Naked in Death (In Death #1)(27)

“He’s killing LCs.”

“Hookers have always been easy targets, back to Jack the Ripper, right? It’s a vulnerable job, even now with all the screening, we still get clients knocking LCs around, killing them.”

“Doesn’t happen much,” Feeney mused. “Sometimes with the S and M trade you get a party that gets too enthusiastic. Most LCs are safer than teachers.”

“They still run a risk, the oldest profession with the oldest crime. But things have changed, some things. People don’t kill with guns as a rule anymore. Too expensive, too hard to come by. Sex isn’t the strong motivator it used to be, too cheap, too easy to come by. We have different methods of investigation, and a whole new batch of motives. When you brush all that away, the one fact is that people still terminate people. Keep digging, Feeney. I’ve got people to talk to.”

“What you need’s some sleep, kid.”

“Let him sleep,” Eve muttered. “Let that bastard sleep.” Steeling herself, she turned to her tele-link. It was time to contact the victim’s parents.

By the time Eve walked into the sumptuous foyer of Roarke’s midtown office, she’d been up for more than thirty-two hours. She’d gotten through the misery of having to tell two shocked, weeping parents that their only daughter was dead. She’d stared at her monitor until the data swam in front of her eyes.

Her follow-up interview with Lola’s landlord had been its own adventure. Since the man had had time to recover, he’d spent thirty minutes whining about the unpleasant publicity and the possibility of a drop-off in rentals.

So much, Eve thought, for human empathy.

Roarke Industries, New York, was very much what she’d expected. Slick, shiny, sleek, the building itself spread one hundred fifty stories into the Manhattan sky. It was an ebony lance, glossy as wet stone, ringed by transport tubes and diamond-bright skyways.

No tacky Glida-Grills on this corner, she mused. No street hawkers with their hot pocket PCs dodging security on their colorful air boards. Out-of-doors vending was off limits on this bite of Fifth. The zoning made things quieter, if a little less adventuresome.

Inside, the main lobby took up a full city block, boasting three tony restaurants, a high priced boutique, a handful of specialty shops, and a small theater that played art films.

The white floor tiles were a full yard square and gleamed like the moon. Clear glass elevators zipped busily up and down, people glides zigzagged left and right, while disembodied voices guided visitors to various points of interest or, if there was business to be conducted, the proper office.

For those who wanted to wander about on their own, there were more than a dozen moving maps.

Eve marched to a monitor and was politely offered assistance.

“Roarke,” she said, annoyed that his name hadn’t been listed on the main directory.

“I’m sorry.” The computer’s voice was that overly mannered tone that was meant to be soothing, and instead grated on Eve’s already raw nerves. “I’m not at liberty to access that information.”

“Roarke,” Eve repeated, holding up her badge for the computer to scan. She waited impatiently as the computer hummed, undoubtedly checking and verifying her ID, notifying the man himself.

“Please proceed to the east wing, Lieutenant Dallas. You will be met.”

“Right.”

Eve turned down a corridor, passed a marble run that held a forest of snowy white impatiens.

“Lieutenant.” A woman in a killer red suit and hair as white as the impatiens smiled coolly. “Come with me, please.”

The woman slipped a thin security card into a slot, laid her palm against a sheet of black glass for a handprint. The wall slid open, revealing a private elevator.

Eve stepped inside with her, and was unsurprised when her escort requested the top floor.

Eve had been certain Roarke would be satisfied with nothing but the top.

Her guide was silent on the ride up and exuded a discreet whiff of sensible scent that matched her sensible shoes and neat, sleek coif. Eve secretly admired women who put themselves together, top to toe, with such seeming effortlessness.

Faced with such quiet magnificence, she tugged selfconsciously at her worn leather jacket and wondered if it was time she actually spent money on a haircut rather than hacking away at it herself.

Before she could decide on such earth-shattering matters, the doors whooshed open into a silent, white carpeted foyer the size of a small home. There were lush green plants — real plants: ficus, palm, what appeared to be a dogwood flowering off season. There was a sharp spicy scent from a bank of dianthus, blooming in shades of rose and vivid purple.

The garden surrounded a comfortable waiting area of mauve sofas and glossy wood tables, lamps that were surely solid brass with jeweled colored shades.

In the center of this was a circular workstation, equipped as efficiently as a cockpit with monitors and keyboards, gauges and tele-links. Two men and a woman worked at it busily, with a seamless ballet of competence in motion.

She was led past them into a glass-sided breezeway. A peek down, and she could see Manhattan. There was music piped in she didn’t recognize as Mozart. For Eve, music began sometime after her tenth birthday.

The woman in the killer suit paused again, flashed her cool, perfect smile, then spoke into a hidden speaker. “Lieutenant Dallas, sir.”