Reunion in Death (24 page)

"Assuming your theory is correct, there are countless facilities of this nature-numerous in this city alone."

"It wouldn't be here. She'd want to get away, that's indulgence, and she wouldn't risk having a consultant who might have seen her on the media, get up close and personal with her face. That's brains. It's most likely she'd go out of the country where the media attention on murders in New York City isn't as intense."

She watched his expression, saw him consider that. Agree with that. "I've already narrowed down the field, and intend to start checking with the most likely locations and working my way down the list."

"Then do so. However, that angle doesn't preclude preparing for another option. If you tag her, are successful in tracking and apprehension, then this is put to rest. If you don't, we'll have a trap in place. Settle yourself down, Lieutenant. And listen."

Whitney turned to Roarke, and nodded.

CHAPTER 19

"In three day's time," Roarke began, "there's a charity function, a dinner dance to raise funds for medical transports and equipment needed by the Canal Street Clinic. I believe Dr. Dimatto mentioned this to you, Lieutenant."

"I know about it."

"I accepted the invitation to attend some weeks ago, so that's public knowledge if anyone was wondering when I might be socializing at some public function in the city. The event is being held at one of the ballrooms at the Grand Regency Hotel. Happens that's one of mine."

"Shock," Eve said in a voice that dripped sarcasm like poisoned honey. "Amazement."

"It also happens that the ownership is held by one of my subsidiaries, and isn't so easily traced to me. Not that all appropriate business fees and taxes aren't promptly paid," he added with a cool amusement, "but a casual glance, even a more curious one wouldn't necessarily shake my name out of it-which cancels out any reluctance Julianna might have about coming for me on my own turf. So to speak. And also gives the advantage of knowing the security bottom to top, and being able to adjust that security to the particular situation."

Though he paused he got no response from Eve, nor had he expected any. "Just to ice the cake, it's just been leaked to the media by my public relations people that not only will I attend the function, but will be making a sizable donation. The donation will be hefty enough to ensure strong media attention for the next little while."

He'd taken over the room, Eve realized. Not just the discussion but the goddamn room. He was in command now, and it infuriated.

"By now, if she wasn't already aware of it, she'll know I'll be attending a public event where there'll be a great deal of people, a great deal of food and drink, and a large staff serving them. She'll know my wife will be attending with me. It's a tailor-made opportunity for her. She'll take it. Odds are, she'd already planned to do so."

"We can't be certain of that," Eve corrected. Though she'd already thought of it, had been planning on finding a way to wiggle out of the event. "If she's just learning of it, it's a narrow window of time for her to confidently blend herself into the staff or guests, and for us," Eve added, "to confidentially assess and adjust security to ensure the protection of civilians. You won't be the only rich bastard there. This proposal puts others at risk."

He brushed off her concerns, her objections, with an elegant shrug. One he knew would madden her. "The function takes place whether or not I attend. If she's targeted someone else ahead of me, they're already at risk. And if she has targeted someone else, the temptation to shift to me while you're there would be very great. It's you she wants to hurt, Lieutenant. I'm just her weapon against you. Do you think I'll be used for that? For anything?"

"In your opinion," Whitney said into the thrumming silence, "does the suspect have any reason to believe you're aware of her intention to hit Roarke?"

"I can't know what she's-"

"Lieutenant." Whitney's tone bit. "Your opinion."

Training warred with temper, and won. "No, sir. This subject doesn't fit her pattern, and she specifically informed me of the type she'd targeted. She would have no reason to suspect or believe that I would have concern in this area, that I would look outside the box. She respects me, but is confident I'm running behind her chasing only the trail she's left me."

"Run the play, Dallas." Whitney got to his feet again. "Work the angles, plug the holes, close the box. Whatever equipment and manpower you need, you'll get. We'll discuss this further tomorrow. Tomorrow," he repeated, anticipating her protest. "When tempers aren't so close to the surface. I respect your temper, Lieutenant, as I do your rank and your abilities. Dismissed."

Not trusting herself to speak, Eve gave him a curt nod and walked out.

When Peabody trotted out after her Eve's snarl was enough to hold her off.

"Keep out of the line of fire." Roarke laid a hand on Peabody's shoulder. "It's me she wants to blast into small, bleeding pieces, but you could get caught in the stream and you've had a good day till now."

