Missing in Death

  “He did what he set out to do. He doesn’t need them anymore.” She turned as Roarke came in with McNab, and caught the gleam in Roarke’s eyes as he crossed toward the weapons chest. “Don’t touch.”

  The faintest line of irritation marred his brow, but he slipped his hands into his pockets. “A nice little collection.”

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she muttered under her breath. “It’s next door you might be useful.” She led the way and heard both Roarke and McNab hum in pleasure as some men would at the sight of a pretty woman.

  “Geek heaven,” she supposed. “Seal up, then see what you can find on all this. Peabody, let’s take the second floor.”

  “Do you want me to get someone in to take over street surveillance?” McNab asked.

  “He’s not coming back. He hasn’t been back since he took those weapons out of the chest. He doesn’t need this place anymore.”

  “There are still clothes in the closet,” Peabody pointed out when they started down. “I saw them when we cleared the bedroom.”

  “I’ll tell you what we won’t find. We won’t find any of his IDs, any of his emergency cash, any credit cards, passports.”

  She moved into the bedroom where the decor managed to be spartan in neatness and homey in its fat pillows and frayed fabrics. She opened the closet.

  “Three suits—black, gray, brown. See the way they’re arranged, spaces between? Probably had three more. Same with the shirts, the spare trousers. He took what he needed.” She crouched, picked up a pair of sturdy black shoes, turned them over to reveal the worn-down heels, scuffed soles. “Frugal. Lived carefully, comfortably, but without any excess. I bet the neighbors are going to say what a nice, pleasant man he was. Quiet, but friendly.”

  “He’s got drawer dividers. Cubbies for socks, boxers, undershirts. And yeah,” Peabody added, “it looks like several pair are missing. Second drawer’s athletic wear. T-shirts, sweats, gym socks.”

  “Keep at it. I’ll take the second bedroom.”

  Across the hall in a smaller room fashioned into a kind of den, Eve opened another cabinet. She found wigs, trays of makeup, facial putty, clear boxes holding various styles of facial hair, body forms.

  She saw herself reflected, front and back, in the mirror-backed doors.

  She began a systematic search of the room, then the bathroom. He’d left plenty behind, she thought. Ordinary pieces of the man. Hairbrush, toothbrush, clothes, book and music discs, a pair of well-tended houseplants.

  Everything well used, she thought, well tended. Very clean, ordered without being obsessive.

  Food in the AutoChef, slippers by the bed. It all gave the appearance of a home someone would return to shortly. Until you noticed there was nothing important. Nothing that couldn’t be easily replaced.

  Except the photo over his work area, she mused. But he’d have copies of that. Certainly he’d have copies of that image that drove him. She studied the wigs and other enhancements again.

  He’d left all this, and the weapons, the electronics. Left what he’d been all these years? she wondered. He’d done what he’d set out to do, so none of it mattered to him now.

  Peabody came in. “I found a lock box, open and empty.”

  “One in here, too.”

  “And bits of adhesive behind drawers, behind the headboard.”

  Eve nodded. “Under the bathroom sinks, behind the john. He’s a careful guy. I’d say he kept weapons, escape documents, in several places around the house, in case he had to get out fast.”

  “We’re not going to find him, Dallas. He’s in the wind. It’s what he does.”

  “What he did. I’d say he’s finished, so it depends on what he’s decided to do next. Check on the first floor, will you?”

  Eve went upstairs to find both Roarke and McNab huddled with the electronics. On a quartet of small monitors she saw various spaces of the house—Peabody walking down the steps, her two men searching, an empty kitchen, the street view from the front of the house. Every ten seconds, the image changed to another location.

  “Guy covered his ass double,” McNab told her. “This place is hot-wired, not a trick missed. Motion, heat, light, weight. He’s got bug sensors every fricking where. And check it.”

  He flipped a switch and a panel slid open in the wall beside her. She peered in, scanned the stairs and the weapon adhered to the wall. “Emergency evac.”

  “Icy. Plus, he could shut and bolt that door from right here.”

