by J. D. Robb
“You don’t have to steal it. They’ll fix you up.”
“I don’t want them to fix me up,” Eve grumbled. “I hate them. I’ll just palm what I need and take care of it myself.”
Eve swung through the infirmary, committed—if you wanted to be absolutely technical—some basic shoplifting by pocketing what she needed without logging it in.
But if she logged it, they’d insist on seeing the wound. If she showed them the wound, they’d start badgering her to have it treated there. She just needed to clean it up, slap a bandage on it. And, okay, maybe take a blocker.
When she stepped into her office, Roarke was already there.
“Let’s see it.”
“See what?”
He merely lifted his eyebrows.
“Damn Peabody. She’s got a mouth on her.” Eve pulled the lifted items out of her coat pocket, tossed them on her desk. She hung her coat on the rack, then sat and propped her injured leg on the desk.
Roarke studied the wound when she tugged up her pants leg, and hissed a little. “Bit nasty, that.”
“I’ve had worse than a nip from some half-assed sissy street thief.”
“True enough.” Still, he cleaned, treated, and bandaged the bite himself. Then leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to the neat white square. “There, that’s better.”
“He tailed me.”
Roarke straightened now, and the quiet amusement in his eyes faded. “We’re not talking about the half-assed sissy street thief.”
“I made him—black sedan, couldn’t get the plate, but I think we can pop on the model, maybe the year. I might’ve been able to get more, maybe even have managed to box him in if that asshole hadn’t run out in the street. I had to control the vehicle or else crash into the limo that bumped the asshole and crashed into an ATV in front of me. A few seconds, and he was gone.”
“He wouldn’t know you made him.”
“Don’t see how, no. He’s just cautious. There’s trouble up ahead, so he slithers off and avoids it. If he’s been out and about shadowing me, he might not have seen the media reports with his face on them. But he will.”
She shifted to try to ease the throbbing in her calf. “Be a pal, would you? Get me coffee.”
He went to her AutoChef. “And your next step?”
“Meet with Whitney and Mira to discuss the possibilities of baiting a trap. Check in with the team members, input any new data. At some point I need an hour or two just to think. I need to work it through in my head, play with it.”
He brought the coffee back to her. “As a party with vested interest in the bait, I’d like to attend this meeting.”
“Just can’t get enough of meetings, can you? You’ll have to leave your buttons outside the room.”
“Sorry?”
“If your buttons aren’t there, they can’t be pushed.” She let her head lean back for just a minute, let the coffee work its magic on her system. “And to remember I’m not just bait, I’m an experienced and kick-ass cop.”
“With a sissy bite on her tightly muscled calf.”
“Well…yeah.”
“Dallas.” Peabody stepped to the door. “How’s the leg?”
“Fine, and as of now, removed from all discussion.”
“The commander and Dr. Mira will take us in the commander’s office in twenty.”
“Good enough.”
“Meanwhile, Officer Gil Newkirk’s come in. He’s in the war room.”
“On my way.”
Gil Newkirk wore his uniform well. He had a rock-solid look about him, indicating to Eve he knew how to handle himself on the street. His face bore the same sort of toughness, what she supposed Feeney might call “seasoning.”
She’d met him a handful of times over the years, and considered him to be sensible and straightforward.
“Officer Newkirk.”
“Lieutenant.” He took the hand she offered with a firm, brisk shake. “Looks like you’ve got an efficient setup here.”
“It’s a good team. We’re narrowing the field.”
“I’m glad to hear it, and wish I’d brought you something substantial. If you’ve got some time…”
“Have a seat.” She gestured, joined him at the conference table.
“You’ve got his face.” Newkirk nodded to the sketch pinned to one of the four case boards. “I’ve been studying that face, trying to put it in front of me nine years back during one of the knock-on-doors. There were so many of them, Lieutenant. That face isn’t coming up for me.”
“It was a long shot.”
“I went through my notes again, and I went over to Ken Colby’s place, he was on this. He went down five years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He was a good man. His widow, she let me dig out his files and notes on the old investigation. I brought them in.” He tapped the box he’d carried in with him. “Thought they might add something.”
“I appreciate that.”
“There were a couple of guys that popped for me when I was going through it again this morning—going off what you gave me last night. But the face, it doesn’t match.”
“What popped about them?”
“The body type and coloring. And my boy and I, we’ve talked this through some.” He cocked a brow.
“I’ve got no problem with that.”
“I know you’re working the Urban Wars angle, and I remembered one of these guys told us he used to ride along in a dead wagon in the Urbans, with his old man. Pick up bodies. Worked as an MT, then kicked that when he went to some convention in Vegas and hit a jackpot. I remember him because it was a hell of a story. The other was this rich guy, third-generation money. He did taxidermy for a hobby. Place was full of dead animals.
“I pulled them out.” He passed her a disc. “In case you wanted to check them out again.”
“We’ll do that. Are you on duty, Officer Newkirk?”
“Day off,” he said.
“If you got the time and the interest, maybe you could run these through with Feeney, for current data. I’d be grateful.”
“No problem. I’m happy to assist in any way.”
