Obsession in Death (In Death #40)(86)

He held up a finger, then still huffing some, dragged out his comm. “Lost her,” he told Peabody. “We’ll be a few.”

“Copy that. We’re good here. Should I come to you?”

McNab cocked his head at Eve, and she shook hers. “No point.”

“Stay there. We’ll head back pretty quick.”

“Couldn’t make up the distance. She made me right as I made her. Got close, nearly had her, goddamn it. People get in the damn way.”

“I didn’t know what the hell.” The mountain in the stained white apron filled the doorway. “People running through my kitchen, I didn’t know what the hell. She – I thought it was a guy – knocked Trevor over like a tenpin. Lolo says he’s got a knot the size of her fist back of his head. I didn’t know what the hell.”

Calmer, marginally, Eve stepped back inside. “No, you didn’t know. Did you get a look at her?”

“Came in like a freaking tornado, keeled Trevor over, kept going, grabbing trays and carts, shoving them behind her, scattering pots and dishes and every damn thing. I couldn’t get to him – her. Just saw from the back. I’da gotten to her, I’da stopped her cold.”

“I believe it. I need to talk to your people. Maybe one of them got a look at her.”

“You don’t know what she looks like, why’re you chasing her?”

“I don’t know what she looks like, exactly, but I know what she’s done. Does your Trevor need medical assistance?”

“Nah, Lolo’s got him. Coupla cuts here and there where the dishes got him. Line cook got some burns, and Steph dropped a pot on her foot, banged up her toe, but she’s okay. Got a freaking mess to clean up in there. When you catch her, I wanna press charges.”

“Can’t blame you. McNab, let’s get this rolling. You talk to the people out in the restaurant, I’ll take the kitchen.”

It took under ten minutes for her to determine nobody saw or heard anything that would add to what she already had.

Lolo – head waitress and partner to the mountain whose name turned out to be Casey – clucked around like a mother hen on gray skids. And Lolo watched plenty of screen.

“She’s the one killed that lawyer lady and the junkie, too. I saw you talking on the screen just a bit ago. Then she comes running through here like hell and damnation, making a mess of our place, and knocking young Trevor flat. Casey had known, had gotten around to her, he’d’ve knocked her flat, you can make book on that. Casey don’t take shit or Shinola. Was a merchant marine.”

“Is that a fact?”

“That’s a fact. Me? I didn’t see more than a blur, and I’m sorry for that.”

She jammed her hands on her hips, looked around as a lanky guy mopped up the floor, and a couple of others reordered the shelf.

“Wish we could help you out. People going around killing people just pisses me off.”

“I hear that.”

Lolo smiled a little, revealing a little dimple at the corner of her mouth. “You ain’t got much meat on you, do you, girl? Casey, get this girl some of that kitchen sink soup in a takeaway. On the house.”

“Oh, thanks, appreciate it, but we can’t take gifts.”

Lolo just eyed her. “I’m not giving it to you ’cause you’re a cop. You’re getting it ’cause you’re skinny. Put in a couple slabs of that pie, too,” she called out. “When you catch that killer woman, you’re going to want some meat on your bones to take her down.”

“I really don’t… What kind of pie?”

Lolo smiled again. “Damn good pie.”

She sent McNab ahead, finished things up by talking to the beat cops. She wanted the neighborhood covered, visibly. Then she carted the takeaway – soup, pie, and garlic bread sticks Casey added in as, in his words, an apology for getting in her way.

She started to stow it in the back of the All-Terrain, realized she’d probably forget about it, so put it on the passenger seat.

Then made damn sure all the auto anti-theft bells and whistles were in play.

Since they knew she was on the way, Eve didn’t bother to buzz up, but used her master.

How many times had she climbed these stairs, she wondered, before Roarke? Couldn’t count them. She’d gotten stuck in the elevator once for over a half hour – and that had been the last time she’d used it, even when her ass had been dragging.

She thought of Peabody and McNab happily cohabbing, of Mavis and her family with their color and life. Was the building more content now that she wasn’t dragging blood and death in with her every night?

And that stupid thought, she admitted, was a direct result of frustration and just plain pissiness at having lost her quarry.

She’d make this quick, just do a check, reinforce precautions, then take her soup and sour mood home. Roarke had to deal with her moods. It was in the marriage rules.

She rapped on the door. The shriek blew out the second it opened. Eve’s hand flew to her weapon, had it nearly drawn when the wild laughter followed.

“What the hell.”

Leonardo – another mountain, but in fashionable trousers of dull gold and a knee-length vest over a black sweater, smiled at her. “We told Bella you were coming.”

Bella toddled across the floor as fast as her chubby little legs could manage, her face beaming smiles under its curly mass of sunny hair. She wore a rainbow, or so it seemed, with pretty pale colors swirling everywhere on some sort of skirted jumpsuit her father had, no doubt, designed for her.