Thankless in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “On The Rack, for men,” she read on the side of the bag. “Do you know it?”

  “No, but give us a moment and I will.”

  “He’s moving fast,” Eve noted, “and look at his body language, his expression. He’s digging on the suit, likes how he feels in it.

  “They have a location a block from the hotel, good location for the business crowd who needs a change quickly. Alterations done on site, and within the hour for an additional fee. They run from suits to casual wear, shoes, accessories, and so on.”

  “We’ll pay them a visit.”

  She watched, waited for the next appearance. “There. Timing wise, he must be heading out with the watches. Suit and briefcase, and Ursa looks and thinks, ‘A nice young man.’ Busy, busy. We’ll check with the day man on the door. Probably got a cab. Why not? He’s pretty damn flush.”

  She got up to pace, eyes on the screen as Roarke ran it forward. “There again, out nearly three and a half hours this time. Lots to do. What are those bags?”

  “Village Paint and Hardware, In Style, Running Man—that’s one of mine. Specializes in athletic shoes, clothing, accessories, for men again. The duffel might have come from there.”

  “It fits. He’s a man now, he likes shopping in male-specific stores. Hardware. He could’ve bought the cord and tape there. We’ll check it out. What’s In Style?”

  “Trendy clothing and accessories.”

  “Okay.”

  She sat again. He went out again, with the second suitcase. On his return, eighteen minutes later, he carried the duffel and wore the stylish new sunshades he had when exiting the cab near Nuccio’s.

  “Got rid of the other suitcase. And I’m betting the bat’s in the new duffel. That and anything else he thought of on this trip. Productive day. And there,” she said when Roarke paused a final time. “Leaving with the duffel, done with the place. Catch a cab out front and it’s off to kill.”

  She rose again and paced. “He had an agenda in place, a schedule, a to-do list. Maybe he varied it some—impulse buys, or he might’ve had to try a couple places before selling off the goods, but he stuck close to it. He had all that time with his dead parents and when he stayed at The Manor to work it out. Day hole, banks, cash checks, sell, shop, sell, shop—grab lunch somewhere maybe, sell, shop, pack up his new stuff. He stays with the suit for the kill. Wants her to see him all duded up. The suit makes him feel important, successful, rich. All the things he didn’t feel when she kicked him out.”

  She pressed her fingers to her eyes again. “Hung out, had some fancy coffee, saw his chance, and took it. But where did he go after the kill? He had to have another hole dug. Did he buy hair and face crap to try to make himself look more like Golde in the expired ID? Is he going to chance using that again?”

  “It would be foolish,” Roarke speculated. “He has enough money to make an ID, or, for now, to pay cash for lodging.”

  “Yeah. Used the Golde idea at the second hotel because, most likely, he blew through the cash he’d dug up at his parents’. But he’s got plenty more now. Still … we’ll add Golde’s name to the alert, and EDD will check out the unit in the hotel, see if he used it after Nuccio. You need equipment, specific material to make an ID, and some skill to wiggle fake data into the system so it passes. Unless he got it on that last trip and stuffed it in the duffel, there’s no sign he has anything like that.”

  “He has a schedule, an agenda,” Roarke repeated. “And he had the time to plan it. Any plan should include the ID. He could obtain a reasonably good one with the money he has, but a good one would cut into that considerably.”

  “I’m with you. So we have to figure out where he’d go, and how he’d get one.”

  “You won’t be doing that tonight. You need sleep.”

  “He’s tucked in somewhere.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Roarke rose to eject the disc, and the screen rippled back to mirror glass. “And so should we be.”

  “I can go straight to Central from here, early. I’ve got a change in my locker.”

  “You have one here as well,” he told her, as he steered her toward the bedroom. “I had Summerset send down what we’d both need for the night, and tomorrow. And you needn’t look quite so appalled. Not only does it save time and trouble, but I told him specifically what to send, so he didn’t actually select your wardrobe.”

  “I guess that’s something.”

  And the big bed with its fluffy duvet and mound of pillows looked a lot better than a cot in the crib at Central. By the time she crawled into it, she was ready to give it up for the night.

