Big Jack

by J. D. Robb

  Boo-hoo, Trevor thought in disgust, but he kept his tone light and friendly. “It wasn’t easy for you, or Grandma. How old were you?”

  “Seven, I think. About seven. It’s difficult to be sure. One of the things my mother did to hide us was change my birth date. Different names, a year or two added or taken away on our ages. I was nearly eighteen when we stuck with Whittier. He’d been dead for years, and I told her I needed to stay one person now. I needed to start my life. So we kept it, and I know she worried herself sick because of that.”

  Paranoid old bat, Trevor thought. “Why do you suppose he came to see you there and then? Wouldn’t that have been around the time of the heist? The diamonds?”

  “Keeping tabs on me, tormenting her. I can still hear him telling her he could find her wherever she ran, that he could take me from her whenever he wanted. I can still hear her crying.”

  “But to come then.” Trevor pushed. “Of all times. It could hardly have been a coincidence. He must have wanted something. Told you something, or told her.”

  “Why does this matter?”

  He’d plotted it out carefully. Just because he found his father foolish didn’t mean he didn’t know how the man worked. “I’ve given this a lot of thought since you first told me. I don’t mean to argue with you, but I suppose it’s upset me to realize, at this point in my life, what’s in my blood.”

  “He’s nothing to you. Nothing to us.”

  “That’s just not true, Dad.” Sorrowfully, Trevor shook his head. “Didn’t you ever want to close the circle? For yourself, and for her? For your mother? There are still millions of dollars of those diamonds out there, and he had them. Your father had them.”

  “They got nearly all of them back.”

  “Nearly? A full quarter was never recovered. If we could piece things back together, if we could find them, we could close that circle. We could work a way to give them back, through this writer—this Samantha Gannon.”

  “Find the diamonds, after over fifty years?” Steve would have laughed, but Trevor was so earnest, and he himself so touched that his son would think about closing that circle. “I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  “Aren’t you the one who tells me constantly that anything’s possible if you’re willing to work for it? This is something I want to do. I feel strongly about it. I need you to help me put it back together. To remember exactly what happened the last time he came to see you, to remember exactly what happened next. Did he ever contact you from prison? You or my grandmother? Did he ever give you anything, send you anything, tell you anything?”

  “Steve?”

  Steve looked over as he heard his wife’s voice. “Let’s put this away for now,” he said quietly. “Your mother knows all about this, but I don’t like dragging it out. Down here, Pat. Trevor’s dropped by.”

  “Trevor? Oh, I’ll be right down.”

  “We need to talk about this,” Trevor insisted.

  “We will.” Steve gave his son a nod and an approving smile. “We will, and I’ll try to remember anything that may help. I’m proud of you, Trevor, proud of you for thinking about trying to find a way to make things right. I don’t know if it can be, but knowing you want to try means the world to me. I’m ashamed I never thought of it myself. That I never thought beyond putting it all away and starting fresh instead of cleaning the slate.”

  Trevor kept his annoyance behind a pleasant mask as he heard his mother hurrying downstairs. “I haven’t been able to think of much else for weeks.”

  He left an hour later and strolled along in the steamy heat rather than hail a cab. He could count on his father to line up details. Steve Whittier was hell on details. But the visit had already given him his next move. He’d play concerned grandson the very next day and go see his grandmother in the loony bin.

  About the time Trevor Whittier was crossing the park, Eve stifled a yawn. She wanted another hit of coffee, but knew that would mean getting through Roarke. He had a habit of knowing when her ass was dragging before she did.

  “Three potentials on the woman, twice that on the kid.” She scratched her scalp, hard, to get the blood moving.

  “If we discount the rest of the first-level matches.”

  “I’m discounting them. The computer likes these picks, so we go with them. Let’s move on the kid—man now. See if anything looks good.”

  She shot those six images on screen and began to scan the attached data. “Well, well, lookie here. Steven James Whittier, East Side address. Owns and runs his own building company. That’s a nice pop for me.”

