by J. D. Robb
“When did you contract for this convention deal?”
“Just over six months ago,” he said as they stepped off into the garage. “It was one of the incentives to have several of the facilities complete.”
“How much do you want to bet Skinner’s kept in close contact with his dead detective’s daughter over the years? Angelo finesses a warrant for Vinter’s ’link records, we’re going to find transmissions to and from Atlanta. And not just to her mother.”
When he stopped, put his PC away, she stared. “What the hell is this?”
Roarke ran a hand over the sleek chrome tube of the jet-bike. “Alternate transportation.”
It looked fast and it looked mean, a powerful silver bullet on two silver wheels. She continued to stare as Roarke offered her a crash helmet.
“Safety first.”
“Get a grip on yourself. With all your toys I know damn well you’ve got something around here with four wheels and doors.”
“This is more fun.” He dropped the helmet onto her head. “And I’m forced to remind you that part of this little interlude was meant to be a bit of a holiday for us.”
He took a second helmet, put it on. Then tidily fastened hers. “This way you can be my biker bitch.” When she showed her teeth, he only laughed and swung a leg nimbly over the tube. “And I mean that in the most flattering way possible.”
“Why don’t I pilot, and you can be my biker bitch?”
“Maybe later.”
Swearing, she slid onto the bike behind him. He glanced back at her as she adjusted her seat, cupped her hands loosely at his hips. “Hang on,” he told her.
He shot like a rocket out of the garage, and her arms latched like chains around his waist. “Lunatic!” she shouted as he blasted into traffic. Her heart flipped into her throat and stayed there while he swerved, threaded, streaked.
It wasn’t that she minded speed. She liked to go fast, when she was manning the controls. There was a blur of color as they careened around an island of exotic wildflowers. A stream of motion when they rushed by a people glide loaded with vacationers. Grimly determined to face her death without blinking, she stared at the snag of vehicular traffic dead ahead.
Felt the boost of thrusters between her legs. “Don’t you—”
She could only yip and try not to choke on her own tongue as he took the jet-bike into a sharp climb. Wind screamed by her ears as they punched through the air.
“Shortcut,” he shouted back to her, and there was laughter in his voice as he brought the bike down to the road again, smooth as icing on cake.
He braked in front of a blindingly white building, shut off all engines. “Well, then, it doesn’t come up to sex, but it’s definitely in the top ten in the grand scheme.”
He swung off, removed his helmet.
“Do you know how many traffic violations you racked up in the last four minutes?”
“Who’s counting?” He pulled off her helmet, then leaned down to bite her bottom lip.
“Eighteen,” she informed him, pulling out her palm ’link to contact Darcia Angelo. She scanned the building as she relayed a message to Darcia’s voice mail. Clean, almost brutally clean. Well constructed, from the look of it, tasteful and likely expensive.
“What do you pay your security people?”
“A Level?” They crossed the wide sidewalk to the building’s front entrance. “About twice what a New York police lieutenant brings in annually, with a full benefit package, of course.”
“What a racket.” She waited while they were scanned at the door and Roarke coded in his master. The requisite computer voice welcomed him and wished him a safe and healthy day.
The lobby was tidy and quiet, really an extended foyer with straight lines and no fuss. At the visitors’ panel, Eve identified herself and requested Zita Vinter.
I’m sorry, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, Ms. Vinter does not respond. Would you care to leave a message at this time?
“No, I don’t care to leave a message at this time. This is police business. Clear me into Apartment Six-B.”
I’m sorry, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, your credentials are not recognized on this station and do not allow this system to bypass standard privacy and security regulations.
“How would you like me to bypass your circuits and stuff your motherboard up your—”
Warning! Verbal threats toward this system may result in arrest, prosecution, and monetary fines up to five thousand credits.
Before Eve could spit out a response, Roarke clamped a hand on her shoulder. “This is Roarke.” He laid his hand on the palm plate. “ID 151, Level A. You’re ordered to clear me and Lieutenant Dallas to all areas of this compound.”