  Tomorrow? Well, tomorrow Reinhold was going to have her right on his ass.

  She curled in as Roarke’s arm came around her. And let it go.

  In dreams, she sat with Lori Nuccio on the padded crates in the tiny apartment. Lori’s hair swept down to her shoulders, sleek, a glossy reddish brown. Blue eyes reflected sadness out of her unmarred face.

  “I didn’t want to look like how he left me.”

  “Yeah, I get that.”

  “I thought he just needed motivation, and—you know—inspiration. He was cute, and he could be funny. He wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t mean. Not at first. He treated me okay, and I wanted to help him. I was the stupid one.”

  “I don’t think so. You cared about him. You thought you could help him grow up some.”

  “Yeah, I guess. I liked having a steady boyfriend. Having somebody, and he’d had some bad luck. He said he had. A lot of bad luck. People were jealous of him, and screwing with him. But that’s not really the way it was. He had such nice parents, and I thought he’d come around.”

  She knuckled a tear away. “But he just got worse instead of better. He wouldn’t work, and he complained all the time, and he never helped clean up the apartment. Then he took the money, my money, and when I got mad, he hit me. I had to kick him out. It was what I had to do.”

  “It was. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “But he killed me for it and now I’ll never get married or have kids or go shopping with my friends. And he hurt me, really bad. He cut my hair off, and it was so pretty. Now I look like this.”

  Her hair fell away, hank by hank, her eyes swelled, blackened, her lip split.

  “I’m sorry for what he did to you. I should’ve stopped him.”

  “I just wanted a fresh start. But he wouldn’t let me. I don’t want my parents to see me like this. Can you fix it? Can you fix me?”

  “I’ll do what I can. I’m going to find him, Lori. I’m going to make sure he’s held accountable for what he did to you.”

  “I’d rather not be dead.”

  “Yeah, it’s hard to argue with that.”

  “He would,” Lori said solemnly. “He wants a lot of people dead.”

  “It’s my job to make sure he doesn’t get what he wants.”

  “I hope you do your job, because so far, he’s getting it.”

  Hard to argue with that, too, Eve thought, and slid into the more comforting dark.

  While Eve talked to the dead in dreams, Reinhold gloated over his latest luck.

  He’d known the old hag had some money, but he hadn’t known she had money. By the time he emptied her accounts, he’d have three million, nine hundred and eighty-four thousand in his brand-new name—or the name to come once they generated that new ID.

  When he added it to what he’d, ha-ha, inherited from his parents, and gotten from his former bitch girlfriend, he’d be rolling in more than four fucking million dollars.

  Jesus, he thought the hundred seventy-five thousand he’d had—minus what he’d spent—was a big deal. It was nothing compared to this.

  He could have anything he wanted now. Anyone he wanted now.

  He’d never have to work a day in his life to live like a king. Except for the killing, that is. But what was that old bullshit his father always tossed around?

  If you love your work you’re never working. Something like that.

/>   Who knew the stupid bastard would actually be right about anything?

  And now he had a droid—a pretty classy one—reprogrammed to follow his orders, and only his.

  He’d really enjoyed that when he’d ordered up a midnight snack.

  “Ms. Farnsworth, you sneaky bitch. You’ve been sitting on all this money with that fat ass of yours. Why the hell did you waste all that time dragging it around the classroom?”

  She only stared at him with dead-tired eyes, rimmed with red from fatigue and tears, and from the occasional backhand he delivered to keep her sharp.

  She’d loved teaching, she thought. He’d never understand the satisfaction and fulfillment of honest work. He was rotten down to the core. And she knew now he’d kill her before he was done.

  He’d make her suffer first; he’d hurt her in every way he could devise. Then he’d kill her.

  “We’ve still got work to do, but some of it’s going to have to wait. I’ve got to get some shut-eye.” He rose, stretched luxuriously. “You oughta get some, too. You look like hell.”

