by J. D. Robb
By the time she got bad coffee, the receptionist told her Miss Price had five minutes free before her next session.
It was a small office, but again the attempt had been made to brighten it. Art, obviously created by children, was framed to cover two of the walls. Files were neatly stacked on the desk and sat beside a little vase of fresh daisies. Behind them Clarissa looked as neat and competent as her ID photo.
“I’m sorry you had to wait,” she began. “I’m afraid Lauren didn’t get your name.”
“Dallas, Lieutenant Dallas.”
“We haven’t met on the job?”
“No, I’m Homicide.”
“Homicide. I see. What’s this about? One of my kids?”
“No, not directly. You worked with some minors who had associations with a playground dealer, Louis K. Cogburn, and an alleged pedophile, Chadwick Fitzhugh.”
“I worked with minors who were exploited by those individuals.”
“A couple of your case files also intersected with other known or alleged child predators. But at the moment, we’re interested in Cogburn, in Fitzhugh.”
“Who are dead,” Clarissa said flatly. “I heard the report on 75 this morning. Some para-organization is claiming responsibility.”
“Terrorist organization,” Eve corrected. “Who is also responsible for the death of an unrelated civilian and a police officer. You watch much screen? Sorry.” Eve let her lips curve. “Just a personal debate between my aide and myself on the merits of media reports and keeping up with current events.”
“I have 75 on most mornings and usually tune in at least briefly in the evenings.” She smiled back. “Whose side am I on?”
“Hers.” Eve jerked her head toward Peabody. “In any case, I’m primary investigator on these matters and I’m pursuing the possibility of connections between members of the group known as The Purity Seekers and minors who may have been exploited by Cogburn and/or Fitzhugh, as well as other child predators this group may have targeted. As the names of those minors are sealed and many of those who’ve reached majority have requested they remain sealed, I need your help.”
“I can’t break confidence with those kids and their families, Lieutenant, to help you in an investigation.” She lifted pretty, ringless hands. “There’s a reason for those seals. These children have been damaged, and while you have your job, I also have mine. Mine is to protect those children, and to do everything in my power to help them heal.”
“Seals can be broken, Miss Price. It’ll take me time, but I can get an order to open the files for this investigation.”
“I understand that.” Clarissa lifted both hands again. “And when you have that authorization, I’ll help you in any way the law allows. But I work with these victims every day, and it’s difficult enough to gain the trust of kids who’ve already been hurt by an adult, to gain the trust of their families, even to find family members who give a damn. I can’t help you until I’m ordered to.”
“Did you ever have personal contact with Cogburn or Fitzhugh?”
“Professional contact. I gave statements to the P.A. on both men. That is, on the psychological damage done to the minors in my case file who’d had dealings with them. I never spoke with either of them, and I won’t pretend to be sorry they’re no longer around to hunt more children.”
“Mary Ellen George.”
Clarissa’s face closed up. “She was acquitted.”
“Should she have been?”
“A jury of her peers thought so.”
“Have you had personal contact with her?”
“Yes. I had occasion to visit and examine the conditions of her day care facility, and I cooperated and worked with the police who ultimately arrested her. She was very convincing. Very . . . motherly.”
“But she didn’t convince you.”
“This job requires a certain instinct, just as yours does. I knew what she was.” A cold disgust, bordering on rage, hardened Price’s features. “You win battles and you lose them. Losing’s hard, but if you don’t move on to the next in this field, you’ll burn out. And I have to move on to the next now. I have another session, and I’m already late.”
“I appreciate the time.” Eve stepped to the door. “I will get that authorization, Miss Price.”
“When you do, I’m at your disposal.”
Outside, Eve ignored the knotted traffic fighting its way around her vehicle. She didn’t bother to respond to the horns, the curses, the variety of obscene gestures. She just climbed in.
“She’s by the book,” Peabody began as Eve shoved into traffic. “But she’ll be helpful once you get authorization.”
“She’s holding more than sealeds under her hands. She knew who I was and pretended not to.”
“How do you know she knew who you were?”
“She watches 75 routinely. You watch 75 routinely, you’re going to see me. You sure as hell saw me this morning—during the report she admitted watching—when I did the one-on-one. She played it a little too cautious not mentioning that.”
Eve swung west, barely missed nipping the bumper of a Rapid Cab. “Clarissa Price goes to the top of the short list.”
Chapter 9
Jamie was working hard to act cool. Everything he wanted in his life had fallen so unexpectedly into his lap he was terrified he’d do something to blow it away again. As far as Jamie was concerned electronics made the world go around. There was only one thing he wanted more than to work with them. That was to work with them as a cop.
Thanks to Roarke, he was getting that chance. Sort of. And on a homicide investigation that was baffling the premium ult cop.
It didn’t get better.
Well, it would’ve been better if he’d had a badge and rank. But tech assist to the expert consultant was an airboot in the door.
He was going to make it count.
He dug on working with Feeney, that was for sure. Uncle Feen was the total e-cop, with all kinds of stories about shit that went on before there was an EDD.
