Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(44)

“When you’re ready, McNab and Callendar can run that from inside, and you move off.”

“Your man has a garage about a block away. We’ll go in there, sit awhile. Lowenbaum’s team is moving into position. One of them will use the apartment, two on the roof, and another two in another empty apartment in Roarke’s building. See the window of the suspect’s apartment?”

“Yeah, yeah. Privacy screened. I’m going to hit the mother’s place now. Jenkinson, you’re in charge here till I get back—sit tight. Peabody, I want constant reports. Roarke, you’re with me. I’ll be heading east, then south, on foot. I can be back here inside five minutes, so I need to know the first sighting on either suspect.”

She stepped out of the van, moved fast. The suspects could be back any minute—or not for hours. Any data she could dig up might pinpoint their next target. Even now they might be holed up in some hotel room, some flop, some empty office space, preparing to strike again.

Nothing fell out of the sky now as the ugly day headed toward a bitter evening. Streetlights shimmered on, cutting the gloom with chilly white pools of light. As she walked, she studied faces. Pedestrians hurrying home, or to meet up for drinks, to get in more shopping. Others huddled at a cart that smelled of soy dogs and really terrible coffee.

They could walk here, she thought, father and daughter, back to the apartment, out to grab a slice. They would have walked here at some point, from the townhouse to the apartment.

Had they plotted along the way? Who to kill and when?

A block and a half from Zoe Younger’s townhouse, Roarke stepped up beside her. “Lieutenant.”

“I want to hit the kid’s room. Whitney got the warrant for the whole place, but we’re going to focus on the girl’s room. It’s unlikely the rest of this family are involved, or she’d leave handy clues in the living area.”

“Understood.”

When he took her hand, she linked her fingers with his. On duty, yeah, but no cops around to see.

“We will take a pass at any and all electronics—and flag them for EDD.”

“I expect I’ll be entirely more useful there than tossing a teenage girl’s room.”

She frowned up at him as they swam across the crosswalk with the tide of people. “You were a teenage boy—there can’t be that much difference between male and female at that age.”

“Oh, only worlds, I imagine.” With her, he made the turn, walked up the five steps to the front right door of the pretty duplex. As he spoke, he took out his tools—quicker than her master, she thought, eyeing the security.

“You were a teenage girl.”

“Not so much, or only sort of.”

“As I was not so much, or only sort of a teenage boy, how well we suit. They have excellent security,” he added, sliding through it like a knife through warmed butter.

“We clear it first.” Eve drew her weapon. “Just in case.”

After his nod, they went through the door together.

“NYPSD,” she called out, sweeping left. “We’ve entered the premises duly warranted.”

“No one’s here—you can feel an empty house,” Roarke said. “Ah, there was a day when a B and E into an empty house was my favorite thing.”

“Now you get to do it legally.”

“Not nearly the same.”

While she agreed with the empty, she cleared the first level—living area, kitchen, dining, a home office, and a kind of family entertainment area.

The house smelled of the spicy rust-and-pumpkin-colored flowers on the dining room table. Some sort of board on the kitchen wall held kid art—weird stick figures, trees with blobs of green representing leaves. A kind of chart that listed duties—chores, she corrected—like clearing the table, setting it, making beds.

Beside the chart someone had pinned a Christmas photo. Zoe Younger, Lincoln Stuben, Zach Stuben, and Willow Mackie in a group in front of a festive tree, presents stacked beneath.

All smiled but Willow, who stared into the camera with hard green eyes and the faintest hint of a smirk.

“Arms folded.” Eve tapped the picture. “There’s defiance there. The boy? He looks happy enough to do handsprings for a few hours, and the parents look happy, content. Her? That’s a fuck-you stare.”

“Indeed it is, and I suspect Mira would add she’s separated herself—the folded arms, the bit of distance while the other three are all touching. Then again, fifteen? It’s an age, isn’t it, to consider your parents the enemy.”

“Hard for us to say. The ones we had were the enemy. But, on the surface anyway, it looks like these two worked to give happy and stable. The house is clean, but it’s not sterile or perfect. Kid-type cereal box on the counter, a couple dishes in the sink, the boy’s skids under a chair in the living area, somebody’s sweater on the back of a chair over there.”

He glanced over—hadn’t noticed. “You’re a wonder.”

“I’m a cop,” she corrected. “You’ve got this task chart—everybody does their share, and that’s probably a good thing. Kid’s weird drawings displayed. The family Christmas picture.”

She took one more look around. “Reads normal, except it isn’t. Under the surface, it isn’t.”