by J. D. Robb
"You have difficulty trusting, even after a measure of trust has been established." Mira sat, smoothed her skirt. "You were also quick with an apology that came from the heart. You are, and always have been, a study of contradictions, Eve."
"I'mnot here on personal business." Eve's tone was flat and dismissive, but she glanced back toward the door with concern in her eyes. "Is she okay?"
"Nadine is a strong and determined woman -- traits you should recognize. I can't discuss this with you, Eve. It's privileged."
"Yeah." She blew out a breath. "She's pissed at me now. I'll give her a one-on-one and smooth her out again."
"She values your friendship. Not only the information you give her. Are you going to sit down? I don't intend to scold you."
Eve grimaced, then cleared her throat and held out the file she carried. "I have the probability scan on Rudy. With current data he comes out at eighty-six point six percent. That's high enough to poke at him again, but I can tie him up tighter after you test him. Rollins said Rudy's lawyer popped to it."
"Yes, I have him scheduled for this afternoon as you flagged it Priority One."
"I need to know his head, his violence potential, so I can put him away long enough for me to dig up evidence. I don't think he's going to break, or deal. If the sister knows anything, I can work on her. She'll fold eventually."
"I'll give you what I can, as soon as I can. I understand the pressure you and your team are under. However," she added, tilting her head, "you look well. Rested. The last time I saw you I was a little concerned. I still think you came back to full duty sooner than was wise."
"You and everyone else." Then she shrugged. "I feel good. Better. I had a top-level relaxation therapy session last night, and about ten hours sleep."
"Really?" Mira's lips curved. "And how did Roarke manage that?"
"He drugged me." At Mira's delighted burst of laughter, Eve scowled. "Figures you'd be on his side."
"Oh, completely. How well you suit each other, Eve. It's a pleasure to watch what grows between you. I look forward to seeing you both tonight."
"The party, right." Whoopee, she thought irritably, but her mouth twitched when Mira laughed again. "Get me that profile, and maybe I'll be in a party mood."
* * *
But she wasn't when she walked into her office and found McNab rifling through her desk.
"I don't keep my candy stash there anymore, ace."
He straightened so quickly his hip hit the drawer, and shoved it closed on his fingers. His pained yelp greatly lifted Eve's mood.
"Jesus, Dallas." Pouting, he sucked his throbbing fingers. "You might as well blast me as scare me to death."
"I ought to give you a jolt. Stealing a superior officer's candy bars is no small matter, McNab. I need my candy fix."
"Okay, okay." Trying for contrite, he smiled and pulled out her desk chair for her. "Looking good this morning, Dallas."
"Don't suck up, McNab. It's pathetic." She dropped down in her chair and stretched her legs out, which bumped her boots against the wall. "You want to make points, give me some news."
"I verified the financials, and found eight complaints lodged against Holloway buried in the FI file."
"FI?"
"Fuck It file," he said with a quick grin. "It's a place businesses stick cranks and other shit they don't intend to deal with. But all eight women were given free perks, just like Peabody. Salon treatments or free match lists, credit in the boutiques."
"Who authorized?"
"Both of them, depending. She knew what was up, all right. I got her initials on three of the complaints."
"Okay, that puts Piper in, but it doesn't win us a prize. I can use it to squeeze her some."
"Something else's a little interesting," he said and sat down on the corner of her desk.
Eve eyed him balefully. "Interesting enough for me not to kick your ass off my desk?"
"Well, let's find out. I found a memo on Donnie Ray, dated six months ago and updated the first of December."
Eve felt a little tickle under her heart. "What kind of memo?"
"From Rudy to the consulting staff. Donnie Ray was not to be put through to Piper. Rudy would do his consults personally, or oversee them. The update was a little slap, restating the original notice and reprimanding some drone who didn't shield a call."
"That's fairly interesting. So he didn't want Donnie Ray sniffing around Piper. I can use that. Anything on the other two victims?"
"Nothing that popped out."
