Devoted in Death (In Death #41)(40)

The hike convinced her Roarke had been right – as usual – about the boots.

The snow kept the traffic, pedestrian and vehicular – thinner than normal in the trendy neighborhood, and she noted several stores had opted to close, at least for the morning.

She spotted a glide-cart operator dressed for exploring Siberia, down to the goggles. A couple of indeterminate sex huddled in the steam of his grill over a bag of chestnuts that scented the air. And a gang of kids raced by with the manic energy that told her schools had taken a snow day.

She spotted Peabody – pink coat ridiculously cheerful through the thick curtain of snow – and McNab with her. He wore atomic cherry with an earflap hat of such eye-burning colors she imagined it had come from Peabody’s oddly skilled hands.

They, too, huddled over a bag of chestnuts.

“Hey, Dallas!” Like the coats, Peabody’s voice was ripe with cheer. “Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“We’re going to get six to eight inches!”

“Well, whoopee.”

“I didn’t have anything cooking,” McNab began, and held out the bag to share. “I asked Feeney, and he said to come on along.”

She shook her head at the chestnuts which then vanished into one of his half a million pockets. “Fine. I’m going to talk to the reputed dickwad about what happened last night. I could use you to triangulate. Peabody’s got the locations of the snatch and dump on Kuper. Let’s see how it plays with the area where Campbell sent the text last night.”

“I can be all over that and back in no time.”

“Let’s get the hell out of this damn snow.”

“It’s so pretty.” Peabody turned her face up to it, let it catch on her eyelashes.

“It’s also going to make it harder for us to dig up anybody who might have seen Campbell or the people I strongly suspect grabbed her. What did you get from the party people?”

“Nothing much. A couple of guys threw the party – good space for one. Neither of them even realized she was gone. Didn’t know her anyway. But there was another guy there this morning – stayed over.”

“Had a threesome,” McNab put in as Eve used her master to get into the building. “Definitely.”

“I have to say yes to that,” Peabody confirmed. “The third guy talked with her some. He wants to get into modeling. He’s got the looks. She gave him her card. And he noticed she had some words with Diaz – who’d been sexy dancing – with a lot of hands on various body parts – with a blonde. Wit says she was really steamed, and he couldn’t blame her as it was pretty in-your-face. He said something to the blonde after he saw Campbell grab her coat and take off. The blonde’s name is Misty Lane.”

“The hell it is.” Eve shook snow off her coat.

“Yeah, professional name. A model/actress/cocktail waitress. The blonde just laughed it off, and said guys like Mattio were for fun, not for keeps. He says it was after midnight, but couldn’t pin it down.”

“Good enough.”

The converted-to-lofts warehouse boasted a freight elevator some people found charming. Eve considered them death traps and opted for the stairs.

“Nadine’s thinking about a place like this,” Peabody said.

“Like this?”

“On her list of possibilities. Big, trendy loft space. The others are a brownstone – a la Charles and Louise. And the third’s a multilevel penthouse type condo in some slick building.”

“Number three,” Eve said.

“Oh, did she decide? Last I talked to her Roarke had given her some different properties to look over, but that’s as far as she’d gotten.”

“That’s what she will decide.”

“Maybe, but whichever way she goes, she’s after full, top-of-the-line security. That near-miss with Roebuck scared her.”

“Good. I told her not to open the damn door. Next time she won’t.” Eve paused on the third floor. Despite the momentary stupidity, Nadine Furst was a friend. “She’s doing okay?”

“Yeah. She took a delayed vacation – solo this time. Just a few days. She’s already back – mostly, I think, because she wants to move as soon as she can.”

And, Eve imagined, because the top on-screen crime-beat reporter couldn’t stay away from the action for long.

She knew the feeling.

She buzzed at Diaz’s door, and got a tinny computerized voice.

Mr. Diaz has engaged the Do Not Disturb option. There was a jumble of noise, a sort of wheeze – as if the comp had asthma. Please leave your name.

“Cheap tech,” McNab commented. “Bottom of the barrel.”

Cheap tech or not, it currently stood in her way. Eve took out her badge. “Scan this,” she ordered. “This is official police business. Inform Diaz now.”

The scanning function is currently inactivated. Please leave your name.

Eve pressed the buzzer, held it down.

The Do Not Disturb – through the speaker came the equivalent of a computer death rattle – Name leave unable to process.

Ruthlessly, Eve ignored the dying gasps, kept her finger on the buzzer.

It took more than a few of McNab’s mo’s, but the next sound was human.