Conspiracy in Death

by J. D. Robb

  "So why not leave her there and walk away?" Peabody put in.

  "Exactly. Job was done. The rest was staging. Drag her inside, take her ID. She was quickly identified through prints as every cop's are on file, then her uniform and ID are found a couple of blocks away in a broken recycle unit. Planted, by my guess. But it would appear, on the surface, that taking her uniform and identification was a ploy to slow or prevent her identification."

  "You're too smart to have done that if you'd whiffed her," Peabody put in, then flushed when Eve gave her a hard stare. "I just meant Detective Baxter would cop to that conclusion quick enough."

  "Right. Just more staging," Eve went on. "Virtually every bone in her body was broken, her fingers crushed, her face battered beyond visual recognition. While it was structured to appear that it was a vicious, mindless attack, it was precise. Programmed," she said turning back.

  "A droid." Feeney nodded. "Fits."

  "There was no other human element. The sweepers and crime scene team didn't find any blood but hers, no skin cells, no hair, nothing. You can't use your fists like that and not split or bruise your own skin. Whoever ordered this missed that step—or knew they wouldn't need it to get me out on a technical. They're not cops, but it's likely they own some."

  Peabody's eyes popped wide. "Rosswell."

  "It's a good leap." Eve nodded in approval. "He knew Bowers, worked out of the same house. He's connected to the other investigation, and he either bungled it or he's covering. Either way, he's earned a closer look. He's got a gambling problem," she added. "Let's find out how he stands financially just now."

  "That would be a pleasure. Funny," Feeney considered. "He was at Central this morning. I hear Webster had him in for a chat about Bowers. He made himself pretty vocal around the Homicide bullpen from what I hear. Had some stuff to say about you. Cartright knocked him on his ass."

  "Did she?" Eve beamed. "I always liked Cartright."

  "Yeah, she's a right one. Caught him full in his fat gut with her elbow, knocked him flat, and then she gives him a big smile and says, 'Oops'."

  "Darling, we really must send her some flowers."

  Eve slanted Roarke a glance. "That's inappropriate. Peabody, you're on Rosswell. McNab, find me some connection between East Washington and the Drake to explain the droid. Feeney, you'll contact Louise, see if she can find anything off in the organ records."

  "There are likely other records."

  This time Eve turned fully to Roarke. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean that if, indeed, there are illegal activities of a medical nature going on at the Drake, it's highly likely there are careful records of it somewhere. They wouldn't be on the facility's mainframe but buried on another unit."

  "How the hell do we find it?"

  "I believe I can help you there. But, unless you have a specific target, it will take some time to go through this entire list of suspects."

  "I'm not going to ask how you'll do it," Feeney decided. "But start with Tia Wo and Hans Vanderhaven. Wo was supposed to meet me today with her gold pin, and she never showed. Vanderhaven's taken an unscheduled leave. All we can get at this point is he's in Europe. Peabody and I were about to track both of them down when you called, Dallas."

  "If the pin found on-scene belongs to either of them, they'll try to replace it."

  "Got that covered," McNab assured her. "I'm linked into all the sources in the city for that particular piece. Already doing a search on other sources in Europe if that's where the other doc flew. We'll have a record of every sale made."

  "Good coverage."

  "We'd better get started." Feeney rose, looked at Eve. "What're you going to be doing while we're busting our butts?"

  "Taking a quick trip. I'll be back tomorrow. Baxter's setting up a truth testing and evaluation with Mira."

  "You could put that off. We get a break, you could be clear without it in a few days."

  The faint smile she'd worked up faded. "I'll never be clear without it."

  "You stick with level one. They can't make you go higher."

  She kept her eyes on his. "I'll never be clear unless I go the route. You know that, Feeney."

  "Goddamn it."

  "I can handle it." Aware that Roarke had gotten to his feet, she sent Feeney a warning look. "It's just routine, and Mira's the best handler there is."

