Brotherhood in Death

15

Eve gathered the cleaning team, and got the first buzz from the “retired” Frankie.

“We started on the master—it’s big as a house on its own, especially with the two bathrooms and all the fuss. Started with the bathrooms, and the two sitting rooms. And Sila said why didn’t I go ahead and work on the baby’s room, so I was just about to when she came down to let you in, then you called us off.”

“Okay. Anything strike you?”

“Not there, no, but when you called us off, I thought, Why, something’s going on here, so I poked into the guest suite—the gold one. That’s the big one, opposite end of the house from the master. And it was set up.”

“Set up how?”

She curled her lip, just a little. “For what we’ll call a rendezvous. There’s a bottle of French champagne in a silver bucket up there—sitting in water now, as the ice melted. Got two fancy flutes, and some strawberries been dipped in chocolate. White and dark, though white’s not really chocolate, is it?”

“It’s okay,” Eve heard herself say.

“There’s a rose on the pillow on one side of the bed, and since I was poking, I looked in the drawer of the nightstand, and there’s what you’d call adult play toys, and the like. I’d say the mister was expecting someone not his wife, like he has before.”

“Before?”

“Twice since we’ve been working here I’ve done that room. Both times when we knew the missus was away for a day or two that room was used. The bed was used—and I’ve been doing beds long enough to know when somebody’s had relations in that bed. There’d be that, and the bucket, the empty bottle, the glasses, and so on. The setup. Bathroom would’ve been used, too. Nobody used the bed or the bath in there this time, but it was set up for relations.”

“Mama.” Sila shook her head. “You take the cake and a slice of pie.”

“It’s a terrible thing happened to Senator Mira—and now this other man. I know because while we were waiting upstairs I had Dara look on her handheld to see if there’s been another murder, and there was. A terrible thing, though I didn’t like Senator Mira as far as I could spit rocks. But a man shouldn’t be killed, and killed so mean, just because he’s a prick.”

Dara giggled, then slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”

“No problem. Mrs. Trent, that’s really helpful. Did you notice anything else?”

Frankie sucked air in her nose, furrowed her brow. “Well, I don’t know how much help, but I think he changed out of his business suit when he came home. It was tossed in the chair in the master, and his good shoes were under the chair. Nobody in this house puts a thing away proper. I can’t tell you what he put on, but it looks to me like he came home, took himself a shower in the master bath, and put on fresh clothes. Then he went about setting up for relations in that guest suite. I guess he doesn’t think it counts if he doesn’t take them into the bed he shares with his wife. Put your hand over your mouth in advance, Dara, because I’m going to say a man who cheats is a prick, but I hope he doesn’t get killed for it.”

Since Eve thought the same, she couldn’t argue.

She asked a few more questions, just to see if something else popped up. Then let them go.

Peabody joined Eve in the hallway.

“I got ahold of the wife,” Peabody began. “Played it light, and she’s too involved in her morning massage to clue in. Plus, dumb as a brick, which I’m pretty sure is an insult to bricks. She says ‘Freddy’ will be joining her tomorrow or maybe the day after. She needed a little alone time first. Alone means a house full of staff, her personal assistant, the two nannies, and her masseur. His name is Sven.”

“If her husband ends up dead, she’ll have plenty of alone time. Frankie Trent says he uses a guest suite upstairs for sex when his wife’s away, and it’s set up for same now. Unused, but set up.”

She gave a come-ahead head jerk and started up. “She said twice in the six months they’ve worked here, she’s cleaned up that room while he’s supposedly having his alone time.”

“Jeez, why doesn’t he go to a hotel for it?”

“My guess? He thinks this is more discreet, and he’s lazy. Woman comes here, he wines her and bangs her, then she goes home. He just rolls himself down to his own room, sleeps in his own bed.”

“How does anyone live with all this red?” Peabody scowled down at the red carpet. “And all the gold braid? Oh, and I wandered into what I guess is the formal dining room. All the walls are mirrored, and so’s the ceiling. How can you eat when you’re watching yourself eat? I don’t know how—”

“Screaming Jesus Christ!”

At Eve’s shout—nearly a shriek—Peabody drew her weapon. “What? What?”

“In there. Oh, Christ on a catapult, they’re everywhere.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Peabody turned, half expecting a room filled with giant, hairy spiders. Hairy, red-eyed spiders.

And faced a room filled with dolls.

Baby dolls, glamour dolls, smiling dolls, crying dolls. Dolls en pointe in tutus and dolls in swaddling clothes. Dolls with tiaras, dolls with fur coats, dolls in native costumes of every culture and land.

Dolls as small as her hand. Dolls the size of a healthy toddler.

Peabody liked dolls fine—had played with her share and never quite understood her partner’s deep phobia. But the sight of them, of hundreds of them, had her backing up a pace.

“I . . . think we should close the door.”

“I think we should lock it. I think we should barricade it. That one.” Eve pointed. Slowly. “That one over there on the horse thing. I think it blinked.”

Peabody cast a leery eye toward the cowgirl doll with her smiling face and pink hat. “She did not. You’re weirding me out.”

“You’re seeing what I’m seeing, and I’m weirding you out? Who does this? What kind of sick, twisted mind has a room full of dead-eyed little humans on display?”

“I don’t want to know.” Holding her breath, Peabody reached out—slowly, slowly—then pulled the door shut with a loud snap.

“That many of them?” Eve said. “Oh, they can get out if they want.”

“Stop it. Just stop it.” Peabody hustled down the hall, and kept her weapon out until she was two yards away. “Don’t say anything more about them. Nothing. Sex and murder. Let’s just think about sex and murder.”