Identification verified. Roarke and companion, Dallas, Eve, are cleared.
“Lieutenant,” Eve said between her teeth as Roarke pulled her toward an elevator.
“Don’t take it personally. Level six,” he ordered.
“Damn machine treated me like a civilian.” The insult of it was almost beyond her comprehension. “A civilian.”
“Irritating, isn’t it?” He strolled off onto the sixth floor.
“You enjoyed that, didn’t you? That ‘Roarke and companion’ shit.”
“I did, yes. Immensely.” He gestured. “Six–B.” When she said nothing, he rang the buzzer himself.
“She didn’t answer before, she’s not going to answer now.”
“No.” He dipped his hands lightly in his pockets. “Technically…I suppose you need to ask Chief Angelo to request a warrant for entry.”
“Technically,” Eve agreed.
“I am, however, the owner of this building, and the woman’s employer.”
“Doesn’t give you any right to enter her apartment without legal authority or permission.”
He simply stood, smiled, waited.
“Do it,” Eve told him.
“Welcome to my world.” Roarke keyed in his master code, then hummed when the lock light above the door remained red. “Well, well, she appears to have added a few touches of her own, blocked the master code. I’m afraid that’s a violation of her lease agreement.”
Eve felt the little twist in her gut and slipped her hand under her jacket to her weapon. “Get in.”
Neither questioned that whatever methods had been taken, he could get around them. Through them. He took a small case of tools out of his pocket and removed the anti-intruder panel on the scanner and identification plate.
“Clever girl. She’s added a number of tricky little paths here. This will take a minute.”
Eve took out her ’link and called Peabody. “Track down Angelo,” she ordered. “We’re at 22 Athena Boulevard. Six-B. She needs to get over here. I want you with her.”
“Yes, sir. What should I tell her?”
“To get here.” She dropped the ’link back in her pocket, stepped back to Roarke just as the lock lights went green. “Move aside,” she ordered and drew her weapon.
“I’ve been through a door with you before, Lieutenant.” He took the hand laser out of his pocket, and ignored her snarl when she spotted it. “You prefer low, as I recall.”
Since there wasn’t any point in biting her tongue or slapping at him for carrying, she did neither. “On my count.” She put a hand on the door, prepared to shove it open.
“Wait!” He caught the faint hum, and the sound sent his heart racing. The panel lights flashed red as he yanked Eve away from the door. They went down in a heap, his body covering hers.
She had that one breathless second to understand before the explosion blasted the door outward. A line of flame shot into the air, roaring across the hall where they’d been standing seconds before. Alarms screamed, and she felt the floor beneath her tremble at a second explosion, felt the blast of vicious heat all over her.
“Jesus! Jesus!” She struggled under him, slapped violently at the smoldering shoulder of his jacket with her bare hands. “You’re on fire here.”
Water spewed out o
f the ceiling as he sat up, stripped off the jacket. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” She shook her head, shoved the hair soaked with the flood of the safety sprinklers out of her face. “Ears are ringing some. Where are you burned?” Her hands were racing over him as she pushed up to her knees.
“I’m not. The suit’s fucked is all. Here, now. We’re fine.” He glanced back at the scarred and smoldering hole that had been the doorway. “But I’m afraid I’m going to have to evict Six-B.”
Though she doubted it was necessary, Eve kept her weapon out as she picked her way over still smoking chunks of wall and door. Smoke and wet clogged the air in the hall, in the apartment, but she could see at one glance that the explosion had been smaller than she’d assumed. And very contained.
“A little paint and you’re back in business.”
“The explosion was set to blow the door, and whoever was outside it.” There were bits of broken crockery on the floor, and a vase of flowers had fallen over, spilling water into the rivers already formed by the sprinkler system.
