Reunion in Death (11 page)

She stepped back inside. "Ms. Fitch, do you know a woman named Julianna Dunne?"

"Dunne? That name sounds familiar." Her brow furrowed, then arched in surprise. "The Walter Pettibone murder-and the others. I saw the media reports and bulletins. Do you think she... but why? How could she just..." She did sit now, heavily.

"Have you seen a woman matching her description in or around these offices?"

"No." Olivia pressed her hands to her face. "I can't get my head around this."

"She was here, in your break room. I assume your cleaning service wipes down that area every night."

"Yes, yes. We have a very good, very thorough service."

"If that's the case, she was here this morning. Can I use this?" she asked, gesturing to the computer.

"Yes. Go ahead."

Eve plugged in the lobby disc. "Do you know what time the cleaning service does this area?"

"They're scheduled to do this floor between twelve and two a.m."

Eve programmed the disc to begin its run at two A.M. She zipped through, pausing periodically when someone entered or exited the lobby. Traffic was light, running to weary office drones who'd put in a late shift, maintenance people, and a change of lobby personnel. At oh-six-forty-five, an attractive brunette in a smart business suit strode in and walked straight to the reception desk.

Eve froze the frame, enhanced. "Do you recognize this woman?"

Olivia turned back, studied the image. "No. I don't recall seeing her before. There are a number of offices and companies in this building. I don't see how-"

"Look closer. Just the face. Forget the hair."

There was a flicker of impatience, but Olivia did as she was asked. "I know everyone on this level, and she's not... Wait. My God. That's Dunne, isn't it? I didn't recognize her at first glance."

"Yeah, most people wouldn't."

...

By noon she had a conference room booked and her team assembled.

"Here's how it went," she began. "Julianna forges a firm ID-child's play-and passes it off to the security guard. Same guard was on duty the day before-six to noon shift-and she signed in as Janet Drake, clerical temp for Mouton, Carlston, and Fitch at eight-forty-three on that date. Made a point in giving him a big, flirty smile and making some small talk so he'd remember her when she came in this morning. Walks in early," Eve continued, gesturing to the disc running on-screen. "Bops right on up to the main floor of the firm. We've got her until she walks into the offices. Eight minutes later, we have Mouton following the same route. For the next twenty minutes, we deduce."

She paused the run. "Statements from staff and associates confirm that Mouton habitually entered his office at oh-seven hundred. He was a creature of routine, and no doubt Julianna researched his habits. The most likely scenario is she introduced herself as a temp, claimed to be eager to start work, flattered him in the area most important to him-his firm, his work, his work ethic. She offers to bring him coffee, goes to the break room, orders a cup, poisons it. She'd have stayed to make sure he drank it, make sure he died. She likes to see the job through. At seven-eighteen, she exits the offices."

Eve ordered the run to continue, zipped it up. "She's got a glow about her now," she commented. "She really gets off on this. Exits by a second-floor fire door so she doesn't have to bother with the guard. She could catch the glide to street level and be home for brunch."

"She's changed her pattern," Feeney put in. "She's stayed in New York, she's greasing guys not previously known to her. But some habits die hard. She's still going for the same type of target, still modifying her appearance without any permanent changes."

"She's dug in here." Eve reached for coffee as a matter of habit more than need. "Mira's opinion is I'm part of the appeal-the only woman she's ever really combated with. She needs to be better than I am, and the way to do that is to kill on my turf while I chase my tail."

"Good." McNab caught her attention. "Then it'll hurt more when you rear back and bite out her throat."

"Sucking up, Detective?"

"Yes, sir." He flashed a grin as bright as his trio of earrings. "But hey, what is, is. She's not better than you."

"Right now I've got two dead men who aren't likely to agree with you. We need to keep on those units impounded from Dockport. She's got a place here."

Somewhere, Eve thought. Classy uptown digs, trendy downtown.

"Swank apartment or house, in the city. She either bought it while she was in the cage, or arranged for it to be maintained during that period." She gulped more coffee, waited for the kick. "There have to be transmissions. She's smart enough to have used her smuggled PPC for that, but she might have gotten sloppy. She researched targets. There has to be data."

"We're cleaning out the excess," Feeney assured her. "If it's there, we'll find it."

