Eve leapt forward, shoved her back, but the others swarmed in. She was knocked down, kicked aside, trampled as they fell on the body like dogs.
She crawled clear, struggled to stand. And saw the children behind the glass. Cheering.
Behind them, she saw the shadow, the shape that was her father.
Told you, didn’t I, little girl? Told you they’d toss you into the pit with the spiders.
“No.” She jerked, struck out when someone lifted her.
“Easy now,” Roarke murmured. “I’ve got you.”
“What? What?” With her heart skittering, she shook herself awake in his arms. “What is it?”
“You fell asleep at your desk. Small wonder as it’s nearly two in the morning. You were having a nightmare.”
“It wasn’t…” She took a moment to steady herself. “It wasn’t a nightmare, not really. It was just weird. Just a weird dream. I can walk.”
“I like this better.” Still carrying her, he stepped onto the elevator. “We’d have headed for bed sooner, but I got caught up.”
“I’m fuzzy.” She rubbed her face, but couldn’t scrape away the fatigue. “You get anywhere?”
“What a question. Three accounts so far. I suspect there are more. Feeney can take over with it in the morning. I’ve some work of my own to deal with.”
“What are—”
“Morning’s soon enough. It’s nearly here, in any case.” He stepped out of the elevator, took her straight to the bed. When he started to tug down her pants, she tapped his hands aside.
“I can do that. You might get ideas.”
“Even I have limits, broad though they may be.”
Still, when he slid into bed with her, he drew her close to his side.
She started to nag him into giving her some of the data. And the next thing she knew, it was morning.
He was having coffee in the sitting area, with the viewing screen split between stock reports and the morning bulletins. At the moment, she didn’t care about either. So she grunted what passed for a morning greeting and slogged off to the bathroom.
When she came out, she smelled bacon.
There were two plates on the table. She knew his game. He’d fill her in if and when she ate. To expedite it, she plopped down across from him, grabbed the coffee first.
“So?”
“Good morning to you, too. Such as it is. Forecast is for sleet, possibly turning to snow by midmorning.”
“The fun never ends. The accounts, Roarke.”
He pointed a finger at the cat, who was trying to belly over toward the food. Galahad stopped, and began scratching his ears.
“The accounts the lawyer gave you were closed. Timing coordinates with the cutoff. I found others, off shore and off planet. Numbered, of course, but with some finessing, I unearthed the certified names. Roberta True and Robin Lombardi.”
“Not very imaginative.”
“I don’t think imagination was her strong suit. Greed certainly was. She had close to a million in each. Tracing back, I’ve got the lawyer’s transfers. And another six figures transferred from an account under the names Thom and Carly Tween.”
“Yeah, I knew she’d been scalped some.”
“Also a chunk from a Marlee Peoples.”
“Peoples—that’s the doctor, pediatrician, in Chicago. I wasn’t able to reach her yesterday.”
“There’s more. I made you a list. Deposits that I’ve found so far go back about ten years.”
“Round about the time she’d have lost the pro-mom status. You got a kid in college, you keep the status until he’s done, or turns twenty-four.”
“A handy way to make up for the loss in income.”
“But she doesn’t buy a nice outfit for the party.”
“Sorry?”
“Stupid dream.” Eve shook her head. “Or not so. What the hell did she do with her money, anyway? Comes to New York, stays in an economy hotel.”
Roarke plucked up a piece of bacon, handed it to her. “For some, it’s simply the having, the accumulating. It’s not what you can buy with it.”
Because it was in her hand, she ate the bacon. “Well, Morris said she’d had good face and body work, so she spent some on that. Daughter-in-law stated Trudy left her better jewelry at home, so she spent some there. Personal stuff,” Eve mused. “Appearance. That fits her. And maybe she invested in something. Bobby’s in real estate. Could be she’s got property. Something she figured to retire to when she was done bleeding her former charges.”
“Does it matter?”