  “I know him.”

  She looked around sharply. “You know this guy?”

  “Mostly in that vague professional sense, though I’ve met his wife a number of times at various charity functions. His company has a solid rep, and so does he. Blue-collar him, meets blue-blood her. He does good work.”

  “Check the lists from the job sites you got earlier. Let’s see if Whittier’s got anything going in or around Alphabet City.”

  Roarke brought up the file, then leaned back in his chair. “I should learn not to question your instincts.”

  “Rehab on Avenue B. Five-story building, three sections.” She pursed her lips, made a popping sound. “More than enough to take a closer look. See there, he’s got a son. One son, Trevor, age twenty-nine. Let’s get that image.”

  Roarke did the tech, and they studied Trevor Whittier’s face together. “Not as close on the artist rendering as I’d like, but it’s not a total bust. Let’s see what else we can find out about Trevor.”

  “You can’t do anything about him tonight. It’s nearly one in the morning. Unless you think you can build a case strong enough with this to go over and scoop him up and into a cage, you’re going to bed. I’ll set the computer to gather data while you get a few hours’ sleep.”

  “I could go wake him up, hassle him.” She considered. “But that would just be for fun. And it would give him a chance to whine for a lawyer. It can wait.” She pushed to her feet.

  “Until morning. We’ll check out this job site, see if we can nail it to the trace from Cobb’s body. I need to approach Whittier and find his mother, interview her, too. They might be in on this. This Trevor feels the best to me. Smarter to wait to move on him until I have it all lined up.”

  “While it lines up, you lie down.”

  She’d have argued, but her eyes were starting to throb. “Nag, nag, nag. I’ll just contact the team and tell them we’re going to brief at seven hundred instead of eight.”

  “You can do that in the morning. It’s easier, and more humane.”

  “Yeah, but it’s more fun to do it now,” she protested as he took her hand and pulled her out of the room. “This way I get to wake them up so they have to work at getting back to sleep. The other way, I just get them out of bed a little early.”

  “You’re a mean one, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  Chapter 12

  While she slept it all played in her head. Father to son, murder and greed, blood gleaming on sparkling stones. There were legacies you couldn’t escape, no matter how fast or how far you ran.

  She could see herself, a child, with no mother to panic or protect. No one to hide her or stand as a shield. She could see herself—she could always see herself—alone in a freezing room with the light washed red from the sign blinking, blinking, blinking from the building next door.

  She could taste her fear when he came in, that bright, metallic flavor. As if there was already blood in her throat. Hot blood against the chill.

  Children shouldn’t fear their fathers. She knew that now, in some part of her restless brain, she knew that. But the child knew nothing but fear.

  There had been no one to stop him, no one to fight for her when his hand had slashed out like a snake. No one to protect her when he’d torn at her, torn into her. There’d been no one to hear her scream, to beg him to stop.

  Not again, not again. Please, pleas
e, not again.

  She’d had no one to run to when the bone in her arm had snapped like a twig broken under a careless foot. She’d had only herself, and the knife.

  She could feel the blood flooding over her hands, her face, and the way his body had jerked when she’d hacked that blade into his flesh. She could see herself smeared with it, coated with it, dripping with it, like an animal at the kill. And even in sleep, she knew the madness of that animal, the utter lack of humanity.

  The sounds she made were vile. Even after he was dead, the sounds she made were vile.

  She struggled, jabbing, jabbing, jabbing.

  “Come back. Oh God, baby, come back.”

  Panic and protection. Someone to hear, to help. Through the madness of memory, she heard Roarke’s voice, scented him and curled up tight in the arms he’d wrapped around her.

  “Can’t.” Couldn’t shake it off. There was so much blood.

  “We’re here. We’re both right here. I’ve got you.” He pressed his lips to her hair, her cheek. “Let it go, Eve. Let it go now.”

  “I’m cold. I’m so cold.”

