble shit. Standard alarm from the looks of the panel. Want to call in the bomb sniffers?”
“Maybe. I’m trying to out-think her, but I don’t want pieces of my team scattered all over this hallway.” She glanced up. Roarke was moving in behind her.
“Why don’t you let me have a look?” He already was, hunkering down and dancing those nimble fingers over the panel, the frame of the door. He drew his PPC out of his pocket, programmed in a task code, then interfaced it to the panel by a hair-thin cable.
“It’s hot,” he confirmed.
“Back. Pull back.” Eve gestured to her team as she yanked out her communicator. “Clear civilians off this floor, and the ones directly above and below.”
“That won’t be necessary, Lieutenant, if you’ll just give me a minute here.” Roarke already had the panel open by the time she turned back.
“Get the hell away from there.” She took two strides back to him, then stopped herself. She’d seen him defuse devices a great deal more destructive than a door blaster.
“There.” He spoke calmly to Feeney as he worked with tiny silver tools. “You see it?”
“Yep, I do now. Not my field, but I’ve seen a few homemades in my time.”
“Amateurish, but effective. She’d have done better to take more time, add in a couple of secondaries, or at least one failsafe. It’s set to trip when the door’s open. Very elementary. She’d have a bypass, of course, so she wouldn’t ruin her manicure by blowing her fingers off.”
His hands were rock steady. He paused only once, to shake his hair back away from his face. When he did, Eve saw the cold gleam of concentration on it.
“Not particularly powerful this. Wouldn’t have killed anyone who’d been five or six feet back. That’ll do it.” He replaced his tools, stood again.
Eve didn’t ask if he was sure. He was always sure. She gave the all-clear signal to her team, then indulged herself by leaving her master in her pocket. And kicking in the door.
She swept the door with her weapon, then gestured for Feeney to take the adjoining washroom.
There were a couple of ratty chairs, a dented desk. And a scent in the air that was both female and expensive. She’d left the communications center and a small, exotic arrangement of fresh flowers.
Eve stepped to the window, looked out, across, and into her own office. “She’d have needed equipment. You can’t see enough from here with the naked eye. Good equipment she wasn’t willing to leave behind. Start knocking on doors,” she ordered without turning around. “Talk to the other tenants, see who knows what. Find the building manager, get him up here. All building security discs. Feeney run the ’link and data center.”
“Sir.” Peabody cleared her throat. “This was in the flowers.”
She handed Eve a small envelope marked EVE DALLAS. Inside was a handwritten card and a data disc. The card read:
With best wishes for your speedy recovery,
—Julianna
“Bitch,” Eve grumbled, turning the disc over in her hand. “Feeney, disperse the men. We won’t be finding her here today. Peabody, call in the sweepers.”
She turned the disc over again, then plugged it into the desk unit. “Run data,” she ordered.
Julianna’s face swam on-screen—a blue-eyed blonde now, and the closest to her own coloring and style than any of her looks since she’d started her latest murder spree.
“Good morning, Lieutenant.” She spoke in the lazy, somewhat breathy Texas drawl Eve remembered. “I’m assuming that salutation is correct. I doubt you’d have managed to get this far last night—but I have such confidence in your abilities that I’m certain you’ll be playing this before afternoon. Feeling better, I hope. And as you’re playing this, you detected and defused my little welcome gift. It was really just an afterthought.”
She angled her head and continued to smile. But it was the eyes Eve studied. Eyes that were like ice over a deep, empty pit.
“I have to tell you how nice it’s been to see you again. I thought about you a great deal during my . . . rehabilitation. I was so proud when I learned about your promotion to lieutenant. And Feeney’s to captain, of course. But I never felt quite the same connection for him as I did for you. There was something there, wasn’t there?”
She eased forward, face intent now. “Something deep and strange between us. A true bond. A recognition. If you believe in reincarnation, perhaps we were sisters in some other life. Or lovers. Do you ever wonder about such things? Probably not,” she said with a little wave of the hand. “You’re such a practical-minded woman. It’s appealing, in its way. Does your new husband find that part of you appealing? Oh, belated best wishes, by the way. It’s been nearly a year, hasn’t it, since the joyful event. Well . . . time passes.
“It passes slowly in a cage.” The drawl hardened like prairie dust under a baking sky. “I owe you for those years, Eve. You’d understand about payback. You never really understood what I did, why I did it, never respected that. But you understand about payback.”
“Yeah,” Eve said aloud, unconsciously brushing her fingers over her bruised cheek. “Damn right I do.”
“I’ve watched you, sitting in your office hard at work, standing at the window looking out as if the weight and worry of the entire city is on your shoulders. Pacing that horrible little space of yours. You’d think a lieutenant would be afforded a better work area. You drink far too much coffee, by the way.