"Find it fast. There are disc copies of Mira's report for all of you. You'll read her opinion, and I concur with it, that Julianna's story regarding her stepfather sexually abusing her is inaccurate. I need to interview him, push out the truth. The more we know about her, the quicker we hunt her down. In addition, it's possible he's a future target. I'll be going to Texas as soon as it can be arranged."

"Am I with you, sir?" Peabody asked.

"No, I need you here." Can't take you to Dallas. Can't risk it. Can't stand it. "Keep running the poison. She's getting it from somewhere." She was careful to keep her voice professional as she continued. "You'll also read in Mira's report that regardless of the low probability percentage on the computer scans, she believes Roarke is also a potential target."

"Fucking A."

Though it arrowed straight to her heart, she ignored McNab's outburst. "While he doesn't fit her standard profile, and the accumulated data, which gives this target a negligible computer probability, he suits her needs to war with me. Being aware of the identity of a potential target will help us close in. I have Roarke's schedule for the next five days, and there are copies of that as well in your packets. He's refused direct police protection, but has agreed to basic precautions."

Her mind flashed back to Mouton's body, sprawled on his office floor. Before Roarke's face could superimpose over the image, she shut it down. "His security is superior, but as primary..."

She let out an oath, short, vicious, pushed her fisted hands in her pockets. "Feeney, I'd like you to go over security at his offices, at home, in his vehicles."

"He tagged me an hour ago. I'm meeting him this afternoon."

"Thanks. Okay. That's all we've got, so let's make it work. I'll be in my office."

"She's shook," McNab whispered to Peabody when Eve headed out. "And she doesn't shake easy."

"I'm going to go talk to her." She bolted out of the room, scanned the corridor, and just caught sight of Eve moving down on a glide. She had to run, then elbow a few people aside, but she caught up just as Eve stepped off.

"Dallas. Hold on just a minute."

"I don't have time for chatter, Peabody. If I'm going to clean things up so I can take this travel time, I've got to move."

"She won't get to him. She won't even get close." She touched Eve's arm, then took hold of it to stop Eve's forward progress. "Maybe if it was just one of you she could get lucky and do some damage. But she's going up against both of you. There's no way. Just no way in the known universe."

The frustration and fear bottled up in Eve's throat spewed out in a low, harsh tone. "All she has to do is tip something in a cup of coffee, a glass of wine, a fucking glass of water."

"No, that's not all." More than shook, Peabody thought. Scared to the bone. "You know it's not. She has to get through his radar and yours. Look, I don't know the facts about where he came from, how he got here, but I can deduce. It's not just that he knows how to handle himself, which he does. It's that he's dangerous. It's one of the things that makes him so goddamn sexy."

Eve turned, stared blindly at a vending machine. "He's not even worried, particularly."

"That doesn't mean he won't be careful, that he won't be smart."

"No, it doesn't. I know it doesn't." To give her hands something to do, she dug out a credit, plugged it in, and ordered a candy bar.

I'm sorry, that item is currently out of stock. would you care to make another selection?

"Don't kick it!" Peabody said hurriedly even as Eve reared back. "You'll lose your vending privileges again. Try this one. It's really good." Before her lieutenant could do any damage, Peabody chose another item.

YOU HAVE SELECTED A GOOEY-CRUNCH BAR, THE YUMMY-TUMMY TREAT WITH THREE LAYERS OF CHOCOLATE SUBSTITUTE, A COOKIE CRUNCH, AND A CREAMY NONDAIRY FILLING.

Eve snatched it out, moving away while the machine detailed the ingredients along with fat grams and caloric contents.

"Can I ask you something about the Stibbs's case?" Peabody asked, jogging to keep up.

"Walk and talk."

"I've been studying the file and I'm about ready to bring her in for an interview, but I thought maybe I should surveil her when I can manage it, for a day or two. Get her rhythm, you know. And I wondered if I should let her make me or not."

With some effort, Eve adjusted her line of thought. "Stay in uniform, let her make you. It'll keep her off-balance."

"And I'm going to try to talk to a couple of the people who gave statements about the homicide, people who knew all three subjects. It won't hurt if she hears about it?"

"Goes to keeping her shaky, wondering what's up. She'll be primed when you bring her in."

"I want to wait until you're back from Texas before I bring her in. In case I screw up."

"Wait until I'm back, but you're not going to screw up. I don't work with screwups," she added, and made Peabody smile as they parted ways in the bullpen.

