Authors: J. D. Robb
She didn't want to know. Tears slid down, mixed with the blood. But she didn't make a sound. If she was quiet, very quiet, maybe he would go and someone else would come. Anyone else.
They take them to the pit, didn't I tell you? Didn't I warn you if you screwed with me, they'd throw you into the pit with the spiders and snakes? They say: Oh, let me help you, little girl. But what they do is eat you alive, bite by chomp by bite. But they don't want you. You're too scrawny for them, too bony. Do you thinly they don't know what you did?
He came closer, and now she could smell something else. Rot. And her breath began to hitch even as she fought to hold it in.
Killer. Murderer. And they leave you to me.
When he fell on her, she screamed.
“No. Eve, no. Shhh.”
Fighting for breath, she locked her arms around him. “Hold on. Just hold on to me.”I've got you.” He pressed his cheek to hers. “Easy now. I won't let go.”
“They left me alone, and he came for me.”
“You're not alone. I won't leave you alone.”
“They didn't want me. No one ever did. He did.”
“I want you.” He stroked her hair, her back, calming the tremors. “From the first moment I saw you, I wanted you.”
“There were so many other children.” She loosened her grip, let him lay her back, hold her close. “Then only me, and I knew he'd come. Why won't he leave me alone?”
“He won't come back tonight.” Roarke took her hand, pressed it to his chest so she could feel his heart beating. “He won't come back because there's the both of us here, and he's too much the coward.”
“Both of us,” she repeated, and left her hand on his heart while she slept.
He was up and dressed when she woke, and monitoring the stock reports on-screen in the sitting area over a cup of coffee. He turned as she rolled out of bed. “How are you?”
“About half,” she said. “I think I can make three-quarters after a shower.”
She started to walk toward the bath, then paused, changed directions, and walked to him. She bent, touched her lips to his forehead in a simple gesture of affection that left him moved and puzzled.
“You're there with me even when you're not. So thanks.”
“You're welcome.”
She crossed to the bath, glanced over her shoulder. “Sometimes you being there is annoying. But mostly it's not.”
The worry in his own mind cleared. With a laugh he turned back to the financial news and drank his coffee.
Just before seven, Eve opened her own office door to find Baxter at her desk, enjoying what appeared to be a hearty breakfast.
“Detective Baxter, your ass seems to have somehow ended up in my chair. I'd like it removed immediately so I can kick every inch of it.”
“Soon as I'm done. This is actual ham in these actual eggs.” He jerked a chin toward the wall screen where updated reports were displayed. “You don't sleep much, do you, Dallas? Damn busy night. I see you took my boy for a hell of a ride.”
“Your boy complain?”
“Hey, Trueheart's no whiner.”
His instinctive defense of his aide cooled Eve's temper. “Oh right. I must've mixed him up with you.”
“Must've been some flight.”
“Yeah, fun while it lasted.” Since he'd been courteous--or greedy-- enough to program an entire pot of coffee, she poured herself a cup. “Whitney ripped me a new one over it.”
“He's been off the street a long time. You had a call to make and made it.”
She jerked a shoulder. “Maybe he'd have done the same, and maybe he knows I'd do the same again, given the same circumstances. But it was a hell of a screwup, and a righteous ripping. It won't come down on Trueheart.”
“He'd handle it if he had do. Appreciate you seeing it doesn't. How much of a punch are you going to take?”
“Written and oral reports to the review board. Fuck. Might get myself a departmental censure in my file. I can back up my actions, justify the call, but they won't like it, and will like it less when the civil suits start piling up.”
“You collar three mercenary terrorists responsible for the deaths of twelve people--including cops--the heat gets turned way down.”
“Yeah. The same way if I don't get them soon, the heat keeps heading up. I'll handle it; I'm not a whiner either. But I want these fucking guys, Baxter.”
She turned to the door as the rest of the team began to arrive. “If you're going to eat, get it and chow it down fast,” she ordered. “We've got a lot to go over in a short amount of time.”
Briefings and reports, cop chatter and coffee. And the chatter cut off, as if a knife had sliced down, when Don Webster, Internal Affairs Bureau, strolled in.