Eve walked into the guest suite—cast one glance over her shoulder (just in case)—then got down to business.

“Frankie isn’t wrong. Betz was expecting sex company. Unopened champagne, two glasses, the strawberries, rose on the bed.”

She opened the drawer of the bedside table. “Vibrators, a variety, glides in various flavors. Condoms, also flavored. Nipple clamps—jeweled.”

“Ouch.”

“Some get off on the ouch. Velvet cuffs. And, some Erotica, some Stay Up, other chemical boosts. Illegal ones mixed in. But they never got up here. Took him out downstairs, easy and quick, I bet. Stun to the groin. No bashing him around here. They learned that the first time. Stun him, get him out of the house and into their transportation. He let them in. Maybe he had a double scheduled, maybe he thought he got lucky. Maybe they just caught him off guard, but he let them in, and they took him out.”

“If they took him last night, they took him while they still had Wymann.”

“Yeah, they’re the ones who had a twofer.” Eve thought of the big, gaudy chandelier in the entranceway. “They’ll want to string him up tonight.”

“Following pattern, they’ll bring him back here.”

“When and if they do, we’ll be all over them. We’re going silent on Betz. No chatter, no media, no alerts. Meanwhile, let’s see if we can find out the name of his date for last night.”

They started for the master suite, giving the doll room a wide berth. The doorbell pealed.

“I’ll take it—probably EDD.”

Peabody stopped dead. “You’re going to leave me up here? Alone? With them?”

“You’re armed. They probably aren’t. Check his nightstand, his closet, and his bathroom. If he’s hiding anything from his wife, those are likely the places they’ll be.”

She checked the screen downstairs, saw McNab with his long tail of blond hair under a big, wooly cap with striped earflaps. And to her surprise, her former partner and the captain of EDD. Feeney, his wiry ginger hair uncovered, and his hands deep in the pockets of the magic coat she’d given him.

She hit the locks, opened the door. “Didn’t figure I’d rate the brass.”

“Gotta get out in the field now and then, kid. And with you shooting for three in three days, you rate. What the hell kind of door is this?”

“Wild to the mega,” McNab said, “and deep into bizarro.”

“It’s just the entrance into bizarro. There’s a room upstairs that’d curl McNab’s hair.”

“S and M?” Feeney asked.

“Dolls. A zillion dolls.”

Feeney hissed through his teeth. “Sick fucks.” Hands still in his pockets, Feeney lifted his droopy eyes to the gold chandelier. “That’s where they’d want to hang him. Right over those weird fat fish. Good security. No forced entry on the other two, right?”

“None, and unlikely here. You can clear that, but here’s the rundown as I see it.”

While she briefed them, McNab went over the security on the front entrance.

“Crotch tattoos and sidepieces.” Feeney shrugged. “It’s a stretch to sex club—more a rape club. But you got two of them done the way they were done? Somebody’s really pissed off.”

“They start off stunning them in the balls, Feeney, and sodomize them using the ever-popular hot poker. That’s more than really pissed.”

“Can’t argue. It’s got sex all over it, and it don’t feel like any of that woman scorned crap. Me and the boy here will take the electronics. You got a club, you got a roster or rules put down somewhere.”

“Nobody came through the front without the codes,” McNab told them. “I’ll check the other doors, the windows. She-Body upstairs?”

“Yeah—no ass-grabbing. Like I said, he was expecting company, and it wasn’t the first time. We need to cross off break-in, but he let her in—or them. So he knew at least the one he was planning on sexing, but she didn’t worry him. He knew about Edward Mira, had to. But he wasn’t worried.”

“They got him? He’s worried now. He got a home office?” Feeney asked. “I’ll start there.”

“Third floor, according to the cleaning crew. I haven’t been through yet. Let me check with Peabody, and I’ll find you. I want to look at his personal spaces.”

She found Peabody in Betz’s closet.

“More sex stuff, both nightstands. His and hers goodie drawers,” Peabody said. “Makes me think the stuff in the guest room is reserved for women other than his wife.”

“Well, that’s delicate of him.”

“He’s got a closet comp—wardrobe in categories—and I haven’t finished, but I’m not finding any evidence he packed for a trip. There’s a notation that he removed black silk boxers, gray twill trousers, a navy blue cashmere crew neck sweater, gray loafers, and navy blue cashmere socks. The comp says those items came out at six-sixteen P.M., yesterday. There’s also a jewelry safe. It’s locked.”

“We’ll have McNab or Feeney take a look.”

“Feeney’s here?”

“McNab’s on doors and windows, Feeney’s starting in Betz’s office. If you’ve got this, I’m going to take the office, any place else he might claim as just his.”

“I got this.” Stepping back, Peabody fisted her hands on her hips, turned a circle. “I keep thinking there should be some hidey-hole. If he’s into something bad, he wouldn’t leave anything about it in his workplace, right? I mean, less likely to leave it where some nosy somebody might stumble on it. And here? He’d want it hidden away from his wife. She was a sidepiece before, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So cheat with me, cheat on me. That’s my thinking. I figure she probably gets into his stuff now and then, just checking. Or even if she doesn’t maybe he’d figure she might. So where’s she going to look?”

“His personal spaces,” Eve agreed, and frowning, studied the room-sized closet. “False wall, false drawer, hidden floor access.”

“If it’s here, I haven’t found it yet, but I’m going through with that in mind.”

“Good thinking.”

“I’m not checking in that creepy doll room.” Face set, Peabody swiped a hand through the air. “I draw the line.”

“He doesn’t strike me as a guy who plays with dolls. That’s her space.”

“Just so we’re clear.”