  He laughed, cracking himself up so much he bent over from the waist. “Tomorrow, we’re going to finish routing all that money. And the big new assignment? We’re going to work on that ID. I need your best work now, remember that? Remember how you said that a million times? ‘I need your best work, Jerry.’ Stupid bitch.”

  He gave her a last backhand, in case she forgot.

  “See you in the morning.” He gave her chair a good shove so it slammed against the wall, then strolled out, calling for lights off on the way.

  She sat quivering in the dark. Then steeling herself began to squirm, rock, twist her aching limbs in the faint hope she could loosen her bonds.

  Eve woke to the familiar and the not. The life-affirming scent of coffee hit first, to her eternal gratitude. The sense of an empty bed with Roarke close by. Those were every-morning things.

  But the bed wasn’t her bed, and no sky window above it showed her the filtered roof of the world.

  Hotel, she thought. Downtown, near work. And a dead body waiting for her at the morgue.

  She sat up, glanced blearily around at the muted gold of the walls, the single white orchid (she thought it was an orchid) arching out of a deep blue pot on a dresser.

  And caught the muted mumble from the parlor beyond. Media reports, stock reports, she concluded. Roarke usually kept the sound off as he reviewed all that from the bedroom sitting area.

  She rolled out, snagged the robe draped at the foot of the bed where the cat would often be, and shrugging into it, went out to join him.

  Already showered and dressed for business-world domination in a dark suit. Some blonde in hot red sat at a glass counter on screen talking about the market holding its breath in anticipation of the potential acquisition of EuroCom by Roarke Industries.

  Eve wandered over to pick up his coffee cup, down the contents.

  “You can have your own, you know.”

  “I’m going to. What’s EuroCom, why are you potentially acquiring it, and how come it makes everybody hold their breath?”

  “It’s been the major player in Europe’s joint communication development over the last decade or so. Because I can, and it will slide nicely into other holdings in that region. And because it’s been badly mismanaged the last few years, resulting in lost jobs and revenue, and the acquisition should right that ship as well as add to it.”

  “Okay.” She walked to the table where plates already sat under silver warmers, got a cup of her own and came back to pour coffee from the pot on the low table in front of Roarke.

  “Why aren’t you over there making the deal?”

  “Because EuroCom is the one under the gun, and I had them come to me here.”

  “Your turf, their hand out.”

  “Close enough. Much of it’s been negotiated through ’link and holo-conferences, and my liaison there. As it happens, I just signed off about ten minutes ago while having my coffee—or what had been my coffee. The announcement should hit shortly.”

  Eve wagged her thumb at the screen. “Blondie thinks it’s a big deal.”

  “Blondie’s quite right.” He held up his cup so Eve could fill it. “After the transition, which on my terms will be swift and clean and final, there’ll be some restructuring.”

  “Heads rolling.”

  “Asses booted more like. And some retooling. Within the next quarter we’ll generate about a half million new jobs.”

  He changed lives, she thought, sitting there in his slick suit, coolly drinking coffee. With an eye toward profit, sure, and expansion absolutely, but his go-ahead changed the life of someone sitting in a pub or café across the Atlantic worrying about paying the rent.

  The screen flashed like a sunspot before the banner hyping BREAKING NEWS! swept over it. Even with the sound low, Eve heard the excitement in the blonde’s voice as she announced the EuroCom/Roarke Industries deal was confirmed.

  “Well then.” Roarke got to his feet, gave Eve a light good-morning kiss. “Let’s have breakfast. They do a fine full Irish here.”

  Just like that, she thought.

  She sat with him, uncovered the plate to reveal the abundance of food. Jesus, what starving Irishman had first come up with the concept of the full deal?

  “How much of it goes to Ireland?” she asked him. “The EuroCom thing.”

  He shot her an amused smile. “Want the figures, do you? Should I have a report sent over?”

  She picked up her fork. “Definitely not. I’m just curious if any of this plays in with your family.”

  “Most of my people are farmers, as you know, but there are some who don’t work the land, and they may find their way onto the payroll. You don’t look as rested as I’d hoped.”

