She rubbed the rocks of tension in the back of her neck. “And the coffee. The go-cup. Those Hotz Cafés are all over the place. But figuring he didn’t walk from one side of the island to the other, he picked up the coffee between his nest and the scene. Probably closer to his nest. And the nest is going to be within reasonable walking distance of the loft.”
Roarke stepped behind her, gave her neck and shoulders a good, hard rub. “Then you’re going to like the data I brought you.”
“What data?”
“On the security system. No, try to relax for one damn minute,” he ordered. “Let’s get a couple of these boulders out of here. I’ve been running various data streams on that, adding some Nadine’s research team came up with. And I’d refined it to about a dozen most likelies, which I assumed you’d want to check out.”
“That’s good. Excellent. The data,” she added. “The shoulder rub’s not so bad either.”
“Just doing my job. There now, that’s a little better.” Stepping back, he took out his PPC. “If we add the geographical element to the data I have . . . We have not a dozen, but . . . one.”
Her eyes lit with purpose. “Give me that.”
“This is my job, too.” He held it out of reach. “A Peredyne Company in the West Village.”
“Not an individual, not the usual initials. Just the P, which could be why I kept missing it.”
“It may also be because Peredyne’s listed as an arm of Iris Sommer Memorial.”
“I.S. Clever. Well, you’re more clever since you found it. I need to run it to make sure it’s not—”
“Already doing it,” he told her. “And . . . there’s no listing in New York for either of those companies. It’s a shell within a shell.”
She turned, rushed out to the bullpen. “Baxter.”
“Nice job, Dallas.” He gave her a wink, a salute. “I love going off the roll on the upside.”
“You’re not going off the roll. Conference room, five minutes. Trueheart, with Baxter.”
“But—”
She simply turned and pulled her new communicator out of her pocket as she got moving. “Feeney,” she said. “We found the bastard’s hole. Conference room. Now.”
“I want to play,” Roarke told her.
“You’ve earned it.” She caught herself before she grabbed him, kissed him, right in front of a corridor full of cops. Instead, she sent him a fierce grin. “Get me a tube of Pepsi, will you?”
In under ninety minutes, Eve had the pretty brick town house in the West Village covered. Cops in soft clothes sat at a bistro table outside a tiny restaurant, hunched in vehicles, strolled the sidewalks. Eve bought a soy dog from a glide-cart manned by Jenkinson.
“Some of them give tips,” he said. “I’m keeping the tips.”
“I don’t want to hear about it.”
“Maybe he rabbited, LT.” He handed her the dog.
“No reason to. The son didn’t make a call, hasn’t asked to yet. If he thinks about it, makes the demand, we can stall him. As far as Pauley knows, the fruit of his fucking loins is busy killing an old woman.”
Roarke took the second dog, strolled away with Eve. “I could easily get in the place.”
“Yeah, and that’s what we’ll do if he doesn’t show in another hour. We’ve got our warrant. But since the sensors show the place is empty, I’d rather wait.”
She bit into the dog. “We wait until he comes back, until he’s in that little gated area. Nowhere to run. Jesus, Louise’s place is only a block away. I practically walked by this place a few days ago. I might’ve passed the bastard on the street.”
Roarke took her hand, laced his fingers with hers. “Part of our cover,” he said easily.
“Sure. He’s not home because he’s out somewhere he can be seen, where he can buy something, get a time-stamped receipt. Just in case. It’s always been about covering his own ass.”
A difficult topic for a pretty summer evening, Roarke thought, but she needed to talk it through. “Why mold the boy into a killer?”
“Maybe he didn’t have to mold that much. Hell if I know. That’s for Mira or someone like her. I have to figure, maybe it ate at him some. Maybe it was his way to turn it around, not just so he’d be a hero to Darrin, but so he could believe what he was spewing. Everyone else’s fault, everyone else is to blame. Punish them.”
“Will the reasons matter to you?”
“No. I don’t think they will.”