“I’m on the third floor. If we need more hands and eyes, I’ll pull in Baxter and Trueheart.”

“Maybe you could tap Roarke—if he has some free time. If there’s any hidey-hole, he’d find it.”

“I’ll keep that in my back pocket.”

If there was a secret panel, drawer, safe, hole, Eve thought as she climbed to the third floor, Roarke would find it, and quicker than any cop.

But she couldn’t tap him, ask him to toss off whatever world-shaking meeting he might be in to follow her partner’s hunch. A good hunch, Eve thought, but still only that.

But like Peabody, she’d look with that in mind.

Betz’s office space proved as ornate as the rest. The desk must’ve been custom-made, as it had the frisky cherubs carved into its heavy, dark wood. The top was a marble slab with a lot of silver squiggles and flecks running through the black. Behind it sat a throne-like leather chair in bright gold. The combination put her teeth on edge.

If this decorator Roarke hired suggested anything remotely close to this scheme, Eve decided she’d deserve a boot out the window. She’d just keep that in mind, too.

Feeney sat on the throne, looking rumpled, wrinkled, and normal.

“This butt-ugly desk has two locking drawers. Neither locked now.”

“Is that so?”

“It looks to me like somebody riffled through them pretty good.”

She crossed to him over red carpet so thick she wondered it didn’t suck the boots off her feet. Both bottom drawers were fitted with keypad locks. Feeney had them both open.

“Paper files?”

“Looks like house and personal stuff in one, work stuff in the other. Finances, insurance, repairs, like that. Lot of people don’t trust digital, keep paper backups. You’re one of them.”

“Yeah.” She fingered through. “Either he’s disorganized and messy, or someone went through these, at least superficially. Looking for what?”

“Can’t say, but the desk comp was riffled with, too. Full scan and search executed at nineteen-twelve.”

“He changed clothes about an hour before that—closet comp—getting ready for his date. Date comes in, with a friend because there’s two of them, and likely three. Stuns him, maybe roughs him up a little. We didn’t see anything like this at Wymann’s, but I’m going back, looking again. What did they want here?”

She circled the office with its hard colors, elaborate space.

“Nothing to find in the Spring Street house, and they can’t get into the Mira penthouse.”

“Tortured him.”

She turned back, nodded. “Yeah, and maybe he gave them something on Betz. Betz has this or that. Maybe, like you said, that roster, those rules, something on this brotherhood of theirs. But what’s the difference if they’re going to kill them anyway? It’s not like they’re looking for evidence. They’ve already tried and convicted.”

She looked behind art of strange, long-bodied dogs and rearing horses.

Finding nothing, anywhere, she looked back at Feeney as he busied himself checking ’link transmissions.

“You cheated on your wife.”

He kept working. “Not if I wanna live past Tuesday.”

“Think like a cheat. You end up marrying one of the women you cheated with. You’re still cheating—it’s what you do. Do you keep anything to do with your sidepieces, and more, anything to do with something that would turn a woman murderous, where the current wife could find it?”

“Me? I’d have a separate account she didn’t know about, maybe a bank box, too. And, if I’m rich like this asshole, I’ve got a place she doesn’t know about. If I had a place when I was cheating with her, it’s gone, sold, done when I’m cheating on her. Anything I did cheating with her, I switch up now.”

“A place. A place,” she murmured. “Like Edward Mira had the hotel. His wife knew he cheated, so he didn’t have to worry about it. Wymann wasn’t married—I’m still waiting for Roarke to tell me if he used the hotel. We’ll do the same with Betz. But, a place. A place just for sex. You can only have it here when your wife’s out of town, and you really like cheating.

“He’d need a key, a swipe, codes, something. And he wouldn’t keep it in a desk drawer, even a locked one, where his wife might get to it.”

She opened a door, looked into a red and silver powder room, turned and studied the bar in the corner of the office.

“I bet I know where she doesn’t go.”

Eve walked out, jogged downstairs, back into the master.

She found Peabody and McNab beside the huge red (naturally) bed with its avalanche of pillows. They had a look in their eyes, but fortunately for them nobody’s hands were on anybody’s ass.

“I don’t think anybody broke in a second-story window.”

“Nobody broke in anywhere,” McNab told her. “Two other doors on the main, and neither of them have been opened for twenty-six hours. The windows haven’t been opened for weeks. I figured I’d take the ’links and comps in here.”

“Is that what you figured?”

He grinned. “Abso-true. And hang with She-Body while I’m at it.”

Saying nothing, she walked over, looked into the hers bathroom.

As she suspected, it was filled with frills and a carnival full of pink.

The cleaning crew had started there, so fresh pink towels and white towels with pink edging were stacked on a painted bench or hung on a standing rack. Surfaces—all pink and white—shined, and the air gave off a faint whiff of citrus. Jars of various girl products stood on the long counter between two pink vessel sinks. The faucets were silver mermaids, and that motif was repeated in the triple-glass shower.

In addition to the divan—pink-and-white stripes—there was a curvy vanity; drawers full of creams, lotions, enhancements; a closet filled with various robes and slippers; a mini AutoChef and friggie built into the wall.

The toilet rated its own little room with mermaid art and a wall screen.

She stepped back out. “Have you been in there?”

“Yeah. Any woman would kill for a bathroom that size all her own. But she showed how even that mag space can be ruined.”

“Her side. Her bath, her closet/dressing room, her sitting room, her side of the bed, her dresser—the one with all the pink bottles. Right?”

“Yeah. His side.” Peabody jerked a thumb. “You know they’ve got a toddler, but you don’t see any kid stuff in here. Not even a stray teddy bear. It’s a little sad.”