And McNab was totally iced. He talked a lot of trash, but he knew his ’tronics. Jamie thought he was pure hero stuff now that he’d been wounded in the line. Here he was half-frozen and pushing on with the job.
That’s what cops did.
That’s what Dallas did. Nothing stopped her. No matter what, she stood up. Like she had for his grandfather, and for Alice.
It still hurt, thinking about his sister. He knew his mother was never going to get over it, not all the way over it. Maybe you weren’t supposed to.
Sometimes when he looked back to everything that had happened last fall, it was like a dream. Especially the end of it. All the smoke and the fire in that horrible room where that bastard Alban had taken Dallas after he’d drugged her.
Smoke and fire and blood, and the bitch Selina lying dead on the floor. Roarke and Alban fighting like wild dogs, and Dallas yelling at him to get the knife, get the knife to cut her loose from where Alban had strapped her naked to some kind of altar.
He’d cut the bonds, but he’d felt cold. Cold all over in spite of the smoke. And naked, still groggy from the drugs, Dallas had leaped right off the slab onto Alban’s back.
Dreamy, it was all so weird and dreamy. He’d seen Roarke’s fist fly up, knock Alban unconscious. He’d heard the sirens coming, he’d heard Roarke and Dallas talking—not words, just sounds. The fire crackling, the smoke stinging.
And the knife in his hand.
She’d shouted when she’d seen what he was going to do. But it was too late. She couldn’t have stopped him. He couldn’t have stopped himself.
The bastard who had killed his family was dead, and his blood hot on Jamie’s hands.
He couldn’t remember actually doing it. Not the moment, not the instant when he’d plunged the blade into Alban’s heart. It was like some time blip, and he couldn’t remember.
But it had happened. It hadn’t been a dream. And Dallas had told Feeney and Peabody and the other cops who burst in tha
t Alban had been killed during the struggle. She’d grabbed the ritual knife from him, put her own prints on the handle, and lied.
Because she’d stood for him, too.
“Jamie. Stay focused.”
He blinked, blushed, and hunched his shoulders at Roarke’s brisk order. “Yeah, sure. Right.”
He was working on a virus simulation, his third since they’d started.
“These sims aren’t going to generate hard data without results of a diagnostic on one of the infected units.”
“So you’ve said, in a variety of ways, six or eight times already.”
Jamie swiveled away from his workstation. Behind him Roarke worked on filter construction. He was doing most of the programming manually, with fast flicks and taps of his fingers. In Jamie’s estimation, any e-man worth his chips had to be able to do manual as well as voice and should know when one method suited the job better than the other.
Roarke was the ultra mag e-man.
“It’d take me five minutes, tops, to run a diagnostic,” Jamie continued.
“No.”
“Give me ten and I can locate and isolate the virus.”
“No.”
“Without an identification on—”
He broke off when Roarke held up a hand and shut his mouth.
He finished the sim, input the resulting data, then started the next program. He let it run on auto as he got up to dig out a tube of Pepsi from the full-sized cooler.
“I’ll have one of those,” Roarke said without looking around.
Jamie pulled out a second tube. Across the room Feeney and McNab worked on filter analysis. Jamie had never been in a house that boasted its own fully equipped e-lab.
Then again, he’d never been in any other house like this one. What it didn’t have, hadn’t been invented.
The floor was a steel gray tile. The walls were a pale green and covered with screens. The light came from sky windows, a half a dozen of them, all tinted to cut the glare and heat that could play havoc with the equipment.
And that equipment was so cutting-edge, the edge hadn’t even been cut yet. There were a full dozen data and communication centers, including one of the RX-5000Ks that he’d seen tested in R and D. It wasn’t scheduled for release for three months, maybe six. There were three VR stations, a sim tube, a holo unit, with d and c capabilities, and a global and interstellar search-and-scan navigator he was itching to get his hands on.
He glanced toward his own screen, checked the status of his sim run, then sat beside Roarke. He scanned the codes jammed end to end over the screen, calculated.
“If you filter out the sound, blank all frequencies, you won’t get the ID or source.”
“You’ve missed something. Look again.” Roarke continued to work while Jamie rearranged the codes in his head.
“Okay, okay, but if you flipped this equation, see? And this command. Then—”
“Wait.” Roarke’s eyes narrowed as he read his own program, considered the direction of Jamie’s suggestions.
The boy was good.
“That’s better. Yes, that’s better yet.” He made the adjustments, and with them in mind began on the next series of commands.
“Roarke.”
“There’s no point in asking me again. Answer’s still no.”
“Just listen, okay? You always say a guy should be able to make his pitch.”
“Nothing more irritating than having your own words tossed back at you.” But he stopped, sat back, and took the tube of Pepsi. “Pitch then.”
“Okay. Without a diagnostic, with direct data from one of the infected units, we’re blind. You can come up with filters, with shields, but no matter how good they are you can’t be a hundred percent that they’ll shut out the virus. If it is a virus, which we don’t know without a diagnostic.”
“We’ll be a great deal more certain of operator safety once we have shields in place. If it’s a subliminal, which is the highest probability, using either visual or audio to infect, I’ve dealt with something similar before and am constructing a series of shields to filter it out.”