The furniture was sodden, the walls smeared with streaks from smoke and soot. The hallway walls were a dead loss, but otherwise, the room was relatively undamaged.
Ignoring the shouts and voices from outside the apartment, he moved through it with Eve.
Zita was in bed, her arms crossed serenely across her chest. Holstering her weapon, Eve walked to the bed, used two fingers to check for the pulse in the woman’s throat.
“She’s dead.”
7
“Your definition of cooperation and teamwork apparently differs from mine, Lieutenant.”
Wet, filthy, and riding on a vicious headache, Eve strained while Darcia completed her examination of the body. “I updated you.”
“No, you left a terse message on my voice mail.” Darcia straightened. With her sealed hands, she lifted the bottle of pills on the nightstand, bagged them. “When you were, apparently, at the point of illegally entering this unit.”
“Property owner or his representative has the right to enter a private home if there is reasonable cause to believe a life or lives may be in danger, or that said property is threatened.”
“Don’t quote your regulations at me,” Darcia snapped. “You cut me out.”
Eve opened her mouth, then blew out a long breath. “Okay, I wouldn’t say I cut you out, but I did an end run around you. In your place, I’d be just as pissed off. I’m used to being able to pursue a line on an investigation in my own way, on my own time.”
“You are not primary on this case. I want this body bagged and removed,” Darcia ordered the uniforms flanking the bedroom doors. “Probable cause of death, voluntary self-termination.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait!” Eve ordered, throwing out a hand to warn the uniforms back. “This isn’t self-termination.”
“I see an unmarked body, reclining in bed. Hair neatly brushed, cosmetic enhancements unblemished. I see on the bedside table a glass of white wine and a bottle of pills prescribed for use in painless, gentle self-termination. I have here,” she continued, holding up another evidence bag containing a single sheet of paper, “a note clearly stating the subject’s intention to end her own life due to her guilt about her part in the death of Reginald Weeks. A death she states was ordered by Roarke and for which she was paid fifty thousand, in cash. I see a satchel containing that precise amount of cash on the dresser.”
“Roarke didn’t order anyone’s murder.”
“Perhaps not. But I am accustomed to pursuing a line on an investigation in my own way. On my own time.” She tossed Eve’s words back at her. “Commander Skinner has lodged a complaint claiming that Roarke threatened him this morning, with words and a weapon. Security disks at the hotel verify that Roarke entered the commander’s suite and remained there for seven minutes, forty-three seconds. This incident is corroborated by one Bryson Hayes, Skinner’s personal assistant, who was present at the time.”
There was no point in kicking something again and pretending it was Roarke’s head. “Skinner’s in this up to his armpits, and if you let him deflect your focus onto Roarke, you’re not as smart as I thought. First things first. You’re standing over a homicide, Chief Angelo. The second one Skinner’s responsible for.”
Darcia ordered her men away by pointing her finger. “Explain to me how this is homicide, and why I shouldn’t have you taken to the first transport and removed from this station. Why I should not, on the evidence at hand, take Roarke in for interview as a suspect in the murder of Reginald Weeks.” Temper pumped into her voice now, hot and sharp. “And let me make this clear: Your husband’s money pays my salary. It doesn’t buy me.”
Eve kept her focus on Darcia. “Peabody!” As she waited for her aide to come to the room, Eve struggled with her own temper.
“Sir?”
“What do you see?”
“Ah. Sir. Female, late twenties, medium build. No sign of struggle or distress.” She broke off as Eve took an evidence bag from Darcia, passed it over. “Standard barb, commonly used in self-termination. Prescription calls for four units. All are missing. Date on the bottle is two weeks ago, prescribed and filled in Atlanta, Georgia.”
Eve nodded when she saw the flicker in Darcia’s eyes, then handed Peabody the note.
“Apparently suicide note, with signature. Computer-generated. The statement therein is contradictory to other evidence.”
“Very good, Peabody. Tell Chief Angelo how it contradicts.”
