Secrets in Death

by J. D. Robb

  Outside, Eve started toward the houses on the other side. “Get us a search warrant, Peabody. The ID for Angela Terra and her company is very shaky, and we believe this is an alias and front for Larinda Mars. Go ahead and move my vehicle before we start an insurrection—bring my field kit back with you. I’ll knock on some doors.”

  “Buy the whole duplex, rent out the connecting half to people who come and go—and don’t look to make pals. Smart.”

  “Yeah, she had brains.”

  Eve had knocked on four doors by the time Peabody got back, and they hit two more together—with the same negative results—by the time the warrant came through.

  Eve used her master, got through one lock, then one more. But the third held firm.

  “She put in a cop-proof lock here. Bad girl.” Puffing out a breath, Eve dug in her kit. “Let’s see how much I’ve learned.”

  Peabody frowned as Eve took out a set of lock picks. “We could call for EDD, or a battering ram.”

  “I can do this.”

  Eventually, Eve thought. Probably.

  Ten minutes later, with Peabody shivering and stomping her feet in the biting wind, Eve felt something give.

  “Nearly got it.”

  “Sing hallelujah.”

  When the last tooth snicked, Eve did an internal happy dance. Peabody did an actual one right on the stoop.

  “Let there be heat.”

  “Record on.” Eve drew her weapon, waited for Peabody to do the same. “Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Peabody, Detective Delia, entering residence under the name of Terra, Angela. We are duly authorized.”

  She booted the door open, went in smooth, fast, and low.

  A dim light eased on at the movement, showing a narrow foyer crammed with furniture. Eve gestured Peabody to the right.

  “Let’s clear it. This is the police,” Eve called out. “We have entered the premises. We are armed,” she continued as she swept and moved forward.

  Things, she thought, lots of things. Tables, lamps, vases, paintings. But no sign of life.

  She worked her way back to the kitchen and found the dust of disuse. She called out, “Clear!” as Peabody did the same.

  They backtracked, started up the stairs.

  “Nobody lives here,” Peabody said. “There isn’t room with all the stuff.”

  “It’s her warehouse.”

  They cleared two bedrooms—jammed, a closet loaded with furs, some with the tags still attached. A room loaded with shoes, boots, handbags.

  Then the master.

  “Here’s where she worked.”

  Satisfied, Eve holstered her weapon. “A lot of fussy stuff, but actually arranged, the sofa—pillows and one of those throw things—the desk, the d and c.

  “Adjoining bath’s got fresh towels—fresh-ish,” Peabody said. “And soaps and bath oils, lotions. Enough of them for a department store, but she used at least some of them.”

  Eve didn’t care about the lotions and oils. She went straight to the desk. She sat, tried to engage the computer.

  Passcode required.

  “Yeah, figured. Pull in EDD, and see who we have in the bullpen who isn’t on something hot. Add a couple of uniforms. It’s going to be a bitch to search and inventory.”

  “You want sweepers?”

  “Let’s see what we find first.”

  With a nod, Peabody opened the double closet doors. “Holy shit. Look at this, Dallas.” Peabody stepped back. “It’s a freaking vault.”

  Rising, Eve walked over to study the sheer steel. She pulled out her ’link. When Roarke came on, she said, “Want a challenge?” and angled the ’link to show him the vault.

  “Well now, that’s a Podark, and a fine, big girl she is, as well. Would you be in the Terra residence?”

  “Terra’s bogus, but yeah.”

  “I believe I’d enjoy a challenge. Let me clear a thing or two up. I should be there in thirty minutes. Forty at the outside.”

  “Works for me.”

  “A Podark,” he said, with what Eve could only think of as a happy sigh. “It’s been some time.”

  Eve went back to the desk. “Start checking drawers,” she told Peabody, opening one in the desk.

  She pulled out a thick leather binder, opened it. “Well, you just don’t expect to hit pay dirt. That’s another one: Why does dirt pay? But you don’t expect it right off the jump.”

  “Whatcha got?”