“Dallas?”
She turned, saw Charles Monroe, groom-to-be, smiling as he hurried toward them. “Shit.”
“What in the world are you two doing around here? I left your place less than an hour ago. I thought there were major plans for the ladies tonight.”
“There are. They should be doing some . . . thing right now.” What the hell, she thought, it was good cover. Just some friends running into each other on the street. “This isn’t your block.”
“No. I’m just out walking off some nerves. Tomorrow’s . . . it.”
“You don’t look a bit nervous to me,” Roarke commented.
He didn’t, Eve agreed. He looked stupid with happy, just like Louise. And elegant despite the casual shirt and pants.
“I take it the rehearsal went off okay. Sorry about needing stand-ins.”
“No problem, and it went very well. As far as I could tell.” He laughed a little. “I want it to be perfect for her. I caught myself checking the weather forecasts every ten minutes on my way home, and once I got there. So I got out of the house. You should come back, come have a drink, save me from my weather obsession.”
“Can’t. I’m on an op, and subject sighted,” she said. “Hold positions. Let him get inside the gate, then move in.”
“What?”
“Just keep talking,” she said to Charles. “Roarke, talk to Charles.”
“Have you made your honeymoon plans?” Roarke asked pleasantly even as his eyes tracked over to the man who strolled down the sidewalk carrying a shopping bag.
“Ah, yes. We’re going to Tuscany.”
“Don’t look around, Charles. Talk to Roarke.”
“We . . . have a villa there for a couple of weeks. Then we—”
“It was great to see you.” Eve shot him a huge smile, lifting her voice as Pauley reached out for his garden gate. “Wish we had more time, but we have to . . . Go!”
She sprinted, caught the gate Pauley left to swing shut behind him. And pressed her weapon to the back of his neck. “You don’t want to move.”
Ten armed officers surrounded the courtyard, weapons aimed. The bag Pauley held fell to the ground, shattering the contents.
“What’s going on? What’s the problem?”
“Hands behind your back. Oh, please hesitate. Please try to run or resist. Give me an excuse.”
“I’m cooperating.” He put his hands behind his back, and Eve cuffed him. “I don’t want any trouble. I don’t understand.”
“Then I’ll explain.” She jerked him around to face her. “Vance Pauley, you’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder, two counts, and conspiracy with intent to murder, one count. You have the right to remain silent.”
“I don’t—”
“Shut up. Didn’t I just tell you you have the right to remain silent?” She completed the Revised Miranda, then kicked at the shards of glass on the ground. “Bought some prime brew. I guess you planned a little celebration for your son when he got home tonight. The thing is, he won’t be coming home, for the rest of his life. And he flipped on you, Daddy.”
He went pale, and his eyes dark and angry. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where is my son? I have a right to—”
“I gave you all the rights you’re going to get. Like father, like son. When push came to shove, he covered his own ass.”
“That’s bullshit. He’d never say anything against me.”
She smiled. “Take this delusional asshole into Central. Book him on the counts charged and
put him in a cage. We’ll be talking soon, Vance. Real soon.”
She turned to Roarke and a fascinated Charles. “Now you and the e-geeks can bypass security. By the numbers, people,” she called out. “Records on, I want top to bottom, inside and out. Bag it, tag it, log it.”
“Well.” Charles smiled at her. “This was certainly an exciting walk around the neighborhood.”
“Making your streets safer for newlyweds. I gotta go. I’ll see you to morrow.”
“I’ll be there. Oh, tell Louise, when you see her, tell her I can’t wait.”
“I’ll do that.”
She took him alone. She saw no reason to keep any of the team on the clock any longer. Carrying a large box, she went into Interview.
“Record on,” she began.
“This is some sort of ridiculous mistake. I haven’t asked for a lawyer—yet—because I don’t want to make it more complicated. Now, I demand to see my son.”
