Obsession in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “All in a day’s.”

  Letting it play in the back of her head, Eve went back to manual. She didn’t hold out much hope for parking close to the apartment, but stranger had happened.

  When stranger did, she did a mental fist pump, and veered over before anyone tried to jump in ahead of her.

  “Is this going to fit in the space?” Peabody wondered. “It’s nice to have the room and the muscle, but it’s hard to find a street slot with something this big.”

  Jaw set, eyes fierce, Eve muttered, “I’m making it fit.”

  She tried auto first as it would calculate all the necessary maneuvers, and not get pissed off at the blast of horns as they blocked a lane.

  The target parking space is 11.2 centimeters short for this vehicle in order to comply to the standard required space allotted for vehicles parked front and rear. Please select another option.

  “Bite me,” Eve snarled, switched back to manual.

  “You wanna cut it sharp to the left,” McNab began, then zipped it when she seared him with one look.

  But she did just that, slid back, cut in the opposite direction, slid out. Resisted giving those blasting horns the middle finger.

  She kissed the curb, cut again, inched, swore. Then clicked to vertical, jimmied the wheel—ignored Peabody’s murmurings because they sounded a lot like prayers. Then lowered.

  She figured she had about a finger-width front and back, and that was good enough.

  “That clunker behind?” McNab commented. “That doesn’t have vertical option. Not going to be able to get out.”

  “Not my problem—and I’m not going to be long.”

  Her problem, she admitted, would be getting out again.

  For now, she stepped out on the sidewalk.

  She’d lived in this neighborhood once, one made up primarily of working class, with some deeper pockets—that would be Mavis and Leonardo—tossed in. A few signs of gentrification here and there, but the coffee shop, the little market, the tinier deli were all still in business.

  The hole-in-the-wall Chinese place across the street still had a sign out for a delivery boy. Why didn’t they—

  Eve spotted her as a maxibus pulled away from its stop. Just steps from Ming Yee’s, strolling along, the box under her arm.

  And though she wore sunshades Eve knew the instant she was spotted in turn.

  “UNSUB, two o’clock. Call it in! Call it in!” Eve shouted as she clambered over the bumper of the clunker to pursue the already running figure in the bulky brown coat.

  She leaped between a Rapid Cab and a mini, shot out an arm as if to stop an oncoming van through sheer force of will. She had to dodge behind it, lost another five seconds skirting around a sedan, then hit the other sidewalk at a dead run.

  Now she fought her way through the obstacle course of pedestrians, eyes trained on the damn brown coat. She’d lost half a block, more, getting across the street, and whatever the body type under that coat, the woman could run.

  She didn’t look back, didn’t give Eve a glimpse of profile, just poured on the speed.

  People shouted, some swore as the brown coat shoved, hard enough to knock a woman, her briefcase, and her market bag to the sidewalk.

  A few people moved in to assist, formed a knot. Rather than cut through it, Eve veered left, nearly collided with a guy carting a toddler.

  More seconds lost, but she saw the coat run around the corner, going east.

  By the time she rounded it, the brown coat was nowhere in sight. She scanned the street, up, across, hissed in frustration.

  “He nearly knocked me down!” A woman, obviously incensed, huffed out of a dank little bar and grill.

  “Forget it, Sherry, it’s New York.”

  Eve pushed past the unsympathetic man, rushed into the bar. And ran through the smell of fried onions and spilled brew, over the sticky floor, around spindly tables to the clatter and crash and shouts through the swinging door in the back.

  The bartender shouted, “Hey, lady!” but she was already hitting the doors.

  She started to leap over some unfortunate waiter sprawled on the floor with broken crockery, a slick spill of soup. and what might’ve been a Reuben.

  A mountain in a stained white apron, cocked white hat, and furious eyes blocked her path.

  “Get the hell out of my kitchen!” He shoved her back so she nearly skidded in the pool of soup and went down.

  “Police, goddamn it.” She dug for her badge. “And I’ll haul all three hundred pounds of you into Central unless you get the fuck out of my way.”

  “Out the back,” he said as he moved aside. “Make a hole!”

