Obsession in Death(71)

“She wanted us here,” Eve pointed out.

“Yeah, there’s that.” Looking unhappy, McNab stuck his hands in the pockets of his long red coat. “You’re going to want to look at EDD. I’ve got to say that anybody there, including the greenest shoot, could probably do what we’re seeing. The thing is, you’re going to find plenty in any department or division who could.”

“I’ve got to look. And I’ve got to consider if I’d been in my usual routine, I’d have been at Central or en route there when the e-mail came in. That means it would’ve taken longer than the under fifteen. If I’d been en route, considerably longer. If I’d been right at my desk, as I was at home, I’d still have had to shoot it up to Feeney – if he was already in – and get the trace going. She wanted time to get out of the flop, the building, the sector, before we pinned it and I could send officers.”

Eve looked back at the fresh message. “Angry, and yeah, immature. But still controlled, still careful, still planning things out. Peabody, let’s find out when that master code was registered – and get it canceled on my authority.”

“Maybe there’s a way to put an alert on it,” Peabody suggested. “So if it’s used you get instant notification.”

“Can do,” McNab assured them.

“And tempting,” Eve agreed. “But what if she uses it to gain access to another target’s residence? I get an alert, and by the time I can get there or have officers there, somebody’s dead.”

She considered, paced. “Can we kill it, without her knowing it’s been canceled? Put the alert on it. She tries to use it, I get the signal?”

“You kill it, the master notifies the holder,” McNab began.

“There are ways around that,” Roarke put in, drew McNab’s attention to him.

“Well, yeah, we could get around it.”

“Get around it,” Eve ordered. “And this action is need to know. Feeney needs to know – but that’s it on your end, McNab. We’ll have the four people in this room, Feeney, Whitney, Mira. That’s it. No chatter about this, no notification. If she uses it, she finds out, at that moment, it’s dead. If she uses it, I find out, at that moment, and the location. I have to have the location.”

“Trickier when we kill it.” McNab glanced at Roarke again. “Not impossible.”

“Make it happen. I’ll clear it,” she said before he could speak. “With Whitney and Feeney. No electronic chatter on this action either. Just in case we do have somebody in EDD to worry about. Let’s seal this place back up and get started.”

“You can handle this assignment – you and Feeney,” Roarke added. “I’ll come into Central as I’d as soon not loiter around here. I can order my own transportation from there, leave the All-Terrain with you.”

“That’s a plan. Let’s move.”



After he pulled into her slot in Central’s garage, Roarke took Eve’s hand. “One minute,” he said to Peabody and McNab, who discreetly climbed out.

“I’ve got to get going on this, Roarke.”

“Understood. And you need to understand you have to be watchful, not just on the street, but in this building.”

“She’d be crazy to go after me in Central.”

“I believe the crazy’s been well and fully established.”

“Okay, your point, but also stupid. She hasn’t been stupid, yet.”

“And yet is the operative word. Just more watchful, Lieutenant.”

“I can tell you I feel like I’ve been watching everybody for the last forty-eight. Don’t worry.”

“Worry’s already established. But all right. And take this.”

She glanced down, fully expecting him to pass her some banned weapon or odd e-device. Instead he gave her a firm jerk to him, covered her mouth in a hot, possessive kiss.

“For good measure,” he said when he let her go.

“Measure of what?” But she gave his hand a squeeze before they got out, opposite doors. When he split off toward the entrance she frowned. “Aren’t you going to come up, wait for your ride?”

“It’s already here. Take care of my cop. That goes for you, too,” he said to Peabody and McNab, then strolled out in the very frosty coat she’d given him for Christmas over his ruler-of-the-business-world suit.

“Straight up to Feeney,” she told McNab. “Fill him in – in his office, door shut. Tell him I’ll be up when I can, or he can come down if he has any questions before I get there.”

“On that.”

“No chatter,” she reminded them, then walked into the elevator and began to outline her next steps.

The minute she stepped into Homicide, Baxter was up, signaling her over.

“We may have a name for you. Former Detective Gina Tortelli. She was under Captain Roth, got busted down to uniform in that sweep, couldn’t hack it, turned in her papers. She works private now for some half-assed PI. Arsenial Investigators. She didn’t write you,” he added as Trueheart walked over to join them.

“Then why should I be interested in her?”

“Because her mother wrote you.”

“Her mother?”