Leverage in Death: An Eve Dallas Novel (In Death #47)(68)

Eve studied the work—the drawing of a woman in bed, reclining against a mound of pillows and on tangled sheets.

Eve closed her eyes, put herself back in Banks’s apartment, tried to bring back the black-and-white art on his walls.

Should’ve paid more attention, she thought. They all looked so much the same.

“Give me another.”

“This is Simon Fent’s work. He’s . . . Well, he’s not as good as Selma, but he does show promise. There’s still a student’s hesitancy in his work, a failure to commit to the vision, but Jordan liked it. It’s the only one of Simon’s we took on.”

“Keep going.”

She brought another up, and Eve lifted a hand. “This one. Wait.”

She turned away for a minute, tried to bring those damn walls back, the black frames, the black-and-white figures in them.

Turned back.

“This one. Third from the entrance door.”

“This is Angelo Richie, one of his early sketches. He actually gave this one to Jordan—or Jordan said he did. As a thank-you for giving him his first gallery sale. Even this earlier work? You can see the talent. His people move, they breathe. These are lovers, and you see the joy. Reunited, it’s called. They’ve come together again after being separated, and—”

“Fine. I want his contact info. This artist.”

“He and Jordan had a falling out, a couple of years ago. Angelo pulled all his work from the gallery. I heard he went to Italy to paint. I don’t have his contact, but he’s back in New York. He’s right on the edge of breaking out as a major artist. Actually just over the edge, and getting a lot of attention. He’s having an opening at the Salon—and that’s big in our world—tonight.”

“You sure about the piece, LT?”

“As sure as I can be,” she told Baxter.

“Angelo Richie. SoHo address,” Peabody announced. “The Salon’s in Greenwich.”

“They’d be loading in,” Maisie told her. “The art, for tonight. I didn’t know Angelo all that well, but I know he’d be at the gallery during load in.”

“Thanks, you’ve been a big help. Wrap it up, Baxter.”

“I liked the painting. Well, it’s really a sketch,” Peabody said as they went back to the car. “It’s romantic and a little heartbreaking.”

“I doubt the killers took it because it appealed to the romantic inside them. Let’s see if the artist has any idea why.”

She flicked on her in-dash when it signaled. “Dallas.”

“Hey, Lieutenant,” Santiago said. “I know the next DB’s ours, but we really think, considering, these are yours.”

“These.”

“Five. Including the guy in the suicide vest.”

“Where?”

“It’s a high-class kind of art place called—”

“The Salon.”

His eyes narrowed. “You going sensitive on us?”

“Secure the scene. We’re on our way.” She hit the sirens, shoved into traffic. “Have you ID’d the DB in the vest?”

“Wayne Denby. One of the three owners, and the gallery director.”

As Peabody tightened her seat belt, Eve two-wheeled it at the corner, snaking her way west. “Get uniforms over to his residence. Now. Probability high there are hostages in distress inside. Tell them to break down the door, my authority. Relay the home address to Baxter. I want him and Trueheart there. Now, Santiago.”

She punched vertical over an all-terrain whose driver considered lights and sirens someone else’s problem, screamed around the next turn to barrel south.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Eve cursed while Peabody used a run on Denby to keep her mind off the potential of a bloody, bone-breaking crash inside a vehicle doing ninety through arrogant traffic.

“Wayne Denby, age thirty-eight, owns the Salon with two partners. Married to Zelda Este Denby, thirty-four. Eight years in. One son, Evan, age five.”

“Same pattern.” Eve threaded between a couple of Rapid Cabs, caught a glimpse of the passengers in the back. One grinned wildly while he took a vid of her car screaming by.

“Solid married guy,” Eve continued, adding a horn blast to the sirens as a couple of I’m-in-a-fucking-hurry pedestrians tried to dash across the intersections as she sped toward them.

Both scrambled back—and one shot up both middle fingers.

“He’ll have been a devoted husband and father,” she said, blood hot, mind cold as she crossed into the Village. “Family centered. Single-family home, good security.”

She slammed the brakes, fishtailed to a stop an inch from the barricade and the line of people ranged behind it.

“I’ll get the field kits,” Peabody said as they jumped out either side of the car.

Eve elbowed her way through the lookie-loos, around the barrier, badged past the beat droids on crowd control.

The Salon, housed in a classy corner brownstone displayed a painting of a woman, dark hair flowing, sheer, ankle-length red dress swirling as the artist caught her in a spin, her arms lifted.

A jagged crack shot across the sun-filtering glass. The painting had fallen off its easel hard enough to snap the corner of the frame. Eve read the artist’s signature in the opposite corner.