Fantasy in Death (21 page)

“Really? What would it be?”

“There’s a cookie in my file bag—a really good cookie with your name on it. Figuratively.”

“What kind of cookie?”

She grinned at him. “Mega chocolate chunk. Nadine came by. It’s her own fault she got the bullpen used to being bribed with baked goods, but she comes through.”

“She wanted info on the investigation?”

“Actually no.” The beer came in bottles, which made it a much safer bet than the wine. Eve picked hers up when the waitress set it on the table. “She did say she’d had Bart on the show a couple times, and I think she might’ve pushed there if she hadn’t been so whacked.”

“Her book hits this week.”

“Exactly. And when were you going to remind me about this party deal tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow.” He smiled, sipped his beer. “Giving you less time to fuss and fret about having to go to a party when you’re deep into a case.”

“I don’t fuss and fret.”

“No, you bitch and complain, but it’s such a nice evening I used code.”

She eyed him over a swig of beer. There was no point in denying what was truth. “I suppose you’ve already decided what I’m wearing.”

“There would be suitable attire earmarked, though naturally you might decide you’d prefer something else.” He brushed his hand lightly over the top of hers. “You could always go through your closet tonight and give it some thought.”

“Yeah, that’s going to happen. I have to go. I mean, if the case breaks I can work around it and put in an appearance.”

“If the case breaks, assuming you’re right about it being one of the three, you’d hardly be facing down a career criminal or fighting for your life. At the core of it, they’re still geeks.”

“One or more of them killed a fellow geek in a really creative and ugly way,” she reminded him. “But yeah, I think I can handle him, her, or them.”

“So tell me why you have to go, which is not your default statement when it comes to events like this.”

She blew out a breath as the pizza landed in front of them. “Because I meant it when I said Nadine was whacked. She’s got herself all wound up, wrapped up, twisted up about the book thing. How maybe it sucks and all that. Lack of confidence isn’t what you call her default setting either.”

“She put a lot into it, and it’s, for her, a new area.”

“I get it.” Eve shrugged with another sip of beer. “So I’ve got to at least show my face, do the moral support deal. Which is one of the annoyances of friendships.”

“There’s my girl.”

She laughed, picked up a slice, then took a bite. Closed her eyes. She could see herself, with absolute clarity, taking that first long-ago bite by the window while New York and all its possibilities rushed, pushed, and bitched along on the other side of the glass.

She opened them, smiled into the eyes of her friend, her lover, her partner. “It’s still damn good pizza.”

He’d been right, she thought as they walked outside again. The hour had cleared her head, settled her mood, geared her up for the next steps and stages.

“I want to go by U-Play before we head uptown.”

“It would be closed by this time,” he said, as his fingers linked with hers. “I can certainly get you in if you’re after a bit of B&E.”

“Nobody’s breaking and entering. I don’t want to go in anyway.”

“Then?”

“I figure it’s closed, sure, but I wonder if it’s empty.”

He indulged her, wound his way through traffic and farther downtown. The summer light lengthened the day, spun it out and gilded it. The heat of the day had given way, just a little, just enough, to a few fitful breezes.

Both tourists and those who made their home in the city took advantage, filling street and sidewalk with a throng of bare legs, bare arms. She watched a woman, blond hair flying, race along, long tanned legs scissoring with pretty feet balanced on towering needle heels.

“How do they do that?” She pointed to the blond as she watched her lope along. “How do women, or the occasional talented tranny or cross-dresser—walk on streets like this in those heels, much less run like a gazelle across... whatever gazelles run across.”

“I imagine it’s the result of considerable practice, perhaps even for the gazelle.”

“And if they didn’t? If women, trannies, and cross-dressers everywhere revolted and said, screw this, we’re not wearing these ankle-breaking stilts anymore—and they didn’t—wouldn’t the sadists who design those bastards have to throw in the towel?”

“I’m sorry to tell you, your women, trannies, and cross-dressers will never revolt. Many of them actually appear to like the style and the lift.”

“You just like them because they make the ass jiggle.”

“Absolutely guilty.”

