Survivor In Death (In Death #20)(17)

“Can you handle that?”

“For the moment, and we'll see how it goes. She may require a specialist, someone trained primarily in children. I'll look into it.”

“Thanks. I was thinking I should check the department, Youth Services, find a couple of officers who I can assign to her.”

“Take it slow. She's dealing with a lot of strangers at once.” She touched Eve's arm, then picked up her bag. “You'll handle it.”

Maybe, Eve thought when Mira left. Hopefully. But at the moment, she had plenty of doubts. She headed upstairs, detoured into Roarke's office.

He was at his desk, with three of his wall screens scrolling various data, and his desk unit humming. “Pause operations,” he said, and smiled. “Lieutenant, you look beat up.”

“Feel that way. Listen, I didn't have a chance to really run all this by you. I know I just more or less dumped some strange kid on you and blew.”

“Is she awake?”

“Yeah. She's with Summerset. I did a second interview with her, with Mira in attendance. She holds up pretty well. The kid, I mean.”

“I've had the news on. The names haven't been released yet.”

“I've got that blocked--for the moment. It's going to break soon.”

Knowing his wife, he went to the AutoChef, programmed two coffees, black. “Why don't you run it for me now?”

“Quick version, because I'm behind.”

She gave him the details, brief and stark.

“Poor child. No evidence, as yet, that anyone in the household was into something that could bring down this kind of payback?”

“Not yet. But it's early.”

“Professional, as I'm sure you've already concluded. Someone trained in wet work. The green light she saw was most likely the jammer-- green for go--as the security had been bypassed.”

“Figured. On the surface, these people seem ordinary, ordinary family. Straight arrows. But we haven't done much scratching on that surface yet.”

“Sophisticated electronics, special forces--type invasion, quick, clean hits.” Sipping coffee, he ignored the beep of his laser fax. “In and out... in, what, ten or fifteen minutes? It's not something for nothing. Home terrorism would have left a mark, and the targets would have been higher profile. On the surface,” he added.

“You still have some contacts in organized crime.”

A smile ghosted around his mouth. “Do I?”

“You know people who know people who know scum of the earth.”

He tapped a fingertip on the dent in her chin. “Is that any way to talk of my friends and business associates? Former.”

“Damn straight. You could make some inquiries.”

“I can, and I will. But I can tell you I never associated with child killers. Or anyone who would slaughter a family in their sleep.”

“Not saying. I mean that. But I need every angle on this. The little girl? The one he killed in place of the kid downstairs? She was wearing a little pink nightgown with--what do you call it--frills around the neck. I could see it was pink from the bottom. The rest was red, soaked through with blood. He'd slit her throat open like it was an apple.”

He set his coffee down, walked to her. He put his hands on her hips, laid his brow on her brow. “Anything I can do, I will.”

“It makes you think. You and me, we had the worst most kids can get. Abuse, neglect, rape, beatings, hate. These kids, they had what it's supposed to be, in a perfect world: nice homes, parents who loved them, took care of them.”

“We survived,” he finished. “They didn't. Except for the one downstairs.”

“One day, when she looks back on this, I want her to know the people who did this are in a cage. That's the best I can do. That's all I can do.”

She eased back. “So, I'd better get to work.”

4

HER FIRST STEP WAS CONTACTING FEENEY, captain of the Electronic Detectives Division. He popped on her 'link screen, wiry ginger hair threaded with silver, saggy face, rumpled shirt.

It was a relief to her that his wife's recent attempt to spruce him up with eye-popping suits had gone belly-up.

“I'm catching up,” she said briskly. “You got word on the Swisher case, home invasion?”

“Two kids.” His face, comfortably morose, hardened. “When I got wind, I went to the scene myself. I got a team working on the 'links and data centers. I'm doing the security personally.”

“I like getting the best. What can you tell me?” .

“Good, solid home system. Top of the line. Took some know-how to bypass. Camera shows squat after one hundred fifty-eight hours. Remote jammer, with secondary jam as the system had an auto backup.”

He tugged on his earlobe as he read data from another screen. “Visual security shuts down, backup pops within ten seconds, with alarms both in-house and at security center. Compromised the works.”

“They knew the system.”

“Oh yeah, they knew the system. Deactivated camera alarm, lock alarm, motion alarm. I'm going to pin it for you, but my prelim indicated entrance ten minutes after the camera blanked, four minutes after the secondary jam.”

“Ten minutes? That's a stretch of time. Might've held, insurance the system didn't make the signal, in-house, to the security company. Four after hitting the secondary. Is that as slick as I think it is?”