She drummed her fingers on the desk. "Medical? Mental or physical treatments?"
"They're both sterilized." McNab squirmed on the desk as he imagined the cold tongue of the laser on his own genitals. "They opted out of the reproductive market about five years back."
"That follows."
"Piper's had regular shrink work, weekly sessions at Inner Balance for as long as they have records on file. Last year, she did a month at one of their retreats on Optima II. I hear they do colonies, sleep in mood tubes, and eat nothing but grain noodles."
"What a party. What about him?"
"Zip."
"Well, he's going to get some shrink work this afternoon. Decent job, McNab." She looked over as Peabody came in. "Good timing. The two of you nail down that last piece of jewelry. I want to know where he bought those four calling birds. He got a little sloppy at the scene; maybe he tripped up with the necklace, too."
Peabody studiously avoided looking at McNab. "But, sir -- "
"I'm going to squeeze Piper, so I can't take you with me. If you leave the building, either of you, you leave together." She rose. "If he hasn't picked out number five by now, he's looking. I want you both where I can find you."
"Relax, She-Body," McNab sneered as Eve headed out. "I'm a professional."
"Bite me."
Though Eve managed to swallow a chuckle at her aide's use of her own standard response to annoyances, she didn't quite make it over McNab's cheerful, "Where?"
* * *
Eve's timing was well calculated. If Rudy's lawyer had any brains, he'd have his client in some locked room being prompted on the upcoming tests. She had, she decided, at least an hour to rattle Piper before she had to get back to Central for the press conference.
This time, the receptionist didn't bother to stall, but simply cleared her through.
"Lieutenant." Pale, hollow-eyed, Piper stood at the doorway of the office. "My lawyer informs me that I'm not under any obligation to speak with you, and advises me against it unless it's in formal interview with my counsel present."
"You can play it that way, Piper. We can go in right now, or we can stay here, be comfortable, and you can tell me why Rudy didn't want you dealing with Donnie Ray Michael."
"That was nothing." Distress shimmered into her voice as she linked her hands. "That was nothing at all. You can't make anything bad out of it."
"Fine. Why don't you just clear it up for me so we can put it away?"
Without waiting for an invitation, Eve slipped into the room and took a chair. She waited, saying nothing, and let the little war so obvious on Piper's face play out.
"It was just that Donnie Ray had a little crush on me. That's all. It was nothing. It was harmless."
"Then why the staff memos?"
"It was just a precaution. To avoid any ... unpleasantness."
"Is there often unpleasantness?"
"No!" Piper shut the door and hurried over. There were spots of agitated color in her cheeks. The silvery hair had been twisted back today, leaving her face unframed, adding a contrast of sophistication and fragility.
"No, not at all. We're dedicated to helping people find pleasantness, in companionship, romance, often marriage. Lieutenant..." She steepled her hands, folded the fingers down. "I could show you dozens of endorsements from satisfied clients. From people we helped to find each other. Love, true love, matters."
Eve kept her eyes level. "You believe in true love, Piper?"
"Absolutely, completely."
"What would you do for your true love, to keep him?"
"Whatever I had to do."
"Tell me about Donnie Ray."
"He asked me out, a couple of times. He wanted me to hear him play." She sighed, then seemed to melt into a chair. "He was just a boy, Lieutenant. He wasn't... It wasn't the way it was with Holloway. But Rudy felt, rightly so, that in order to fulfill our obligation to him as a client, it would be best if contact with me was eliminated."
"Were you interested in hearing Donnie Ray play?"
A smile ghosted around her mouth. "I might have enjoyed that, if that was all. But it was clear that he had hopes for more. I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I can't bear to bruise a heart."
"And what about yours? How does your relationship with your brother sit on your heart?"
"I can't -- won't discuss that with you." She sat straight again, folded her hands.
"Who made the decision that you'd be sterilized, Piper?"
"You go too far."