In her office, Eve took a moment to steady herself, bit off a chunk of the candy bar and decided it was pretty much a yummy-tummy treat. With Roarke's schedule in her head, she put in a call to his midtown offices.

"I know you've got a meeting in five," she began when he came on. "Christ knows how you stand meeting all those people every day of your life."

"I'm just a people person, Lieutenant. An amiable soul."

"Yeah, right. How much hassle is it going to be for you to ditch all those meetings tomorrow?"

"What's the point of being master of all you survey if you can't ditch meetings when it suits you? What do you need?"

"I want to leave for Dallas in the morning. First thing."

"All right, I'll take care of it."

"I don't know how long it'll take, but we should be able to get it done and get back all in the same day. An overnight at the most."

"Whatever it takes. Eve, you're not alone anymore."

She nodded, and though it felt foolish, touched her fingers to his face on the screen. "Neither are you."

CHAPTER 10

probability roarke is next target is fifty-one-point-five-eight percent....

Eve stood, staring out her skinny office window. The fifty-fifty chance given in the computer's soulless tones didn't comfort her.

"Where will she come at him?"

insufficient data for probability....

"I wasn't asking you," she grumbled and pinched her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "Think," she ordered herself. "Think, think. What's in her head?"

More impact, Eve decided, if Julianna went for Roarke when his cop was close. At home then, or at a public or private social event they'd both attend. She called his schedule back on-screen and studied it. Again.

She didn't know how any one person managed that many meetings, deals, conversations, and contacts in one day and stayed sane. But that was Roarke.

All those people, she thought, that he brushed against in any given day. Business associates, staff, employees, waiters, assistants, and assistants to assistants. However brilliant his security, there was always a crack to slither through.

But he was aware of that, she reminded herself, on the most elemental level. The way a tiger would be aware of both predator and prey in his own jungle.

And if she allowed herself to worry into fear over him, she'd miss something.

She sat again, cleared her mind.

In the first wave of Julianna Dunne's killings, she had assumed the role of society princess. A young, glamorous butterfly who'd flitted among the abundant blooms of the wealthy. As one of them, Eve mused.

Her new pattern was efficient employee. Smart, Eve conceded. People rarely took full notice of those who served them. She would stick with that, Eve thought. Almost certainly stick with that level. Server, clerk, domestic.

Whoever the next target, she would likely find her way into his business or his home through his company.

Preferred method, poison. Old-fashioned poison, Eve added. Why? You didn't get your hands dirty that way, and most usually had the opportunity to watch it work. See the shock, confusion, pain. The victim understood a blaster or a blade when it came for him. But poison was subtle, even elegant. And it confused.

But you didn't bop into your local 24/7 and pick up a bottle of cyanide. It was time to track down the source.

Before she did, there was a little business to clear up. She put in a call to Charles Monroe.

The handsome licensed companion picked up on his pocket-link. Eve could hear the murmuring of voices, the quiet clink of china and crystal of a classy restaurant as his face filled the screen.

"Lieutenant Sugar." He beamed. "What a nice surprise."

"You got company?"

"Not quite yet. Client's late, she usually is. What can I do for my favorite avenger of the law?"

"Have you got any professional pals or associates in the Chicago area?"

"Dallas, when one is in the oldest profession, one has pals and associates everywhere."

"Yeah. Well, I need one who's willing to go to Dockport Rehabilitation Center, do a conjugal for an inmate, for the standard police scale."

His face, his tone, went all business. She saw him move, glance down, and knew he'd taken out an e-book. "Male or female companion?"

"Female inmate seeks attractive man with staying power for conjugal episode."

"Time frame?"

"Within the next couple of weeks would be good. Sooner the better. The budget will spring for a two-hour call, no frills, and basic transpo."

"Since I doubt the police are overly concerned with this woman's sexual health, I assume this is payment for information or cooperation in some ongoing investigation."

"Assume whatever." Her face, her tone, mirrored his now. "I need the contact. Can you reach out to an associate in that area? One who can handle himself. She's just after a solid bounce, but she has a violent tendency and I don't want to put anybody green in this situation."

"I could, but why don't I just take care of it for you? I'm certainly not green, and I owe you enough favors to cover this."

"You don't owe me anything."

"I owe you Louise," he corrected, and everything in his face brightened on her name. "Give me the information I'll need, and I'll work it into my schedule. On the house for you, Lieutenant Sugar."

