In Death 07.5 - Midnight in Death (8 page)

She kept her silence and stepped out of the shower and into the drying tube. It gave her a very nice view. She let herself relax enough to enjoy it, watching the jets of water pulse and pound over Roarke as the hot air swirled around her.

She was back in the bedroom, just tugging on an ancient NYPSD sweatshirt and thinking about coffee and a long evening of work when her palm-link rang. Vaguely irritated with a call on her personal, she plucked it up from where she’d dumped it on the bedside table.

“Dallas.”

“It was nice to see you today. In person. Face-to-face.”

“Hello, Dave.” With her free hand, she reached in her pocket, switched her communicator on, and plugged in Feeney’s code. “Nice vehicle.”

“Yes, I like it very much. Fast, efficient, spacious. You’re looking a bit tired, Lieutenant. A bit pale. Overworked, as usual? Too bad you haven’t been able to enjoy the holidays.”

“They’ve had their moments.”

“Mine have been very rewarding.” His handsome face glowed with a smile. “It’s so good to be back at work. Though I did manage to keep my hand in while I was away. But you and I—I’m sure we’ll agree—know there’s nothing like New York. Nothing like being home and doing what we love best.”

“Too bad you won’t be able to stay long.”

“Oh, I intend to be here long enough to see the celebration in Times Square tomorrow night. To ring in the new year. In fact, I’m hoping we’ll watch it together.”

“Sorry, Dave. I have plans.” From the corner of her eye, she watched Roarke come out of the bath. Watched him keep out of range, move directly to the bedroom computer, and begin to work manually.

“I think you’ll change them. When you know who else I’ve invited to the party. I picked her up just a little while ago. You should be getting a call shortly from the guards you’d posted. The police haven’t gotten any smarter since I’ve been gone.” He let out a charming laugh. “I took a little video for you, Dallas. Take a look. I’ll be in touch later to tell you what you need to do to keep her alive.”

The image shifted. Eve’s blood iced as she saw the woman in the cage. Unconscious, pale, one slim hand dangling through the bars.

“Transmitted from a public ’link,” Roarke said from behind her. “Grand Central.”

Dimly she heard Feeney giving her the same information through her communicator. Units were already on their way to the location.

He’d be gone. Of course they knew he’d already be gone.

“He has Mira.” It was all she could say. “He has Mira.”

Panic wanted to win. It crawled in her belly, snaked up her throat. It made her hands shake until she balled them into fists.

It wanted to swallow her when she moved through Mira’s house, when she found the broken security bracelet on the floor of the office.

“He used laser tools.” Her voice was steady and cool as she bagged the bracelet. “He anticipated that she’d be wearing one and brought what was necessary to remove it.”

“The MTs are taking the guards in. The two from outside were just stunned. But one of the inside team’s in bad shape.” Feeney crouched down next to her. “Looks like Palmer got in the back, bypassed the security system like a pro. He hit the one guard in the kitchen, used a stunner to take him out quick and quiet. From the looks of the living area, the second one gave him more trouble. They went a round in there. Mira must have been up here. If she had the door closed and was working, she wouldn’t have heard anything. Room’s fully soundproofed.”

“So he takes out the security, four experienced cops, waltzes right in, dismantles her bracelet, and waltzes out with her. We underestimated him, Feeney.” And for that she would forever blame herself. “He’s not what he was when I took him down before. He’s studied up, he’s learned, he’s gotten himself into condition. He made good use of three years in a cage.”

“She knows how his mind works.” Feeney laid his hand on her shoulder. “Mira knows how to handle this kind of guy. She’ll use that. She’ll keep her cool and use it.”

“No one knows how his mind works this time around. Thinking I did was part of the problem all along. I fucked up here, Feeney, and Mira’s going to pay for it.”

“You’re wrong. The only fucking up you’re doing is thinking that way now.”

“I thought he might use Roarke as bait. Because if he’s been studying me he knows that’s where he could hit me the hardest.” She made herself breathe slow as she got to her feet. “But he knows me better than I figured. He knows she matters to me.”

“And he’ll count on that messing you up. You gonna let it?”

“No.” She breathed in again, exhaled. “No. I need McNab to shake something loose. What’s their ETA?”

“Midday tomorrow. They had some transpo delays. The transmissions are full of blips, but I got that he’s dug into some financials.”

“Shoot whatever you’ve got to my home unit. I’ll be working from there.”

“We’ll want to tap your palm-link.”

“Yeah, he’ll have figured that, but we’ll do it anyway.” She met Feeney’s eyes. “We take the steps.”

“We’ll get her back, Dallas.”

“Yeah, we will.” She turned the sealed bracelet over in her hand. “If he hurts her, I’m taking him out.” She lifted her gaze again. “Whatever line I have to cross, I take him out.”

When she walked outside, Roarke was waiting. She hadn’t argued when he’d come with her and could only be grateful that he was there to drive home so her mind could be free to think.