“When your nanny has a helper, you don’t spend a lot of time with the kid, and this space is adults only. With a definite line of demarcation. Anyway, you’re the woman of the house.”

“I’m the queen of my castle,” Peabody agreed, and got a wink from McNab.

“This house, Peabody. Keep up. You’ve got staff and servants, and three floors to decorate into terrible death. Where’s the one room you don’t go into?”

“The doll room. Okay, that’s just me. She must like dolls. Well, from my brief conversation with her, I’d cross off the laundry facilities. That’s staff territory. And she probably doesn’t go into the kitchen much.”

“Try this. What’s the one place he goes you don’t go?”

“I . . . his bathroom!” Peabody shot her two index fingers in the air. “She’s all pink and shiny in hers, and his is full of man. What woman wants to go into a bathroom after a guy?”

“We do all right,” McNab said.

“Abso-true.” But when his back was turned again, Peabody rolled her eyes at Eve. “You’re thinking potential hidey-hole.”

“Let’s check it out.”

If the hers bathroom was an explosion of pink and fuss, the his was a study in desperate masculinity. Black tile with red flashes covered the floors, the walls. The odd addition of a bar—red, with cherub carvings—along one wall stood before a portrait of a zaftig reclining woman eating a fat purple plum. The black counter held a large square of red sink with a wolf’s head faucet that would vomit out the water.

Shelves held bottles and bowls, the manly versions of creams and lotions and oils, as they were all cased in red or black leather.

The rest of the wolf pack occupied the shower, where they’d spit out water from the showerhead and jets.

The drying tube had a padded bench, in case its occupant grew too tired and needed to rest in the two minutes it took to dry most humans.

He had a vanity of his own, fashioned to resemble a desk. Peabody started there.

“I think this may be uglier than hers, but it’s neck and neck,” Peabody said. “Wow, he’s got as many face and body enhancements in here as she does—almost. Big on the tanners and bronzers, and hair products. This vanity’s an eyesore, Dallas, but it’s well-constructed. I’m not finding anything out of proportion, nothing that looks like a secret compartment.”

“How about the bar?” Eve circled around it. “You’ve got a good eye for compartments.”

It was how Peabody had first come to her notice, as a uniform finding a hidey-hole in a murderer’s apartment.

“Well. Again, really good work wasted on the ugly.”

Peabody swiveled on the vanity stool, studied the bar from that perspective. “All that carving—I mean it mirrors what they’ve got all through the house, but it’s also the kind of thing that can hide a mechanism. And a cabinetmaker this good? He could hide one really well. My dad’s done some totally mag hideys.”

She angled her head as Eve ran her hands over cherubs. “Maybe microgoggles would help—if there’s anything to see.”

“Go get some from the field kits.”

Eve hunkered down, putting aside how odd it was to rub her fingers all over fat, naked butts.

Wouldn’t be on the front face, she decided. What if someone inadvertently hit the release? If there was one.

She straightened, moved around the back.

Glasses and mixers and liquor on shelves, and a single cabinet with the carved front. She opened it, peered in at the ice machine, the wine friggie.

Closed it again, opened it. Closed it.

“Got the goggles.”

“Why have a door in front of the ice-maker thing, the wine friggie? Anytime you want ice, you have to open the door. Everything else is on open shelves. Handy.”

“Could just be the design. Or he didn’t want the mechanics to show.”

“Maybe. But how deep are these units? They wouldn’t be the depth of the bar, right?”

Now Peabody hunkered down beside her. “Dad and Zeke have made some nice bars—fully outfitted, custom. One this size . . . Seems like the ice deal wouldn’t need that much depth.”

Eve closed the door again, wiggled her fingers for the goggles. With them on, she began to scan inch by inch.

“This one.” Eyes huge behind the goggles, Peabody gripped a cherub butt between her fingers. It turned fractionally.

“Why does it turn and not open any damn thing?”

“A code or a pattern,” Peabody muttered, “like a puzzle. Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen this kind of thing. We have to figure out which ones to turn, in what order. It’s pretty damn clever. It’s really good work.”

“I’m getting a hammer.”

“No!” Sincerely appalled, Peabody scooted over. “I can figure it out. Give me a little room. You can’t bust up this kind of work.”

“It’s fucking ugly.”

“It’s still art. Here! Here’s another. I bet there’s three. A combo of three. We’ve got this.”

Eve would’ve preferred the hammer, but since she didn’t have one handy, she let Peabody tap and twist and rub cherubs.

“Hey, Dallas?” McNab stepped to the doorway. “I’ve got a transmission from Marshall Easterday, unanswered. It came in today, at eight-fifty-two.”

“Right after we talked to him,” Eve said. “About the time he went upstairs ‘to rest.’”

“He doesn’t sound restful. He says it’s urgent they speak, and says he’s tried his personal ’link, tried the office. Guy’s sweating scared, LT.”

“He should be.” Eve started to push up, to listen for herself, when something clicked and Peabody let out a “Woo!” When she opened the door, the shelves holding the ice machine and friggie slowly swung open.

“Frosted,” McNab said, coming in to hunker down with them.

As they were hip to hip, Eve caught his scent and thought of cherry lollipops.

A small silver box sat in the hidden compartment. Eve pulled it out, stood, set it on the bar top.

“That’s old,” Peabody said. “Like antique old. I know it’s locked, Dallas, but you can’t just smash it.”

“McNab, get my field kit, would you?”

“Sure.” He rose, turned, grinned. “Hey, Captain, my girl found a secret compartment in the john bar, and we got ourselves an antique box.”

