Delusion in Death (40 page)

“Eve,” Mira began when they switched ’links.

“Is Mr. Mira at home?”

“He’s teaching an evening class at Columbia. He—”

“I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. I need you to go down to Callaway. I need you to keep him busy, talking, distracted. Say nothing about the grandmother. You know what to do, what to say. Just keep him occupied. I don’t want him contacting or trying to contact MacMillon before, during, or after the bust.”

“I understand.” Mira’s voice remained calm, but fear lived in her eyes. “Do you think she would try to hurt my family?”

“She hasn’t had time to do anything about it, but I’ll make sure they’re all protected. I promise you. She needs time and space to plan, to research. We’re not going to give it to her. But we won’t take chances. Get to Callaway.”

She clicked off, started to use her ’link again to order protection details. Roarke laid a hand on her arm.

“It’s done.” He moved off the elevator with her into the garage. “Private security, Mira’s family, Peabody and McNab’s apartment, Reo’s, and so on.”

“It should be cops.” Then she took a breath. “Thanks.”

“One less thing for you and the department to worry about.”

“Okay.” And she set it aside. “Get me the layout of the condo—floor plan, exits, security. I’ll drive, we’re going hot until we’re close, then we’ll turn off the sirens.”

“Hot’s my favorite thing.”

Peabody had a chance for one quick gulp before Eve tore out of the garage.

“Gina Bellona,” she began. “In addition to her condo here, she has a home in London, a flat in Paris, and a villa in Sardinia. Her husband, deceased, was knighted for his contribution to science and humanitarian works.”

“Science,” Eve repeated while she punched vertical and zipped over a knot of traffic.

“Carlo Corelli—Brit mother, Italian father, dual citizenship, a scientist, primary work molecular chemistry. His father was one of the founders of Biotech Industries.”

“One of the leaders in the field,” Roarke told her while he worked. “Innovations and development of synthetic organs, cancer vaccines, fertility, auto-immune research. They’ve built health centers in areas where medicine and health care was a luxury or simply nonexistent.”

“Pharmacology—lots of drug research.”

“No question.”

“Perfect for her. How’d he buy it, Peabody—Corelli?”

“Slipped in the shower seven months ago.”

“About the time Teasdale says Menzini died. I bet Corelli had help in the shower.”

“Death ruled accidental, but it looks like his first wife and his children made some noise about the widow. I can probably find some dish on it in the scandal sheets.”

“Marries him, gets rich, gets access to all the drugs she wants—and some expertise. Menzini dies, and she’s done with Corelli. Wants this tribute, or revenge, or whatever the hell. She takes Corelli out, inherits, moves to New York.”

“Where she lives in a spacious, two-level condo,” Roarke put in.
“Private elevator into a foyer. Secondary entrance/exit on south corner. Additional on second level, central. Video security, all entrances. There’s also an interior elevator. Terraces off first and second levels, roof terrace on second level. She’s on Fifty-two and Three, southeast corner.”

“What else is up there?”

“Three other units—one at each corner.” He continued to work quickly, coolly, while Eve drove like a lunatic. “A central elevator, a maintenance/housekeeping area with service elevators. Three stairways—north and south and in the maintenance area.”

“Got it. Peabody, send Reo the info on MacMillon’s properties.”

“She’s also got a limo and town car here in New York, as well as a private shuttle.” A small “
Eek!
” escaped Peabody as the car threaded through snarled traffic. “An all-terrain in Sardinia—and a yacht—town cars in London and Paris. Biotech’s got a branch here, a complex on Long Island, and a facility on Park. Oh, another in Jersey City.”

“Get her all of it. Get warrants. Have her reach out to the European locals. She can add HSO’s and Tibble’s weight to get it moving. I want all her vehicles located and impounded.”

“Oh shit. Okay,” Peabody muttered prayers as they leapfrogged over a trio of Rapid Cabs. “McNab’s already located the shuttle, he’s keeping me up. We’re on that.”

“Box her in,” Eve stated, cutting the sirens, gliding the rest of the way.

“I think I just lost five pounds in fear sweat.” Peabody mopped at her face. “Now I want a cannoli. I don’t know why.”

With a laugh, Roarke shifted to grin at her. “I’ll buy you a dozen, precious.”

“Cannolis, for God’s sake.” Eve pulled into the loading zone in
front of the building. The doorman, spiffy in red and gold, mistook the DLE for a piece of crap and hotfooted over.