  Kitchen staff jumped out of her way, but that left pots, dishes, cutlery scattered over the floor.

  Eve pushed a prep cart out of her way, climbed over the cans, bottles, tubes on the portable shelf the suspect had been smart enough to haul down.

  By the time she got to the back door, shoved her way out, her quarry was nowhere in sight.

  “Son of a bitch!” She took out her frustration on a recycler, kicking it hard enough to leave a dent. “Son of a bitch,” she said again when McNab bolted through the door. “Lost her.”

  As she did, he looked right, left, scanning for any sign. Then he simply bent from the waist, propped his hands on his thighs.

  “You got legs, Dallas. You’ve got some fast fricking legs.”

  “So does she.”

  “Peabody got the word out. Foot patrols swarming. Black-and-whites cruising. She headed up, just to be sure Mavis and company’s all good. I just followed in your wake.”

  He held up a finger, then still huffing some, dragged out his comm. “Lost her,” he told Peabody. “We’ll be a few.”

  “Copy that. We’re good here. Should I come to you?”

  McNab cocked his head at Eve, and she shook hers. “No point.”

  “Stay there. We’ll head back pretty quick.”

  “Couldn’t make up the distance. She made me right as I made her. Got close, nearly had her, goddamn it. People get in the damn way.”

  “I didn’t know what the hell.” The mountain in the stained white apron filled the doorway. “People running through my kitchen, I didn’t know what the hell. She—I thought it was a guy—knocked Trevor over like a tenpin. Lolo says he’s got a knot the size of her fist back of his head. I didn’t know what the hell.”

  Calmer, marginally, Eve stepped back inside. “No, you didn’t know. Did you get a look at her?”

  “Came in like a freaking tornado, keeled Trevor over, kept going, grabbing trays and carts, shoving them behind her, scattering pots and dishes and every damn thing. I couldn’t get to him—her. Just saw from the back. I’da gotten to her, I’da stopped her cold.”

  “I believe it. I need to talk to your people. Maybe one of them got a look at her.”

  “You don’t know what she looks like, why’re you chasing her?”

  “I don’t know what she looks like, exactly, but I know what she’s done. Does your Trevor need medical assistance?”

  “Nah, Lolo’s got him. Coupla cuts here and there where the dishes got him. Line cook got some burns, and Steph dropped a pot on her foot, banged up her toe, but she’s okay. Got a freaking mess to clean up in there. When you catch her, I wanna press charges.”

  “Can’t blame you. McNab, let’s get this rolling. You talk to the people out in the restaurant, I’ll take the kitchen.”

  It took under ten minutes for her to determine nobody saw or heard anything that would add to what she already had.

  Lolo—head waitress and partner to the mountain whose name turned out to be Casey—clucked around like a mother hen on gray skids. And Lolo watched plenty of screen.

  “She’s the one killed that lawyer lady and the junkie, too. I saw you talking on the screen ju
st a bit ago. Then she comes running through here like hell and damnation, making a mess of our place, and knocking young Trevor flat. Casey had known, had gotten around to her, he’d’ve knocked her flat, you can make book on that. Casey don’t take shit or Shinola. Was a merchant marine.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “That’s a fact. Me? I didn’t see more than a blur, and I’m sorry for that.”

  She jammed her hands on her hips, looked around as a lanky guy mopped up the floor, and a couple of others reordered the shelf.

  “Wish we could help you out. People going around killing people just pisses me off.”

  “I hear that.”

  Lolo smiled a little, revealing a little dimple at the corner of her mouth. “You ain’t got much meat on you, do you, girl? Casey, get this girl some of that kitchen sink soup in a takeaway. On the house.”

  “Oh, thanks, appreciate it, but we can’t take gifts.”

  Lolo just eyed her. “I’m not giving it to you ’cause you’re a cop. You’re getting it ’cause you’re skinny. Put in a couple slabs of that pie, too,” she called out. “When you catch that killer woman, you’re going to want some meat on your bones to take her down.”

  “I really don’t . . . What kind of pie?”

