Concealed in Death (In Death #38)(99)

Eve clicked off before Lydia could wish her a positive day.

“Goddamn it.” She zipped between a Rapid Cab and a panel truck—incurring the ire of the truck driver, switching lanes so she could make the turn.

Peabody clamped a hand on the chicken stick as Eve punched into vertical to avoid a minor traffic snarl.

“I take it we’re going to HPCCA.”

“You bet your ass. Son of a bitch!” Eve threaded another needle. Peabody shut her eyes.

19

Eve barreled into HPPCY, and had Shivitz waving her hands, bouncing from foot to foot in distress.

“Please, please! You can’t just barge in! You can’t just push into Mr. Jones’s office.”

“I just did. Where is he?” she demanded of the wide-eyed Lydia.

“I-I-I—”

“Snap out of it! Where’s the boss?”

“He didn’t say. He just said he had to go and to cancel his book for the day. I was just—”

“You.” She rounded on Shivitz. “You know everything. Where is he?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t presume to ask Mr. Jones where he intended to go. It’s not my place.”

“Where’s his sister?”

“Ms. Jones is leading a circle group. If you’d just—”

“Get her.”

“I most certainly will not interrupt her.”

“Fine. Get the key to their quarters.”

She audibly gasped. “I most certainly will not,” she began again, then chased Eve to the stairs. “Where are you going? Where are you going?”

“To Mr. Jones’s quarters. I have a master.”

“You can’t do that! It’s an invasion of privacy. It’s—it’s illegal. You haven’t got a warrant!”

Eve stopped on the stairs, caught a glimpse of Quilla from the corner of her eye before she froze Shivitz with one hard stare. “You want me to get a warrant? And while I’m doing that, I’ll contact some people I know in the media, let them know this institution, and its founders, are now under investigation for the murders of twelve young girls.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Peabody, can I do that?”

“Oh yes, sir, Lieutenant, you can do that. Should I tag up Nadine Furst for you?”

“No, no, no! Just wait! Just wait! I’m going to get Ms. Jones. You wait!”

“Fine by me.”

Eve leaned against the banister as Shivitz ran. She gave Quilla up to five seconds to slither out of her hole.

It only took three.

“Total drama. Completely better than a vid. You sure got Matron’s skirt blown up.”

“Specialty of mine.”

“Is Mr. Jones in the heat?”

“He is.”

“No way he killed anybody. He’s too do-unto-others and crap.”

“Killing’s doing unto others.”

“Yeah, but not that way,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Ms. Jones, she was steaming when she got back a while ago. Red in the face absolutely, and she told Mr. Jones he had to come into her office right now. And she never does like that. So, you know, then they’re in there and she’s carrying on about you making shit up to screw them over—only she said it in fancy words. And he’s, now, now, there, there, but not like the other day, after you left and they first found out about the murders and stuff. She was crying so he did the now, now bullshit. She was all—”

Quilla put the back of her hand to her forehead in the classic distress gesture. “Those poor children, those poor lost souls and all that, and he was, there, there, Philly, they’re at peace now. It’s not like our responsibility. We do our best, blah, blah, but she’s watering up all over.

“This time it was more now, now, I wish you’d shut the f**k up so I could think, but he didn’t say that. I just read between the words, like.”

“How about that.”

“And then—” She straightened like an arrow, glanced back. “Gotta blow.”

“Bat ears,” Eve murmured when Quilla blew seconds before Philadelphia came thundering down the second-floor corridor with Shivitz yapping at her heels like a corgi.

“This is outrageous.”

“It can get more outrageous,” Eve told her.

“You have no right to try to push your way into our private quarters. This is harassment, and I intend to contact our lawyers.”

“Go ahead. I’ll contact the PA, get the warrant, and while that’s coming through . . . Peabody, go ahead and tag up Nadine Furst. She’ll want to lead with this on the evening slot.”

“Just one minute!”

“That’s all you get,” Eve snapped back. “Your brother is a person of interest in a multiple homicide investigation, and no one seems to know where he is. In fact, Peabody, let’s get a BOLO out on Nashville Jones.”

“What does that mean?” Philadelphia demanded. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Be on the lookout,” Peabody said helpfully.

“As if he’s a criminal! Stop it.”

“Tell me where he is,” Eve suggested, “and I won’t have to have every cop in the city on the lookout.”