  “A research file, I’d say. There are several in here. Marks, potential marks, maybe. Clippings. She printed stuff out, made her little scrapbooks. Photos, too. And some of them she must’ve taken herself, maybe using a long-range lens. Portable this way. She could pull one out, lounge on the sofa, hit the AC. I bet it’s fully stocked. Weave her webs. The suspect list is going to…”

  Peabody glanced back, then turned completely when she saw the fury lighting Eve’s eyes.

  “What?”

  “She has Mavis in here.” Eve flipped a page. “Mavis, Leonardo, the baby. Goddamn it. Some data, just basic shit. Some question marks, Roman numerals, but just your basic shit from a standard run or from interviews, articles.”

  She slapped at the computer as she rose. She wanted in. If there was anything more, it would be in the comp.

  She pulled out her ’link.

  Mavis, sleepy eyes, tousled Carribean-blue hair, smiled. “Hey.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Huh? Oh, Aruba, remember? We buzzed down for a couple weeks. I’ve got a gig, and it’s maxi-mag-lush down here. You should completely come. We could—”

  “Mavis, did Larinda Mars ever put the arm on you, or Leonardo?”

  “Larinda?” Mavis yawned and stretched. “Sure. Interviews, photos, exclusives, the dish. It’s part of the life. Why?”

  “She’s dead, and she has a file on you.”

  “Dead? Like dead? How? When?”

  “A couple days ago. The kind of dead that has me looking for who made her that way. She has a file on you, Mavis.”

  “Well, I guess she would. I mean, I guess people in her business would. Holy crapola, Dallas. I mean she was kind of a bitch, but—”

  Somewhere in the background Bella laughed and said, very clearly, “Bitch!”

  “Damn it,” Mavis muttered. “I forgot. Mama said ‘fish,’ Bellamina. We’re going to go see fish later.”

  “What kind of bitch?”

  “Fish,” Mavis insisted. “She was a pushy fish. Like—barracuda! That’s a fish. She had that kind of smile—you know, shiny and sharp—if you didn’t give her what she was after. But we got along okay, no probs. I didn’t bump into her all that often anyway.”

  “She was a blackmailing fish.”

  “Oh.” Mavis strung the word out into multiple syllables. “She never tried to work me. She got pushy, like I said, and pushed about you more than once. I shut that down. I know how. I mean when you’ve worked the … g-r-i-f-t like me, you know how to slip and slide.”

  “Ask Leonardo. Ask if she tried to work him.”

  “He’d have told me.”

  “Ask him. No bullshit. Straight ask, straight answer.”

  “Okay, okay. Let me … Talk to Bella. Bellisimo, it’s Dallas.”

  “Das!”

  The screen filled with Bella’s pretty, happy face and her crown of blond curls. She jabbered for a full minute without pause, then laughed like a mental patient.

  “I bet,” Eve said, without a single clue.

  “Oook, oook, oook!” The screen jiggled and zipped and rocked, then showed an expanse of golden sand, blue seas, and waving green palms. “Mama say mago-oso.”

  Despite everything, Eve laughed. “Yeah, she would.”

  “Ove Das, Das come. Mago-oso.”

  “Maybe sometime.”

  “Hey, my Bella, say bye to Dallas. Daddy’s got your berries.”

  “Mmm. Bye, Das, bye! Slooch!”

  Bella pressed her lips to the screen, smearing it with toddler spit.

 
“Yeah, slooch.”

  Mavis swiped the screen with something, gave Eve a look. “Straight no. She pushed some, about me, about you and Roarke, but my honey bear knows how to hold the line. He said he let her think he wasn’t too bright, or clued in, and she backed off.”

  “Which makes him both bright and clued in.”

  “That’s my moonpie. Should I be worried?”

  “I don’t think so, and if I’m wrong and there’s anything, I’ll take care of it.”

  “I know you will. We’re back in the Apple in about four days, I think. Tag me back either way when you know what you know.”

  “I will. Have fun in the mago-oso.”

  Mavis laughed. “She’ll get those l’s in one of these days. Cha, Das.”

  Satisfied, even if the anger still simmered, Eve sat again. “Take another of these books, Peabody. The way I see this one, it’s recording stars and their connections. She’s likely got one of vid stars, etc., maybe one on politicians, your basic wealthy types, and like that.”