“What kind of sick fun house is this?” Feeney wondered as he looked around. Curious, he poked at a power pad. The black tiles shimmered into mirrors. “Oh, hell no,” he said and deactivated. “Dug out an e-mail from Marshall Easterday on the office comp.”

“From this morning,” Eve said.

“Yeah. Copied to an Ethan MacNamee. Marked urgent. ‘My brothers,’” he quoted, “‘beware. Contact me immediately. Seek safety. Come home.’”

“‘Come home,’” Eve murmured.

“Got your field kit.” McNab brought it in, set it beside the box. “We could scan that thing and work on getting it open back at Central.”

“Give me a minute.”

From the field kit, Eve took a small leather wallet (a gift from Roarke), opened it, and selected lock picks.

“Extra frosted,” was McNab’s opinion.

“We’ll see about that.” She went to work and, as Roarke had taught her, used her ears, her instincts as much as the feel.

“Step back.” Annoyed, she rolled her shoulders. “You’re crowding me. Just stop breathing all over me.”

Maybe Roarke would have had it open in a finger snap, but she felt enormous satisfaction when after three struggling minutes, the lock fell.

“New skills,” Peabody said.

“I’ve been practicing.” Eve opened the lid, looked at the two large, old-fashioned keys and the two twenty-first-century key swipes resting on dark blue velvet.

“Little hidey-hole to hold the keys to bigger ones. Old doors,” Eve decided. “Those are too big for anything but doors—I think. And new doors.”

She used tweezers to pick up one of the swipes, turned it. “No logo, no name or code. Probably a code buried in it, right? Can you get that out, Feeney?”

“I’d have to turn in my bars if I couldn’t.”

McNab pulled a scanner out of one of the dozen pockets in his neon orange baggies, offered it to Feeney.

“Let’s have a look.”

Feeney ran it, frowned. “Got a shield, and we can break that down. This kind of code and protection? It’s probably a bank box or a secured area. He’s a chem guy, right? So maybe a secured area, lab deal. Let’s see the other.”

He repeated the process. “Shielded, but thinner—this isn’t the high-security level.”

He did something to McNab’s scanner that made it whine, picked up and put on Eve’s goggles. He scanned the first swipe again.

“Security code for the swiper. And . . . Can just make it out. LNB. FKB. Ah . . . 842.”

“FKB—Franklin Kyle Betz. LNB. That’s not the name of his company. Maybe a bank?”

Feeney nodded. “More likely. Too simple below the shield for a high security area. So, bank box, I’m thinking. Liberty National’s my best guess. They got branches everywhere.”

“And the number, that would be the box.” Eve nodded, looked ahead. “We’re going to need another warrant. Peabody, tag Reo. We need authorization, enough to pry out whether or not Betz has a box in the branches we’re going to be contacting. And the authorization to go into said box when we locate it. What about the other one?” she asked Feeney.

“Back up once. We take this in, we maybe can ID the branch. It’s too deep an embed for a handheld. Save you making half a million contacts.”

“Do that,” Eve agreed.

“And this one.” He repeated the process. “Got his initials again, and numbers: 5206.”

“Just that? But not another bank?”

“Doesn’t read bank to me. Maybe a mail drop or a locker. Or an address. People lose their swipe, they cancel, get another. What you don’t want is data embedded that leads somebody where it goes so they can use it before you cancel. We’ll take them back to the shop, see what else we can dig out.”

He looked back in the box at the keys. Studied them with his basset-hound eyes, rubbed his chin. “Those? That’s a whole different kettle. Lab might be able to tell you what kind of lock, give you the age. But location’s on you.”

“Yeah. I’ve got some ideas on that.”

She pulled Baxter and Trueheart in, continued to search the house while she waited for them. But her gut told her they’d already hit the mother lode.

She let them in herself. “Give me what you’ve got.”

“It’s not much. Lots of shock, and a few tears at Wymann’s offices. We got the warrant and Callendar and another e-geek came in to take the electronics. The admin says she thinks the biographer approached Wymann, maybe at a party. He made the follow-up appointment himself, had the admin put it in his schedule. She herself never saw the woman or spoke with her. It seems spur-of-the-moment.”

“Any sense he was dipping in the office pool?”

“Nope. But Trueheart turned his earnest young detective’s face on the admin and eased a couple names out of her. No cross with your first vic’s ladies. We talked to both of them, and the alibis look solid.”

He looked around. “Is that a koi pond? Who has a koi pond twelve steps inside their front door? Then again, who has a fat baby orgy on their front door?”

“You haven’t seen half of it. Here’s where we stand.”

She gave him the progress.

“I’ve got to see this bathroom.”

“You’ll have time. The two of you need to sit on the house in case the killers decide to bring him back and hang him over the koi pond. I need to get back in the field, check out a couple leads. Most likely is they bring him back in after dark, but you sit on it, and I’m getting backup on the off chance they come before I can get back.”

She held up a finger when her ’link sounded. “Dallas,” she began, pacing away.

When she paced back, she shouted, “Peabody!”

“I don’t get having fish in the house.” Baxter stood looking down at koi. “It’s unnatural.”

“I used to win a goldfish every summer at the county fair. Ringtoss,” Trueheart said. “It never made it through the fall.”

“See, unnatural.”

“You want unnatural? There’s a room full of dolls on the second floor.”

“Well, don’t they have a little girl?” Trueheart began.

“If a kid walked in that room, her screams would be heard from here to Queens, and she’d be traumatized for life. I’m saying hundreds of dolls. Staring dolls. Staring-at-the-door dolls. Waiting dolls.”

“Jesus, Dallas.” Muttering it, Baxter shuddered.

