Brotherhood in Death (In Death #42)(110)

In a very real sense, those six men had killed her the night they’d raped her. And those she could find would pay. She’d make it her life’s work, if needed.

She sent Yancy the name of the last woman—confirmed for him he’d been on target with the younger.

She spoke to the uniforms she sent to Blake’s residence, and her office, tagged Reo yet again for warrants to enter and search both.

She ate as she worked, and her stomach didn’t revolt. She was done with that now. The next time she watched that obscenity of a recording, she’d handle it without breaking.

She glanced at Roarke, thought how lucky she was she hadn’t remembered before she was ready, how lucky she was he’d been there—right there—when she had been. She wouldn’t have chosen the Bathtub Lament—not her style. But there were other ways to end things. She might have chosen one without being fully aware she had chosen.

So she’d stand for Elsi Lee Adderson, just as she would for the murdered men who’d raped her.

She took another incoming, one of Harvo’s insanely cheerful reports—and confirmed Grace Carter Blake and Elsi as rape victims.

She got up for water. Roarke—give him one more—was right. She’d do better for now with water.

“That’s you, fucker,” he said with such satisfaction, she stopped.

“Which fucker?”

“I had here a short list of properties in the Bronx, and I’ve been pulling all manner of data on this fucker—Betz. We’ll give him a score as a clever fucker, but I’m better. I’ve got the address for a property under the name of Elis Frater.”

“Where the hell did you come up with that name—it’s not even close.”

“Elis—a nickname for Yale, apparently based on a shortened version of the founder’s name. Frater is brother in Latin. I did a wide search for names with brother or brotherhood, any and all languages.”

“No shit?” She figured she might have thought of that—eventually. “You’re going to have to take the insult, ace. You’re a hell of a cop.”

“Not in this lifetime. He also has an offshore account in that name, with a tidy sum of three-point-four million—and change.”

“I need to get there. There might be something else. More recordings, something.”

“Then we’ll go.”

“I need the other data you’re after.”

“The search will continue to run without me. We can be there and back fairly quickly if we take the copter.”

“The copter.”

He smiled. “You did say earlier you might have need for one.”

“Yeah, I did.” God, she hated to fly. “Yeah, let’s do it. I need any incomings here to come to my pocket ’link.”

He sighed as he rose. “I just gave you Elis fucking Frater out of thin air, and you have to ask?”

He had a point.





20


She really hated to fly, and zipping over Manhattan, between spears of buildings, scooting around trundling sky trams didn’t help the chicken and dumplings settle in comfort.

It would be a short zip to the Bronx, she reminded herself, and she spent most of it on her ’link.

Peabody would be a little pissy—Peabody loved to fly. Go figure. And Eve needed to alert the local PSD she was coming in.

“Reo came through. We’ve got the warrant, and there’s no activity as yet at the Betz residence—the other one. Glasgow cops picked up Ethan MacNamee, and are currently holding him.”

“That’ll keep him alive. Will you get him back here?”

“I’ll damn well get him back here. I’ll be copying that ugly recording to Scotland, once I touch base with the commander.”

Because she felt the copter shudder, she made the mistake of glancing through the windscreen. The moving lines of cars and burning lights made her head spin. Better than her stomach, she told herself, but swallowed hard.

“If we identify the house in the painting—and I’m working that by backtracking through old records, looking for an address on at least one of these bastards back in college—we may want to use this damn copter again.”

“A moonlight flight over Connecticut. Ah, romance.”

She hissed out a breath when he began the descent.

“Where are you going to land this thing? Why didn’t I think of that before? Why is this damn thing shaking so much? Christ, I hate this! Where are you putting down?”

“Safe as houses.” He said it as he fought a vicious wind shear.

“People break into houses all the time. Houses burn down. What makes them safe?” she demanded. “Where are you putting this flying tube?”

“On the very handy rooftop of the building we’re going to visit.” If the bloody wind didn’t bash them into it first. “Can’t get much closer than that.”

No, but now there were a lot of buildings entirely too close to that windscreen for her comfort.

He set down on the convenient, if narrow, flat roof near what she thought must be a maintenance shed. But her breath didn’t come easy until he’d switched off the copter and the engine purred into silence.

“Thank Christ.” She unhooked her harness, jumped out onto reassuring concrete, and into the wild wind. “Roof access,” she shouted, nodding at a steel door. “We go in like the suspects are inside. We clear, floor by floor. I know you’re carrying.”