Apprentice in Death

“What? Oh, Dallas.” Nadine shoved to her feet. “What do you know? What can you tell me? I’m cued in to the station, and we need more details.”

  Best, probably best, Eve thought, that she hadn’t known Nadine was here. Hadn’t had one more person to worry about.

  “What do you know?” she countered. “What did you see? What did you hear? My job’s priority.”

  “I didn’t see or hear a damn thing. I was down here, in Mavis’s dressing room, when security rushed in, said there was an incident. They won’t let us leave the area. Summerset’s friend was brought down. She’s in there with Mavis and Leonardo. Trina’s in there, too.”

  Nadine gestured to the facing room with Mavis’s name emblazoned on it. “Come on, Dallas, spill. I’m having to feed things in crumbs to my producer.”

  Eve just looked at Nadine’s companion. “Who are you?”

  Nadine let out a quick laugh. “Told you.”

  “Refreshing,” he said. “I’m Jake Kincade.”

  “That won’t click, either. Dallas, Jake’s a rock star, literally. Avenue A? His band’s been rocking the charts for about fifteen years.”

  “Give or take. Doesn’t really apply right now, does it? Anyway.” He rose on long legs, stood about six-five in his boots, offered a hand. “I’d say nice to meet you, but well, hell.”

  “How many dead?” Nadine insisted. “Will you confirm that? It matters, Dallas.”

  “Yeah, it matters. Sixteen at this time. A couple more aren’t likely to make it, but sixteen confirmed dead on scene.”

  “Jesus.” Jake stared down the corridor. “My band’s piled up in dressing rooms, and we’ve got roadies flopped out like puppies. They’re all safe. All of them are safe, but . . . I’ve got names of some people we got tickets for, about a dozen people. Can you check to see . . .”

  Eve pulled out her notebook. “Give me the names.”

  She checked as he reeled them off from memory.

  “None of them are on the dead or seriously injured list. I don’t have all the names, yet, of minor injuries.”

  “That’s good enough. More than. Thanks. They, hell, they won this contest, got to hang with us at rehearsal, come backstage before the performance.”

  “It’s been eating at him that any of them got hurt,” Nadine said. “Or worse.”

  “I’m going to clear it so you can go home, all of you. It may take about thirty to have someone come down, escort you out.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without a one-on-one,” Nadine insisted. “They can do it by remote.”

  “Go get ’em, Lois,” Jake murmured, and had Nadine shooting him a sparkling look.

  “The city’s going to be waking up,” Nadine continued, checked her glittering wrist unit. “In fact is. People need to know, Dallas. It’s their city, and last night was important. Someone smeared that with a lot of blood. It’s your job to stop them. It’s mine to let people know, not only what happened here, but that you’re doing whatever it takes to stop them.”

  “She’s good.” Jake hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. “She says you’re good, too.”

  “I’ll give you five—it’s all I can spare,” Eve said before Nadine could protest. “But I need to . . .” She glanced toward Mavis’s dressing room door.

  “I’ll get it set up.”

  “I’m going to get the band up and moving.”

  When Jake moved down the corridor, Eve turned to Nadine. “‘Lois’?”

  “As in Lane, ace reporter for the Daily Planet. Superman, Dallas, you’ve probably heard of him.”

  “Yeah, where is he now?” She opened the door quietly.

  Inside, Leonardo slept in a chair, Mavis curled like a fanciful cat in his lap. Trina—likely there for hair and makeup—stretched out on the floor, a colorful rug. Eve recognized Summerset’s old friend Ivanna Liski, asleep on a sofa.

  But her eyes returned to Mavis, hair a tumbled rainbow, pretty fairy face relaxed in sleep, with Leonardo’s big arms wrapped around her.

  Because her eyes stung, her stomach jittered, Eve rested her head on the doorjamb, just let herself breathe.

  In comfort, Nadine rubbed a hand on her back. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  With a nod, Eve straightened, shut the door to give them a few more minutes. “Let’s get this done.”