Eve got to her feet, offered her hand again. “Thanks. I’ve got a meeting. I’ll check back as soon as I can. Peabody, Roarke, with me.”
She had to concentrate not to limp, and giving into her throbbing leg, headed for the small and often odorous confines of the elevator.
“Remember,” she said to Roarke, “you’re a civilian, and this is a NYPSD op.”
“That’s expert civilian to you, copper.”
She didn’t smirk—very much—then squeezed herself onto an elevator. “And don’t call the commander Jack. It negates the serious and official tone, and…it’s just wrong.”
“Yo, Dallas!”
She turned her head to see one of the detectives from Anti-Crime grinning at her. “Renicki.”
“Heard some mope took a chunk out of you, and now he’s got himself a case of rabies.”
“Yeah? I heard some LC got a taste of you, and now she’s got herself a case of the clap.”
“And that,” Roarke murmured as a number of cops hooted, “is serious and official.”
In his office, Whitney stood behind his desk, and Mira beside a visitor’s chair. “Lieutenant,” he said. “Detective. Roarke.”
“Sir, as I believe the expert consultant may be able to assist with the content of this meeting, I’ve asked him to be included.”
“Your call. Please, sit.”
While Roarke, Peabody, and Mira took seats, Eve remained standing. “With permission, Commander, to first update you and Dr. Mira.”
She ran it through, quick and spare.
“You were shadowed?” Whitney didn’t question her statement. “Any thoughts on why?”
“Yes, sir. Dr. Mira broached the possibility that I may be a target. That rather than the springboard for these particular women being Roarke, the springboard for any connection with Roarke may
be me.”
“You didn’t mention this theory to me, Doctor.”
“I asked Dr. Mira to give me time to evaluate,” Eve said before Mira could speak. “To consider, and to run probabilities before we shifted the focus on this area of the investigation. Having done so, I believe it’s a viable theory. I was a detective on the first investigation, partner to the primary. I fall within the parameters of his choice of victim. I may have crossed paths with him nine years ago, or walked a parallel line.
“I think he came back to New York for specific reasons. And I think one of them is his intention to bag me.”
“He’ll be disappointed,” Whitney commented.
“Yes, sir, he will.”
“How strongly do you support this theory, Mira?”
“I’ve run my own probabilities, and I believe, given his pathology, he would consider capturing the lieutenant, a woman with considerable training and authority, a woman married to a man with considerable power, to be his finest achievement. However, it leads me to another question. How will he top it?”
“He can’t,” Roarke stated. “And knows that he won’t. She’s the last, isn’t she? The best, the most challenging, his ultimate.”
“Yes.” Mira nodded. “I agree. He’s willing to alter, even slightly, his victim profile. This is not a woman who can be pinned to a specific routine, to a pattern of habits and haunts. Nor one he could approach, face-to-face, as we believe he has with many if not all in the past, and lure her. It must be worth it to him to take this great risk, to devise a way to pull her in. He’s circled back,” Mira continued. “Come back to what we could call his roots. Because this will finish his work.”
“He’s stopped before,” Peabody put in. “A year or two. But how can he just decide he’s finished? This kind of killer doesn’t stop unless he’s captured or killed.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“You think he’s dying,” Eve said to Mira. “Or that he’s decided to self-terminate after he finishes me.”
“I do. Yes, I believe exactly that. I also believe he doesn’t fear it. Death is an accomplishment to him, and a timed cycle, which he has, for nearly a decade we know of, controlled. He doesn’t fear his own death, and that only makes him more dangerous.”
“We need to give him an opening.” Eve narrowed her eyes. “And soon.”
“If it’s too easy, he won’t bite.” Roarke met Eve’s gaze when she turned. “I know something about challenges. If it comes too easy, it’s not worth the trouble. He’ll want to work for it. At the very least he’ll want to believe that he outwitted you. And he’s had much longer to plan, to devise and study the problem than you have.”
“I agree.” Mira leaned forward. “If what we believe is true, you’re the finish to his work. You complete it. The fact that you’re pursuing him even as he pursues you not only ups the stakes but adds a particular shine. You would be, quite literally, his masterpiece. With his need for control, he must feel he’s manipulated the outcome. Lured you, despite your training and advantages, as he’s lured the others.”
“So we let him believe it,” Eve said, “right up to the moment we take him down. He has to be aware by now that we know his face. My take, from the profile, from what we know, is that it will only add to his excitement, his enjoyment. No one’s ever gotten this close before. And while he’s never overtly sought attention from the killing, his method indicates pride in it. In the end, if that’s what this is, won’t he want to be known?”
“And remembered,” Mira confirmed.
“We don’t know where or when, but we know who the target is, and we know why. Big advantages. We have his face, body type, age range. We know more about him than we did nine years ago.”
She wanted to pace, to move while she talked it through, but Eve considered that inappropriate in Whitney’s office. “He probably has a connection with the Urban Wars, he likes opera, rather than physical means, he uses manipulation and deceit to obtain his victims, and often makes personal contact with them before the abduction. Unlike nine years ago, his victims lived or worked from midtown down. That’s purposeful.”