  "Yeah." But there was a sick feeling in his gut as he turned to grab up his coat. "Let's ride, people. We'll be in touch, Dallas. You can tag any of us, any time, on our personals."

  "As soon as I know something."

  "Sir." Peabody stopped in front of Eve, shifted her feet. "Hell," she muttered and grabbed Eve into a fierce hug.

  "Peabody, this isn't the time to get sloppy. You're embarrassing yourself."

  "If Rosswell's connected, I'm going to fry his ass."

  In a quick jerk, Eve hugged back and released. "That's the spirit. Get the hell out of here. I've got places to go."

  "Nobody gave me a hug," McNab complained as they headed out and made Eve snort out a laugh.

  "Well." Fighting to steady her emotions, she turned back to Roarke. "Looks like we've got a plan."

  His eyes fixed on her face, he came toward her. "I didn't realize there were levels of this testing process."

  "Sure. It's no big deal."

  "Feeney seemed to think otherwise."

  "Feeney's a worrier," she said with a shrug, but when she started to turn away, Roarke took her arm.

  "How bad is it?"

  "It's not a cruise on airskates, okay? And I can handle it. I can't think about it now, Roarke, it'll mess up my head. Just how quick can that spiffy transpo of yours get us to Chicago?"

  Tomorrow, he decided, they would damn well deal with it. But for now, he gave her the smile he knew she needed. "Just how quick can you pack?"

  *** CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ***

  The sun was already dipping down in the western sky, sending shadows to droop over Chicago's jagged skyline. She saw the last glints of it shimmer and bounce off the lake.

  Should she remember the lake? she wondered.

  Had she been born there, or had she just passed through to spend a few nights in that cold room with the broken window? If she could stand in that same room now, how would she feel? What images would dance through her head? Would she have the courage to turn and face them?

  "You're not a child now." Roarke slipped a hand over hers as the transport began its gentle descent into the Chicago Air and Space Complex. "You're not alone now, and you're not helpless now."

  She continued to concentrate on breathing evenly, in and out. "It's not always comfortable to realize you can see what goes on in my head."

  "It's not always easy to read your head, or your heart. And I don't care for it when they're troubled and you try to hide it from me."

  "I'm not trying to hide it. I'm trying to deal with it." Because the descent always made her stomach jitter, she turned away from the view port. "I didn't come here on some personal odyssey, Roarke. I came here to gather data on a case. That's priority."

  "It doesn't stop you from wondering."

  "No." She looked down at their joined hands. There was so much that should have separated them, she thought. How was it nothing did? Nothing could. "When you went back to Ireland last fall, you had issues, personal issues to deal with, to face or resolve. You didn't let them get in the way of what had to be done."

  "I remember my yesterdays all too clearly. Ghosts are easier to fight when you know their shape." Linking their fingers, he brought hers to his lips in a gesture that never failed to stir her. "You never asked me where I went the day I went off alone."

  "No, because I saw when you came back you'd stopped grieving so much."

  His lips curved against her knuckles. "So, you read my head and heart fairly well, yourself. I went back to where I lived as a boy, back to the alley where they found my father dead, and some thought I'd put the knife in him. I lived with the regret that it hadn't been
my hand that ended him."

  "It's not a thing to regret," she said quietly as the transport touched down with barely a whisper.

  "There we part ways, Lieutenant." His voice, so beautiful with that Irish lilt, was cold and final. "But I stood there, in that stinking alley, smelling the smells of my youth, feeling that same burn in the blood, the fire in the belly. And I realized, standing there, that some of what I'd been was still inside me and always will be. But there was more." Now his voice warmed again, like whiskey in candlelight. "I'd made myself different. Other, you could say. I'd made myself other, and it was you who's made me more."

  He smiled again as blank surprise filled her eyes. "What I have with you, darling Eve, I never thought to have with anyone. Never thought to want it or need it. So I realized as I stood there in an alley where he must have beaten me black a dozen times or more, where he'd laid drunk and finally dead, that what mattered about what had come before was that it had led me to where I was. That he hadn't won, after all. He'd never won a bloody thing from me."