  15

  While he worked, once again aligning himself with cops, worry sat heavy in the back of Roarke’s mind. Though he was a man who’d trained himself to remain cool and clearheaded in crises—else the hothead who lived inside him would have spent most of his years in a cage of one sort or another—that worry stiffened and tightened his shoulders to dull aches.

  His wife—the center of his world—was running straight into exhaustion, had barely recovered from an ugly dream inside the scant two hours of sleep she’d managed.

  He’d read it on her face when she’d come to check their progress, that pale and shadowed look, the one of nearly translucent skin and bruised eyes.

  He could feel much the same from the good cops who worked with him, that drawn-tight-as-a-spring fatigue under their gut-deep determination to push on. And push on.

  And there was little he could do to fix it. Not the time, the place, to order in gallons of good coffee or platters of food. Neither the money nor the power he’d worked all his life to attain could help.

  So he applied his skill, his creativity with tech, and felt it wasn’t nearly enough.

  How did one catch a killer by knowing where they’d been, and where they surely weren’t any longer?

  She would say, his cop, every detail mattered. So he applied himself to finding those details.

  Worry for Eve mixed and melded with worry for Summerset.

  What help was he there?

  The look on Summerset’s face, the grief and horror, the blood on his hands, and more, the slight quaver in his voice haunted.

  It jolted, always jolted, those rare glimpses of frailty in the man who had essentially raised him, who had saved him from the alleys, the beatings, the hunger, and the miseries. Who had helped him develop that clearheaded control and bank the furies that raged under it.

  Where would he be, who would he be, without these two complicated and opposing forces? He couldn’t say, would never know, but surely not where and who he was now, working alongside cops he’d once reviled.

  Eve tracked a killer, prepared to face down the one who’d trained his own child to kill. Summerset tended the wounded.

  And he . . . Well, he’d done all he could do here to narrow down locations, positions, possibilities.

  He rose, looked toward Feeney. A father figure for Eve. It was all father figures, wasn’t it? Feeney, Summerset, Mackie. Those who trained and schooled, for good or for ill.

  “I need to find Summerset, make certain he’s all right.”

  “Go,” Feeney told him. “We’re good here. Better than I figured we’d be. You gonna license this program to the NYPSD?”

  “We’ll consider it a gift. I’ll arrange it.”

  That was something, at least, he thought as he left them.

  He tried Summerset’s ’link, but only got v-mail. Forgot to turn the shagging ’link on, he thought, or was too busy staunching blood or splinting bones to answer.

  He started to try Eve, decided she’d not welcome an interruption to her work any more than he would have to his at a crisis point.

  He wandered through, and cops on guard or at tasks merely nodded to him. Once, they would have chased him hard and fast, he thought. Those days were done, and however much he might entertain a bit of nostalgia for the thrill and adventure of them, he wouldn’t trade a moment of this life he had, not even with the weight of worry.

  He saw her first, coming through a door he realized with the blueprint in his head must have led backstage, house left. So p
ale, he thought, and because he knew those eyes so well, he knew there had been tears somewhere.

  As she walked, she spoke into her ’link, giving more orders, he assumed, coordinating details, and taking reports.

  As he started to go to her, Summerset came through the doors, house right.

  Frail, Roarke thought again, the bones of his face too prominent against the drawn skin. Something more than fatigue in his eyes. Tears again, the sort that burn in the belly, scorch the heart, and aren’t cooled by the shedding.

  In that instant he felt caught between them, these two vital loves, opposing forces.

  Then he saw Summerset sway, just slightly, and reach a hand down to the back of a seat to steady himself. There the choice was made for him, and he changed angles to go to the man who’d given him a life.

  “You need to sit.” Roarke spoke more brusquely than he meant to as that worry leaped hard into his throat. “I’ll get you some water.”

  “I’m all right. So many aren’t. There were so many.”

  “You’ll sit,” he said again just as Eve stepped up to them. “Both of you will bloody well sit down for five bloody minutes while I find some bloody water.”