“He wanted us to get closer this time.” Whitney nodded. “And by using Roarke’s people, he made it personal.”
“But he doesn’t know how much we know,” Peabody put in. “He doesn’t know we’ve concluded Dallas is his end game. That’s another advantage. As long as he thinks she’s looking ahead—I mean that she’s focused on the pursuit, he’ll think he can ease around behind her, bag the prize.”
“Back to an opening. One he can believe he helped make,” Eve said to Roarke. “You’re going to need to go back to work.”
“Back to?”
“To the buying-controlling-interest-of-the-known-universe-one-sector-at-a-time work. He’s not going to move on me if I’m in lockstep with you, or you,” she said to Peabody, “or anyone else. We have to give him a little room. If he knows my routines, then he knows I generally travel to and from Central solo, that I might do a follow-up after shift on my own. We need to crack the window for him.”
“Giving the appearance I’ve gone back to business, so to speak, is easy enough,” Roarke replied. His tone was even, almost casual. But Eve heard the steel under it. “But as long as that window’s cracked I’ll be an active member of this team. This is not,” he continued, and addressed himself to the commander now, “simply a matter of me insisting on having some part in protecting the lieutenant. This man has taken three of my people, and one is already dead. It won’t be back to business for me until he’s apprehended—or as dead as Sarifina York.”
“Understood. Lieutenant, it was your choice to bring the civilian on board. Unless you feel his particular talents and expertise are no longer useful, I believe he should remain active.”
“You can’t stick too close,” Eve began. “If he senses you’re concerned for my safety, he could pull back. So make the appearance a good one.”
“Not a problem.”
“We keep working it, no dramatic shifts in the routine. But we split some of the legwork and interviews.”
“And you go, wherever you go,” Whitney ordered, “wired.”
“Yes, sir. I’m going to set that up with Feeney. I’ll need a homer for my vehicle, and—”
“Already done,” Roarke said, then smiled serenely when she turned on him. “You agreed to that action earlier.”
True, she thought, but she hadn’t expected him to take it on himself before she’d officially cleared it. Which, she had to admit, was stupid. That’s exactly what she should’ve expected. “Yeah, I did.”
“You’ll wear a vest,” Mira told her.
“A woman after my own heart,” Roarke murmured, and his smile spread at the annoyance on Eve’s face.
“A vest’s overkill. His pattern—”
“He’s breaking pattern with you,” Mira reminded her. “A vest ensures your safety and success, should he try to stun or injure you in order to incapacitate you. He’s intelligent enough to know he needs a physical advantage with you.”
“Wear the vest.” Whitney’s voice was clipped. “Set up the electronics with Feeney. I want to know where you are, from this point on, at all times. When you’re in the field, in your vehicle, on the street for any reason, so is a shadow team. It’s not just a matter of keeping one of my people safe, Lieutenant,” he told her, “it’s a matter of slamming that window shut, the minute he comes through it. Work it out, relay the details.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
Roarke ran his fingers down her arm as they headed for the glide down. “A vest isn’t a punishment, darling.”
“You wear one for a couple hours, then say that. And no ‘darling’ on shift.”
“You can call me darling anytime,” Peabody told him, and made him grin.
“I’ve a few arrangements to make. I’ll see you back in the war room.” He started to split off from them. “Later, darling. I was talking to Peabody
,” he said when Eve bared her teeth.
16
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR ROARKE TO MAKE arrangements. In the end, however, it would be more than the appearance he was tending to his own organization. He’d have to put in some time on just that, once he could get to his home office, juggling deals and finance with murder.
But for now he headed back to the war room to keep the various balls of his e-work in the air. He caught sight of Eve coming from the direction of her office. With a few yards between them, he watched her—long, quick strides. Places to go, he thought, murderers to catch.
He stopped off, grabbing a bottle of water for both of them, then walked in.
She’d gone to Feeney’s station. The cop Feeney was working with—the detail-minded young Newkirk’s father, Roarke remembered—nodded, and gathering a few discs, shifted to another area.
So she wanted a direct with Feeney, Roarke concluded. He went to his own station to work on a problem, and to study their dynamics.
He could see Feeney absorb the information, see Feeney’s eyes narrow in consideration. And the faintest frown of concern. There was some back-and-forth, rapid-fire on Feeney’s part, then he scratched his ear, dipped into his pocket. Out came a bag.
It would be nuts, Roarke knew, as Feeney dipped into it, then held it out to Eve.
Taking that as a signal they were now at the thinking through and strategy stage, Roarke rose to walk over and join them.
“Raised his sights considerably,” Feeney said to Roarke.
“So it would seem.”
Feeney swiveled idly left to right, right to left, in his chair as he spoke. “We can wire her up, no problem there. Could put a camera on her, too. Give us eyes if and when we need them.”
“I don’t want him spotting a camera,” Eve began.
“I have something.” Roarke looked at Feeney. “The new generation of the HD Mole. XT-Micro. Most often used lapel-style, but as she’s not known for accessorizing it can be easily reconfigured into a button—shirt or jacket. Voice print option. She can activate or deactivate it with any choice of keyword or phrase.”