Divided in Death (In Death #18)(12)

"I could help with the electronics."

"If Feeney wants you, he can have you. I'll clear it with the commander. But you know it's going to be touchy, your connection to the suspect. If I don't convince Commander Whitney this is a frame, he's not going to go along, even unofficially."

"My money's on you."

"Let's take it a step at a time. Get Caro home."

"I will. I'm going to clear my calendar as much as possible until this is finished."

"You paying for the lawyers?"

"She won't let me." A shadow of annoyance rippled over his face. "Neither of them will budge in that particular area."

"One more. Did you and Reva ever tango?"

"Do you mean were we ever lovers? No."

"Good. Slightly less sticky that way. Clear out," she ordered. "I've got to round up my partner and drive to Queens."

"Could I ask a question first?"

"Make it snappy."

"If you'd walked into that scene tonight, and there'd been no connection, would you have looked at it the same way?"

"There was no connection when I walked onto the scene," she told him. "That's how I could see it for what it was. I couldn't take you in with me, not literally, not in my head. You'd've done the same."

"I like to think so."

"You would have. You know how to be cold when you have to be. I mean that in a good way."

"I believe you do," he said with a half laugh.

"I did let you in a minute after I stepped out of it."

"Did you?"

"I thought: If Roarke had set this up, nobody would've seen the frame. Whoever did it should've taken lessons."

This time he did laugh, and she was pleased to see some of the worry warm out of his eyes. "Well now, that is high praise."

"Just calling them as I see them, and another reason I've agreed to use you. I want to find out the how and why of a classy frame, I might as well make use of somebody who'd know the hows and whys. Start thinking about what Reva's working on for you-or what she has been working on, or will be."

"I already am."

"See, just one more reason. You're going to want a bodyguard for Caro, just in case. She'd prefer private to a cop."

"It's already done."

"And the reasons just keep on ticking. Beat it."

"Since you ask so nice." He kissed her first, a soft touch of mouth to mouth. "Get something decent to eat," he called out as he left.

And though her gaze went to the ceiling tile where she was currently hiding her candy stash, she didn't think that was quite what he had in mind.

3

She was expecting a midlevel suburban house. The Ewing-Bissel place was several steps up from mid. It was a very contemporary streamlined white box on box behind a recycled-stone riot fence. Lots of one-way glass and sharp angles.

The entrance area was that same recycled stone, tinted a strong red. There were ornamental trees and shrubs growing out of large pots and several odd metal sculptures she attributed to Blair Bissel.

But it struck her as cold, and more pretentious than gingerbread and gilt.

"Ewing knows her security," Peabody commented after they'd dealt with the layers of it just to get through the riot wall. "Fancy digs, too, if you go for this kind of thing."

"You don't?"

"Uh-uh." Peabody grimaced as they walked over the red stone lawn. "This kind of design makes me think of a prison, and I can't quite figure out if it keeps people in, or keeps them out. And the art."

She stopped to study a squat metal shape with eight spindly legs and an elongated triangular head, lined with sparkling teeth.

"We've got a lot of artists in the family," Peabody went on. "A couple who work primarily in metals, and some of the stuff's odd. But it's... interesting odd and usually kind of fun or poignant."

"Poignant metal."

"Yeah, really. But this, I guess it's a cross between a watchdog and a spider. It's creepy, and a little mean. And what about that?"

She pointed to another sculpture. This, Eve saw when she wandered closer, was of two figures, closely entwined. Male and female, which was obvious when you saw the exaggerated length of the penis painted royal purple. It was honed to a knife-point at the end, and an inch away from penetrating the female figure.

She was, Eve noted, bowed back in either passion or terror, the long gleaming tendrils of her hair streaming back.

They were faceless, just form and feeling. And after a moment she decided that feeling wasn't romantic, or even sexual. It was violent.

"I'd say he was probably talented, and even talent can be sick."

Because it made her uncomfortable, she turned away from the figures and approached the door. Even with the codes and clearance Reva had provided, it took some time and some trouble to access entry.

The door opened into a kind of atrium with tinted sky windows three floors up, and slick ocean blue tiles for the floor.

There was a fountain in the center of the space, burbling as the half man, half fish figures that circled it vomited violently into the pool.

The walls were mirrored, tossing back their reflections dozens of times. Rooms fanned off from this center, through wide, doorless rectangles.