  “It’s blast-proof,” Roarke added. “He’s got his C and D buried on here, but we’re digging it out. I’d have to say it’s not as well covered as I’d expect when you consider the rest of the security.”

  McNab shrugged. “Maybe he figured he didn’t have to worry about anyone getting this far in.”

  “Or he didn’t care particularly what they found at this point.”

  She glanced back up at the photo. “Possibly. It looks like he’s finished, and with or without the cloak of invisibility, gone. No reason to stay in New York. He eliminated his target. We dig here, hoping we find some link to where he might go. If we don’t find it, we’re going to have to contact HSO.”

  Roarke gave her a long, cool look. “I don’t see the value of that.”

  “It’s not a matter of value. It’s SOP. He’s their operative. If he’s gone rabbit or rogue, and has a device that’s as dangerous as this one might be, we’ll need their resources.”

  “Give us a moment, would you, Ian?”

  McNab glanced over at Roarke, then at Eve. He didn’t need a sensor to feel the blips of tension and trouble. “Ah, sure. I’ll . . . ah, see if I can give She-B ody a hand.”

  “This is my job,” she began as soon as they were alone. “When I report in with what we have here, Whitney’s going to order me to contact Homeland and give them what I have.”

  “You have nothing,” he said evenly, “but the nebulous connection of one Frank Plutz, on the word of an ‘anony mous source’ connecting him to HSO and to Buckley.”

  “I have him getting on the ferry, and not getting off, which secured the warrant more than the source did. I have what we found here.”

  “And what have you found here that verifies he’s an operative for HSO, or that he targeted and killed Buckley?”

  She felt her stomach muscles quiver even as her spine stiffened. “We know he has a potentially dangerous weapon. He may intend to sell that weapon. In the wrong hands—”

  “Homeland’s aren’t the wrong hands?” Roarke demanded. “Can you stand there and tell me they aren’t every bit as ruthless and deadly as any foreign bogeyman you can name? After what they did to you? What they allowed to be done to you when you were a child? Standing by, listening, for Christ’s sake, while your father beat you and raped you, all in the hopes they could use him to catch a bigger monster?”

  The quivering in her gut became a roil. “One has nothing to do with the other.”

  “Bollocks. You tried to ‘work’ with them before, not so long ago. And when you found murder and corruption, they tried to ruin you. To kill you.”

  “I know what they did. Damn it, that wasn’t the organization, as much as I despise it, but individuals inside it. Ivan Draski is probably thousands of miles away by now. I can’t chase him outside New York. I don’t know where he might try to sell this thing.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  “Roarke—”

  “Goddamn it, Eve, you’re not going to ask me to stand by a second time. I did what you asked before. I let it go. I let go the ones who’d had a part in letting you be abused and tormented.”

  Now it was her heart, squeezing inside a fist of tension. “I know what you did for me. I know what it cost you to do it. I’m not going to have a choice. It’s national security. For God’s sake, Roarke, I don’t want to bring them in. I don’t want anything to do with them. It makes me sick. But it’s not about me, or you, or what happened when I was eight.”

  “You’ll give me
twenty-f our hours. I’m not asking,” he said before she could speak. “Not this time. You’ll give me twenty-f our hours to track him.”

  Here was the cold and the ruthless that lurked under the civilized. She knew it, understood it, even accepted it. “I can stall that long. At twenty-f our and one minute, I have to turn it over.”

  “Then I’ll be in touch.” He started to walk by her, stopped, looked into her eyes. “I’ll be sorry if we’re at odds on this.”

  “Me, too.”

  But when he walked out she knew sorry was sometimes all you could be.

  Nine

  When a trail went cold, Eve’s rule of thumb was go back to the beginning. For a second time she stood on the deck of the ferry under a blue summer sky.

  “According to the security discs, the victim boarded first.” Eve studied the route from the transport station to the deck. “He was easily a hundred passengers behind her. Several minutes behind her.”

  “It doesn’t seem like he could’ve kept her in view,” Peabody commented. “And from the recording, it didn’t look like he tried to.”

  “Two likely scenarios. He’d managed to get a tracker on her, or had set up this meet in advance. Since I can’t think of any reason he’d take chances or play the odds, my money is he did both.”