“They’re up there. We’re heading out,” she said as Peabody came down the stairs. “Detective Bennet cleared the path to the social worker.”

“Mike Bennet? Nice guy,” Baxter said.

“Sit on the house. Maybe feed those fish something. Nobody’s been here since yesterday. Maybe they’ll start eating each other.”

“Staring dolls, cannibal fish. What the hell kind of place is this?”

“Sit tight. Stay alert. We don’t want to add dead guy swinging over the cannibal fish.”

“Did she give Mike any names?” Peabody asked, winding her long, long scarf as they started to the car.

“No, and he doesn’t think she will. But she might give us a yes or no when we show her photos.”

“That’s a fine line.”

“What I get is she likes him—that nice-guy vibe. And she really respects his future mothers-in-law. We push on how these people used Anson to kill Wymann, and if we don’t stop them, will kill Betz, we’ve got a decent shot at getting a nod if we show her the right face.”

The minute she was in the car, Peabody ordered the seat warmer. “Reo says hey, and that she’ll have a warrant for us when we get the locations on the swipes. You never said what ideas you had about the old keys.”

“Old keys, old doors. These guys go back to old times. Group house. Maybe they’ve still got it. Or another. A place they get together, as brothers.”

“If so, and Betz went to all that trouble to hide the keys, it follows they go there, as brothers, to do stuff he doesn’t want his wife to know about.”

“If the senator had keys, he wouldn’t bother hiding them. We’ll get another warrant to go through his apartment, since it’s easy money his wife won’t cooperate. If Wymann had keys, we didn’t look in the right place, with the right eye. We’re going to need to have this Ethan MacNamee picked up, arrange a ’link or holo interview.”

“Senator Fordham?”

“Not one of them, but we’ll leave his security detail to watch him, in case he’s just a late entry. And let’s get the file on the suicide: William Stevenson.”

She answered the dash ’link when she noted Roarke’s display. “Hey.”

“I thought you’d want to know, security did the run-through at the hotel. Wymann has never registered, and doesn’t show up on any feed in the last year.”

“Okay. How about Frederick Betz?”

Roarke gave her a quiet stare. “Why don’t you contact Lloyd Kowalski, at the Palace, and ask him whatever you like. Your middleman on this is a bit busy today.”

“Sure, thanks. Just so you know, I didn’t tap you when we were after a hidey-hole, or when we had a locked box. Peabody found the hole, I picked the lock.”

“I’m so proud of both of you. Don’t skip lunch again, and if you need me I’ll be much more free after three.”

“Okay. Might need a copter and a pilot.”

“Now, that’s so much more fun than talking to Kowalski. Let me know. Later,” he added and clicked off.

“Copter? Pilot?”

“Group house—if it’s still standing, I want a look at it once we find it. Maybe those keys fit a door there, maybe they don’t. But I’d like to see it either way. Once we find out where the hell it is.”

“I can dig it up—it’ll take some time unless one of them owned or owns it. Maybe Mr. Mira knows.”

Eve let out a sigh, and once again went on the hunt for a parking space. “Yeah. He might know. We’ll ask before we dig.”

—

Suzanne Lipski had a cramped little office space in a dilapidated building that housed a rape crisis center. The center did its best, Eve imagined, with whatever funding it could scrape up, to offer support, information, medical and emotional assistance to victims. The walls of that space—one smaller than her division at Central—held soothing and uplifting posters. Calm water, misty forests, sunny beaches. And a bulletin board full of emergency numbers, counseling information, support group information.

Eve stopped, studied a flyer—a pretty summer meadow under a perfect blue sky—for Inner Peace.

“Bang,” she murmured.

Lipski sat at a battered, overburdened metal desk on a squeaky swivel chair. She had no window, but a pot of greenery thrived on an ancient file cabinet under some sort of grow light.

She was a bone-thin woman of about sixty, with a messily curling mop of stone-gray hair. Her face was long, narrow, and brown as a cashew. She had dark eyes that told Eve the woman had seen it all, and was fully expecting to see it all again before she was done.

“We appreciate you seeing us,” Eve began.

“Mike’s persuasive. You’re doing your job, and I don’t fault you for it. In fact, thanks for your service, sincerely. But I have to do mine. The women who come here, to the support groups I head, to the shelters I endorse, they’re my priority and my responsibility. They’ve been raped, beaten, abused, had their security stripped from them. And too often, the law and society strips them all over again.”

Eve wasn’t going to argue, as too often it held true.

“The women I’m looking for have beaten, tortured, sodomized, and murdered two men. I believe they have another, and will end him by tonight. Whatever happened to them doesn’t justify these actions.”

“You don’t know what might have happened to them.”

Eve set photographs of the two victims on the desk. “This isn’t justice served.”

Lipski sat back, sighed. “These men. Powerful, influential, wealthy. Does it matter to you what they might have done to engender this sort of rage?”

“It matters. And if they raped their murderers, I would have done everything within the law to bring them to justice.”

“‘Within the law.’” Lipski pointed a long, bony finger. “I believe in the law, Lieutenant, Detective. I couldn’t sit here if I didn’t. But there are times, and too many, when I believe the law is cold and hard and blind. And still, if I knew who’d done this I would try to convince them to stop, to turn themselves in.”

“The first thing I’m going to tell you, and look at me,” Eve demanded. “Look at me and hear what I’m telling you. If you know, or you figure out who’s doing this, you do not contact them, do not approach them. What they’re doing is done with a rage so cold it would turn on you. I believe they have three more targets, and they won’t stop until they’re finished, they won’t stop because you reason with them, sympathize with them.”

With her jaw set, Lipski peered up at Eve. “And what of those targets? If you stop them, if you lock them up for what they’ve done, what of the men they targeted?”