  He flipped the catch on her safety harness, then his own, while she said nothing. "When I walked away through the rain, I knew you'd be there. You have to know that whenever you decide to look into your own, whatever you find, when you walk away from it, I'll be there."

  Emotions swirled inside her, filling her to bursting. "I don't know how I managed to get through a day before you."

  It was his turn to look surprised. He drew her to her feet. "Ah, every once in a while you manage to say the perfect thing. Steady now?"

  "Yeah, and I'm staying that way."

  Because power clears paths and money waxes them smooth, they were through the jammed shuttle terminal in minutes and out to the private valet area where he had a car waiting.

  She took one look at the sleek silver torpedo shape with its elaborate and streamlined two-seater cockpit and scowled. "Couldn't you have booked something a little less conspicuous?"

  "I don't see why we should be inconvenienced. Besides," he added as they climbed in, "this thing drives like a fucking rocket." So saying, he engaged the engine, hit the accelerator, and blasted out of the lot.

  "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, slow down! You maniac." She struggled into her harness as he laughed. "The airport cops will tag your ass before we clear the first gate."

  "Have to catch me first," he said cheerfully. He punched a control, sent them into a screaming vertical lift that had her mixing curses and prayers. "You can open your eyes now, darling, we're clear of airport traffic."

  Her stomach was still somewhere around her ankles. "Why do you do things like that?"

  "Because it's fun. Now, why don't you program in the address of this retired cop you want to talk to, and we'll see which is the best route."

  She opened one eye, saw they were horizontal again and zipping smoothly along a six-lane thruway. Still scowling, she started to search the glossy dash for the destination and map feature.

  "It's voice controlled, Eve. Just engage the computer and give it your destination of choice."

  "I knew that," she snapped. "I was just looking. I want to have a clear picture of the place where we're going to die when you crash this toy and kill us dead."

  "The Stargrazer 5000X is loaded with safety and life support systems," he said mildly. "As I helped design it, I'm fully aware of all of them."

  "Yeah, that just figures. Engage computer."

  Computer engaged. How may I assist you?

  As it was the same husky female voice he'd installed in her home unit, Eve felt obliged to give him a baleful stare. "Who the hell is this?"

  "You don't recognize it, do you?"

  "Should I?"

  "It's you, darling. After sex."

  "Get out."

  He laughed again, a quick rumble of amusement. "Get the directions, Lieutenant, before we end up in Michigan."

  "That isn't my voice," she muttered, but began to worry about it as she read off the address.

  A holographic map shimmered into place on the windscreen, the most direct route blinking in red.

  "Isn't that handy?" Roarke commented. "This is our exit."

  The sudden sharp turn at ninety miles an hour had Eve jerking back in the seat. She would hurt him later, she promised herself as he careened down the ramp. Hurt him really, really bad.

  If they lived long enough.

  • • • •

  Wilson McRae lived in a tidy white house in a line of other tidy white houses, all centered on thumb-sized lawns. Each driveway was a glossy black, and though the grass was winter withered, it was trimmed neatly and uncluttered.

  The road ran straight as a ruler with young maple trees planted every twelve feet.

  "It's like something out of a horror video," Eve commented.

  "Darling, you're such an urbanite."

  "No, really. There was this one where aliens invade, you know, undercover and all, and they'd—what do you call it—zombiedized the people. So they all dressed alike and walked alike. Ate the same stuff at the same time of day."

  Her gaze shifted from house to house suspiciously while Roarke looked on in amusement. "They're kind of like…hives, you know? Don't you expect to see all these doors open at exactly the same moment and have people who look exactly the same way walk out of these exactly the same houses?"

  He sat back in the snazzy car and studied her. "Eve, you're scaring me."

  "See?" She laughed as she climbed out her side. "Creepy place, if you ask me. I bet you don't even know you're being zombiedized when it's happening."