"From where I'm standing you deserve a blast. Don't you think she took enough of a pounding yesterday?"

To Roarke's considerable surprise, Peabody turned on her heel and marched in the opposite direction. With his temper notching up from slow burn to fast simmer, he strode after his wife. He caught up with her just as she stalked into her office and managed to slap a hand on the door an instant before it slammed in his face.

"Get out. Get the hell out." She grabbed discs, shoved them into a file. "This is still my area."

"We'll discuss this."

"I've got nothing to discuss with you." She slung the file bag over her shoulder, then shoved him when he blocked her path to the door.

"You want to fight then? Well, isn't it handy I'm in just the mood for it. But we'll take this to neutral territory."

"Neutral territory, my ass. There is no neutral territory with you. You own the goddamn city."

"We'll take this out of here, Lieutenant, unless you want to have a bloody, shouting fight with your husband for a couple dozen cops to hear. Doesn't matter a damn to me, but you'll be sorry for it when you've come to your senses."

"I've got all my senses." And because she did, she managed to keep her voice low. "Let's take it outside, pal."

"Outside it is."

They didn't speak again, but the volume of their silence had several cops easing back when they pushed into the elevator. She stalked onto the garage level ahead of him, then knocked his hand away when he reached for the driver's side door.

"I'm driving," he told her, "as you've too much blood in your eye to do the job."

Deciding to pick her battles, Eve strode around the car and dropped into the passenger's seat.

He didn't tear out of the garage, though he wanted to. She'd just try to have him arrested for some traffic violation, he thought nastily. He, too, was picking his battles. Still he wove through traffic with a kind of controlled violence that had other vehicles giving way. Another time, she would have admired it, but at the moment his skill simply reinforced her resentment.

He pulled over at the west edge of Central Park, slammed out of the car while she did the same on the opposite side.

"I don't own this."

"I bet that sticks in your craw."

"What I own, don't own, acquire, don't acquire, is irrelevant."

"You don't own my badge."

"I don't want your goddamn badge." He crossed the sidewalk and kept walking across the green summer grass.

"Controlling something's the same as ownership."

"I've no desire to control your badge, or you for that matter."

"That comes off pretty lame from somebody who's just managed to do both."

"For Christ's sake, Eve, that wasn't what that was about. Use your head for a minute. Stop being so prideful, so flaming stubborn that you see everything as a bloody attack. Do you think Whitney would have agreed to consider this angle if he didn't believe it was a viable method of stopping this woman? Isn't that your primary goal?"

"Don't stand there and tell me what my goal is." She jammed a finger into his chest. "Don't you stand there and tell me what my job is. I've been doing this job since you were still running smuggled contraband. I know what it is."

She stormed away from him. Prideful? Stubborn? Son of a bitch. Then whirled back. "You went over my head, you went behind my back, and you had no right, no right to go to my superior and shove your way into this investigation in a way that undermines my authority, that negates that authority in front of my team. And if anyone had pulled that on you, you'd have had their head on a fucking platter and their blood for sauce."

He started to speak, then took a good swallow of his own pride. "That's very annoying."

"Annoying? You call it-"

"It's annoying," he interrupted, "when you're right. When you're completely right, and I'm wrong. I apologize for it. Sincerely."

"Would you like a suggestion as to where you can shove your sincerity?"

"No need." Irritated with himself, with her, he dropped down on a bench. "I'm sorry for the method. That's the truth. I didn't consider the reflection on you carefully enough, and I should have."

"No, you just get a brainstorm and drop in on your good friend Jack."

"And if I'd come to you with it, you'd have given it all the proper consideration? Don't bother to come up with some clever line, Lieutenant, as we both know you'd have pushed it aside. I'd've pushed back, and we'd have had a row about that."

"Until you got your way."

"Until you cleared the bugs out of your head that make you think I'm stupid enough to let some mad tart do for me. I didn't come down in the last shower of rain, Eve."

"What the hell does that mean?"

He sat back, laughed a little. "Jesus, you make me Irish. Why is that, do you suppose? Come sit down. You don't look as well as you should."

"Don't tell me what to do."

