Vendetta in Death (In Death #49)(105)

“We got a trip lock, motion lock, both with internal alarms and panic lockdown.”

“Is that so?” Roarke’s smile read challenge accepted. “I’ve worked with those.”

“Yeah, me, too, but we’ve got a fail-safe running between the alarm and lockdown, and another threaded through a secondary seal.”

Feeney narrowed his eyes. “What do you look so smug about?”

“It’s one of my systems. I helped design it. It’s really quite good. But if one knows the ins and the outs …”

Feeney held out his scanner.

“Thanks, but I have my own.”

“Can you walk my boys through it?”

“We’ll see. A bit of room, Lieutenant,” he added as Eve breathed down his neck.

“There’s a man being tortured on the other side of that door.”

“I’m aware, but this is going to require some delicacy.”

Eve stepped back. “Maybe we can lure her out,” she said to Peabody. “Maybe we turn the third-floor monitors back on and—”

“And quiet,” Roarke snapped.

Eve hissed at him, but signaled Peabody out of the room. “If we can get her out.”

“We’re made if we turn on the main floor, and she could panic, kill Brinkman, like you said.”

“I know. I know.” Eve circled and paced. “There’s got to be a way. She’s going to check the monitors at some point, likely soon, and she’ll wonder. Maybe that would send her out, but … No.”

Frustrated, impatient, Eve raked her fingers through her hair. “She’d have some way to check, she knows this stuff. She’d cop to them being shut down.”

“Well, son of a bitch.”

She heard Feeney, so edged back closer.

“You got that, McNab?”

“We’re right with you—okay, maybe a step or two back, but we’re getting it. Super frosted goodness.”

“You don’t override now,” Roarke said. “She’s too clever for that. So you back off, and slide around the corner, slow and easy. One click up, two back, one left, two right.”

“Roger that.” Callendar’s voice came cheerfully. “Maggier than the maggest of the mag. It’s just melting off.”

“A bit more. She’ll raise a shield, so now it’s going under. Do you see it?”

“Got her.”

“It’s kind of sexy,” Peabody commented. “The sexy nerds.”

Eve only closed her eyes. “Any movement below?”

“Same type,” Callendar told her. “Both are in the central area.”

“And so will you be now.” Roarke flexed his fingers. “Do you have it, McNab?”

“Just doing the last … Whee! There she goes.”

“On my go. Let’s keep this guy alive. Baxter, Trueheart, e-team behind. Peabody, with me.”

Peabody stepped beside Eve, took a breath in, let it out. “Let’s take this bitch down.”

“And go!”

She heard the screams the instant Roarke pulled open the door for her. Shrieks high and sharp with shock and pain. And the voice bellowing through them.

“Why aren’t we ever good enough! We give and give, but you use us, beat us, rape us, leave us. It’s time you paid. You all paid!”

Eve rushed the steps, swung straight into the main area with its wall of monitors, its work counters, its half-built droids. Its painted concrete floors.

Darla stood, the electric prod reared back as she prepared to slash the man whose bruised face contorted with fear. Blood oozed from his wrists where he struggled against the restraints that chained him to the ceiling.

She stood, Eve saw with a surprise she rarely felt with killers, in a skin suit, a breastplate, a luxurious silver-edged black wig that spilled in waves over her shoulders, with a glittering silver cat’s-eye mask on her face.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Now Darla’s face contorted, but with rage. “No! You won’t stop me. I’m Lady Justice, and Linus Brinkman has been found guilty and sentenced to death!”

“Step away from him, Darla.”

“Justice! My name is Justice, and that’s what he and all like him must face.”

“Drop the weapon and step away from him. That’s not a suggestion.”

“Wilford! Defend!”

The droid lunged forward—and so did Roarke. He tapped a command on his handheld. The droid stopped, shut down.

“You bastard! You’ll be next to face real justice. Get out, get away, or I’ll jam this prod right down his throat. You won’t stop me.” She raised the prod high. “You won’t stop—”

Eve stunned her. “You’re stopped,” she said as Darla jittered. The prod clattered to the floor as Roarke moved quickly to catch her before she fell on the concrete.

“Baxter, Trueheart, get him down. Peabody, call for a bus, and contact the nurse for Eloise.”

She moved over, crouched beside Darla as Roarke laid her on the floor.

“She’s quite barking mad, isn’t she?”

Eve pulled out her restraints. “Not my call to make,” she said as she clamped them on the unconscious Darla’s wrists. “But oh yeah. Barking.”