“Men still rule the world. I don’t get it.”

“No comment as any would be misconstrued. Well, you were right about this.” He eased onto the edge of the warehouse lot. “Closed, no doubt, but not empty.”

She studied the faint glow of light against the glass, imagined the way the sun would slant through the windows this late in the day. The shadows cast, the glare tossed back at certain angles. Yes, they’d want the artificial light. For comfort, she thought, and for practicality.

Just as she imagined they’d want to be together, the three of them, in that space. For comfort, and maybe for practicality.

“Are you seriously imagining them in there discussing how they’d managed murder and what steps to take next?”

“Maybe.” She tilted her head, studied him. “You don’t like it because you like them, and because you see something of yourself in all four of them. Just a little piece here and there. Because of that, because you’d never kill a friend, never kill an innocent or kill simply because killing was expedient, you don’t like the idea one of them did.”

“That may be true, all of it true enough. But you and I have both killed, Eve, and once you have you know taking a life isn’t a game. Only the mad think otherwise. Do you believe one of them is mad?”

“No. I think they’re all very sane. I’m not looking for a mad scientist or a geek gone psycho. This is something else.” She watched as a shadow passed behind one of the windows. “Whoever did it may regret it now, may feel it’s all a terrible mistake, a nightmare that won’t let go. I may crack the killer open like an egg with that guilt and horror when we get that far.”

She watched those windows, the lights and shadows, for another moment in silence.

“Or, and we both know this, too, sometimes the taking of a life hardens you, it... calcifies your conscience. He deserved it, I only did what I had to do. Or worse yet, it excites. It opens a door in you that was so secret, so small, so tightly locked no one, even you, knew it was there. And there’s a kind of joy in that. Look what I did! Look at the power I have.”

It could still make her sick, deep in the belly, if she let it.

“That’s the type who can never go back,” she said quietly, but her eyes were hard, almost fierce. “Who have to do it again because sooner or later, the power demands it. Some of the shrinks will claim that’s a kind of madness, that compulsion to feel that power and excitement again. But it’s not. It’s greed, that’s all.”

She shifted to him. “I know this. I felt that power, even the excitement, when I killed my father.”

“You can’t toss self-defense in with murder. You can’t equate murder with a child fighting for her life against a monster.”

“It wasn’t murder, but it was killing. It was ending a life. It was blood on my hands.”

He took the hand she held out, shook his head, pressed his lips to the palm.

“Roarke, I know the power of that, the sick excitement. I know the horrible, tearing guilt, and even the hardening of the heart, the soul, because I felt all of that over time. All of it. I know, even though what I did wasn’t murder, what the murdering can and does feel. It helps me find them. It’s a tool.”

She touched his cheek, understanding that the memories, the idea of what she’d been through until the night when she’d been eight, hurt him as much as they hurt her. Maybe more now, she realized. Maybe more.

“I was twenty-three the next time I took a life,” she continued. “Fifteen years between. Feeney and I went after a suspect. He’d beaten two people to death, in front of witnesses, left DNA and trace all over the scene. Slam dunk, just have to find him. We followed a lead to this dive. Sex club where his girlfriend worked. We figured we’d shake her down a little, see if she knew where he was. Well, where he was happened to be the sex club. Idiot girlfriend screams for him to run, and runs with him. He’s mowing people down right and left, and those who aren’t mowed are stampeding. We chased him all the way up to the roof, and now he’s got a ten-inch blade against the idiot girlfriend’s throat, who is now singing another tune.

“It’s summer.” She could still feel it, smell it, see it. “Hot as a fuck in hell. Sweat’s pouring down his face. Hers, too. He’s screaming at us how he’ll slice her open if we come any closer. And now there’s blood trickling down with her sweat where he’s given her a jab to show he means it. He’s using her as a shield, and Feeney doesn’t have the angle for a stun stream.”

“But you do,” Roarke murmured.

“Yeah, I do. Barely, but I’ve got it. And we’re trying to talk him down, and it’s not going to happen. He gives her a second jab. Feeney keeps talking, talking, pulling the guy’s attention to him, and gives me the go signal.”

