Thankless in Death (In Death #37)(41)

Turned the key. Opening the door.

He was on her like a leech. One swing to send her pitching forward. Slamming the door behind him, breathing fast, fast as he fought the urge to just whale away.

Instead he gave the barking, quivering dog one hard kick that sent Snuffy smashing against the wall, then dropping, just like its mistress.

He had to slow his breath, force himself to slow it down, slow everything down until the tornado roar of blood storming in his head died so he could just think again.

Then with a self-satisfied nod, he propped his trusty bat against the wall. And rubbed his hands together in anticipation of all to come.

In Chelsea, Eve spoke briefly to the waiter who had served Reinhold.

“He came in about four, four-fifteen maybe, ordered a Maxima latte, double-shot caramel and a grande chunky-chunk cookie. He worked his ’link and PPC, but lots of people do.”

“Did you hear him talking to anyone?”

The waiter scratched his ear as if it would help him think. “Now that you mention it, I guess not. He was just sitting there, watching out the window, and he’d try his ’link off and on, poke around on his handheld. I figured he was maybe waiting for someone, and they were late, but I asked him if he was, like, expecting someone, and he said no, he was just killing time before an appointment. He paid cash. I mean, after all that hang time, he got up all of a sudden, and fast, left cash on the table, grabbed his bag, and bugged out. Kinda trotting. I went to make sure he covered the tab—he did, not much tip, but covered—and I spotted him cutting across the street, zipping around cars stopped for the light. That’s about it.”

“What kind of bag?”

“What kind of what?”

“Bag,” Eve repeated. “You said he grabbed his bag before he left.”

“Oh yeah, right. Pretty nice bag. Looked new, I guess. Black, big. I guess it was like a duffel, but classier. I didn’t pay much attention.”

“Good enough. If you think of anything else, or see him again, get in touch.”

“No sweat on it.”

She went outside where McNab and Roarke stood on the sidewalk in geek conversation. She held up a hand to cut that off. “Security visuals?”

“We were just talking about that.”

“Not in English.”

McNab just grinned at her. “We’ve got him off a few street cams, and we can put that together. What we were figuring is how we backtrack, see if we can catch him farther back to where he came from.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?”

“We did, or were,” Roarke corrected. “Since the Privacy Laws put paid to use of satellite observation, we’re dependent primarily on building cams, where they exist. We were working out the best probabilities to tailing him back to his source or mode of transportation.”

“Okay, keep doing that. Let me know when you’ve got anything we can use. A minute,” she said to Roarke and moved a few paces away. “You’re not going home, are you?”

“I want to play with my friends awhile. I may miss curfew.”

She glanced back at McNab, currently talking to Peabody and doing what she thought of as the EDD shuffle. His colorfully clad body just couldn’t stand still while he was in e-mode.

And here was Roarke, cat-quiet in his perfect black trousers and leather jacket.

Yet they were friends, she thought, with all that entailed.

“Suit yourself.”

“My preferred method. So.” He grabbed her, kissed her hard before she could evade. “On duty and in public. But you did say suit myself, Lieutenant.”

She punched him, lightly, in the stomach. “Me, too. Peabody! With me.”

She walked across the street to where her car—as promised—waited.

While Eve worked, so did the man she hunted. Here, he could take his time, and enjoy the excitement of wandering through a house without permission. He could do whatever he liked, have whatever appealed to him.

Plenty of electronics here to sell or trade and add to his Fuck-You Fund. An obvious e-geek at heart, Ms. Farnsworth liked her gadgets, including a house droid duded up in a black suit and luckily in sleep mode.

He knew enough about programming from the courses he’d taken—that his dead, tight-wad parents had whined about paying for—to wipe the droid’s memory chips. Reprogramming was more of a head-scratcher, but he could handle the basics. And he’d get Fat-Fuck-Farnsworth to walk him through the fancy stuff later if he needed it.

He helped himself to a snack after he’d tied and gagged the old bitch to a chair in her home office. They’d work there, so he’d ordered the rebooted droid to haul her fat ass up the stairs, then shut down again.

Then Reinhold took his tour.

The place smelled like old lady, and of the dog currently quivering and glassy-eyed in the corner. Probably broke something inside the little turdhead with the kick, he decided and stuffed more salt and vinegar chips into his mouth. A treat he washed down with Coke.

Now and again he wiped his salty hands on some of her fussy curtains or the back of a chair.

He poked through her bedroom. Big-ass screen there, the old bitch was loaded. Not the sort of thing he could get down and out by himself. Maybe use the droid for that, he considered. And he could send the droid out to hock some of the e-stuff. Not too close to the house though. Not where the old bitch shopped.