  “We haven’t turned up a thing that points to her meeting a third party on Staten Island.”

  Eve huffed out a breath. “I’d say we haven’t turned up a lot of things. Yet.” She started up to the second deck. “She went up here. We’ve got that from the Grogan kid’s camera. The ride over takes less than a half hour, so if she had a meet, and if she planned to make an exchange, she wouldn’t have waited too long once they left port. The best we can gauge, Carolee went into the restroom less than halfway through the trip. About ten minutes in.”

  “But since she doesn’t remember, and we’ve got no body to calculate TOD, we don’t know if Buckley was already dead when Carolee went in.”

  “Odds are.” Eve stood at the rail, imagining the roll and hum of the ferry, the crowds, the view. “Lots of excitement as people are boarding, right? Crowds, happy tourists off on an adventure. People would be securing their places at the rails, grabbing a snack, taking pictures. If I’m Buckley, I take my position, scope it out.”

  She took a seat on the bench. “Sitting here, and you can bet she sat here before or she’d never have picked or agreed to the location, she can judge the crowd, the traffic, the timing. If I’m Buckley, I move to the meet location as close as possible to leaving port.”

  Rising, Eve strolled off in the direction of the restroom. “That’s around ten minutes before Grogan went in. Plenty of time for the kill. If Grogan had gone in before the attack, why not let her finish up, get out? If she’d gone in during, she should’ve been able to call out or get out and raise an alarm. She went down at the dividing point between stalls and sinks. That’s where the sweepers found trace of her blood and skin from her head hitting the floor. She’d just turned at the wall. And got an eyeful.”

  “Do you think Mira can help her remember?”

  “I think it’s worth a shot. Meanwhile . . .” Eve detoured toward concession. “Before the eyeful, Carolee and the kid—”

  “Pete.”

  “Right. They start toward the concession area, then swing to the restrooms.” Eve followed the most logical route. “Stand here, discuss. Wait for me, blah blah. Carolee watches the kid go in, then notices the sign on the door. Debates, then decides to give it a try after all. And after that, doesn’t remember. So we reconstruct. Going with the theory the meet was set in advance, and the murder was premeditation, Draski would go in first. It’s a women’s room; he’s a guy.”

  “Right. Well, he might’ve slipped in when most people are focused on the view, but the Out of Order sign. He’d be smarter to go in looking like maintenance. A uniform.”

  “Which he could’ve slipped into right next door.” Eve gestured toward the other restroom. “If we’re dealing with premeditated, and a need to hide or transport the body, he’d need means. No one would question a maintenance guy going into an out-of-order bathroom pushing a hamper.”

  “None of the hampers were missing.”

  “He had an hour to put it back. He comes out of there”—Eve pointed toward the men’s room—“goes in here. Who notices? Apparently nobody. Inside to wait for Buckley.”

  Eve pushed open the door. “I doubt he wasted much time once she came in.”

  “No way to lock the door from inside,” Peabody began, “and no way to rig it shut because he needed Buckley to get in.”

  “Yeah, so he wouldn’t waste much time. He’d want to make sure she had the payment, she’d want to make sure he had the device. Just business.”

  The congealed pool of blood, smeared now from several samplings, spoke to the nature of that business. As did the slight scent of chemicals, the faint layer of dust left by the sweepers spoke of the results of that business.

  As did the long-bladed knife on the floor.

  “Record on,” Eve ordered, then, avoiding the blood still on the floor, approached the knife.

  “But . . . how the hell did that get here?” Peabody demanded. “We’ve got the entire ferry covered with guards.”

  “Freaking invisibility cloak,” Eve muttered, “answers that. So the first question is, why is it here?” She studied it where it lay. “Dagger style, about a six-inch blade. It looks like bone. That would explain how he got it through the security scanners. The natural material would pass, and it’s likely he had a safe slot in that briefcase he carried on. Some protection against the scanner for shape, weight.”