“I had equipment set up in here. You know that now. I thought it best not to leave that behind. My own practical streak. I have several hours of you on disc. You dress better these days. Careless still, but with a style you once lacked. Roarke’s influence, I’m sure. It’s good to be rich, isn’t it? So much better than . . . not being. Has it corrupted you, I wonder, in some secret part of yourself? Come on, Eve honey.” She laughed lightly. “You can tell me. After all, who’d understand better?”
Talking too much, Eve thought. Been lonely, hasn’t it, Julianna, with nobody to talk to who you feel is on the same level?
“I’m sure he’s excellent in bed, if you find such things important.” She settled back, made a movement that had Eve imagining her crossing her legs.
Getting cozy. A little girl-talk.
“I’ve always felt fucking’s overrated and so demeaning to both parties. What is it, really, but a woman allowing herself to be plundered, penetrated. Invaded. And a man plunging away as if his life depended on it. And as we know, with the men I fuck, their lives do depend on it. For a short time, anyway. Killing is so much more exciting than sex. You’ve killed, so you know. Deep down, you know. I wish we had the time and opportunity to talk, really talk, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
You want to stop me, to put me back in a cage. Remember what you said to me? Remember what you said? You’d have left me there if it had been up to you. Left me to spend the rest of my life caged like an animal. Then you turned your back on me like I was nothing. You didn’t get your way, did you? But I got mine. I always get mine. You’d better remember that. You’d better respect that.”
Her voice had risen, her breath had quickened. Now she drew in a long stream of air, fluffed a hand over her hair as if composing herself. “I thought of you when I killed Pettibone and Mouton. I’ve been thinking of you for a very, very long time. How does that make you feel, to know they died because of you? Does that upset you, Eve? Does that make you angry?”
Julianna tipped her head back and laughed. “Payback’s a bitch, and I haven’t even started. I want what I’ve always wanted. To do what pleases me and to live very, very well. You took eight years, seven months, and eight days from me, Eve. I’m going to balance the scales. I can and I will, tossing the bodies of silly old men at your feet. So you know how simple it is for me, here’s a tip. The Mile High Hotel, Denver. Suite 4020. The man’s name is Spencer Campbell. I’ll see you again soon. Very soon.”
“Yeah, you will,” Eve retorted as the screen went blank. “Peabody, get me that hotel on the ’link. I want head of security.”
The suite had been reserved in the name of Juliet Darcy, who had checked in the night before, securing the room for two nights with cash.
“The victim is Spencer Campbell, of Campbell Investment Consultants. The top man.” In the conference room at Central, Eve brought his image on-screen. “Age sixty-one, divorced, currently separated from wife two. He had an appointment scheduled for a personal consult with Juliet Darcy in her hotel suite. Breakfast meeting, eight hundred Denver time. About the same time I was kicking in the door here in New York. She’s very fucking cocky these days. Campbell had been dead less than thirty minutes when security broke in. Julianna didn’t bother to check out, just grabbed her overnight bag, set the DO NOT DISTURB light on the door, and waltzed out. Autopsy and lab reports will confirm that Campbell’s coffee was poisoned.”
“She goes all the way to Denver to off this guy.” Feeney dragged a hand through his wiry hair. “What’s the point?”
“To prove she can. He was nothing to her. Just an easily sacrificed pawn to show me she can keep racking them up, when and where she wants, while I scramble around trying to find her. She breaks pattern again, because she wants to show me she’s unpredictable.”
And, Eve thought, she doesn’t want me to sniff out that she’s looking at Roarke. For victims she’d stick with what she’d called silly old men. Killing them as decoys to disguise her ultimate goal.
They died because of you.
Eve blocked out the voice, and the guilt. Most of the guilt.
“She had potential targets selected before she went down, and may have continued to select and research from inside.”
“Did some electronic surveillance and research on Pettibone and Mouton from the prison office units,” Feeney confirmed. “We dug out bits and pieces of it. Nothing on this guy or any others at this point. Nothing on personal business—financials, real estate, travel inquiries.”
“She used her personal for that.” Supervisor Miller, she thought in disgust, would have a lot to answer for before she was done with him. “Most likely diddled on the office machines early on, but made sure she had a personal for data she couldn’t risk having traced.”
She took a pass around the room. “She’s got grease, and plenty of it. My personal grease expert states that it’s most likely she stashes it in various numbered accounts in various locations. We’ve got no line to tug to the money. Loopy claims Julianna told her she had her own place here in New York. She’s stuck to that during Interview with the Chicago cops, but can’t or won’t expand. My guess is she doesn’t know the location. Julianna might have passed the time chatting with her, but wouldn’t give her anything traceable.”
“We’re running private residences through EDD.” Feeney dug out a handful of nuts. “But with no time frame of purchase or lease, no area, no name or names to feed in, we’re mostly jerking off there.”
“She’ll spend money on herself.” Eve thought how polished and fit Julianna had looked in person, in the vid. “But she’d be smart enough to use cash. We run high-end stores, salons, restaurants. But as this is goddamn New York, needless shopping nirvana, we’re jammed there, too.”
