Strangers in Death (In Death #26)(113)

“Fine, fine, fine.” Ava waved him on. “Hurry it up. I don’t want a police car outside my house all afternoon.”

“Yes, ma’am. Well. You have the right to remain silent.” To add to the picture, Trueheart pulled out a small card with the warning printed on it, and read it with intense concentration. He hoped it wasn’t overplayed. “Um. Do you understand your—”

“Am I an idiot?” Ava snapped. “Of course I understand. Now, shoo, I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.” After the door shut in his face, Trueheart walked back to the police car with his companion. “Dallas is a solid genius,” he stated, then engaged his communicator. “It’s Trueheart, Lieutenant.”

At Central, Eve fueled up on coffee. “Trueheart’s following her in. I want the sweepers on that car the minute it’s parked.”

“You, like, read her mind,” Peabody said. “You knew she’d drive in.”

“She wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to have the Chief of Police grovel to her, and lord it over me. And she wouldn’t get in a black-and-white unless she was cuffed and carried. Besides, if she left the car at home, the sweepers could process it there. Reo’s warrant covers us. I want this to run like clockwork. Everyone in place.” Even as she went over the details in her head, Eve turned to her partner. “I need to take her one-on-one, Peabody. You get that?”

“Yeah. And I know my cue. We’ve got two men in place to swing in, execute the warrant on the house and bring in the wigs. It’s like a sting, isn’t it, and nearly as juicy as a battering-ram-slamming, blaster-bursting takedown. Without the potential for fatal injuries. It’s all: Psyche! ”

“We twist her, and we twist her. We twist her right, and she snaps.” Eve stared at her murder board. The steps and stages, the bits and pieces. Now it was time to put them all together.

“Lieutenant.” Roarke studied her from the doorway.

“I’ll go check on stuff,” Peabody said and eased out.

“She’s on her way. Bringing the car in.”

“You called that one. Your diverse cast of characters appears to be in place. You know you’re risking those big, fat lawyers with this stage you’ve set.”

“Yeah. She’s smart enough to lawyer, but I’m betting she’s too arrogant to squeal for one right off. At the end she will. At the end she’ll be screaming for a lawyer.” And for once, Eve admitted, the sound of that would be like music to her ears. “But first she’ll be shaken, shaken enough to have to put me in my place.”

“As Magdelana tried to.”

There was no point denying it. “To her eventual disappointment…and fat lip. I’m not hanging on to that, if that’s worrying you.” When he stepped in, those blue eyes level on hers, and traced a fingertip along the shallow dent in her chin, she sighed, then shrugged. “Okay, maybe a little. But I’m not pissed at you about that, about her.”

He leaned down, kissed her very softly.

“Much. You didn’t see her, at least not until what she was doing was shoved in your face. Must be a guy thing when it comes to a certain kind of female. Thomas Anders didn’t see it in Ava, for years and years. He lived with her, and he didn’t see her. Not who she really is. I’m not pissed at him about it. He loved her. I’m pissed she used that, and him. Used anyone who came to hand, with absolutely no conscience. For game and profit. She killed him for that. For game and profit.”

“And you imagine, if I hadn’t had certain things shoved in my face, hadn’t seen, if some circumstances had been different, Maggie would have eventually done for me.”

“Why share the majority of the known universe if you can have it all for yourself?”

“Right you are. And, yes, she would have tried to end me at some point. Fortunately, I’m married to the top bitch cop in the city, and well-protected.”

“Fortunately, you can take care of yourself. Tommy Anders couldn’t.” She turned back to the board, to the ID photo of Anders’s smiling, easygoing face.

“It hits me. Some of them do, and it hits me because he was a nice man who loved his wife and used his money and position to do good things. He’s dead, lives are ruined or at best forever changed, all because she wanted all the marbles. So…I’m going to squash her like the ugly spider she is.”

“Lieutenant.” Peabody poked in. “She’s just pulled into the lot.”

“Curtain up,” Roarke said.

23

TO ROARKE’S MIND, COP SHOPS TENDED TOWARD the loud, the confused, and the crowded. One such as Cop Central twisted and twined, rose and fell, in a serpentine labyrinth where cops, suspects, victims, lawyers, techs all bumped and burrowed amid constant clatter and movement.

And still, through all that, the choreography Eve had staged moved seamlessly. Perhaps as so many of the players were unaware of their role, their actions and reactions fell as natural as rainwater.

He watched on screens in an observation room with Feeney and the director herself as Trueheart and his fellow uniform—both looking as wholesome and harmless as apple pie—escorted Ava onto the elevator, then off again.

“It’ll be quicker and less crowded,” Trueheart explained in his polite tone, “if we take the glides from here, Mrs. Anders.”