  “Weird dream. Dream,” she repeated so he understood there’d been no nightmare. “The latest vic and I had this conversation in her apartment. She’s pretty bummed out about being dead.”

  “It’s difficult to fault her for that.”

  “Yeah. She … she doesn’t want her parents to see her looking the way Reinhold left her. In the dream, I mean. Projecting,” Eve said as she began to eat. “And I shouldn’t be.”

  “Why not? You feel for her.”

  “It’s not my job to feel for her. It’s my job to find and stop Reinhold.”

  “You do both, and that’s what makes you you.”

  “My subconscious is putting words in her mouth.”

  Watching her, Roarke cut into meaty, Irish-style bacon. “Your subconscious, driven by your innate observation skills and your unique sensitivity. I wouldn’t discount it.”

  “None of that tells me where he is now, or what he’s planning next.”

  “You’ve generated considerable data in a short amount of time.”

  She had—they had, she knew, but … “Time’s the problem. He’s like … like a kid with a brand-new toy and nobody to tell him to put it down. Or an addict who’s just discovered a new drug, and thinks there’s an unlimited supply. He’s not going to pace himself.”

  “I’d agree with that, exactly. And I’d also say that’s his mistake, or one of them. It’ll be the rush, the gorging on it, that trips him.”

  “Gorging, yeah. He’s spent his whole life accumulating and hoarding grudges, and now he’s figured out what to do with them. Stabbing, bludgeoning, strangulation.” She scooped up eggs as she spoke, fueling up. “It’s all so much fun he can’t decide what to try next. And there’s so many ways to kill. And better, so many ways to cause pain and torment first.”

  Fighting frustration, she stabbed at potatoes. “He’s got a target already, and I can’t know who.”

  “If you can’t narrow down his next victim, you might narrow down his potential space. As you’ve said, he has to land somewhere.”

  “Yeah, he needs a place of his own—and money to get it, to furnish it in the fashion he deserves.”

  A narcissist, Mira said. So he’d believe he deserved th
e best.

  “Maybe he’ll blow a big chunk of what he’s got on his headquarters. From the time line, he didn’t have much time to scout out places yesterday. He may have done some via ’link or Web, but he’d need to see, to walk around in the space, to imagine himself there. Maybe that’s today’s agenda. But he has to change his looks first, has to alter them enough. He has to know we have his face, and he’s not stupid. That’s something else Nuccio said.”

  “You had quite a conversation.”

  “Well, we both felt pretty crappy.”

  “Won’t most of his potential victims have holiday plans?” At her blank look, he shook his head. “Thanksgiving, Eve. Two days from now.”

  “Shit. That’s right. Family groups, people leaving town or coming in. That’s something to look at.” It struck her. “Yours. Yours are coming in tomorrow.”

  “They are, yes, and will perfectly understand if you’re busy on an investigation and don’t have much time for them.”

  But the house would be full of people, noise, conversations, questions. She liked them, really she did. But …

  “Life happens, darling,” he reminded her. “However ill the timing.”

  “I guess it does. Maybe luck will turn our way and away from him, and I’ll have him in a cage before the turkey’s stuffed.”

  “Let’s hope for that.”

  “It’s going to take more than hope.” She pushed away from the table. “I’d better start working on turning that luck because the little bastard’s somewhere right now, thinking about his next kill.”

  He felt great! A good night’s sleep, a long, hot shower, and a hearty breakfast prepared and served by Asshole, his new droid. He ordered the droid to clean up, to ignore any ’link communications or anyone who might come to the door during the process, then shut down.

  The idea of anyone trying to contact Farnsworth made him consider she might have appointments. Armed with her passcodes, he checked both her calendar and her e-mail history on her bedroom ’link.

  The fat, ugly blob had a salon appointment at two. As if anyone would look at her twice anyway. He found the salon contact, send a quick text canceling.

  And she was booked to have Thanksgiving dinner with some losers named Shell and Myra, who were probably as ugly and worthless as she was. He considered that, decided to leave it alone for now. If he still needed her and the house on Thursday, he’d make up some excuse at the last minute.