“Morning, boys and girls. Dallas, you should've sold tickets to that show last night.”
“I thought this briefing was reserved for real cops.”
At Baxter's comment, Eve shook her head in warning. She'd been expecting IAB to poke its sharp nose in. If it had to be IAB, Webster was a mixed bag. She trusted him, as she trusted no one else in that sector. But they had a dicey personal history, and she didn't need a former lover and Roarke butting heads again.
“There's data on this case that's on a need-to-know basis,” she began.
“The Tower,” he said, referring to Chief of Police Tibbie's office, “has decided I need to know. You've got considerable OF banked on this, multiple injuries civilian and department, property damage. You've got multiple dead civilians and two dead cops.”
He waited a moment, scanned the faces in the room. “You've been questioning the investigating officers on other cases, one of which is closed. IAB needs to know. And I'm going to say this here and now, to all of you before the record goes on, that I'm not here to bust anybody's balls for doing what needs to be done to get the bastards responsible for Knight and Preston. I pulled some levers to get this duty. I've worked Homicide. I've worked with you,” he said to Eve. “It's me or somebody who hasn't.”
“The devil we know,” Eve said.
“That's right.”
“Find a seat. You'll have to catch up.”
She continued the briefing, picking her way carefully now through data Roarke had gained. “We believe Kirkendall, Clinton, and Isenberry executed individuals on a freelance basis for various covert agencies. We have reason to believe they were connected to the terrorist group Cassandra.”
“How do you come by that?” Webster asked.
She'd barely hesitated when Feeney spoke up. “It's data we were able to extrapolate from the military files provided,” he said smoothly. “EDD knows how to do its job, and this team knows how to put a case together.”
“With the Cassandra connection,” Eve continued, “these individuals had access to weaponry, electronics, and funds. The philosophy of this group--a world order in their image--correlates to the personal philosophy displayed by Kirkendall. His family was made to perform according to his specifications, his orders, or was disciplined accordingly. We know, through the statement given to Detectives Peabody and McNab by Roxanne Turnbill, that she was abducted and tortured by Kirkendall after his wife's disappearance. The time elapsed makes it likely she was taken to a location in or near the city. Cassandra operated and had a base in New York last year.”
“The current murders don't seem to be part of a terrorist threat,” Webster put in.
“No, they're personal. Screw with me, I don't just screw with you-- I kill you and your whole family. It's not revenge. It's pride. Who insulted his pride?”
“Everyone he's killed had a part in it,” Peabody commented.
“No, not everyone.”
“Well, the kid.” McNab glanced toward the door as if she might be listening on the other side.
“No. He wants her dead because his mission isn't complete until that time. His wife. It's his wife who dared to oppose him, dared to not only walk out with his kids, but who took him through the embarrassment of a custody trial. Who won. And who got away clean.”
“He can't find her.” Peabody spread her hands. “Neither can we.”
Eve thought of Roarke. He could, given the time, he could. But she wasn't going to endanger another family. “We can make him think we have her. It'll take a while to set up. Find a female cop who can handle it, one close to her build. We can use some enhancements, but she doesn't have to look identical. If he can have facial sculpting, he'd buy she could, too. We'd have to leak it so he didn't suspect it's a leak. And we've been pretty damn careful so far, so we'd need to trickle it.”
“Need a location.” Feeney pulled on his lip as he took up the thought. “Secure, so he'd buy we were holding her. Lure him in, box him in, shut him down. With the equipment and know-how he's got, you've got a hell of a trick on your hands, Dallas.”
“We put it together. I want it together within thirty-six hours, another twelve for sims. When we lay this trap out, I want it to spring shut right on their necks. Feeney, you and McNab take the computer lab.”
“We'll get on it.”
“The rest of you, give me five minutes with Lieutenant Webster.”
She waited until the room emptied and the door clicked closed. “This investigation, and last night's events, are my responsibility. The chief, IAB, or God Himself wants to file a complaint, it's on me.”
“So noted. I said I wasn't here to bust balls, and I meant it. The Duberry case, I've had a look at the files. While I wouldn't call the investigation sloppy, I'd call it narrow. Brenegan? It looked like a righteous bust that resulted in a righteous conviction. But this data calls that into question.”
