Ceremony in Death (In Death #5)(22)

He nodded, rubbed his hands over his face. “Okay. I’m sorry I jumped you.”

“It’s all right. It doesn’t matter.” She hesitated, then put her hand on his arm, squeezed lightly. “Go home, Feeney. You don’t want to be here today.”

“I guess I will.” He put a hand on the door. “She was a sweetheart, Dallas,” he said quietly. “My God, I don’t want to go to another funeral.”

When he left, Eve sank into her chair. Misery and guilt and anger twisted around her throat like barbs. She rose again, grabbed her bag. She was, she told herself, in the perfect mood to meet Selina Cross.

“How do you want to play it?” Peabody asked as they pulled up in front of an elegant old building downtown.

“Straight. I want her to know Alice talked to me, and that I suspect her of harassment, dealing, and conspiracy to murder. If she’s got any brains, she’ll know I don’t have anything solid. But I’ll give her something to think about.”

Eve stepped out of the car, ran her gaze over the building with its carved glass windows and grinning gargoyles. “She lives here, she’s not hurting financially. We’re going to have to find out just where she gets her money. I want everything on record, Peabody, and keep your eyes open. I want your impressions.”

“I’ll give you one right now.” Peabody clamped her recorder onto her uniform jacket, but kept her eyes on the topmost window of the building, a wide, round glass intricately carved. “That’s another inverted pentagram. Satanic symbol. And those gargoyles don’t look friendly.” She smiled wanly. “You ask me, they look hungry.”

“Impressions, Peabody. Try to keep the fantasies down to a minimum.” Eve approached the security screen.

“Please state your name and your business.”

“Lieutenant Eve Dallas and aide, NYPSD.” She held up her badge to be scanned. “To see Selina Cross.”

“Are you expected?”

“Oh, I don’t think she’ll be surprised.”

“One moment.”

While she waited, Eve studied the street. There was plenty of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, she noted. But most of those who walked used the other side of the street, and many of those eyed her and the building warily.

Oddly, there wasn’t a single glida grill or street hawker in sight.

“You are cleared to enter, Lieutenant. Please proceed to elevator one. It is already programmed.”

“Fine.” Eve looked up, caught the shadow of movement behind the topmost glass. “Look official, Peabody,” she murmured as they approached the heavily grilled front doors. “We’re under observation.”

The grills slid back, locks snicked open. The light on a recessed security panel blinked from red to green. “A lot of hardware for an apartment building,” Peabody commented, and ignoring the fluttering in her stomach, stepped in behind Eve.

Like a viewing parlor, the lobby area was heavily into red. A two-headed serpent slithered over the bloodred carpet, the gold threads of its eyes glinted as it watched a black-robed figure slice a curved knife over the throat of a white goat.

“Lovely art.” Eve lifted a brow as Peabody carefully picked her way around the snake. “Wool doesn’t bite.”

“You can’t be too careful.” She glanced back as they stepped to the elevator. “I really hate snakes. My brother used to catch them out in the woods and chase me with them. Always had a phobia.”

The ride up was smooth and fast, but it gave Eve enough time to detect yet another security camera in the small, black-mirrored car.

The doors opened into a spacious foyer with floors of black marble. Twin red velvet settees flanked an archway and boasted carved arms of snarling wolves. A floral arrangement speared out of a pot shaped like a boar’s head.

“Wolfbane,” Peabody said quietly, “belladonna, foxglove, skullcap, peyote.” She shrugged at Eve’s considering look. “My mother’s an amateur botanist. I can tell you that’s not your usual flower arrangement.”

“But the usual is so tedious, isn’t it?”

They got their first face-to-face look at Selina Cross exactly as she wanted to be seen. Flanked by the archway in a snug black dress that brushed the floor, her feet bare with the toenails painted a violent red, she posed. And smiled.

Her skin was vampire white, the slash of red over her full lips glossy as fresh blood. Her eyes glittered green and feline in a narrow, undoubtedly witchlike face that wasn’t beautiful, but was eerily compelling. Her hair fell, black against black, from that rigid center part, to her waist.

The hand she gestured with held rings on every finger and her thumb. A silver chain was attached to each and twisted into an intricate mesh over the back of her hand.

“Lieutenant Dallas and Officer Peabody, isn’t it? What interesting visitors on such a dull day. Will you come in… to my parlor?”

“Are you alone, Ms. Cross? It would simplify this if we could speak with Mr. Alban as well.”

“Oh, what a shame.” She turned, silks whispering, and slipped through the arch. “Alban’s busy this morning. Sit down.” She gestured again, encompassing a generous room crowded with furniture. Every seat boasted the heads or claws or beaks of some predator. “Can I offer you something?”