  Peabody took two, settled on the couch. “One’s vid stars—seems exclusive to that.” She flipped open the other. “She’s got directors, producers, the industry types in this one. Question marks, exclamations, underlines, those Roman numerals. Those might be how close she thought she was to cashing in. You know, one for first stage, and like that?”

  “Yeah, that could work.” Eve had already concluded the same. “She had Leonardo at a one, Mavis hit a two. I’ve got a couple in here with fives, and she writes them in bold red.”

  Eve set the book aside, pulled out another. And opened the first page to find her own face. “She’s got me. I rate a one. A lot of pages on me,” she continued as Peabody shoved up, coming over to see for herself. “A lot of question marks. Oh, look, I rated some commentary: Bullshit, bitch. Hey, slut? Where does she come off calling me a slut? Anyway, lots of articles, some photos. She caught a couple of Summerset. Looks like he was shopping. A few of you and me on the job. And all that fancy shit for the premiere of the vid.”

  She flipped through, stopped. “And here’s Roarke. Lots and lots of Roarke.”

  Checking, she nodded. “We rate our own book.”

  “And he ranks a one, just like you.”

  Peabody flipped back, curious. Then tried to flip a page over quickly to cover. Eve slapped her hand down.

  Mars had devoted an entire page to a blown-up still of Roarke and the woman who’d been in his life long before Eve. The woman who’d come back into his life—their lives—briefly to try to destroy their marriage.

  “Magdelana,” Eve murmured. “The picture she set up.”

  Her arms around Roarke, their bodies close, and her face turned—cheating out, Mavis had called it—so the camera could capture her full beauty.

  She had notes there—Magdelana’s name, her ex-husbands, some of her data—most of it probably as bogus as Larinda’s had been.

  Does one operator recognize another? Eve wondered.

  Eve turned the page, found more notes on the next page.

  Where the hell did she go? Did Roarke sleep with her?

  Weak spot? Possible seduction route? How much does she know? Have on him? On Dallas?

  “That’s the door.” Peabody cleared her throat. “Probably McNab.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Don’t take in that bitch’s bullshit, Dallas.”

  “Huh? No.” Eve looked up. “I’m not.” To prove it, she closed the book, pulled out another.

  But when Peabody left to let in EDD, Eve sat a moment, looking back, seeing the stunning blond in the red dress.

  19

  When McNab bounced up the stairs, Eve turned the comp over to him. She carted a couple more books over to the sofa, opened a fresh one.

  “Broadcasting marks and potentials. Roman numeral fives, her high score, hits a few here. The assistant she screwed with, Phoebe Michaelson, earned one with a star instead of a dollar sign. And I’ve got some guy with three stars she connects to Bellami—to using sex drugs, having access to questionable sex workers.”

  “That’ll be who doctored Bellami’s drink for the setup.”

  “Yeah.” Eve nodded absently at Peabody. “We’ll be paying him a visit before we’re done. Some more names here, some from Channel Seventy-Five,” she continued as she turned pages. “Here’s Annie Knight—she earns four full pages. Hits the five with dollar signs. Ah, and she had one of Knight’s team on the hook. Ilene Riff, in wardrobe, two stars for information.”

  “What did she have on her?” Peabody asked.

  “Daughter’s an addict with emotional issues. Eating disorder, a cutter with a taste for punch. Bumps for solicitation without a license, petty theft, assault. Two rounds of rehab, two short stints in a cage. Currently in a halfway house and clean according to the copy of the report Mars got her hands on. Looks like Riff’s working nights waiting tables to pay off the second round of rehab.

  “We’ll talk to her,” Eve said as she turned another page. “And here’s Nadine.”

  Peabody puffed out a breath. “I guess that’s expected.”

  “Low score and, knowing Nadine, she’s going to be pretty pleased with just how much Mars disliked her.”

  “I’m in,” McNab announced. “Want me to start pulling things out?”

  “I’ll start that.” Eve noticed his gaze shift and lock on the vault. Wistfully. “Have you ever cracked a Podark?”

  “No, but I’d sure like to play.”

  “Roarke’s on the way.”