She hesitated. It felt weird to book him for sex. To think of his developing romance with the dedicated Dr. Louise Dimatto while she arranged to send him off for a conjugal with Maria Sanchez.

This friendship gig was almost as complicated and boggy as the marriage gig.

It was his job, Eve reminded herself. And if it didn't bother Louise, why should it bother her?

"You'll get scale. I want to keep this on the books. Maria Sanchez," she began, and gave him the information he'd need. "I appreciate this, Charles."

"No, you're embarrassed, and that's very sweet of you. Give my love to Peabody, and I'll give your best to Louise. My lunch and bounce client's just walked in. If there's nothing else, I'd as soon not be talking to a cop when she gets to the table. These are the things that can mar the delicate balance of a romantic afternoon."

His lips curved when he said it, and made Eve shake her head. "Let me know when you've nailed down the date and time and if you get any hassles with the arrangements at Dockport. Warden there's an asshole."

"I'll keep that in mind. Later, Lieutenant Sugar."

When he ended transmission, she made the next call on her list. Directing it, purposefully, to Nadine Furst's voice mail, Eve left a terse message.

"You got a one-on-one, my office, sixteen hundred. Sharp. No live feed. If you're late, I'll have something better to do."

She pushed away from the desk, strode out, and swung by Peabody's cube. "With me" was all she said.

...

"I'm getting nowhere trying to track a supplier for the cyanide through standard sources." Peabody hustled into the elevator behind Eve. "Even considering the number of legal sources for that kind of controlled substance, it's necessary to show authorization with prints. Prints are run through a stringent search and scan. Dunne's are on file, and would have popped."

"Illegal sources?"

"I've run cyanide poisonings through IRCCA. Stuff's more popular than you might think, but most got their supply through a legal source. The dude in East D.C. where Dunne previously shopped was the major on-planet player, and he's dead. The others on record are mostly small-time, and the majority of them are doing time-primarily illegals distribution, with poisons as a sideline. Research indicates poisons aren't very cost effective, narrow profit margin, and are generally not a specialty."

"Possible she found a way through to a legal source but let's try the other route." Eve strode to her vehicle, paused. "A lot of talk and jive in prison, and she might have followed up on a contact there. Plus, she had her finger on the world through computer access. Plenty of time to search and research. Her source might not be in New York, but people know people who know people. We're going underground."

Peabody, a stalwart soldier, paled. "Oh boy."

...

Beneath New York was another world, a seamy city of the lost and the vicious. Some went under to toy with that keen edge, the way a child might play with a sharpened knife, just to see how it would slice. Others enjoyed the elemental meanness, the stink of violence that permeated the air as thickly as the stench of garbage and shit.

And some simply got lost there.

Eve left her jacket in the car. She wanted her weapon in full view. Her clutch piece was strapped to her ankle, and she'd shoved a combat knife into her boot.

"Here." She tossed Peabody a small shock bat. "Know how to use it?"

She had to gulp once, but nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Hook it to your belt, keep it in plain sight. You kept up with your hand-to-hand?"

"Yeah." She blew out a breath. "I can handle myself."

"That's right." Eve not only wanted her to say it, she wanted her to believe it. "And when you step down there, you remember you're one bad bitch cop, and you drink blood for breakfast."

"I'm one bad bitch cop, and I drink blood for breakfast. Yuck."

"Let's go."

They headed down filthy steps and veered off from the subway entrance into the rat hole of a tunnel that led to the underground. Lights glowed dull red and dirty blue in a kind of snarling carnival of sex, games, and entertainment suited for the cold and the cruel.

Eve caught the stink of vomit and glanced over to see a man down on his hands and knees, puking horribly.

"You okay?"

He didn't look up. "Fuck you."

Feeling other eyes on her, she squeezed into the passageway behind him, then gave him a solid shove with her boot that sent him facedown in his own vomit. "Oh no," she said pleasantly, "fuck you."

Her knife was out of her boot with its honed point at his filthy throat before he could curse her again. "I'm a cop, asshole, but don't think I won't slice your useless throat ear-to-ear just for the fun of it. Where can I find Mook today?"

His eyes were fire-red, his breath amazing. "I don't know no mother-fucking Mook."

She risked all manner of vermin, fisted a hand in his stringy hair, and yanked his head back. "Everybody knows mother-fucking Mook. You want to die here, or live to puke another day?"