She tried to clear her head. “We keep at that. Put some drones on the ’links to shops. Maybe we can hook that red skin suit she had on. We’ve got her height and weight from Dockport, translate that to size, push purchases of the suit in that size.”
“She may have purchased that in Chicago, or anywhere,” Peabody pointed out. “And red skin suits are legion.”
“Yeah, so it’s a long shot. We keep blasting away, every detail, we’re going to hit something eventually. Meanwhile, we’ll check all the public and private transpos in and out of Denver. We’ll find what she used, and by the time we do, she’s in the wind again. But we have data.”
“She’s taking more chances,” Peabody said. “Telling you about Campbell when she couldn’t be sure of the timing. If she’d left it alone, it would’ve been hours before he was found.”
“Risk makes winning the war more satisfying. This is a grudge match, and it’s no good unless the enemy bleeds. And she wants to shake me. She doesn’t want to kill me, but she wants me to think that I’m a target. She wants me to live, with loss. She wants Roarke. And that’s our advantage. She doesn’t know I’m on that.”
In midtown, Roarke ended one meeting and prepared for another. The morning’s activities had put him a bit behind schedule. He’d have to put in extra time that evening, but would find a way to do it from home. He intended to stay as close to Eve as their respective work schedules allowed.
“Caro.” He tagged his admin on his interoffice ’link. “Shift the Realto meeting to holographic, out of my home office. Seven-thirty, and we’ll move the lunch with Finn and Bowler to the executive dining room here. See that Lieutenant Dallas is copied on these changes.”
“Yes, sir. There’s a Dr. Mira here to see you. You have ten minutes before your next meeting if you’d like me to bring her back. Or I’ll schedule an appointment.”
“No.” He frowned, shuffled time in his head. “I’ll see her now. If the Brinkstone reps arrive before I’m done, have them wait.”
He clicked off, then rose to pace his office. Mira wasn’t the type to drop in unannounced, nor to pay social calls in the middle of a work day. Which meant she had business she felt was important enough to add a burden to both their schedules.
Absently, he crossed to the AutoChef and programmed in the tea she preferred.
When Caro knocked, he opened the door himself, extended a hand to Mira. “It’s nice to see you.”
“I’m sure it’s not.” She squeezed his hand. “But thank you for making the time. I’m overwhelmed just from the walk from reception. Your glass breezeway is amazing.”
“Gives competitors a chance to think about a long plunge before they reach here. Thank you, Caro.” He drew Mira in as his admin closed the door quietly behind them.
“And this . . .” Mira glanced around the office with its lush furnishings, stunning art, sleek equipment. “It certainly suits you. It manages to be both sumptuous and efficient all at once. I know you’re busy.”
“Not too busy for you. It’s tea, isn’t it? Jasmine, most usually?”
“Yes.” It didn’t surprise her that he’d remember such a minor detail. He had a mind like a computer. She took the seat he offered on a deeply cushioned sofa, waited for him to sit beside her. “I don’t want to waste your time with small talk.”
“I appreciate it. Did Eve send you?”
“No, but she knows I intended to talk with you. I haven’t seen her yet today, though I intend to do that as well. I know she was injured last eve
ning.”
“She’s resilient. Not quite as much as she likes to think, but she springs back somehow or other. Bruised damn near top to toe. All but cracked her head open like an egg. Would have, if it wasn’t made of rock.”
“Which is one of the reasons you love her.”
“True enough.”
“And still you worry. Being married to a cop is an enormous commitment of restraint. She understands that, which is one of the reasons she tried to resist, or deny what she felt for you. One of them.” Mira reached out to cover his hand. “And another reason was her father. She told me you’ve been to Dallas.”
“Good. It’s good she can talk with you about it.”
“And you can’t.” She could feel the tension gather in him like a bruise. “Roarke, you’ve spoken frankly with me before. There aren’t many who know the circumstances of this. There aren’t many you can speak with.”
“What do you want me to say? It isn’t my nightmare, but hers.”
“Of course it’s yours. You love her.”
“Yes, I love her, and I’ll stand with her. I’ll do whatever can be done—which is bloody little. I know talking to you from time to time can settle her mind. I’m grateful for that.”
“She’s concerned for you.”
“She’s no need to be.” He could feel the anger rising into his throat, bit back on it. Felt it bleed. “Nor have you. But it was kind of you to take the time to come by.”
She saw the cool dismissal on his face, a thin veil of it over the heat. She set her tea aside, smoothed the skirt of her pale blue suit. “All right. I’m sorry to have interrupted your day. I won’t keep you any longer.”
“Bloody hell!” He lunged to his feet. “What’s the point in spilling my guts out here? What good will it do her?”
Mira sat where she was, picked up her tea again. “It might do you some.”
“How?” He spun back around, frustrated fury alive on his face. “It changes nothing. Do you want to hear how I stood there and watched her suffer, watched her remember it, and feel it as if it were happening still? She was helpless and terrified and lost, and watching her, so am I. I go after what comes for me, and I make a habit of going after it first. And this . . .”