Brotherhood in Death (In Death #42)(118)

She’d barely picked up the pot when it was done—so she shoved the pot at him.

“I have to see this.”

He poured for both of them while she stepped closer to the screen, shoved her hands into the coat she’d yet to take off, and fell silent.

Like a general, he thought, studying the battlefield. He said nothing, just handed her a mug of coffee, until she finally nodded.

“Okay,” she said, turning just as she heard the clomp of Peabody’s boots, the prance of McNab’s.

They both looked a little hollow-eyed, Eve noticed, but sniffed the air like hounds on the hunt.

“Is that the smell of real coffee?” Peabody asked.

“Grab some. This is the building. It’s two blocks from here.”

“Son of a bitch.” McNab angled his head, currently covered in yet another watch cap of green and blue stripes. “How’d you nail her?”

“Utility bills,” Roarke said. “The property itself? Ownership’s buried behind two interlocking shells, and under that, it turns out, is deeded to Grace Blake’s great-grandmother—and they used the woman’s maiden name. And the deed is in trust, as the woman herself is deceased. And the trust—”

“Get into that later,” Eve ordered.

“Well, it’s a clever ruse and worth the time, but for now, it was the payments for the heat and so on. Still not in her name, or I’d have found it sooner, but again, the great-grandmother—one Elizabeth Haversham—nee Pawter—and the utilities came to an account under Beth Pawter, so it took some doing to link it up.”

He glanced at Eve, who was again studying the screen. “She has an account in that name, if you’ve an interest, with a brokerage firm in Iowa, where Elizabeth Pawter Haversham lived. It’s well funded, that account, even with the cost of the building and its expenses coming out of it. Until a year ago, the dead Mrs. Pawter rented that building for a nice, steady income.”

“Because she started to plan how she wanted to use it,” Eve said, still studying the screen. “She met at least one of the others, found their mutual history, and it began.”

Uniform Carmichael arrived next, with three others. Baxter and Trueheart followed.

While they made short work of the coffee, Feeney walked in.

“There better be some of that left.” He stole the mug McNab had just poured in case there wasn’t. “That the target?”

“That’s the target, and here’s how we’re going to take it.”

It would work, Eve thought as she went over the timing, the contingencies. And by hitting the target before first light, they’d take the women by surprise—and likely unprepared.

She frowned as she noticed Roarke step out while she went over positioning with Baxter and Trueheart. When she glanced back, he walked in carrying a stack of bakery boxes.

Every cop in the room caught the scent of yeast and sugar.

She should’ve known.

“Donuts may be a cliché, but they do the job, don’t they?” Roarke set the boxes on the conference table. “And so will all of you.”

He shot Eve a quick grin as hands darted and grabbed for jelly-filled or crullers, bear claws or honey-glazed.

“Stuff them in, and suit up. Feeney, the donut king’s with you. Peabody, Baxter, Trueheart, with me. Uniform Carmichael, take your men to the pre-op location. We go in quiet.”

She gave Roarke a long, flat stare when he offered her a donut.

“Bavarian cream—with sprinkles. Be happy oatmeal would have taken too long, and can’t be eaten on the go.”

There was that. She took the donut, and followed her own orders. She stuffed it in, and she suited up.

—

New York was rarely quiet, but at just past five in the morning, it hit a lull. Night-shift workers still had time on the clock, and the day shift hugged their pillows. Street LCs would have called it a night, and those higher on the food chain slept in their own beds or the client’s—depending on the payment schedule.

Shops were dark, and even the 24/7s ran sleepily.

Barricading a block around a particular building could be done quickly and quietly, and barely caused a ripple on the frigid air.

And that building held dark.

She’d considered the timing, the positioning, the partnering carefully. And now, the team moved through the dark, silent as shadows.

Baxter and Trueheart on the side door, McNab and Peabody on the front. And she took the back—the closest to the basement, and her hunch—with Roarke.

She heard Feeney’s voice in her earbud. “You’re a go for eyes and ears.”

Beside her Roarke began work with his portable, and McNab signaled he did the same. She ignored the quiet e-jargon as the three communicated, and only thought:

Show me where they are. Just show me.

“Got your heat sources coming through.”

Eve narrowed her eyes, as she was damn sure Feeney had a mouthful of donut as he coordinated.

“Two on the second floor, three basement level. You got ’em?”

“I do,” Roarke replied as McNab gave an affirmative.

Roarke snaked a hair-thin wire under the door, did some magic with his portable. “Quiet on this front.”

“And here,” McNab answered. “I’m getting movement on the basement level.”