Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(38)

“She just ran,” Eve concluded. “She saw the damn feed and she ran. All right.” She took a breath to settle herself. “We’ll take the witnesses in the coffee shop. We’ll split them up. Jenkinson, Reineke.”

“On the way. Traffic’s insane. ETA ten minutes.”

“Any word on the survivor?”

“Nothing new.”

“Then let’s do what we do.” She looked over as Russo’s bagged body was lifted onto a gurney for transport. At least a dozen uniforms stopped, stood. Saluted.

Eve did the same. “Whitney’s giving a push on Russo. We’ll have full data and we’ll have it fast. He’s priority—and not just because he’s one of ours.”

She scanned the faces of cops, then her eyes narrowed as Roarke moved around them, walking toward her. Inside the barricade.

She should’ve figured he’d beat her own detectives to the scene.

“You didn’t need to drop everything and come here.”

“I’m here. Whatever you need from me, you’ll have. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Nothing he could have said could have so completely closed her throat. He understood. She hadn’t known Russo, but he’d been a cop, doing his best to serve and protect.

He’d died trying to protect.

Roarke shifted, shielding her from the sharpest bite of the wind. He didn’t, as he wanted to, put his arms around her.

“The report said four dead, unknown injured.”

“That’s accurate. He went for five and one survived—so far. Others were injured in the panic.”

“Whatever you need from me,” he said again.

“If you could . . .” The sleet had turned to a thin, sad snow. As it fell, she took another moment to compose herself. “If you could work that program of yours on this incident. Coordinate with Feeney, or McNab, or both. Any data you can get is going to help. I nailed the first nest this morning using whatever the hell you put together.”

“I’ll start right away.”

To her shock, he reached into the pocket of her coat. And he took out the gloves she’d forgotten she’d stuffed in there.

“Put these on. Your hands are cold. Once I have what I need out here,” he continued, “is there a place you want me to work?”

Since he’d pointed it out, she realized her hands were cold. Pulling on the gloves, she huffed out a breath that formed a thin cloud, blew away in a snap of wind. “If you can get to my office, you can use that. Or if you need more room, Peabody can get you a conference room.”

“Your office is fine. Otherwise, I’ll use the lab in EDD. I know my way around.”

“Yeah, you do. Looks like I owe you again.”

“Not this time.” He took her hand, squeezed it. “You have spare gloves in the dash box if you lose these. Take care of my cop.”

—

It took more than two hours to clear the scene, to interview witnesses, to take contact information. She left Jenkinson and Reineke to deal with the dregs. Whitney had already left the scene, to personally notify the fallen officer’s next of kin.

For a moment she just sat behind the wheel of her car, ordering her thoughts. Then, with no patience for knotted traffic, maxibuses, or anything else, hit the sirens.

“You’ll head up to EDD,” she told Peabody. “See if you can help in any way. The minute we have any target buildings, anything over seventy-five percent probability, I want detectives knocking on doors. Unless they’re working hotter than this, they’re all out there, working this. Can you coordinate that?”

“Yes, sir. I can take that.”

“I’m going to sit on Yancy. We need those sketches. I need to talk to Nadine, work her into pushing angles we want pushed. I’ll work with Morris, but I don’t think he or the dead are going to tell us anything we don’t know at this point. And with Mira, but same goes.”

She drove fiercely, adding vicious blares of her horn to her sirens when people didn’t get the hell out of her way fast enough.

“Here’s a puzzle, Peabody. What do a respected OB-GYN and a cop still green under the edges have in common? Besides being dead.”

“Why the cop, Dallas?”

“Because if you’re killing for sport, no matter how cocky you are, most will lay off cops. This isn’t sport. It’s a mission. Because he was the only head shot. We need to find out what connects Michaelson and Russo, and we need to find out fast.”

She pulled into the garage at Central, swung into her slot, braked hard. “Russo had just come back from his lunch break. Five minutes before, five minutes after, he’s not in that spot. That’s not a coincidence because—”

“Coincidences are bollocks,” Peabody finished. “I got the memo.”

“Fucking A, and according to his partner, they routinely took their break at that time, came back on duty at that time. A routine, Peabody, like Michaelson. None of the other victims had that routine. Only two out of the eight targeted had a routine, could be counted on to be where they were—that time, that place.”

“Wyman,” Peabody began.

“Was a regular at the rink, but she didn’t go on specific days, at specific times, the way Michaelson did. She had a looser routine.”