  He rubbed his hands over her back, her arms, too afraid to leave her even for the time it would take to get up for a blanket. “Hold on to me.”

  He lifted her into his lap, rocking her as he would a child. And the shudders that racked her gradually eased. Her breathing steadied.

  “I’m okay.” She let her head fall limply on his shoulder. “Sorry.” But when he didn’t loosen his hold, when he continued to rock, she closed her eyes, tried to drift into the comfort he needed as much as she.

  Still, she saw what she’d been, what she’d done. What she’d become in that horrible room in Dallas. Roarke could see it. He lived it with her through her nightmares.

  Burrowing against him, she stared off into the dark again and wondered if she could bear the shame if anyone else caught a glimpse of how Eve Dallas had come to be.

  Peabody loved briefings at Eve’s home office. However serious the business, there was always an informal atmosphere when you added food. And a breakfast meeting not only meant real coffee, but real eggs, real meat and all manner of sticky, sugary pastries.

  And she could justify the extra calories because it was work-related fuel. There was, in her opinion, no downside to the current situation.

  They were all loaded in—Feeney, McNab, Trueheart, Baxter, Dallas, even Roarke. And boy, oh boy, a look at Roarke in the morning was as delicious a jolt to the system as the strong black coffee sweetened with honest-to-God sugar.

  It was hardly a wonder the lieutenant was so slim. She had to burn up the calories just looking at him. Considering that, Peabody snatched a couple extra slices of bacon and calculated she might actually lose weight during the briefing.

  It was a pretty good deal.

  “Updates are in your packs,” Eve began, and Peabody divided her attention between her plate and her partner.

  Eve leaned on the corner of her desk, coffee in one hand, laser pointer in the other. “Feeney and our civilian made some progress last night, as did McNab. McNab, give the team your data.”

  He had to swallow, fast and hard, a mouthful of Danish. “Sir. My area deals with the ’links and d and c’s from both vics.”

  He ran through it, pinpointing transmission locations, with considerable comp-jock code. The jargon, and the questions and comments Feeney tossed him in the same idiom gave Eve time to finish her coffee and contemplate another cup.

  “You’ll scout those locations this morning,” Eve put in when there was a short lull. “With these images. Screen One. This is Steven Whittier. Current data leads us to believe he is the son of Alex Crew. On Screen Two you see Trevor Whittier, son of Steven Whittier and likely the grandson of Crew. Given accumulated data and the profile, he fits. Steven Whittier is the founder and current owner of Whittier Construction.”

  “That’s a nice little pop,” Baxter commented.

  “Bigger and louder one as we’ve determined Whittier Construction is the contractor on a major rehab job, building on Avenue B. The company is licensed for four gasoline storage facilities. None of the other potential matches have as many links as this. Steven Whittier’s official data states his father is deceased. His mother . . . ”

  She split the screen and brought up the image of a woman known as Janine Strokes Whittier. “Currently residing at Leisure Gardens, a retirement and care facility on Long Island, where Whittier senior has a second home. She’s in the right age group, has the right racial profile and matches the computer morphs.”

  “Will we bring the Whittiers in to interview, Lieutenant?” Peabody asked.

  “Not at this time. We’ve got circumstantial and supposition. It’s good circumstantial and supposition, but it’s not enough to push the PA for a warrant. It’s not enough to arrest, much less convict. So we get more.”

  “Trueheart and I can take the images, toss in a couple more and show them to the waitress. She picks out one of these guys,” Baxter said, “we’ve got more.”

  “Do it. McNab, find me somebody at the transmission sources who remembers seeing one or both of these men. Feeney, I need you to dig back. If Janine and Steven Whittier went by other names previous to this, I want them.”

  “You’ll get them,” he told her, and scooped up a mouthful of eggs.

  “Peabody and I will head to this job site first, match the trace and do a sweep. If Cobb was killed there, there’ll be blood. I want witnesses, I want physical evidence. We lock it down, then we pull them in. Roarke, I’m counting on your security to keep Samantha Gannon and her family safe under wraps until we nail this.”