  “We need to go to Central. I need you to come in,” she said to Summerset, “give a statement.”

  “Well, fuck that,” Roarke snapped. “He needs to go home, he needs to rest. Bugger it, have you no eyes to see?”

  “It’ll be easier, away from here. I can have you taken home after.”

  “He’s going nowhere but home. I’ll be taking him myself.”

  With sudden and bright fury, Eve rounded on Roarke. “This is a police investigation, this is a goddamn crime scene, and I say who goes where and when.”

  “Then arrest the pair of us since you’ve apparently nothing better to do. Is this how you treat him after he’s fagged to the bone from mopping up blood?”

  “Don’t tempt me. I don’t have time for drama.”

  “I’ll show you drama right enough.”

  “Stop it, both of you.” Summerset’s tone, straw-thin with fatigue, still held an edge. “Behaving like cranky toddlers needing a nap.”

  “I told you to sit the hell down.”

  “And I believe I will, despite your rudeness. Because I need to.”

  Summerset lowered into an aisle seat, let out a sigh. “I’ll go into Central, of course, but I need to know if Ivanna is all right before I leave.”

  “I just saw her. She’s fine, and we’re having her taken home. I told her you’d contact her as soon as you could.”

  “The others. Mavis, Leonardo, Nadine, Trina?”

  “The same. They’re all . . .” Eve’s voice broke; she cleared it. “They’re all good.”

  “That eases my mind.” His eyes met Eve’s a moment, and he sighed again. Then he looked at Roarke. “I could use some water, as it happens.”

  “I’ll get it. You stay just where you are.”

  “I frightened him,” Summerset told Eve when they were alone. “It’s difficult to see weakness in the one who raised you.”

  “Understood, but—”

  “And you worry him. You look, Lieutenant, as brutally tired and heavy as I feel. And what can he do for us, he asks himself, when one he loves above all else must use one he cares for as a child for a parent? Why, snarl at them both, of course.”

  He smiled a little.

  She could feel herself teetering on some rocky edge, knowing that if she leaned too far one way she’d crumble. No choice then, she thought, no choice but to lean the other way, and hold on.

  “I’m sorry, but time’s so narrow. I can’t wait to move to the next step.”

  “Understood.” He echoed her. “I would like to go home. The boy has that right. I would very much like to go home. We could save each other time by doing this here and now. Is that possible?”

  “Yeah, I just figured you’d want to get away.”

  “You never get away, do you?”

  Roarke came back with two tubes of water.

  “Hush, boy,” Summerset muttered as Roarke started to speak. “I’m about to give the lieutenant my statement, as we’ve agreed to do so right here.”

  Eve sat across the aisle. “I have eyes, but I need to know what yours saw.” She engaged her recorder, read in the salient data.

  “Tell me what you remember.”

  “We were nearly to the doors, Ivanna and I, nearly outside. It was a diverse, celebratory evening. The crowd—I believe they must have sold out tonight, so we were hemmed in by the crowd at first. But . . .”

  When Summerset rubbed at his temple, Roarke pulled out a small case, took out a blocker.

  “Take it.” At Summerset’s cool stare, Roarke’s jaw set, but he added, “Please.”

  “Thank you.” Summerset cracked the tube, took the pill, sipped the water. “I think, yes, I think I was about to lead Ivanna through the doors when I saw someone fall to the ground—a belly wound, I could see that, too. There were screams as someone else fell—a head wound. Then panic. People running, shoving. I pulled Ivanna aside, worked back until I could get her clear. She argued, but she understood there wasn’t time. She promised she’d go backstage, to Mavis. We’d visited before the concert, and I was confident she’d make her way. Everyone else was trying to get out.”

  “The one who went down first. Describe him.”

  “Middle thirties, I would think, blond hair. Caucasian. He had a black topcoat, open, and I’d seen the blood spread. By the time I was able to get outside to him, he was gone. Two more strikes—one in each leg. I heard the screams, and the cars—brakes squealing. Even as I moved to try to help a woman who’d been knocked to the ground, I saw another struck by a car as she ran into the street. And then I . . .”