And Roarke could see it, too. He could see it in her eyes as she spoke.

“I stun him—nice clean stream, and his body jerks the way it does with a hit. She shoves forward to get clear, pushes clear, bumps him back, and he’s jerking. The son of a bitch went right over the edge. Momentum, gravity, bad luck, whatever, but he went over and hit the sidewalk eight stories down.

“I didn’t feel excited when I looked down at him. I didn’t feel guilty either. A little shaky, sure. Jesus, it was a straight stun, neither of us expected him to go over that way. I didn’t even have to go through Testing. We’d turned on our recorders when we started the chase, and it was all on there, it showed the girlfriend’s push and stumble caused the fall. Or basically. Bad luck for him, that’s all.”

She let out a breath. “But I’m the one who aimed and fired. Fifteen years between. It took me that long to be sure, absolutely sure, I wouldn’t feel that excitement, or that guilt, or that hardening when I had to take another life.”

She looked back toward the building. “One of those three, at least one of them, might be wondering if they’ll feel that again. One of them may want to.”

“I can’t tell you how much I hope you’re wrong.”

Her eyes, flat and cool, met his. “I’m not.”

“No. I very much doubt you’re wrong.”

13

S
he spent a great deal of time picking through data on the lives of three people, analyzing it, scraping away at tiny details of family background, education, finances, and communication.

She played each one against Mira’s profile, and the computer matched each one of them with a reasonably high probability to the general outline.

Organized, detail-oriented, competitive, wide e-skills, known and trusted by victim.

But the violence—that face-to-face, blood-on-the-hands cruelty bottomed them out again.

Still, nowhere could she find any hint, much less any evidence, that any had bought a hit.

Money wasn’t the only currency, she mused. A favor, sex, information—all those could stand in for dollars and cents and never show on any balance sheet. But that didn’t account for the fact Bart had known his killer. There was simply no reason to believe he’d allowed a stranger into his apartment, into his holo-room, into his game.

One more time, she told herself, and rose to study and circle her board.

Vic comes home happy, whistling a tune. And comes in alone according to both the doorman and the security cameras. EDD verifies by all that’s holy there’d been no tampering with the locks, and no entry before the vic’s in any access into the apartment.

Still, she considered, we have three very skilled, very clever e-geeks. If there was a way to bypass without it showing, they’d find it.

Or, more realistically, one of them, or another party met the vic outside and entered with him.

Only the droid says otherwise—and once again EDD remained firm that no one tampered with or reprogrammed the Leia droid.

Eve shut her eyes.

“Maybe he doesn’t secure the door immediately. He’s excited, happy. The droid brings him a fizzy, he tells her to go ahead and shut down. The killer may have entered at that time,
after
the droid shut down, before the door was secured. It’s possible.”

The friendly face shows up, Eve thought, tells the vic,
I couldn’t resist. I want in on the game, or want to observe.
One of the partners, she thought again.
You play, I’ll document and observe.

Also possible, she concluded.
Why wait until after-hours? It’s almost ready. Let’s run it.
The killer could’ve brought the disc, which explains why the vic didn’t log it out, as was his routine. Or, the killer told the vic he or she would log it for him.

The weapon might have already been on the premises, or brought in by the killer.

And the game begins. System reads solo. Bart plays, killer observes—it’s logical, it’s efficient.

But at some point, the killer stops observing. Bruising, wrenched shoulder indicate a scuffle.

And that, Eve thought, was where it just didn’t fit for her.

The weapon’s there, the plan’s in place, so why the scuffle? Bart’s in good shape—superior shape for a geek—and he’s studied combat moves. Why risk a fight, why risk him getting some licks in?

An argument? Passion of the moment? No, no,
dammit
, it wasn’t impulse. Too many safeguards in place.

Ego? She studied the three faces on the board.

Yes, ego. I’m better than you are. It’s about time you found out how much better. Tired of playing sidekick and loyal friend and partner.
Have a taste of this.

She studied the autopsy photos, the data, rocked back and forth on her heels.