“Well, Lieutenant, most people don’t have self-termination drugs tucked in their med cabinets. Unless you’re suffering from an incurable and painful illness, it takes several tests and legalities to access the drug.”
Darcia held up a hand. “All the more reason to have them around.”
“No, sir.”
“Ma’am,” Darcia corrected with a smirk at Eve. “In my country a female superior is addressed as ‘ma’am.’”
“Yes, ma’am. It may be different in your country as to the process of accessing this sort of drug. In the States, you have to register. If you haven’t—that is, if you’re still alive within thirty days of filling the prescription, you’re on auto-recall. The drugs are confiscated and you’re required to submit to psychiatric testing and evaluation. But besides that, it doesn’t play.”
“Keep going, Peabody,” Eve told her.
“The note claims she decided to off herself because she was guilty over events that took place last night. But she already had the drug in her possession. Why? And how? You established time of death at oh-four-hundred this morning, so she got her payoff and the guilts awful close, then the means to self-terminate just happen to be in her possession. It’s way too pat, if you follow me.”
She paused, and when Darcia nodded a go-ahead, pulled in a breath and kept going. “Added to that, it doesn’t follow that she would rig her apartment door to an explosive, or set another in the surveillance area to destroy the security disks of the building. Added to that,” Peabody continued, obviously enjoying herself now, “Roarke’s profile is directly opposed to hiring out hits, especially since Dallas popped the guy, which is one of the things he admires about her. So when you add that all up, it makes that note bogus, and this unattended death becomes a probable homicide.”
“Peabody.” Eve dabbed an imaginary tear from her eye. “You do me proud.”
Darcia looked from one to the other. Her temper was still on the raw side, which she could admit colored her logic. Or had. “Perhaps, Officer Peabody, you could now explain how person or persons unknown gained access to this unit and persuaded this trained security expert to take termination drugs without her struggling.”
“Well…”
“I’ll take over now.” Eve patted her shoulder. “You don’t want to blow your streak. Person or persons unknown were admitted to the unit by the victim. Most likely to pay her off or to give her the next stage of instructions. The termination drugs were probably mixed into the wine. P
erson or persons unknown waited for her to slip into the first stage of the coma, at which time she was carried in here, laid out nice and pretty. The note was generated, the stage set. When it was determined that victim was dead, the explosives were rigged, and person or persons unknown went on their merry way.”
“She sort of sees it,” Peabody added helpfully. “Not like a psychic or anything. She just walks it through with the killer. Really mag.”
“Okay, Peabody. She was a tool,” Eve continued. “No more, no less. The same as Weeks was a tool. She probably joined the force to honor her father, and he used that, just as he’s using Roarke’s father to get to him. They don’t mean anything to him as people, as flesh and blood. They’re just steps and stages in his twenty-three-year war.”
“Maybe not tools, then,” Darcia countered, “but soldiers. To some generals they are just as dispensable. Excuse us, Officer Peabody, if you please.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sir.”
“I want an apology.” She saw Eve wince, and smiled. “Yes, I know it’ll hurt, so I want one. Not for pursuing a line of investigation, and so on. For not trusting me.”
“I’ve known you less than twenty-four hours,” Eve began, then winced again. “All right, shit. I apologize for not trusting you. And I’ll go one better. For not respecting your authority.”
“Accepted. I’m going to have the body taken to the ME, as a probable homicide. Your aide is very well trained.”
“She’s good,” Eve agreed, since Peabody wasn’t around to hear and get bigheaded about it. “And getting better.”
“I missed the date, the significance, and I shouldn’t have. I believe I would have seen these things once my annoyance with you had ebbed a bit, but that’s beside the point. Now, I need to question Roarke regarding his conversation with the commander this morning, and regarding his association with Zita Vinter. To keep my official records clean, you are not included in this interview. I would appreciate it, however, if you’d remain and lead my team through the examination of the crime scene.”
