Apprentice in Death (In Death #43)(75)

“No, we’re five minutes out. I need a location for Mavis’s and Summerset’s ’links. They were both at this concert.”

“Christ. I’ll work it. Goddamn it.”

He cut her off. Eve did the only thing she could think of. She touched Roarke’s hand, squeezed briefly. Then prepared to deal with what came next.

“As soon as we find them, I need you, Feeney, McNab working that program. We want the nest. She won’t be there, but we want the nest.”

“I think he was taking Ivanna—Ivanna Liski. He said something about having dinner with her and broadening his musical horizons with this bloody concert. And I . . . I told him he should take Ivanna backstage to meet Mavis. He should see about arranging that.”

Delicate blonde, Eve thought, former ballerina—and former spy. And maybe former flame of Summerset. “So it’s likely they were both inside when this hit. We’ll find them.”

Seventh Avenue was chaos. Roarke cut across Thirty-Fifth, snaking through other vehicles and barricades while lights glared and sirens screamed.

She’d been in this chaos before, when the Cassandra group had blown up the arena in its crazed quest to destroy New York landmarks. And now, rebuilt, renewed, reopened, that resilience had been used as a target by another killer.

Should she have realized it? Anticipated it?

She shoved those thoughts aside as she and Roarke leaped out of opposite doors.

“Wait. They won’t let you through, and I need my field kit.”

She grabbed it, yanked out her badge to clip it to her coat, before the two of them bulled their way through the clamoring crowds pressed to the police line.

“Lieutenant. Jesus, Lieutenant, we got a hell of a mess here.”

“Hold the line, Officer, and start moving it back. I want this area cleared back to Sixth on the east, and Eighth to the west—two blocks north and south. How many victims?”

“I can’t tell you, sir. We came in on crowd control. I heard up to twenty, but I can’t say for sure.”

She kept moving through an area alive with cops, with MTs, with weeping civilians. And, she saw as they neared the arena, with the dead and the injured.

Copters circled overhead—police and media—and on the street, on the sidewalk, cops and medics fought to help the injured, to shield the dead.

To hold order when another strike could come from anywhere.

The world flashed blue and red from the police car lights, roared full of the terrible sound of screaming, and stank with the copper smell of blood.

“Ah, Christ.” Because they were shoulder to shoulder she felt the shudder move through Roarke. “He’s there. Over there, helping the medics.”

She saw him, too, the bony frame, the shock of gray hair, those thin hands smeared with blood as he knelt by a woman bleeding from the side, from a gash along her temple.

Her own chest shook as they veered toward him.

“Are you hurt?” Roarke dropped down beside Summerset, gripped his arm. “Tell me if you’re hurt.”

“No, we were inside. Just coming out. Just . . . I heard the screams. I saw—I need to stop this bleeding.” His voice was clipped, cold, but when he looked up, Eve saw both horror and grief. “Mavis and Leonardo are fine. Inside, still inside. I sent Ivanna back in to them.”

The back of Eve’s eyes burned, the inside of her throat, too. She could only nod. Then on a deep breath, she crouched, looked Summerset in the eye. “Turn on your ’link.”

“What?”

“You need to turn your ’link back on, in case I need to contact you. I’m going to need to talk to you later, in depth, but right now, just turn on your ’link, and keep doing what you’re doing. You’re in good hands,” she told the bleeding woman, who stared at her with eyes glassy from shock. “Good hands,” she repeated and pushed to her feet.

She turned, sucked in a good, steady breath. “You—you,” she snapped, snagged two uniforms at random. “I want a detail escorting ambulances and medivans to this location. I want a clear path for the medicals, in and out. Nothing, repeat, nothing and no one gets beyond Sixth, beyond Eighth, beyond Thirty-Sixth, beyond Thirty-Second who is not NYPSD or medical. Move it, do it. Now. And you.”

She whirled on two more. “You think gawking’s helping these people? Get inside, establish some order. No one comes out until I clear it. Move your asses.”

“The sergeant said to hold,” one began, and Eve sliced him with one sharp look, tapped her badge.

“What does this say?”

“‘Lieutenant.’ Sir.”

“The lieutenant just gave you an order.” She moved quickly toward an MT she recognized. “Can we move some of the minor injuries inside?”

“We could,” the MT said as she treated what appeared to be a broken leg. “But they’ve blocked it off.”

“I’m unblocking it. If you can spare a couple medics, they can handle the minor injuries inside. We’re working on clearing a path for transport.”

“Say hallelujah.”

“Do you know how many?”

The MT shook her head. “I counted a dozen dead, twice that injured. Could be more.”

“Dallas.”

She glanced over, shocked to see Berenski limping toward her, one eye swollen and bruised.