“You can’t—”

“I can.” Eve pulled out her badge as she pushed open the car door.

“What’s this—”

“I ask; you answer. Gina Bellona. Is she in her condo?”

“Ms. Bellona? She hasn’t come out or ordered her car. What’s—”

“How long have you been on the door today?”

“Going onto five hours. I’d’ve seen her if she’d come out. I opened the door for her myself about three hours ago when she came back from shopping.”

“Okay. The other tenants on her levels. Are they in?”

“The Cartwrights are in Africa, doing a safari thing. Mr. Bennett hasn’t come in yet, and Mrs. Bennett and the boy went out about an hour ago. Mr. Jasper just went up. His wife and kids are up there.”

“Which unit?”

“Fifty-two-oh-four.” His eyes widened as three black-and-whites and two SWAT vehicles roared up. “What’s the deal? Jesus.”

“Peabody, if you’ve finished dreaming of cannolis, have Curtis here take you to the building manager, get this started.” She moved toward the SWAT commander. “Lowenbaum.”

“Dallas. Cold night.”

“It’s about to heat up.” She’d worked with him before, knew him to be steady and smart. Like his men, he wore black body armor, a helmet, and carried a long-range blaster. His eyes, a deceptively mild gray, scanned the building. “Have you analyzed the floor plans?”

“Done and done.” He pulled out some gum—she remembered, for some reason, he preferred blueberry—offered it. When she shook her head he folded a piece into his mouth, then took out his tablet.

They huddled over the floor plans.

“My e-guy here’s going to take out her security,” Eve told him. “Once your team’s secured the entrance, I need you to hold.”

She pulled out her ’link, printed out the warrant. “We’re a go there. There’s a biohazard team en route, but I’m not waiting on them. Have your coordinator send them in, the minute they arrive.”

“We’ve got mouth-breathers. You want?”

“They leave a bad taste in my mouth.”

“Tell me.” He nodded, tapped his earpiece. “My man says we’re having trouble with eyes and ears. She’s got it shielded.”

“Here’s the deal, Lowenbaum. My team’s going in, the team you select comes in behind us, helps us clear. She went in prior to the media report, and hasn’t come out this way. If she’s in there, we apprehend, incapacitate if necessary.”

She hesitated a moment. “You know me, right?”

He grinned at her. “Used to think maybe I’d know you better, but that didn’t happen.” He turned his grin to Roarke. “She wouldn’t give me the green.”

Roarke grinned back at him.

“You could say I took my shot.”

“Jesus.” Eve shook her head. “I’d like you on the clear team, and if I tell you to stun me and my people, do it.”

“That’s … unusual.”

“Maybe, but do it. Every room we go in, we open doors and windows. Blast them out if they’re sealed. I’ll get back to you.” She turned, moved fast to meet up with Baxter and Trueheart. “They’ve got mouth-breathers. You may want.”

“You carry around that crappy aftertaste for hours,” Baxter complained.

“Your choice. We take the central elevator. Roarke, take down her
private. Trueheart, you head to Five-two-oh-four, get the family inside out and down. Baxter, you and Peabody go in from Fifty-three, clear it, open all windows and doors. If she’s up there, secure her, or take her down. Roarke and I go in on Fifty-two. Lowenbaum has men covering the terraces, moving now to secure all exits.”

“One old lady, right? A grandmother. Mine still makes the world’s best apple pie.”

“She’s nobody’s pie-making granny. Let’s go.”

Lowenbaum’s men had the lobby secure, and empty. Roarke shut down elevators one by one as teams reported positions.

“You don’t have body armor, LT.” Trueheart started to remove his own to give her.

“Keep it. I’ve got a magic coat.”

As Trueheart started to speak, Peabody nodded at him. “Seriously. She does.”

“Okay, cut the chatter.” She stepped off with Trueheart and Roarke into a white and gold foyer, pointed at the ceiling before the doors shut on Peabody, Baxter, and the other men. Pointed Trueheart in the direction of 5204. She shook her head when a SWAT guy stepped forward with a battering ram, pointed to Roarke.

He studied the locks as he drew out his picks.

Lowenbaum grinned again when the locks quietly gave way.

Again she nodded at Roarke, then held up three fingers. Two. One.

They hit the door hard. She went low, Roarke high, splitting off as SWAT rushed in behind them. “Get those terrace doors open!” She’d cleared the living area before she spotted the droid on the floor of a wide dining room.