  Now came a sigh. Wistful. “Better idea.”

  “How about checking security, seeing if you can find the last time Mars came in and out? And there’s a domestic droid in the kitchen, disengaged. Mars must have used it for basic cleaning. Whatever you can get.”

  “Can do.” He rose. “Hey, Dallas, thanks for Mexico. All of it. Serious gratitude.”

  “Let’s close this case so you can get gone.”

  “I’m all about it.”

  “Peabody, go ahead and give him a hand.” Eve rose to walk back to the desk. As they bounced and clomped away, she opened the comp to a general search.

  It didn’t surprise her to find files that mirrored the theme of the books. Screen, Music, Business, Politics, and so on. She’d go through them for comparisons, but first she wanted to study the marks, priority on males.

  She’d save the financial files for later.

  Helpfully, Mars had her marks listed in alpha order. Eve started on the A’s. She’d barely moved into the B’s when Roarke came in.

  “I didn’t hear you knock.”

  “I didn’t.” Like McNab’s, his gaze shifted and locked on the vault. Eve could only interpret his expression as a look of love.

  “Ah, there she is.” He crossed to it, skimmed his fingers lightly over the polished surface. “Quite the beauty.”

  “Should I leave the two of you alone?”

  He tossed Eve a grin and set down what looked like a high-class field kit. “I owe you a solid for this, as you’d say,” he told her as he took off his coat. “So I won’t say too much about all the signs you left that you’d picked the lock on the main door.”

  “I had a warrant. I wasn’t worried about leaving signs.”

  He all but tsked at her as he took off his suit jacket. “Have some pride in your work, darling.”

  “I’m in, aren’t I? I could’ve used a battering ram.”

  He only smiled, removed his tie, rolled up his sleeves. “It’s an excellent lock, with illegal master blocks. How long did it take you to lift it?”

  When she shrugged, he took a leather strip out of his pocket, tied back his hair. “That long then? We’ll get more practice in.”

  “If you owe me a solid, why are you pissing me off?”

  He walked back to her, bent down to kiss the top of her head. “Then I’ll tell you: An amateur or third-rate thief would have needed a drill or that battering ram.”

  She nearly got to mollified, then
pulled back, eyes narrowed. “Does that make me second-rate?”

  “It makes you an excellent student with considerable, innate skill.”

  He picked up his kit, walked back to the vault. “Now, let’s have a good look at you, my lovely.”

  So saying, he sat on the floor, began to take various tools—many she didn’t recognize—from the kit.

  “What is all that?”

  He turned, glanced meaningfully at her recorder.

  She put it on pause.

  “Mementos, you could say, from a past life,” he said, getting down to it again. “I cracked my first Podark in a lovely and graceful Tuscan villa. And a lovely night it was—I can still smell the lemon blossoms. I believe I was about twenty. I had my last…” He glanced back. “Before I had you.”

  “How long before?”

  “Long enough.”

  “Hmm. Resume record.”

  He chose a device about as long and wide as his hand, attached it to the sheer front of the vault. He played his fingers over it, hummed in his throat.

  She watched him work for a few minutes as, apparently satisfied with whatever the first device told him, he attached a smaller one to it, slipped a comm unit over his ear.

  She spotted a flash of codes, as incomprehensible to her as his morning stock reports, then left him to it to go back to her own work.

  He muttered to himself now and then, sometimes in Irish, as she worked through the B’s and into the C’s. She heard McNab bounce back in, then stop.

  She looked up to see his attention riveted on Roarke.

  McNab whispered, “Search team’s here. She-Body’s getting them started. How long’s he been at it?”

  “I don’t know. Fifteen, twenty minutes.”

  “Is it okay if I watch until … No way!” McNab exclaimed, and bounced forward. “No way you can open a Podark—that’s a TXR-2000. I looked it up. No way you can open it in twenty freaking minutes!”

  “Eighteen and thirty-two seconds.” Roarke slid off his earpiece. “She’s a shy one.”

  “It has twenty-eight locking bolts, up to six passcodes and two fail-safes. Kick my ass and call me Sally, you’ve gotta show me how you did that. It would’ve taken freaking hours to drill through.”