  She coated her hands before lifting the knife. “Good weight. Good grip.” Testing, she turned, swiped the air. “Good reach. You don’t have to get close in. Arm’s length plus six. Me, I’d use a wrist trigger. Click, it’s in your hand, swipe, slice the throat.”

  Peabody rubbed her own. “Have you ever thought about going into the assassination game?”

  “Killing for business, for profit, that was her line, not his. His was personal. Sure took him long enough though.” She judged the spatter, the pool, swiped a second time, circled, jabbed, sliced.

  “And now he goes to the trouble to put the weapon in our hand so we can see what and how.”

  “Bragging maybe.”

  Eve turned the blade, studied the blood smears. “It doesn’t feel like bragging.” She took out an evidence bag, sealed the weapon inside, tagged it. Holding it, she glanced toward the door. “If Carolee came in now, she’d see him, see the body as soon as she turned for the stalls. That puts, what, about ten feet between them, with her less than two from the door. What would most people do when they walk in on a murder?”

  “Scream and run,” Peabody provided. “And she should’ve made it, or at least gotten close. Plus, if he’d gone after her like that, you’d think he’d have stepped in some of the blood. She could’ve fainted. Just passed out cold. Smacked her head on the floor.”

  “Yeah, or he could’ve stunned her. Dropped her. A low setting. That would give him a little time to figure out how to handle the variable. He’s got to get the body out, but he’d have prepped for that. Lined the hamper maybe, a body bag certainly. Load it up—along with the uniform. It had to be stained with blood.”

  “Then he’d use the memory blaster on Carolee as she came to.”

  Eve cocked her eyebrows at the term “memory blaster.” “When she’s under, he tells her she’s going to give him a hand. He’d go out first.”

  “Mojo the people on this sector of the deck. He could do that as he made his way to wherever he wanted to go. It’s one frosty toy.”

  “It’s not a toy. It’s lethal. If it does what it purports, it strips you of your will. You lose who and what you are.” Worse than death to her mind was loss of self. “You’re nothing but a droid until the effects wear off.” She studied the knife again. “Sticks, stones, knives, guns, blasters, bombs. Someb
ody’s always looking for something a little juicier. This.” Through the evidence bag, she hefted the knife again. “It can take your life. This other thing, it takes your mind. I’d rather face the blade.”

  She glanced at her wrist unit. Roarke’s twenty-f our hours was down to twenty and counting. No matter what it cost her, she couldn’t give him a minute more.

  The little bakery with its sunny two-tops and displays of glossy pastries might have seemed an odd place to meet with a weapons runner, but Roarke knew Julian Chamain’s proclivities.

  He knew, too, that the bakery, run by Chamain’s niece, was swept twice daily for listening devices, and the walls and windows shielded against electronic eyes and ears.

  What was said there, stayed there.

  Chamain, a big man whose wide face and wide belly proclaimed his affection for his niece’s culinary skills, shook Roarke’s hand warmly, then gestured to the seat across the table.

  “It’s been some time,” Chamain said, with a hint of his native country in the words. “Four, five years now.”

  “Yes. You look well.”

  Chamain laughed, a big, basso bark, as he patted his generous belly. “Well fed, indeed. Ah, here, my niece’s daughter, Marianna.” Chamain gave the young woman a smile as she served coffee and a plate of small pastries. “This is an old friend.”

  “Pleased to meet you. Only two, Uncle Julian.” She wagged her finger. “Mama said. Enjoy,” she added to Roarke as she bustled away.

  “Try the éclair,” Chamain told Roarke. “Simple, but exquisite. So, marriage is good?”

  “Very. And your wife, your children?”

  “Thriving. I have six grandchildren now. The reward for growing old. You should start a family. Children are a man’s truest legacy.”

  “Eventually.” Understanding his role, Roarke sampled an éclair. “You’re right. Excellent. It’s a pretty space, Julian. Cheerful and well run. Another kind of legacy.”

  “It pleases me. The tangible, the every day, a bit of the sweet.” Chamain popped a tiny cream puff in his mouth, closed his eyes in pleasure. “The love of a good woman. I think of retiring and enjoying it all more. You keep busy, I hear, but have also retired from some enterprises.”