She could smell the electrical burn in the air, noted the fried circuits spilling out of the back of the head of what had been a domestic droid.

Too late, she thought. They were too late. And she saw the proof of it when she, leading with her weapon, moved into a large kitchen done in soft green and golds.

She hadn’t bothered to tidy up, Eve noted, but had left the burners and tubes, the conductors and jars in plain view.

She’d been cooking—and she hadn’t made any damn pies.

She heard the calls of “Clear!” ringing out.
Yeah, it’s clear
, she thought.
She’s cleared out, and taken her poison with her
.

Roarke came in behind her. “I count two droids, both with their circuits destroyed. An empty safe, left open.”

“She left this out for us to find. A big fuck-you.” She shoved her weapon back in its holster. “She’s got money, fake ID, and I’m damn sure the means and contacts to change her face. She’s either out of the city, or holed up until she can shift appearance and ID.”

“Maintenance exit,” Roarke concluded. “She slipped out that way. Either undetected or she greased a palm or two on the way.”

“Her shuttle’s locked down. She can’t get out that way.” She yanked out her ’link. “McNab, have you located MacMillon’s other vehicles?”

“We have both locked, Dallas. What—”

“She’s blown. Hold. Alert your security on the families and apartments,” Eve told Roarke. “We’re going to go over every inch of this place. McNab, I need men on all Biotech facilities in New York and New Jersey. Get e-men on it, check all security discs for any sighting of the suspect. She’s to be considered armed and dangerous.”

She replaced her ’link. “She didn’t have much time here. I gave her more, just a little more by giving Nadine the heads up on an arrest. Damn it. Fuck it. How much did she make? Why? Why not just blow?”

She began to pace. “She could’ve walked straight out the front. She
didn’t. She wanted us to waste time, setting this up, assuming she was inside. But that cost her time. Time she couldn’t spend getting on her shuttle and getting away. Now we’ve locked down her vehicles, frozen her accounts.”

“I suspect she has ready funds buried.”

“Yeah, but she took this time instead of running.”

“She’s not ready to get out of New York.”

“She has a target. Something big. The mayor—she’d never get near Gracie Mansion, not today. Cop Central—same deal. She has to know security has her face.”

Peabody walked in. “It looks like she might’ve packed a few things. Jewelry, I think. There’s an empty safe in the master bed-room, and some signs she, or somebody, went through the closet in a hurry.”

“She figures on getting away. She took valuables, clothes. You don’t bother with that unless you believe you’ll need them.”

“It doesn’t feel right she’d just leave her grandson,” Peabody said. “Just take off, leave him swinging.”

“She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about him when push comes to bigger push. It’s about the principle, the mission. About Menzini.”

“I think she does care about Callaway. She’s got a picture of him framed on her dresser. And there’s one of the two of them in the second bedroom—some men’s clothes in there, too. Nice ones, new. They look like his size. It seems, I don’t know, caring and sentimental.”

Eve pushed by, strode through the living room. “Your men can stand down, Lowenbaum, but hold. Just hold.”

She took the stairs two at a time.

In the master, gold again with soft, almost watery greens and blues, Callaway’s photo stood in a gold frame on an antique dresser.
Facing the bed, Eve noted. She’d wanted to see him, see his face before she went to sleep.

“This was taken here.” She snatched it up, walked to the wide windows. “On the terrace, probably. You can see the river behind him. Get me the other one,” she snapped at Peabody, and circled the room with the photograph.

“Caring, sentimental. I’m wrong here. Maybe, maybe. He’s her blood—Menzini’s blood. Male. Good-looking, fit, not stupid. And willing to kill. Willing to follow the path. Menzini dies, and what does she have left? Callaway. The daughter’s nothing but the daughter provided the grandson. People put their hopes and dreams into their offspring.”

She grabbed the second photo when Peabody hurried back. It showed Callaway, wide smile, his arm around the waist of his grandmother. Was that pride in her eyes, Eve wondered. Affection? Ambition.

Maybe all of it.

“She gave him what she had,” Eve mused. “The means to destroy. Let him start with his enemies, his competitors, those he considered in his way. No, that’s not the mission, not the credo. That’s personal. Indulgence. She lets him create panic and fear, for his own sake—not the big picture. Then they’d move on, together, to bigger and better. Is that it? Did she, along the way, develop feelings for him? Her grandson, her only worthy family. No, she’s not going to leave him swinging.”