He thought about it for about three seconds. "Ah, bollocks to this." And rising, he stepped to her, evaded the leading edge of the elbow jab, and scooped her off her feet. "There, now stay down." He dumped her on the bench. "We both know I'd not have taken you that easily if you were feeling yourself. I need you to listen to me."

He kept her hands gripped under his, felt the anger and insult vibrating through her. "After you do, if you feel you need to take a punch at me, well, you can have one for free. What I said in Whitney's office was the truth. I'd've done better to come to you so that we could have fought it out between us, but I didn't and I'm sorry. Still, what I said was the truth, Eve."

He squeezed down on her hands until she stopped trying to yank them away. "I'm asking for your help and offering mine to you. She wants to take you apart, little pieces of you sheared off each time she drops a body at your feet. Trying to make you think that you're responsible for putting them there."

"I don't think-"

"No, you know better, in your head. But she made you bleed in that cursed video of hers. In your heart. And she wants to finish you off with me. She doesn't know you. She doesn't understand what's in you, or what it is to love someone. If she managed, through some miracle, to take me out, you wouldn't fall apart. You'd hound her and hunt her. You'd run her to ground. And then, well, darling, you'd eat her alive."

He brought her clenched fists to his lips. "And I'd do exactly the same for you, if you're wondering."

"That's real comforting, Roarke."

"Isn't it?" He said it with such cheer she felt a smile trying to tug at her mouth.

"Let go. I'm not going to hit you. Just let go, and don't talk to me for a minute."

He released her hands, then brushed his fingers over her bruised cheek. Rising, he wandered off to leave her alone.

She sat where she was. The fury had sapped her, left even her bones feeling weak. More than that, she realized, it was the fear that made her weak. The image of seeing Roarke pitch to the floor at her feet, choking, gasping, dying. And Julianna standing there, out of her reach. Just out of her reach. Smiling.

She'd let that happen, Eve admitted. She'd let Julianna plant those weeds of fear, of guilt, of self-doubt. And she'd let them bloom instead of hacking them out by the roots.

That made her ineffective, and it made her slow.

So Roarke had gone for the roots first.

He infuriated her. What else was new? They'd rammed heads countless times in the past, and would ram them countless times in the future. It was part of what they were. There had to be something sick about that, but there it was.

They just weren't peaceful people.

He'd been wrong, but so had she. As a cop, she should have examined and explored the option of using him as bait long before this.

Love messed you up, she thought. No doubt about it.

He came back with two tubes of Pepsi and a greasy scoop of oil fries. And in silence sat beside her again.

"I want to say first that I'm entitled to be prideful when it comes to my work." She dug into the scoop, felt the grit of salt over the grease. And knowing he'd drenched them for her, had to choke back a sentimental sigh. "And second, sometime when you least expect it, I'm going to generate a memo to the top staff of your midtown offices stating that you wear women's underwear under those manly designer suits."

"Why, that's just cold."

"Yeah, then you'll have to strip down at a general meeting to prove it's a filthy lie and my vengeance will be complete." She looked at him then. "She's not just a- what did you call her-a mad tart. She's smart and she's driven. Don't underestimate her."

"I don't. I don't underestimate you, Eve. But I think, for just a bit of time here with one thing and then the other, you've been underestimating yourself."

"Yeah, I have, and I don't like it thrown in my face. Okay. I've got to get home. There's a lot to do in a short amount of time."

...

She worked with him first, studying all the data on hotel security and on the event itself that he'd already had at the ready. She pitched questions, and he batted back the answers with the skill of a man who knew he owned the plate.

The Regency wasn't an urban castle as his Palace Hotel was. It was bigger, sleeker, and geared more for the upper-end business clientele than the fashionable rich.

It had sixty-eight floors, fifty-six of which were guest room levels. Others held offices, shops, restaurants, clubs, and the conference centers, the ballrooms.

On the seventh floor was a casual bar/restaurant and swimming pool, which was open-air during good weather. The top two levels held eight penthouse suites, and were only accessible by private elevator. The health club, level four, was open to all hotel guests and to registered members. Entry, from inside the hotel or its exterior glide door, required a keycard.

Ballrooms were on floors nine and ten, with exterior and interior entries. The event would take place in the Terrace Room, named after its wide, tiled terrace.