“Feeney’s going to be sending me data,” she began as she climbed into the car. “Financials. You’ll be able to extrapolate faster. The sweepers will go through Mira’s house, but he won’t have left much, if anything. Anyway, it’s not a question of IDing him. Peabody and McNab won’t be back until midday tomorrow, so we’ll be working with whatever they can send us while they’re en route.”

“I took a look at the alarms and security. It’s a very good system. He used a sophisticated bypass unit to take it out without triggering the auto. It’s not something your average citizen can access easily. I can help you trace the source.”

“Doesn’t matter at this point. Later we can deal with it. It’s just another thread he left dangling, figuring I’d waste time pulling it and getting nowhere.”

She rubbed at the headache behind her eyes. “I’ve got uniforms canvasing. One of the neighbors might have seen or heard something. It’s useless, but it’s routine and we might get lucky.”

She closed her eyes, forced herself to think past the fear. “She’s got until tomorrow, midnight. Dave wants some tradition and symbolism. He wants to welcome in the new year with me, and he needs her to get me there.”

Her voice was too cool, Roarke thought. Too controlled. He’d seen the hint of panic in her eyes, and the grief. He let her hold in both as they arrived home, as she walked directly up to her office and called up all necessary files.

She added hard-copy data to the investigator’s board she’d set up. And when she shifted Mira’s photo from one area to the other, her fingers shook.

“Eve.” He took her shoulders, turned her around. “Let it out.”

“Can’t. Don’t talk to me.”

“You can’t work around it.” He only tightened his grip when she tried to jerk away. “Let it out. Let it out,” he said in a gentler tone. “I know what she means to you.”

“God.” She wrapped her arms around him, curling her hands up over his shoulders as she pressed her face into his neck. “Oh, God. Hold on. Just for a minute, hold on.”

Her body shook, one hard wave of shudders after another. She didn’t weep, but her breath hitched as he held her close. “I can’t think about what he might do to her. If I think about it, I’ll lose it.”

“Then remember she’s strong, and she’s smart. She’ll know what she has to do.”

“Yeah.” Her ’link signaled incoming data. “That’ll be the financials.”

“I’ll start on them.” He eased her back. “He won’t win this round.”

“Damn right.”

She worked until her eyes and mind went blurry, then fueled up with coffee and worked some more. At just after two
A.M
. Feeney shot her more data. It told her that he, Peabody, and McNab were all still on the job.

“Basically,” Roarke said, “this is just confirming what we already have. The accounts, the transfers. You need to find more. You need to look from a different angle.” He glanced up to see Eve all but swaying on her feet. “And you need to sleep.”

She would have argued, but it would have wasted time. “We both do. Just a little while. We can share the sleep chair. I want to stay close to this unit.”

The caffeine in her system couldn’t fight off exhaustion. Moments after closing her eyes, she fell into sleep. Where nightmares chased her.

Images of Mira trapped in a cage mixed and melded with memories of herself as a child, locked in a room. Horror, pain, fear lived in both places. He would come—Palmer, her father—he would come and he would hurt her because he could. Because he enjoyed it. Because she couldn’t stop him.

Until she killed him.

But even then he came back and did it all again in her dreams.

She moaned in sleep, curled into Roarke.

It was the smell of coffee and food that woke her. She sat up with a jerk, blinked blindly in the dark, and found herself alone in the chair. She stumbled into the kitchen and saw Roarke already taking food from the AutoChef.

“You need to eat.”

“Yeah, okay.” But she went for the coffee first. “I was thinking about what you said, looking at a different angle.” She sat, because he nudged her into a chair, and shoveled in food because it was in front of her. “What if he bought or rented this place he’s got before he got to New York? A year ago, two years ago?”

“It’s possible. I still haven’t found any payments.”

“Has to be there. Somewhere.” She heard the ring of her palm-link from the other room and was on her feet. “Stay in here, do what you can to trace.”

Deliberately she moved behind her desk, sat, composed her face. “Dallas.”

“Good morning, Lieutenant. I hope you slept well.”

“Like a top, Dave.” She curled a hand under the desk.

“Good. I want you rested up for our date tonight. You’ve got, oh, let’s see, just over sixteen and a half hours to get here. I have every confidence in you.”

“You could tell me where you are, we can start our date early.”

He laughed, obviously delighted with her. “And spoil the fun? I don’t think so. We’re puzzle solvers, Dallas. You find me by midnight and Dr. Mira will remain perfectly safe. That’s providing you come to see me alone. I’ll know if you bring uninvited guests, as I have full security. Any gate-crashers, and the good doctor dies immediately and in great physical distress. I want to dance with you, Dallas. Just you. Understood?”

“It’s always been you and me, Dave.”

“Exactly. Come alone, by midnight, and we’ll finish what we started three years ago.”

“I don’t know that she’s still alive.”

He only smiled. “You don’t know that she’s not.” And broke transmission.

“Another public ’link,” Roarke told her. “Port Authority.”