“Yeah, but similar isn’t a hundred percent. So you’re still going to be playing odds.”
“Son, playing odds is a kind of religion to me.”
Jamie grinned, and because he wasn’t being dismissed, dug in. “Okay, odds are good, given the log time Detective Halloway had in when he first showed symptoms—and factoring in how long the other bad guy dudes were on—that it takes a couple hours, maybe more to hit the danger zone. Logically, Halloway had the brain eruption faster because he had all this time on at once. Straight computime instead of on and off, tasking, surfing, whatever. And he was in the unit, not just working on it.”
“And you think I haven’t factored that in?”
“If you have, you know I’m right.”
“Probably right. Probably is a lot to risk dying for.”
“You’d increase success rate if you used the first of the completed filters before going in.” Jamie had to fight the urge to wiggle in his seat because he knew he was making progress. “Kept log time to under ten minutes. Ran a medical on the operator while he’s on to catch any neurological changes. You got equipment in here that can be rigged to do that.”
And Roarke had been considering doing just that after he’d gotten the boy, and the cops, out of the way.
But perhaps there was a more straightforward method to it all.
“Do you see where I’m going with this filter here?” he asked Jamie.
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Finish it,” Roarke ordered, then got up to make his pitch to Feeney.
McNab was all for it. Perhaps, Roarke thought, it was an easier matter for youth to gamble with mortality.
“We can do sims, analyses, probabilities for weeks and not have it wrapped,” McNab insisted. “The answers are in the infected units, and the only way to get at them is to get at them.”
“We haven’t put a full day in yet.” Feeney knew he was meant to be the voice of reason, but he was itching to tear into one of the infected units. “The more tests and sims we run, the better our chances.”
“I’ll have a filter—the best I think we can hope for under these conditions—ready to be interfaced within the hour.” Roarke glanced back toward Jamie. “We can run sims with it first, bombard one of the units with viruses and subliminals, and see how it holds up. At that point, I’d say it’ll be time for a calculated risk.”
Feeney dragged out his bag of candied almonds. “The primary won’t go for it.”
“The primary,” Roarke said, coolly dismissing the love of his life, “isn’t an e-man.”
“No, she sure as hell isn’t. Never could get her to have any respect for technology. We finish the filter, run the sims. If it holds up, we go in.”
“I’ll operate,” McNab said quickly.
“No, you won’t.”
“Captain—”
“You’re already on partial medical. Results’d be skewed.” It was bullshit, Feeney thought, but he’d be damned if he put McNab on the hot seat. He wasn’t losing two men in two days.
“I should get to do it.” Jamie swiveled around. “It was my idea.”
Roarke barely spared him a glance. “Since we both have to answer to your mother, I won’t even acknowledge that bit of stupidity.”
“I don’t see why—”
“Have you finished that programming, Jamie?” Roarke asked.
“No, but—”
“Finish it.” He turned back to Feeney. “I’d say it’s down to you and me.”
“Just me. I’m the badge.”
“An e-man’s an e-man, badge or no. We can argue about that, the fact you’ve got a badge, the fact it’s my equipment we’re using here. But why don’t we settle the matter like Irishmen?”
Both amusement and challenge lit Feeney’s face. “You want to fight, or you want to drink?”
Roarke laughed. “I was thinking of the other mann
er of settling things. Gambling.” Roarke dug a coin out of his pocket. “Heads or tails?” he asked. “You call.”
Eve considered Chief Tibble a good cop, for a suit.
He was tough, he was honest, and he had a very strong bullshit sensor. He played the politics of his job better than most, and generally kept the mayor and other city officials off the backs of the rank and file.
But when murder came through an item everyone in the city—every voter in the city—owned, when the media was in high gear and one cop took another hostage in Central, the politicians were going to get their swings in.
Deputy Mayor Jenna Franco was known to swing hard.
Eve hadn’t dealt with her personally before, but she’d seen her around City Hall or on-screen. She had the hard polish of a woman who knew it was essential to look her best while doing the job in an arena where votes were often swayed because a candidate was attractive.
She was a small woman who made up for it with snappy-looking three-inch heels. She was a curvy woman who took advantage of what nature or her body sculptor gave her with spiffily tailored suits in bold colors. Today’s was power red and matched with a chunky gold necklace and earrings that looked as if they weighed five pounds each.
It made Eve’s lobes throb just to look at them.
She looked more like some pampered society matron on her way to a ladies’ luncheon than a hard-scrabble politician. And the opponents who’d come to that conclusion had been left in her dust.
That was something Eve could respect.
The fact Peachtree had sent her in his stead said he respected her as well.
With her was Lee Chang, the media liaison. He was short, slim, perfectly groomed in a gray pinstriped suit with his straight black hair slicked back.
He had Asian blood, an Oxford education, and an ability to juggle and spin the facts with expediency until it sounded true.
Eve had never liked him, and the feeling was completely mutual.
“Lieutenant,” Tibble began, “we have a problem.”
“Yes, sir.”
“First, I understand Detective McNab is recuperating from his injuries at your home.”