"Do I? You're twenty-eight years old." She pushed because she'd seen Piper's lips tremble. "And you've eliminated the chance to have children because you can't risk conceiving one with your own brother. You've been in therapy for years. You've been cut off from developing a relationship with another man. You conceal the relationship you do have, paid a blackmailer to insure it continued to be concealed because incest is a dark and shameful secret."
"You can't possibly understand."
"Oh yes, I can." But she'd been forced, Eve reminded herself. She'd been a child. She'd had no choice. "I know what you're living with."
"I love him! If it's wrong, if it's shameful, if it's wretched, that doesn't change. He's my life."
"Then why are you afraid?" Eve leaned forward. "Why are you so afraid that you'll cover for him even when you wonder if he's killed? Anything for true love? You let Holloway prey on your clients, and that makes you the same as a pimp for an unlicensed whore."
"No, we did our best to find him like-minded women."
"And when you didn't, and they complained, you paid them off," Eve finished. "Is that what you wanted to do, or was it Rudy?"
"It was business. Rudy understands the business better than me."
"Is that how you live with it? Or maybe neither one of you could live with it anymore. Was he with you the night Donnie Ray was killed? Can you look at me and swear he was with you all that night?"
"Rudy couldn't hurt anyone. He couldn't."
"Are you so sure, so sure, you'll risk another death? If not tonight, then tomorrow."
"Whoever is killing these people is insane -- vicious, cruel, and insane. If I thought it could be Rudy, I couldn't live. We're part of each other, so it would be in me the way it's in him. I couldn't live." She covered her face with her hands. "I can't stand any more of this. I won't talk to you. If you accuse Rudy, you accuse me, and I won't talk to you."
Eve rose, but paused by the chair for a moment. "You're not half of a whole, Piper, whatever he's told you. If you want a way out, I know someone who can help you."
Though she felt it was a useless attempt, she took one of her own cards and noted Dr. Mira's name and number on the back. She left it on the arm of the chair and walked away.
* * *
Her emotions were in upheaval when she got into her car. She took a moment to settle them, then glanced at her wrist unit. Not much time, she mused, but enough.
She used her personal porta-'link rather than her car unit and tagged Nadine.
"What do you want, Dallas? I'm under the gun here. The press conference is in an hour."
"Meet me at the D and D, bring your crew. Fifteen minutes."
"I can't -- "
"Yeah, you can." Eve broke transmission and drove downtown.
She'd picked the Down and Dirty Club partly for sentiment, partly because it would be fairly private on a midweek afternoon. And the proprietor was a friend who would see that she wasn't hassled.
"What you doing here, white girl?" Crack, all six and a half feet of him, grinned at her. His face was dark and homely, his scalp recently shaved and oiled to a mirror gleam. He sported a vest of peacock feathers, leathers so snug she wondered his balls weren't bruised, and shin-breaking boots in cherry red.
"Got a meet," she told him and did a quick scan of the club. It was mostly empty, but for the six dancers practicing a routine on stage and a scatter of customers who -- being what they were -- marked her as a cop in the time it takes to pick a tourist's pocket in Times Square.
She imagined several ounces of illegals would shortly be swimming into New York's sewer system.
"You bringing more cops into my place?" He glanced over as two skinny dealers made a beeline for the Johns. "Somebody's business gonna suffer tonight."
"I'm not here for a bust. I got press coming. Got a privacy room we can use?"
"You got Nadine coming down? Now, she be fine. You use room three, honeypot. I look out for you awhile."
"Appreciate it." She glanced over her shoulder as the door opened, letting in sunlight, Nadine, and a camera operator. "It won't take long."
Eve pointed toward the room and strode over and in without waiting for Nadine's assent.
"You frequent such interesting places, Dallas." Wrinkling her nose, Nadine stared at the stained walls and rumpled bed -- the only piece of furniture the room could boast.
"You liked the place well enough, as I recall. Enough to strip down to your undies and dance on stage."
"I was impaired at the time," Nadine said with some dignity when her operator snickered. "Shut up, Mike."