  Lolo smiled again. “Damn good pie.”

  • • •

  She sent McNab ahead, finished things up by talking to the beat cops. She wanted the neighborhood covered, visibly. Then she carted the takeaway—soup, pie, and garlic bread sticks Casey added in as, in his words, an apology for getting in her way.

  She started to stow it in the back of the All-Terrain, realized she’d probably forget about it, so put it on the passenger seat.

  Then made damn sure all the auto anti-theft bells and whistles were in play.

  Since they knew she was on the way, Eve didn’t bother to buzz up, but used her master.

  How many times had she climbed these stairs, she wondered, before Roarke? Couldn’t count them. She’d gotten stuck in the elevator once for over a half hour—and that had been the last time she’d used it, even when her ass had been dragging.

  She thought of Peabody and McNab happily cohabbing, of Mavis and her family with their color and life. Was the building more content now that she wasn’t dragging blood and death in with her every night?

  And that stupid thought, she admitted, was a direct result of frustration and just plain pissiness at having lost her quarry.

  She’d make this quick, just do a check, reinforce precautions, then take her soup and sour mood home. Roarke had to deal with her moods. It was in the marriage rules.

  She rapped on the door. The shriek blew out the second it opened. Eve’s hand flew to her weapon, had it nearly drawn when the wild laughter followed.

  “What the hell.”

  Leonardo—another mountain, but in fashionable trousers of dull gold and a knee-length vest over a black sweater, smiled at her. “We told Bella you were coming.”

  Bella toddled across the floor as fast as her chubby little legs could manage, her face beaming smiles under its curly mass of sunny hair. She wore a rainbow, or so it seemed, with pretty pale colors swirling everywhere on some sort of skirted jumpsuit her father had, no doubt, designed for her.

  Her boots were pink poodles.

  She said, “Das!” and threw her arms around Eve’s legs.

  “Okay. Why is she always so happy? What do you feed her?”

  “She has her mama’s sunny outlook.”

  “Das, Das, Das!” Still beaming, Bella held up her arms.

  It was weird picking a kid up off the ground, and always made her worry she’d drop her. Weirder yet to have the kid slap its chubby—and a little bit sticky—hands on her cheeks, look deep and directly into her eyes, and rattle off the incomprehensible.

  “You should run her through a translator,” Eve said. “It would be interesting.”

  Bella threw back her head, laughed like a loon, then planted her mouth—also a little bit sticky—on Eve’s, and made an exaggerated mmmmmmmaaa! sound.

  “Candy. No wonder you’re always happy. They stuff you with candy.”

  “Fruity Drops,” Leonardo corrected. “All natural. Ben and Steve went out to do a circuit, they called it, around a two-block area. You think she was coming here.” He reached out with his big hand, brushed it gently, gently, over Bella’s curls.

  “I don’t. I think she was casing the building, trying to get a feel. If she’s got Mavis on her list, she isn’t going to try for her when you’re here. She ran from an unarmed woman, Leonardo. Your security’s already gone over all the protocols and procedures with you, but I want to add mine.”

  “McNab’s working on the apartment’s security, doing something so that if it goes off, it’ll signal in their place.”

  “That’s good thinking. He’s full of that today.”

  “Mavis took Peabody in to look at her costume for the ball drop. I’m going to go get them. I’m glad you’re here.” He gave Eve’s arm a squeeze, held her gaze with eyes full of worry and gratitude. “Glad you’re here, and looking out for my girls.”

  “You forgot to take—”

  The kid, she thought, but he’d swept away.

  It looked nothing like her place anymore, not with its colorful swags of fabric, its bold and bright pillows, the scatter of dolls and little toys.

  It had to be safe to put the kid down, she decided. She lived here.

  At that moment Bella yanked on the chain, mostly hidden under Eve’s shirt, and pulled out the diamond about the size of the kid’s fist.

  “Ahhhh,” she said, eyes shining. “Ba-ba!”

  “Yeah, I bet. Mine.”

  Eve tugged to get it back; Bella tugged to get it.