“I don’t know. How much she had, who knew she had it, who had access. It might matter.” She ate as she thought about it. “I couldn’t find anything that points to Bobby or his bride. I went through financials, medical, education, criminal. But if either or both of them knew she had a couple million stashed away, and thought there was a shot at doubling that, maybe.”
She toyed with it a moment. “If we can freeze the accounts, prove the funds were from illegal means… Might get the killer to try to follow Trudy’s path to blackmail. Might piss him off, too. And eventually, through the maze of red tape, we might even get the money back where it came from.”
“And justice for all.”
“In a perfect world, which isn’t even close to this one. But it’s an angle. If money was the motive, removing the money could stir things up.”
With some surprise she realized she’d finished her breakfast. She rose. “I’m going to get dressed, get started. Maybe we’ll lower the visual on the security I’ve got on Bobby and Zana. Make it seem like it’s eased up. Need some bait, is what we need.”
She went to the closet, remembered what he’d said about sleet and snow, so detoured to her dresser to dig out a sweater. “It’s the twenty-third, right?”
“Only two more shopping days before Christmas.”
“Makes sense, lighter duty this close to the big day. Couple of out-of-towners cooped up in a hotel. They’d start whining about getting out some. So we let them. See what we can see.”
* * *
At Central, she set up a briefing in one of the conference rooms. She called in Detective Baxter and Officer Trueheart, as well as Feeney, Peabody, and McNab.
She caught them up, then began to assign duties. “Feeney, you’ll continue to follow the money. I realize this isn’t your top priority, so whatever time and manpower you can spare.”
“Things are pretty loose. Losing a lot of my boys over the next day or two. Including this one.” He jerked a thumb at McNab. “No reason I can’t work their asses off until then.”
“Appreciate it. I’m going to need a couple of homers,” she told him. “I want small and discreet. I’m going for a warrant to use them on our two protective custodys.”
“A warrant?” He scratched his fingers into his wiry, ginger-colored hair. “You don’t figure they’ll grant permission?”
“I’m not going to ask for it. So I want something I can get on them without them being aware. You got something in your bag of tricks that’ll give me some audio, it wouldn’t hurt.”
“Tricky.” Considering, he rubbed his chin. “Warrant for something like that, you generally got to have some evidence points to them as suspects, or have their prior knowledge and cooperation.”
She’d already worked the skirt around that one in her head. “In the opinion of the primary, the subjects are already under duress and stress. The purpose of the homers is for their own safety, as the female subject was purportedly abducted once.”
“Purportedly?” Peabody repeated.
“We’ve only got her word on it. We’re running a thin line with these two, between victims and suspects. Homers are my method of walking the line. I’m going to do a dance for the warrant. I’ll call Mira in to back me up if necessary. We get them wired, and we open the cage.”
She turned to Baxter. “That’s where you and your partner come in. I want you out there, soft clothes, tailing them. I want to know where
they go, how they look.”
“You’re tossing us out on the street on Christmas Eve—Eve… Eve.” Baxter grinned. “Somebody had to say it.”
“It would be you. They split up, you split up. You stay in contact with each other, and with me. This is low risk, but I don’t want sloppy. They may be approached. It’s unlikely they’ll be harmed. Probability’s in the low twenties. Let’s take that down to zero and keep sharp.”
“Lieutenant?” As was his habit, Trueheart raised his hand. He wasn’t as green as he once was, Baxter was ripening him. But a little color rose up his throat over his uniform collar when Eve turned to him.
“If they are approached, do we move in to apprehend?”
“You observe, use your own judgment. I don’t want you giving chase and losing this guy on the street. You take him if you’re close enough to do so without risk. Otherwise, you follow, give me the coordinates. From all evidence, the victim was target specific. There’s little risk to the populace, so let’s keep it that way.”
She gestured to the board, and Trudy’s picture. “Still, he did that, so we’re dealing with someone who can and will kill if motivated. I want everybody home for Christmas.”