“No. Shut up and listen, because this really isn’t going to take that long. And I’ve got things to do. We’ve confiscated all your electronics, and we already have all the data you accumulated on Deena MacMasters, Karlene Robins, Charity Mimoto, Elysse—well, you know who they are. You kept excellent records of your research, your video documentation. Oh, just for the hell of it, we’re throwing in the ID fraud charges and all that. We brought your workshop in, too. Plus, there’s the illegals. It just keeps piling on, Vance.”
“Look, you don’t understand.” He spread his hands, a man of perfect reason. “I have to see my boy. I have to make sure he’s all right. You . . . something’s wrong with him. I’m afraid he might have done something. He might have done something horrible. I’ve tried to take care of him, but he’s been—”
“Do you think I’m going to buy that bullshit?” She let her fury go, just go, and hauled him out of the chair. “You disgusting fucker. You made him, and now you’d let him fry. Just like you let her. To save yourself.”
She all but threw him back into the chair. “You have no idea what I’d like to do to you, with my bare hands. So don’t fuck with me. You made a monster out of him. You raped his mind, filled it with hate and loathing and lies. What makes people like you, fathers like you who’d do that to their children?”
She stepped away, stared at herself in the two-way mirror. Her heart beat too fast, and her hands wanted to tremble. It was getting away from her, she thought. She couldn’t let it get away from her.
She lifted one hand, laid her palm on the glass. A mirror on one side, a window on the other. And she imagined Roarke’s palm pressed to hers.
He knew her, she reminded herself. All there was. He was there, and he’d keep being there. She could handle this. She could handle anything.
Okay, she thought. I’m okay.
For another moment, she stared into her own eyes. “She didn’t love him either, or not enough. He was . . . secondary to her. It was all about you.” Steady again, she turned back. “She protected you and didn’t spare him a backward glance. And when you got over your head with the Stallions, you offered her. She was secondary to you, after your own ass. She was someone to be used. That’s all she was to you. A bargaining chip.”
“That’s not true.” He said it slowly, his voice thickening, his eyes taking on a sheen. “I loved my son’s mother.”
“You can’t even say his name. You don’t know which name to use. He never really had one,” she added. Neither had she. They hadn’t named her so she’d remain nothing.
“He told us everything.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh yes, he would.” Some of her fatigue came through, so she used it and angled it toward a kind of boredom. “In his twisted way, he was making you a hero.” She walked back, leaned down. “He was bragging about you, Vance. How you taught him everything, told him everything. How you found your targets together. How you did the stalking, the research, shared that with him. How you planned it all out.
“And even if I didn’t have all that—on the record . . .”
She began pulling items out of the box. “Discs—with data on the two people he murdered, the woman he tried to kill just today, on the one he planned to kill next week, and so on. On their families, their habits, their work, their friends.
“Very thorough.”
She pulled out stacks of photos. “Visuals of same—including the ones he took of Deena and Karlene after he’d finished with them, so he could share the triumph with you. There’s more. There’s so much more. It’s just a freaking banquet of evidence. I know an APA who’s going to be shedding tears of joy.”
“I can make a deal.” He gestured with his hands, like a politician, she thought, emphasizing a talking point. “There’s a lot you don’t know. I’ll give you information.”
“Gee, that’s some offer. But, no thanks. I’ve got more than I need, and jeez, it’s been a long day already. Your prints are all over this stuff. All over it.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I’m showing remorse. He pulled me into it. He’s my son, and he needed my help. I raised him on my own, just him and me. And losing his mother the way we did, it . . . marked us. I was going to talk him into turning himself in, to get help.”
“Would that be after he killed Judge Mimoto’s mother today, or maybe just one or two more?”
“I didn’t know about today. About Mimoto. I . . . thought he was at work. He consults for Biodent, he’s a data analyst. I thought he was at work.”
“Jesus, Vance.” She paused, let out a belly laugh. “You’re so completely screwed. You have today’s hit marked on your freaking datebook like a dentist appointment.”
“I couldn’t stop him.”