“If these men raped the women I lock up? If they abused and raped them, I don’t care if they’re as powerful, influential, and wealthy as God, I will bring them down.”

Eve set her hands on the battered desk, leaned in. “But these women will kill again, and again. Now that they’ve gotten a taste for retribution, what’s to stop them from targeting other men? This one raped, this one tuned up his girlfriend, this one might have raped. Is that what you serve here? You get raped, go after the rapist and kill him?”

“No, that’s not what we serve here. But I believe in violence.”

“Hey. Me, too.”

For the first time the faintest smile cracked the stern, thin face. “Despite what we do, you and I, seeing, dealing with, living with violence every day of our lives, we believe in using it to protect and defend.”

“This isn’t for protection. This isn’t for defense.”

“If these men raped the women who killed them, their deaths protect women they would have raped.”

“Are we condemning people for crimes not yet committed? I’m not here to debate with you over what rape does to the body, to the mind, to the spirit. I’m here about murder.

“Charity Downing, Lydia Su, Carlee MacKensie, Allyson Byson, Asha Coppola, Lauren Canford. Do you know any of these women?”

Lipski’s chin jutted up while her arms folded over her bony chest. “I can’t and won’t disclose any confidential information about any woman who has come into this center.”

“The support groups. Cecily Anson and Anne Vine volunteer in some of the groups you’re associated with. Ms. Anson’s name was used to lure this man.” Eve jabbed a finger on the crime scene photo of Wymann.

“Her time, her compassion, her generosity have been twisted into a tool for someone’s revenge.”

“And I’m appalled.” Lipski pressed her thin lips together, and genuine anger flared in her eyes. “I’m talking to you now because using them pisses me off. CeCe and Annie are two of the kindest people I know. And still, if one of these women attended one of their groups, they’re under no obligation to give their name, and even when names are used, we only use the first name. Anonymity is an essential brick in the wall, Lieutenant. Added to it, I simply don’t know everyone who attends the groups. There aren’t enough hours in the day to tend to all.”

Eve glanced at Peabody.

“Maybe you’d recognize a face,” Peabody began, and took out photos. “Um. I’m a Free-Ager.”

Lipski lifted her brows, smiled more fully. “A Free-Ager cop. Rare.”

“I walk a line, I guess. But one thing I know from how I was raised, and from the job. Cold-blooded revenge? It doesn’t heal, Ms. Lipski. It only deepens the wound. The women who are doing this aren’t going to find peace. They aren’t going to erase the pain they may have endured by ending lives. If they’re not stopped, they’re never going to get over what was done to them. So . . .”

She held up Lauren Canford’s photo, then Asha Coppola’s.

Eve saw a kind of relief settle into Lipski’s face, which remained when Peabody offered Allyson Byson.

“I don’t believe I’ve seen any of those women before.”

“I have a few more.”

Peabody held up Lydia Su’s ID shot.

Eve figured Lipski probably played a solid game of poker. But her skills weren’t good enough to completely mask the quick awareness. She waited, saw something similar come with Charity Downing.

She started to speak, then saw something else when Peabody offered Carlee MacKensie. That was both an instant of puzzlement, and, Eve thought, deep sorrow.

“You recognized the last three,” Eve said.

“I can’t discuss this with you.” But that acknowledgment remained in the dark eyes as she spoke. “Even if you get a warrant.”

“I’m not going to get a warrant. I could threaten to arrest you for obstruction. I could threaten to charge you with accessory after the fact if you contact any of these women. I’m not going to do that, either. But I’m going to tell you, again, if you do contact them, they’ll kill the man they have immediately, and very likely flee. You’ll live with that death on your hands. What I intend to do is to bring them in, to prevent them from killing again, and to listen to their story.”

“I don’t and won’t condone murder.” Lipski stared down at the dead. “I don’t and won’t condone this level of retribution. But the crimes committed will carry a hard, long punishment. Victims victimized—by their own actions—yes, by their own. But also by the law.”

“The law may be hard and cold—and I can be the same. It may be blind. I’m not. I need to hear them out. You know, and I know, my Free-Ager partner’s right. What they’re doing will only spread the wound until the wound is all they have. Let me do my job.”

“I’ll contact no one, my word on that—because I do know what’s right. This, what was done, this isn’t right. But when and if you arrest anyone, I want you to contact me. I want to be there for them. To do whatever I can for them.”

“My word on that.”

—

Eve moved fast, pulling out her ’link as they wound through the crowded space and out to the hall, down the stairwell. “Baxter, I’ve got three names verified. Downing, MacKensie, Su—be on the lookout for any or all of them.”

“Three of them.”

“It looks like. We’re heading to MacKensie’s now to pick her up. She’s closest. I’ll let you know when we have all three of them. Sit tight.”

“You want BOLOs?” Peabody asked her as she jogged to keep up.

“Not yet. We need to get them into the box, start putting pressure on them. One will break. Send uniforms to pick up Su—two to her apartment, two to her workplace, just to cover it. We should be able to scoop up MacKensie, then get Downing before any of them know we’re coming.”

Eve went in hot, while Peabody ordered the uniforms, cutting the sirens a block from MacKensie’s building. Rather than search for parking, she flipped on her On Duty light, double-parked.

The bitter resentment of other drivers and the frantic breaking of noise pollution laws slid off her back as she jogged to the sidewalk.

“Uniforms on their way, both locations. Even if Lipski breaks her word—and I don’t think she will,” Peabody added, “she wouldn’t have time to warn all three before we move in.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Eve used her master, then charged up the stairs.

“Loose pants,” she heard Peabody pant. “Loose pants.”