  "Probably not. You go first."

  She snickered and didn't feel the least foolish to have her hand linked with his as they started up the perfectly straight walkway to the white door. "I got the personal background on him. Nothing jars. Eight years married, one kid and another on the way. House is mortgaged and well within their financial scope. I couldn't find any sudden influx of income to indicate he'd been paid off."

  "You're banking that he's straight."

  "I've got to hope he is and can give me a handle. I don't have any authority," she added. "He doesn't have to talk to me. I can't check in with the local cops, I can't use any cop-to-cop pressure."

  "Try charm," Roarke suggested.

  "You're the one with the charm."

  "True. Try anyway."

  "How's this?" She smiled winningly.

  "You're scaring me again."

  "Smart-ass," she muttered and when she rang the bell and heard the echo of three cheery chimes, rolled her eyes. "Man, I would self-terminate before I lived in a place like this. I bet all their furniture matches, and they've got cute little cows or something sitting around the kitchen."

  "Kittens. Fifty says it's kittens."

  "Bet. Cows are sillier. It's going to be cows." She tried the smile, slightly less winning, when the door opened. A pretty woman leading with her hugely pregnant belly answered.

  "Hello. Can I help you?"

  "I hope so. We'd like to speak with Wilson McRae."

  "Oh, he's down in his workshop. Can I tell him what this is about?"

  "We've come from New York." Now that she was here, facing big, curious brown eyes, Eve wasn't sure how to begin. "It's in reference to one of your husband's cases, before he retired from the force."

  "Oh." Her dark eyes clouded. "You're cops? Come in, I'm sorry. Will so rarely sees any of his associates anymore. I think he misses them terribly. If you don't mind waiting in the living room? I'll go down and get him."

  "She didn't ask to see ID." Eve shook her head as she wandered the living room. "A cop's wife, and she lets strangers into the house. What's wrong with people?"

  "They should be shot for being so trusting."

  She sent him a slanted look. "This from the guy with enough security to keep alien invaders out of his house."

  "You're awfully hung up on aliens today."

  "It's this place." Restless, she moved her shoulders. "Didn't I tell you? Everything matches." She poked a f
inger into the tidy cushion of the blue and white sofa that matched the blue and white chair that matched the white curtains and blue rug.

  "I imagine it's a comfort to some people." He cocked his head as he studied her. She needed a quick round with her hairdresser, and though she was in desperate need of new boots, he knew she wouldn't even consider it. She looked long, lean, edgy, and just a little dangerous pacing around the solid suburban room. "You, on the other hand, would go mad here."

  She jingled the loose credits in her pockets. "Oh yeah. What about you?"

  "I'd make a break for it in about two hours." He reached up to skim his finger down her chin. "But I'd take you with me, darling."

  She grinned at him. "I guess that means we match. That doesn't bother me."

  She turned when she heard voices. She didn't have to see Wilson McRae to understand he wasn't terribly pleased to have company. He came in just ahead of his now frazzled looking wife with his mouth set in a dissatisfied frown, his eyes wary.

  All cop, Eve decided on the spot. He was sizing them up, scanning for threat or weapon and braced to defend.

  She judged him at just under six feet, a well-built one eighty. His light brown hair was cut ruthlessly short over a square, sturdy face. Shades darker than his hair, his eyes stayed cool as they skimmed from her to Roarke and back.

  "My wife didn't get your names."

  "Eve Dallas." She didn't offer her hand. "This is Roarke."

  "Roarke?" It piped out of the woman just before color flooded her face. "I thought I recognized you. I've seen you on-screen dozens of times. Oh, please, sit down."

  "Karen." With one quiet word he had her subsiding, in obvious distress and puzzlement. "You a cop?" he asked Roarke.

  "No, indeed not." He laid a hand on Eve's shoulder. "She's the cop."

  "Out of New York," Eve continued. "I need some of your time. A case I've been working on crosses one you had before you retired."