She held Peabody back when the others left. “I’m going to see Mira, run this by her and get her behind me on this warrant. I’ve got names of former fosters. The ones I was unable to reach are marked. See what you can do with them. But first, contact Carly Tween from that list. She wouldn’t talk to me. She’s eight months pregnant, scared, and cranky. Use your soft sell. If you can confirm her husband’s whereabouts for the murder, so much the better.”
“She got a father? Brothers?”
“Shit.” Eve rubbed her neck. “Can’t remember. Doubtful on the father as she was in foster, but check it out.”
“On that. Good luck with the warrant.”
* * *
To Eve’s shock and surprise, Mira’s admin didn’t throw herself bodily in front of the office door. Instead, she beeped through, got the okay, then gestured Eve in.
“Oh, Merry Christmas, Lieutenant, if I don’t see you before.”
“Ah, thanks. Same to you.”
She glanced back, still baffled, as the dragon at the gates began to hum “Jingle Bells.”
“You’d better do a head exam on your admin,” Eve said to Mira as she shut the door. “She’s suddenly perky and she’s out there singing.”
“The holidays do that to people. I told her to put you through at any time, unless I was in session. It’s important that I keep up, not just with the progress of your investigation, but with your emotional state.”
“I’m fine. I’m good. I just need—”
“Sit down, Eve.”
Because Mira turned to her AutoChef, Eve rolled her eyes behind Mira’s back. But she sat, dropping into one of the pretty blue scoop chairs. “I’m hitting snags and dead-ends on the investigation, so I’m pushing it open. I want to—”
“Have some tea.”
“I really don’t—”
“I know, but indulge me. I can tell you didn’t get much sleep. Are you having nightmares?”
“No. Not exactly. I worked late last night.” She took the tea—what choice did she have? “I dropped off for a few minutes. Had a weird dream. Nothing major.”
“Tell me anyway.”
She hadn’t come for a session, damn it. But she knew that arguing with Mira on her own turf was like beating your head against rock.
She described the dream, shrugged. “Weird, mostly. I didn’t feel threatened or out of control.”
“Even when the other women stampeded you?”
“No, that just pissed me off.”
“You saw yourself, as a child, through the glass.”
“Yeah. Having a sandwich. I think it was ham and cheese.”
“And, at the end of it, your father.”
“He’s always there. Can’t get around it. Look, I get it. Him on one side, her on the other. Me in the middle. Then and now. I’m squeezed on this, but it’s not a problem. For once, nobody’s trying to kill me.”
“Do you really feel that different—that distance from the others? The other women?”
“I feel different from most of the women I know. Never can figure out how I end up pals with them, when half the time they’re like another species. Okay, I understood where Maxie was coming from. I know why she felt the way she did, at least initially. Somebody who screwed with her is dead. I don’t feel the same way. Not like busting out the champagne. If I wanted everyone I disliked dead, the city’d be a bloodbath.
“I don’t blame her, but I don’t agree with her. Death isn’t an answer, it’s an end. And murder’s a crime. That makes Trudy, whether I liked her or not, mine. Whoever ended her has to pay for it.”
She hesitated a moment, then decided to finish it out, to close it off with what had just gone through her mind. “I wish I’d had the chance to say what I went there to say to her. To face her like that. More, I wish she were alive so I could help put her away for dogging those women all these years, exploiting them, taking their money and their peace of mind.”
“And you can’t.”
“No. Life’s full of disappointments.”
“Cheery thought,” Mira added.
“Here’s a cheerier one, then: She can’t take from me what I’ve got. I know that. She didn’t. She thought she could get under me, use me. She wouldn’t have. It helps knowing that. Part of what she couldn’t take was what I am. What I am is the cop who’s going to close this case. That’s it.”
“All right. What do you need from me?”
Eve told her of the plans to try for a warrant.
Mira sipped at her tea, and from the expression on her face, Eve knew she was far from convinced. “That’s a shaky line, Eve.”