"You got five minutes." Eve sat on the side of the bed. "You can either hit me with questions or I'll give you a straight statement. I'm not going to give you more than what we'll release at the press conference, but you'll have it on a good twenty minutes before anyone else. I'm also giving you the go-ahead to use data already discussed."
"Why?"
"Because," Eve said quietly, "we're friends."
"Step outside a minute, Mike." Nadine waited until he'd finished grumbling and had closed the door behind him. "I don't want any pity favors."
"That's not what this is. You kept the deal, holding information until I cleared it. I'm keeping my end. That's professional. I trust you to report the truth. That's professional. I like you, even when you're irritating. That's personal. Now, do you want the one-on-one or not?"
Nadine's smile bloomed slowly. "Yeah, I want it. I like you, Dallas, and you're always irritating."
"Give me a quick rundown of your take on Rudy and Piper."
"Charming, absolutely. They can spout their company line like champs. Every button I pushed, they came back with the perfect reaction. Well programmed."
"Who's in charge?"
"Oh, he is. No question. He's a little over-protective of her for a brother, if you ask me. And it's mildly creepy the way they dress alike down to their lip dye. But it's probably a twin thing."
"Did you interview any of the staff?"
"Sure, picked a few consultants at random. They've got a very slick operation going there."
"Gossip about the owners?"
"Nothing but praise. I couldn't elbow out one spiteful sentence." She cocked a brow. "Is that what you're looking for?"
"I'm looking for a killer," Eve said flatly. "Let's get this going."
"Fine." Nadine reached back, rapping her knuckles on the door to signal Mike. "Straight statement with follow-up questions."
"One or the other."
"Don't be so pissy. Start with the statement." Nadine glanced at the bed, calculating the varied body fluids that might have been spent there, and opted to stand.
* * *
An hour later, Eve listened to Chief of Police and Security Tibble run nearly the identical statement she'd given Nadine. He had a more impressive style, she mused, shivering a bit in the cold, as he'd chosen to give the statement on the steps of the Tower, where his offices spanned the top
of the building.
Air traffic had been rerouted for the thirty-minute event so that only a scatter of sky-cams and traffic choppers disturbed the sky overhead.
Eve was certain he already knew she'd gone on-air with the data. He could slap her down for it. But as she had not been officially barred from preceding him with a statement, it would be a waste of time.
Eve knew Tibble rarely wasted anything.
She respected him, and respected him more when he managed to give a complete statement while withholding vital pieces of evidence they would need for trial.
As questions began to bullet out of the crowd of reporters, he held up both hands. "I'll turn questions over to the primary investigating officer, Lieutenant Eve Dallas."
He turned, then bent down to her ear. "Five minutes, and don't give them any more than they already have. Next time, Dallas, wear a goddamn coat."
She huddled in her jacket and stepped forward.
"Do you have any suspects?"
Eve didn't sigh, but she wanted to. She hated facing the media. "We're questioning several individuals in connection with these cases."
"Were the victims sexually assaulted?"
"The cases are being handled as sexual homicides."
"How are they connected? Did the victims know each other?"
"I'm not free to discuss that area of the investigation at this time." She held up a hand to cut off the vicious barrage. "We are, however, treating the cases as connected. As Chief Tibble stated, the investigation, thus far, points to one killer."
"Santa Claus is coming to town," some comedian called out, and set off a wave of laughter in the crowd.
"Yeah, make a joke of it." Temper warmed her blood and made her forget her hands were freezing. "That's easy enough when you haven't seen what he leaves behind. When you haven't had to tell mothers and partners that the person they loved is dead."
The crowd fell quiet enough that she heard the swish of copter blades overhead. "I imagine the person responsible for this misery, for these deaths, will get a big charge out of being played up in the media. Go ahead and give him what he wants. Make the murder of four people small and foolish, and turn him into a star. But inside Cop Central we know what he is. He's pathetic, even more pathetic than you. I've got nothing more to say."