  “Ba-ba! Das!” Then with a flutter of her lashes she stroked Eve’s cheek with the hand not currently in a vise grip on the chain, said, “Das,” again in a seductive tone that made Eve laugh.

  “Forget it, kid. I’m not giving you the rock because you’re pretty.”

  Through those fluttering lashes Eve spied what she could only describe as fierce determination. “Ba-ba,” she said again, in a tone Eve recognized as a threat.

  “Seriously? You’re short and I’m armed. And this is my ba-ba or whatever.” She started to set Bella down, but the kid held the chain in a death grip, leaving Eve the choice of prying the pudgy little fingers loose or going down to her knees.

  She went down.

  “Come on, give it up.”

  With a smile—and damn if it wasn’t sly—Bella popped the diamond into her mouth.

  Eve’s brain just froze.

  “Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!”

  Bella smiled at her, little pink lips tight as drums.

  “Stop doing that. Stop it. You can’t eat that. Open up. I mean it.” Panic sweat rolled down her spine in a thin, cold river. “No kid who hasn’t had her first birthday gets to choke on a diamond. Shit, shit, shit! Spit it out.”

  Desperate, she considered turning the kid upside down and shaking the diamond loose, then said, “Spit it out. Please.”

  Bella spat it out, said perfectly, “Shit!” She plopped onto her butt giggling madly as Mavis danced in. “Mama! Shit!”

  Mavis narrowed her eyes at Eve.

  “It’s not my fault.” Jesus God, she thought, she was actually short of breath. “She tried to eat this.” Eve held up the spit-covered diamond. “Why would anybody leave me alone with her?”

  “Ba-ba!” Bella made a grab for it, but this time Eve snatched it out of reach. The little chin quivered, tears swam into the big blue eyes.

  “It’s Dallas’s bauble.” Mavis plucked Bella up, gave her a swing. How she managed to spin a couple circles in the mile-high red boots was a testament to agility and balance skills. “Go get Bella’s baubles. Sho
w Dallas Bella’s baubles.”

  “Ba-ba!” Tears banished, Bella wiggled down and toddled off.

  “She likes to play dress-up, so I give her some junk jewelry.” Mavis pulled a pack of wipes out of some hidden pocket, passed them to Eve. “She knows better than to put things in her mouth, but it’s so shiny.”

  “She knows how to say ‘bauble’?”

  “It’s one of her favorites.” She glanced back, hearing Bella jabber, and Peabody answer. “Are we okay, Dallas?”

  “You’re okay.”

  Mavis pushed at her hair, a curling mass of electric blue today. “Leonardo wants us to go to a hotel, but—”

  “You’re good here. Better here. In fact, I’d say we scared her off. She’s going to think twice about trying for this place, for you. You’ve got security in-house, you’ve got two cops wired in. Just don’t be alone, Mavis. Not even for a few minutes.”

  Then she heaved out a breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t pull that with me. Not with me.” Mavis threw her arms around Eve, squeezed hard. “I want some wine. We’ll all have some wine.”

  “Not for me. I can’t stay. I just want to go over some of the basics. Number one, after not being alone, is you don’t answer the door. Not until I have her, Mavis. You don’t answer the door. Whoever does—”

  “Checks the monitors, verifies, and all that. I know how it works. My bestie’s a cop.”

  “I’m going to get her, Mavis.”

  “DFS.” She took another glance back toward the bedrooms. “Damn fucking straight.”

  “McNab’s nearly done,” Leonardo announced as he came in.

  “Good. I want to hit some of the non-negotiables with you and Mavis. I’m going to tell you to be careful, but not to worry. She’s not going to get past the wall.”

  “Not worried. See any worry?” Mavis tapped her forehead. “Smooth as Bellamina’s bottom. Careful’s the top. We’ve got good reasons for careful.” She reached for Leonardo’s hand, gave it a kiss. “Babycakes, would you open a bottle of wine? Dallas says not for her, but I could sure use a nice glass.”

  “Whatever she says to do, you’ll do?”

  Mavis swiped her finger over her heart, kissed it, then laid it on his lips. “Mega promise, not to be broken.”