“The cops on those cases complained to IAB?”
“Cops don't complain to IAB,” he returned with the slightest of sneers. “You avoid us like a case of the clap. But we get wind. Fact is, Dallas, if the primary on Duberry had done a more thorough job, scratched out that connection to Moss, then back to Brenegan, this hunt might've started a year ago.”
“Figuring a connect between a strangulation and a car bomb's a stretch.”
“You made the stretch.”
“I had more. If you're looking for fuel against another cop on this from me, you're not going to get it.”
“That's up to his superiors, not IAB. Regarding the media that's going to ... has already started to explode on the incident last night, you spin that right--and you've got excellent media connections--you can circle it into a positive. Heroic cop risks life to protect the city from baby killers.”
“Oh fuck that.”
“Don't think that's not just how Tibbie will have it spun. Not just your ass in the sling if you don't get some shine on this. Turn it around, get that sexy, fierce-eyed face on camera. Shake this off so you can get back to work.”
“I am back to work.” But she considered. “The spin lower the heat on the rest of the team, on the investigation?”
“Couldn't hurt. It couldn't hurt if you tell the rest of your team to cut me some serious slack. I was a good murder cop.”
“Yeah, too bad you didn't stick with that.”
“Your opinion. I can help, and that's why I'm here. Not to roust you, and not because I've still got a torch going. Maybe just a little smoulder now and then,” he added with an easy smile.
“Cut it out.”
The door between the offices opened. Though Roarke leaned against the jamb, he looked about as lazy as a wolf eyeballing quarry. “Webster,” he said in the coolest of tones.
Eve had a flash of the two of them beating the crap out of each other right where she now stood. She felt the tickle that might have been panic in the back of her throat as she stepped between them.
“Lieutenant Webster is here--at the directive of Chief Tibbie--as a representative of IAB and for the purposes of--”
“Christ, Dallas, I can talk for myself.” And he held his hands up, palms out. “Never touched her, don't intend to.”
“Good. She's on a difficult investigation, as I'm sure you're aware. She hardly needs either of us complicating things.”
“I'm not here to complicate things for her, or you.”
“Standing right here,” Eve said sharply. “You can stop talking around me.”
“Just clearing the air, Lieutenant.” Roarke nodded to her, to Webster. “I'll let you get back to work.”
“A minute,” she muttered and stalked into the office behind Roarke, shut the door with a decisive click. “Listen--”
He cut her off, pressing his lips to hers, then eased back. “I like to wind him up--and you as well. It's small of me, but there you are. I know perfectly well that he won't move on you, and if he lost his mind and did, you'd bloody him. Well, unless I got there first, which I sincerely hope would be the case. Actually, as I've told you before, I like him.”
“You like him.”
“Yes. He has superb taste in women, and a rather fine left jab.”
“Great. Good.” She shook her head. You figured you knew what made men tick, she thought. But you never did. “I'm going back to work.”
WITH A FROWN ON HER FACE, EVE SURVEYED Roarke's computer lab. Several of the units were up and running, several of the screens had words, codes, strange symbols that might as well have been hieroglyphics whizzing over them. Computerized voices intoned incomprehensible statements, questions, comments.
And the rumpled Feeney, the neon McNab, scooted around on wheeled chairs, somehow miraculously avoiding collision with work stations and each other, like a couple of kids in a strange, strange game.
Stepping into the room was, for her, like stepping into an alternate universe.
“Yo.” Feeney gave her a finger point, then tapped icons on a screen that slid up out of the counter. “Got something going.”
“Okay. I assume it's not Maximum Force 2200.”
“Hey.” McNab looked over. “You cruise MF?”
“No.” Well, maybe she'd played it a couple of times, but just to test her comp skills. “What's going?”
“What we've got over here is a diagnostic on the Swisher security system. We ran all the standards on it, stripped her down. Nice system, by the way.”
“We already know it was jammed, remote. Bypassed the failsafes and backups.”
“Yeah, yeah, but not how, not what they used. We're getting that. You work back from the system, code by code, signal by signal, and maybe you put together, code by code, signal by signal, the device that pulled it off.”