  “What next?”

  “For a moment, longer, I fear, I was in another place, another time. In London, during another strike, during the Urbans. The same sounds, smells, the same terrible fear and rush. Bodies on the ground, bleeding, wounded calling for help, the weeping and the desperation to escape.”

  He stared at the tube of water for a moment, then drank from it. “I froze, you see, just froze between that time and this, and did nothing. I stood there, just stood there. Then someone shoved me, and I fell. I fell beside the body of a woman who was beyond help. Nothing to do for her, nothing at all, and I came back to myself, to the moment. There was a boy, barely twenty, if that, I’d say, knocked senseless. Someone trampled right over him, stepped on his hand. I heard the bones crack. I did what I could for him until the medicals began to arrive.”

  He paused, drank again. “People were still falling, but the medicals, the police rushed in. I called out that I was a medic, and one of them threw me a kit. So we did what we could do, just like on any battlefield. I don’t know how long—minutes, hours—then you came, you and my boy here. The worst was over quickly then, you saw to that. I tended more outside, then inside. And here we are.”

  Eve waited a beat. “The woman you were working on when we came?”

  “Stabilized, enough, I think. They took her once she was stable enough. They said at least a dozen dead. How many? Do you know?”

  “Sixteen DOS, and two more who didn’t make it. So, eighteen. There would have been more if you hadn’t been here, if you hadn’t helped.”

  “Eighteen.” Summerset lowered his head, stared at the water in his hand. “We couldn’t save the eighteen, so we look to you to make them matter, to find them justice.”

  “They matter. So do the wounded. I’ll get you their names, the living and the dead.”

  He lifted his head, met her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “Roarke can take you home.”

  “No, I think he’ll stay with you. There’s nothing for me to do here, and everything for you. I’ll take a soother and go to bed,” he told R
oarke, and seemed steadier when he rose.

  “I’d rather you weren’t alone.”

  “I’ll have the cat.” Summerset smiled a little, then did something Eve hadn’t seen him do before. He leaned in, kissed Roarke’s cheek.

  Moved, embarrassed, Eve got to her feet. “I’m going to arrange transportation.” She started out, stopped. “The medicals and cops who rushed in? Saying it’s their job doesn’t diminish the risk or the courage. It wasn’t your job, but you took the same risk, showed the same courage. I won’t forget it.”

  “I should go with you,” Roarke said.

  “No.” Summerset shook his head. “I want quiet, and my bed, and I’ll admit the cat will add some comfort. Wars never really end as long as there are those who feel entitled, even obliged, to take lives. It’s not my war now, but it’s hers, and because it’s hers, it’s yours. I’m proud of you both, and hope you’ll bring me peaceful news when you come home.”

  He let out another sigh, a long one, then squeezed Roarke’s shoulder. “I’m going to check in with Ivanna, settle myself there, and let our lieutenant have me taken home.”

  “We’ll have you both taken home,” Eve told him. “I’ll take care of having all of you taken home.”

  “Thank you. I’m well, boy. Just tired.”

  “Then I’ll take you back to Ivanna, walk you both out.”

  —

  Later, Roarke walked Summerset out, to the police car waiting at the curb. When Eve joined him, he could feel the stiffness in her body, part anger, he mused, part sheer determination to stay on her feet.

  “There’s nothing you can do now,” she began, and he found himself snapping toward her.

  “I feel useless enough at the moment without you adding to it.”

  “Useless, my ass. We wouldn’t have the nests without you, and we now have all three. Maybe they’ll help track her next position, her next target. Fuck your ‘useless.’”

  “Then there’s always something else I can do.”

  “You should’ve gone with him. You should go home, make sure he goes to bed, and get some sleep yourself.”

  “He wants what he wants, and I’ll sleep when you do. Shall we waste time arguing about it?”