  “It’s done.”

  “Sir.” Like any well-disciplined student, Trueheart raised his hand. “Detective Baxter and I could go by the hotel and show Ms. Gannon the images. She might recognize one or both of these men. If so, it could give us another link.”

  “That’s good thinking, Trueheart. Do the legwork. Let’s build this case tight.” She glanced toward the board, and the victims. “Nobody else is going to die over a bunch of fucking rocks.”

  When the team began to disperse, Roarke ran a fingertip along Eve’s shoulder. “A moment, Lieutenant?”

  “Half a moment.” With her mind on dovetailing points of the investigation, she trailed after him into his office.

  He closed the door, then, cupping his hands under her elbows, lifted her to the toes of her boots and took her mouth in a short and heated kiss.

  “Jeez!” She dropped back to the flat of her feet with a thud. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Had to get that out of my system. Something about watching you take command just gets me started.”

  “Watching grass grow gets you started.” She turned toward the door, but he slapped a hand on it. “Do the words ‘obstruction of justice’ ring a bell?”

  “Several. And though a quick bout of obstruction might be entertaining, that’s not what I had in mind. I have some things to deal with this morning, but some of the day can be shuffled around.”

  “If Feeney wants you on board for the e-work, that’s between you and him.”

  “He has his teeth in it now. I don’t imagine he needs me to chew through the rest. But you might want me along when you speak to Steven Whittier.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he knows me. And from what I know of him, he couldn’t have had a part in what was done to those women. Not knowingly.”

  “People can do a lot of things that are out of character when they’re blinded by bright, shiny stones.”

  “Agreed. Another reason you might want me along. I know a bit about that sort of thing.” He drew the chain from under her shirt so the teardrop diamond he’d once given her sparkled between them. “I’ve known people who’ve killed for them. I’ll know if he has. They’re just things to you. You wear this for me. That’s its only value to you.”

  He smiled a little as he slid it under her shirt again. “If I’d given you a hun
k of quartz, it would mean the same.”

  “He may not have done it for the diamonds, not directly, but to protect himself and his family. Samantha Gannon knows things about him that aren’t in the book. Things no one outside that group formed a half century ago knows. Who he is, who he comes from. People kill for that, too.”

  “Is this line of thinking what brought on your nightmare?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe this line of thinking came out of it. On the surface, Whittier’s built a good, decent life. But it’s often what’s under the surface that drives people. He has a lot to lose if it comes out—who his father was, what he did, that Steven Whittier is a figment.”

  “Is that what you think?” He touched her, a hand to her cheek, a cheek pale from a restless night. “Because the name was given to him along the way instead of at the beginning, it isn’t real?”

  “It’s not what I think, it’s what he thinks that matters.”

  Now he framed her face. “You know who you are, Eve.”

  “Most of the time.” She lifted a hand, laid it on his wrist. “You want to come along because of the nightmare. You’d already worked it out that I was making correlations with myself on this. I won’t deny I have, but it doesn’t get in the way of the job.”

  “I didn’t think it would.”

  “I’ll think about it. I’ll contact you and let you know.” She turned toward the door, then back. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The building on Avenue B was a beauty. Or as she was told by the cooperative job foreman, the three buildings being turned into one multipurpose complex was a beauty. The old brick had already been blasted clean of grime and soot and graffiti so the color glowed muted rose.

  She doubted that would last long.

  The lines were clean and straight, with the beauty in the simplicity of form.

  “Damn shame the way it was let go” was foreman Hinkey’s opinion as he walked them inside the entrance of the middle building. “Useta be apartments and such, and the basic structures held up. But, jeemaneze, you shoulda seen the guts of the place. Torn to shit and back. Wood rotted out, floors sagging, plumbing out of the freaking Ice Age. You had your cracked drywall and your busted windows. Some people just got no respect for buildings, you know?”