Leverage in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel (In Death #47)(104)

He picked up a bottle—cracked, but not shattered. “Twenty-year scotch. Unblended. That’s a finer thing.”

“I leave Iler shaking—on purpose. He contacts Silverman, panicked. Silverman calms him down. Here’s what we do. Has Iler give him enough time to pack up, to set explosives and clear out. Iler packs up, too. Neither one of them’s smart enough to understand I’d have Iler under surveillance, but smart enough they don’t want anybody to know he’s running. They need some time, so he’s going to be real clever and belay his way down to the street.”

“Which is a git move on the face of it in any case.”

“Oh yeah, but he is a git, and Silverman’s not much smarter. Smart would’ve been for Iler to wait a few more hours. Wait until say two in the morning, then drop his ass down to the street where Silverman’s waiting for him in the black panel van.”

“You’ve booked a private shuttle,” Roarke continued. “You get out, get gone, taking your profits to somewhere without extradition—which you should have arranged at the very start of the whole business.”

“Not smart, but there are eighteen dead, and I’ve still only got one of them.” She stepped back up to the hole in the floor. “Feeney!”

“Yo!”

“I’m heading back to Iler’s. He didn’t blow up his equipment, and he’s no pro. He might have left a trail.”

“We’re going to scan this shit pile. I’ve got boys coming in for it. We’ll be right behind you when we’re done with this.”

“Good enough.” Eve straightened, looking around once more. “We need that trail,” she said to Roarke. “Because what I don’t see in here, or anywhere where Silverman worked and lived, is any remnants of a suicide vest. He’d have had another one in the works, or ready to go. He took it with him.”

“He’s lost his partner,” Roarke pointed out.

“It won’t stop him. And without Iler, there’s nothing to stop him from killing the wife and kid of the next target.” She dragged her hands through her hair.

“He wired the place, hoped to blow some of us up. Failed. Blew up his data, but we may get something out of it. Eventually. He must’ve had a meet spot with Iler. A time and place, but Iler didn’t show. He has to know we have Iler.”

“More inclined to run then.”

“No, no, no. More inclined to finish. He’s volatile. Why the fucking hell take time to blow up the whole damn house? He didn’t use ninety percent of it, but Salazar said it was wired top to bottom. He only needed to blow his data, his records.”

“Well, he’s a madman.”

“He’s a madman, and the brother of his brother’s in a cage. That may mean the access to at least some of the money’s compromised. The money, that’s Iler’s area. Iler had the painting on him when we took him, half a million in cash, and the codes and IDs for three accounts.

“He’s got to finish it, do the next at least the next. Cash in, cash out. Look, we’ve got to split this after all. I need you to go to Iler’s, see what you can do to find that trail. I wanted to let him sweat a few more hours, but I have to start working him. I need to get him in the box.”

“All right. I’ll grab a ride with Feeney.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep in touch.”

As she jogged downstairs, her ’link signaled a text.

Peabody, she noted, and scanned it on the move.

We’re here, and it’s already mag to the ex. But we want to know, just have to know—Did you get them?

Eve answered fast and brief. Iler’s in a cage, about to go in the box. ID’d the partner, working on bagging him. Too busy for details.

Peabody’s response came in seconds. You’ll break Iler like a twig. Let me know when number two’s in the bag.

Eve shoved her ’link in her pocket, and prepared to break Iler like a twig.

*

He’d lawyered up, but she’d expected it. She knew Richard Singa, the high-dollar criminal attorney, had faced off with him before.

Iler sat silent and smug—from the smirk—when she came into Interview with Baxter.

“Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Baxter, Detective David, entering interview with Iler, Lucius, and his legal counsel on the matter of case files H-32019, H-32024, H-32029, and related matters.”

She sat, folded her hands on those case files. “Mr. Iler, have you been read your rights?”

Singa lifted a finger. “We acknowledge my client was properly Mirandized.”

“Mr. Iler, you’ve been charged with conspiracy to murder, first-degree, eighteen counts, possession of and intent to use explosive devices to cause physical harm, enforced imprisonment, six counts, accessory to assault, four counts, endangering a minor, two counts, and various charges of fraud, tax evasion, breaking and entering—”

“Lieutenant.” Now Singa lifted both hands, peered at her with dark eyes over a broad nose. “Obviously my client not only disputes all charges, but was, as we all know, nowhere near the scene of the tragedies at Quantum headquarters or the Salon gallery. And as the security in your own husband’s apartment building must clearly show, he did not leave his own residence on the night of Jordan Banks’s murder. Therefore, I must insist we dispense with this absurdity.”