“I need the location. If I’m not there by midnight, he’ll kill her.” She rose, paced. “He’s got a place, one with full security. He’s not bullshitting there. He’ll have cameras, in and out. Sensors. He didn’t have time to set all that up in a week, so either the place came equipped with them or he ordered them from prison courtesy of the chaplain.”

“We can access tax records, blueprints, specs. It’ll take time.”

“Time’s running out. Let’s get started.”

At two she received word that Peabody and McNab had landed, and she ordered them to bring the unit to her home office. He was close, she thought again, and none of them should waste time working downtown.

The minute they walked in, she began outlining her plan of attack. “McNab, set up over there. Start checking out any financials, transfers, transmissions, using the chaplain’s name. Or a combo of his and Palmer’s. Peabody, contact Whitney, request a canvas of all private garages in the suspect area. I want uniforms, every warm body we can find, hitting the public parking facilities with orders to confiscate and review all security tapes for the past week.”

“All, Lieutenant?”

“Every last one.”

She swung around and into Roarke’s office. Using his auxiliary unit, she called up data, shot it to screen. “I’ve got the residences of Palmer’s targets in blue,” she told Roarke. “We run from mid to upper Manhattan, heaviest population on the East Side. We need to concentrate on private homes in this ten-block radius. Unless something jumps out at you, disregard anything that doesn’t fit this profile.”

She rolled her shoulders to relieve the tension, closed her eyes to clear her mind. “It’ll have a basement. Probably two stories in addition to it. Fully soundproofed and most likely with its own vehicle storage area. I’ve got them looking at public storage, but I’m betting he has his own. He wants me to find him, goddamn it, so it can’t be that hard. He wants me to work for it but not to fail. It’s just personal for him, and without me…”

She trailed off, whirled around. “He needs me. Jesus. Check my name. Check deeds, mortgages, leases using my name.”

“There’s your new angle, Lieutenant,” Roarke murmured as he set to work. “Very good.”

“Toss it on screen,” she asked even as she moved to stand behind him and watch. As her name popped up with a list of liber and folio numbers she swore again. “How the hell did he get all that property?”

“That’s not his, it’s yours.”

“What do you mean mine? I don’t own anything.”

“Properties I’ve transferred into your name.” Roarke spoke absently as he continued the scan.

“Transferred? What the hell for?”

He skimmed a finger lightly over her wedding ring and earned a punch in the shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

“Take it back. All of it.”

“It’s complicated. Taxes. Really, you’re doing me a favor. No, there’s nothing here that isn’t yours. We’ll try a combination of names.”

She wanted, badly, to seethe, but she didn’t have time.

They found three listings for the name David Dallas in Manhattan.

“Get the property descriptions.”

“I’m working on it. It takes a moment to hack into city hall.”

Barely more than that for Roarke, Eve noted as the data flashed on screen. “No, that’s downtown. Sex club. Try the next.” She gripped the back of his chair, straining with impatience. “That’s just out of the target area, but possible. Hold that and run the last. I’ll be damned.” She almost whispered it. “He reverted to type after all. That’s his parents’ house. He bought their place.”

“Two and a half years ago,” Roarke confirmed. “Using the name David Dallas. Your man was thinking ahead. Very far ahead. We’ll find accounts in that name, or an account that he had and closed.”

“Five blocks from here. The son of a bitch is five blocks from here.” She leaned down, kissed the top of Roarke’s head, and strode back into her office. “I’ve found it,” she announced, then looked at her wrist unit. “We’ve got seven hours to figure out how to take him down.”

She would go in alone. She insisted on it. She agreed to go in wired. Agreed to surveillance and backup at half-block intervals surrounding the house. For luck she pinned on the badge Peabody had given her, then waited with growing impatience as Feeney checked the transmitter.

“You’re on,” he told her. “Nothing I found on the video disc had equipment that can tag this pretty little bug. We’ve got a decoy so he’ll think he’s found one and deactivated it.”

“Good thinking.”

“You got to do it this way.” He nodded at her. “I’d do the same. But you better understand I hear anything I don’t like, I’m coming in. Roarke.” He stepped back as Roarke came into the room. “I’ll give you a minute here.”

Roarke crossed to her, tapped a finger on her badge. “Funny, you don’t look like Gary Cooper.”

“Who?”

He smiled. “
High Noon
, darling Eve, though the clock’s turned around on this one. We have a date in a couple of hours.”

“I remember. I’ve got a present coming. I can do this.”

“Yes.” He kissed her, softly. “I know. Give my best to Mira.”

“You bet. The team’s moving into place now. I have to go.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

He waited until she was gone, then walked outside himself and climbed casually into Feeney’s unit. “I’ll be riding with you.”

Feeney scratched his chin. “Dallas won’t like it.”

“That’s a pity. I spent the last few hours studying the schematics for the security on the Palmer house. I can bypass it, by remote.”

“Can you, now?” Feeney said mildly.