"I don't keep tabs on the cocksucker." His lips peeled back as the point of the knife pressed against his jugular. "Maybe VR Hell, fuck do I know?"

"Good. Go right on back to what you were doing." She released him with just enough force to send him sliding into the muck again, then made a show of slapping the jagged-edged knife back in her boot for the benefit of the onlookers lurking in the shadows.

"Anybody here wants trouble, I'm happy to oblige." She lifted her voice just enough to have it echo, to have it punch through the mean flood of viper rock pumping out of doorways. "Otherwise my business is with Mook, who's been described by this fine example of humanity as a mother-fucking cocksucker."

There was a slight movement, shadow in shadow, to her left. She laid her hand on her weapon, and the movement stilled. "Anybody hassles me or my uniform, we start busting asses, and we aren't particularly delicate about how many of those busted asses end up in the city morgue, are we, Officer?"

"No, sir, Lieutenant." Peabody prayed her voice wouldn't crack and embarrass both of them. "In fact, we're hoping to win the pool on morgue count this week."

"What's that up to, anyway?"

"Two hundred and thirty-five dollars. And sixty cents."

"Not too shabby." Eve cocked a hip, but her eyes were keen as a blade. "Could use it. When we're finished kicking the shit out of anybody who gives us grief," Eve added pleasantly. "There'll be a squad down here shaking down what's left. Which will really irritate me as I'd have to share the pool with them. Mook," she said again, and waited ten humming seconds.

"VR Hell," someone said in the dark. "Dancing with the S M machines. Asshole."

Eve merely nodded, deciding to attribute the asshole comment to Mook rather than herself. "And where do I find VR Hell in this delightful and intriguing paradise many of you call home?"

There was another movement, and she whirled, braced, felt Peabody go on full alert beside her. At first she took him for a boy, then saw he was a dwarf. He was crooking his finger.

"Back-to-back," Eve ordered, and they started down one of the dripping tunnels, facing out, guarding each other's backs.

The dwarf moved fast, skittering along in the steaming, stinking tunnels like a cockroach on shoes that flapped against the damp stone floor. He zipped past the bars, the clubs, the joints and dives, twisting and turning through the labyrinth of the underworld.

"Morgue pool was a nice touch," Eve said under her breath.

"Thanks." Peabody resisted swiping at the sweat dripping down her face. "I live to improvise."

From somewhere deeper in the dank, Eve heard a woman scream in pain or passion. She saw a huge man crumpled on the ground sucking on a filthy brown bottle of home-brew. Against the wall beside him a man and woman copulated in an ugly parody of lovemaking.

She smelled sex and piss, and worse.

The tunnel widened, opened into an area jammed with video, VR, and hologram dens.

VR Hell was black. Its walls, its windows, its doors all coated with the same unrelieved, and somehow greasy black. Across it, in letters she assumed were supposed to reflect the devil's fire, was its name. A poorly painted image of Satan, complete with horns and tail and pitchfork, danced over the flames.

"Mook's in there." The dwarf spoke for the first time in a voice like a bass drum constructed from sandpaper. "Digs on the Madam Electra machine. Bondage shit. Sick fucker. Got fifty?"

Eve dug for credits. "Got twenty. Blow."

He showed his grayed, pointy teeth. The twenty disappeared, then so did he.

"You meet such interesting people down here," Peabody said shakily.

"Stay close," Eve ordered. "Anybody moves in, bang 'em."

"You don't have to tell me twice." With her hand gripped tight on her bat, Peabody followed Eve into Hell.

The noise was awesome: screams, sirens, grunts, and groans from dozens of clashing machines and patrons. The lighting was an ugly red that shimmered and swayed. It flashed her back to a freezing room in Dallas, made her stomach pitch before she controlled it.

She heard the ragged breathing, the hissed words of violent sex. She'd heard those in that room, too, before the end. Heard them in too many rooms to count where the walls were thin as tissue and brutality was only a whisper away.

The sound of flesh striking flesh. Gleeful punishment.

Stop it! Goddamn you, Rick, stop! You're hurting me!

Whose voice was that? Eve wondered as she stared around blindly. Her mother's? One of the whores he'd used when he wasn't using his daughter?

"Dallas? Lieutenant?"

The uneasy tremble in Peabody's voice snapped her back. This wasn't the time to lose her focus. It wasn't the time to remember.