“Are you just going to keep throwing this shit at the wall until something sticks?”
“I never killed anybody. That has to mean something. I helped him, sure. Okay, I helped him set it all up, but that’s all. And I’m remorseful. You can cut me a break. I never killed anybody.”
“Yes, you did.” The fatigue vanished, the boredom flipped into icy rage. “And if I could, I’d charge you with the murder of Illya Schooner, and with a kid of about four who died and became what you wanted him to be. The only break you’ll get from me is the recommendation you be placed in a cage in another sector of Omega, so you never have contact with your son. Because he’ll figure it out sooner or later, I gave him a start on that today. And once he does, he’ll turn his talents on you. So the break you get, Vance? You live.”
“I want a lawyer.”
“Subject has requested representation. Interview end.”
“There’s money,” he said as she began loading the box. “I have a lot of money hidden away. Secure. I can make it worth your while if you lose that evidence.”
“Really? My while’s worth a lot.”
“Five million.”
“So, if I tamper with this evidence so you get off, you’ll give me five million dollars?”
“Cash.”
“Thanks.” She tapped her lapel. “I guess you didn’t notice my recorder. We’ll add attempting to bribe a police office to the roll.”
He screamed at her as she walked out, ugly invectives that were music to her ears. “Walk this down to Evidence.” She passed the box to the uniform she had waiting. “And you can take that ball of puss. He wants a lawyer.”
She kept walking. Roarke met her with a tube of Pepsi.
“God, that felt good. Now I feel good.” She cracked the tube and drank deep. “Now bright sounds right.”
“Peabody called to check. I told her I thought you were wrapping things up. I’m to tell you Trina’s waiting for you.”
“Shit. That was mean of you.”
He walked with her. “You did well. You . . . decimated him.”
“You were in Observation? I . . . I felt you.”
“Where else would I be?”
This time she took his hand, laced her fingers with his. Palm to palm, she thought. He was there. He
always would be.
“I know it sounds weird, but when I started to fill up with him, with my father, I felt you. I guess you could say I leaned on you. It helped me stay steady.”
He brought her hand to his lips. “Let’s you and I go find some of that bright.”
EPILOGUE
THE ROOM SMELLED LIKE A GARDEN AND SOUNDED LIKE A flock of birds—possibly chickadees—had just taken roost. Why, she wondered, did women so often sound like songbirds when they gathered together for one of their rites?
She sat, because she’d told herself it was her job to sit, in what Peabody had gleefully dubbed the Bridal Suite, while Trina slathered God-knew-what all over her face.
“Stop squirming.” Trina, her hair a puzzling maze of braids and twists in screaming red, kept slathering.
“When, by all that’s holy, are you going to stop?”
“When I’m finished. This product is going to help ease the bruising and cover it up. You could’ve at least tried not to get hit in the face right before the wedding.”
“Oh yeah, I should’ve tried harder not to get caught in a human stampede since a black eye doesn’t go with my dress.”
“What I’m saying,” Trina agreed. “It’s not so bad. We got a lot of it treated last night when you finally got here.”
“Would you get off my ass? Murderers, two vicious killers behind bars.”
“I’ll add it to your scorecard,” Trina said and snapped her gum.
Peabody, her hair glossed and curled, her square-jawed face polished and painted, peered over Trina’s shoulder. “You can hardly see it. Plus, it makes her skin all dewy.”
“Wait till I add the base.”
“More? I already have an inch troweled on. Why can’t I—”
“Quit bitching. Why don’t you get her some champagne,” Trina suggested. “This can soak in while I start on Louise.” She gave Eve a hard grin. “She doesn’t need as much work.”
“Sure.” Peabody strolled off in her floaty blue dress and bare feet.
Mavis, in a skintight mini nearly as red as Trina’s hair zipped up on matching sandals with the teetering heels shaped like open hearts. “Looking flip, Dallas. Is this the most total day ever? Here hold Bellamina a minute. I want to get bubbly for the bride.”