“I’m freezing the accounts. Money’s cut off. Nobody can get to them in the hotel. Sooner or later I’ve got to spring them. So maybe he waits until I do, until they’re back in Texas. Maybe he goes after one of them there, when they’re not being protected. There’s no motive, at this point, to attack them. Approach, yes, but not attack. Not if money’s the root.”
“What else?”
“Payback, maybe. But I’m hitting dead ends there. The fact is, she could’ve—and probably did—piss off a lot of people we don’t know about. But Zana’s abduction points to money. So that’s our first stop.”
“I’ll back you on this since I agree the physical jeopardy is low. It could be argued that their emotional state is exacerbated by being kept in the hotel, under guard. Some return of normalcy could benefit them, while aiding your investigation.”
“That’s good enough. I’ll get on it.” She rose. “Peabody and McNab are heading for Scotland tomorrow.”
“Scotland? Oh, his family, of course. They must be excited.”
“Peabody’s running on nerves over it. His family and all that. If nothing breaks today, this is going to cool on me over the holiday. Right now, this is my best chance to keep it hot.”
“Then I wish you luck. And if I don’t see you, have a lovely Christmas. Both you and Roarke.”
“Yeah, thanks. I’ve got to take care of a couple things regarding that yet.”
“Ah, another last-minute shopper.”
“Not exactly.”
She started toward the door, then turned back and took another study. Mira wore a suit in a kind of rusty red today, and the shoes matched. Her necklace was short, thick gold with a lot of little stones sparkling in it. Multicolored, triangular shape. Her earrings were thick gold triangles.
“Something else?”
“Just a passing thought,” Eve began. “How much time and thought did it take for you to deck yourself out this morning?”
“Deck myself?” Mira looked down at herself.
“You know, to pick the outfit and the stuff, to fiddle with your hair and face. All that. So you’re all put together just so.”
“I’m not entirely sure th
at’s a compliment. Probably the best part of an hour. Why?”
“Just wondering.”
“Wait.” Mira held up a hand before Eve opened the door. “How long did it take you?”
“Me? I don’t know. Ten minutes?”
“Get out of my office,” Mira said with a laugh.
* * *
Eve gave the warrant a good, solid push. It took over an hour, a lot of tap dancing, but at the end she got what she wanted.
She was told to consider it a Christmas present.
Satisfied, she headed out to the bull pen. “Suit up,” she told Baxter. “Get your boy. I want you in position, at the hotel, in thirty.”
“It’s going to snow. Did you know it’s supposed to start snowing?”
“Wear boots, then.”
Ignoring his whine, she walked to Peabody’s desk, got a little brush-back. “I hear you, Carly.”
Peabody used an earpiece on privacy mode. “You’ve only got one thing to worry about now, and that’s your family. Having another beautiful, healthy baby boy. It’s a big help to us that you cooperated. Now I want you to put it out of your mind, and go enjoy the holidays.”
She listened for a moment, smiled. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch when we have more information. Merry Christmas to you and your family.”
Peabody pulled off the earpiece, then made a show of buffing her nails on her shirt. “I’m good.”
“Did you stop short of sending her a gift? Jesus. What’d you get?”
“Husband’s out of it. He was with her Saturday, in the hospital. She had false labor, and they were there several hours. I ran a secondary check on that while I had her on ‘link. Pans out. No brother, no father. Only child. Jeez, Dallas, she had it rough.”
“Walk and talk. We’ve got a warrant coming through, and I want to head up, see what toys Feeney’s picked out for me.”
“Mother was a junkie. Used while she was pregnant, so Carly was born an addict. She got passed around, various relatives. Too much for them to handle, too much expense, too much trouble.”
They hopped on a glide, blissfully uncrowded as the holidays had everyone who could manage it copping time off.
Robb, J.D. - [Dallas 25] - Memory in Death-v2 Page 21