“Get your mind off your ass.”

On MacKensie’s floor, Eve slowed to a walk. She pressed the buzzer, waited, then used a fist on the door.

“That’s what I was worried about.” She turned, pressed the buzzer on the door across the hall.

“I said I’d meet you down in the—” The woman who opened the door stopped short. “Who are you?”

“NYPSD.” Eve held up her badge. “Where’s Carlee MacKensie? Across the hall.”

“How would I know?” The woman’s forehead wrinkled under the big fuzzy black hat she wore. “Look, I’m running late. I was just heading out.” To prove it she finished buttoning her coat. “Anyway, I think she’s away for a while.”

“Away where?”

“How should I know? I was heading out this morning at the same time she was. We rode down in the elevator together. She had a suitcase, so I asked—you know, neighborly—if she was taking a trip. And how it would be nice to get out of the city and the freaking cold. She said yeah. That’s about it. I’ve got to go. I was supposed to work the rest of the day at home, but we got called back in. I have to go.”

“One minute.” Eve just shifted to block the woman’s path. “What kind of suitcase?”

“Jeez, how should I know? A regular rolly. Taking a winter vacay—fixed up for traveling.”

“Fixed up how?”

“Did her face and hair—and she hardly ever does, that I’ve seen. Had on nice boots. And perfume. I even said how I liked her perfume. You think she’s done something, you’re barking down the wrong alley. She hardly leaves her apartment, never has anyone over, that I’ve seen. Keeps to herself. Quiet, maybe stuck-up, maybe shy. I don’t poke my nose in anyway.”

“What time this morning?”

“Oh, jeez!” The woman looked pointedly at her wrist unit. “About eight-thirty, ’cause I was leaving for work.”

“You went down together, so you went out together. Did she get in a cab?”

“Shit, like I’m supposed to keep tabs? No, now that I think about it. A car pulled up and she got in.”

“A car?”

“Well, a van. The side door opened, and she got in with her rolly. I noticed because it was cold, and I thought how I wished I had a ride instead of having to go down to the subway just to make the damn morning meeting.”

“Describe the van.”

“Well, for—” Her ’link signal, a blast of horns, had her digging into her handbag. “Don’t give me a buncha crap, Georgie. I’m at the door, but so are the cops about Miss Mumbles across the hall. I don’t know what the hell. Just wait for me.”

She stuck the ’link away. “Now both me and Georgie are going to be late.”

“The van,” Eve pressed.

“How should I know? It was maybe white. Maybe. Not black anyway. Looked new. I had to get to the damn subway. I wasn’t taking notes.”

“Did you see the driver, another passenger?”

Now the woman heaved a sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe the windows were tinted, but maybe I caught a glimpse when the door opened of a woman driving. Petite, I thought she was so little to be driving that big van. Dark hair—in a pony—sunglasses. That’s all I’ve got. Look, arrest me or let me go.”

“Don’t tempt me. Pictures, Peabody. Have you seen any of these women? And the more you bitch, the longer this is going to take.”

“How come you can’t find a cop when you need one, and when you don’t they’re in your face?” But she took the photos. “No, no, no, no . . . wait.” She shuffled the photo of Charity Downing back to the top again. “Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. I saw her, maybe, a couple weeks ago. I was coming out of the building and she was going in. Wasn’t watching where she was going, and shoulder-bumped me pretty hard. I started to give her a little what for, but she stopped and apologized. Looked like she’d been crying and was about to start up again. It was maybe about ten—I was meeting some friends, and running late. Ten at night,” she qualified. “Boyfriend trouble’s what I thought, since I’ve had some of my own. Anyway, pretty sure it was this one here. Only time I saw her around I can remember. I got a busy life, unlike Miss Mumbles.”

“Why do you call her that?”

“It’s what she does. If I happen to run into her in the lobby, or whatever—and that doesn’t happen much—and I say the neighborly, she mumbles. Won’t meet your eyes, either. Keeps her head down. Probably an axe murderer, right?”

Close enough, Eve thought. “If you remember anything else, contact us. If you see Ms. MacKensie again, contact us—and don’t talk to her. Peabody, give Ms. . . .”

“Lacey. Deena Lacey.”

“Give Ms. Lacey a card. Thanks for your help.”

“I’ll be showing my boss this card when he says he’s going to dock me and Georgie for being late. You may get a tag from him.”

“No problem.”

Eve waited while the woman closed the door behind her and hurried to the elevator, yanking out her ’link as she went. “I’m heading down, Georgie. You won’t believe this!”

“Get an update from the uniforms.” Eve pulled out her own ’link. “Reo,” she said without preamble. “I need a warrant.”

She paced, relating the details to the APA, paced while Reo pushed for a warrant to enter and search MacKensie’s apartment.

“Downing doesn’t answer the door, and isn’t at work—didn’t work yesterday. Uniforms are talking to neighbors,” Peabody reported. “Su hasn’t shown up at work, doesn’t answer her ’link, or her door. Looks like they’ve gone rabbit.”

Eve shook her head. “Look at the timing. MacKensie packed up and got picked up—in a van, female driver—about an hour after we pushed on Su. But she took time to fix herself up? They’re not running, not yet, because they’ve got Betz and they still want Easterday. They’ve gone to ground.”

“You think we spooked them.”

“I think they planned all this out, step-by-step, but it went off wrong for them right from the start, when Mr. Mira walked in on their session with his cousin.”

She paced, trying to will the warrant through.

“Then the cops are on them a lot quicker then they expected. Su’s supposed to be questioned as an alibi, but we pushed there, pushed her on her connection with not just Downing but MacKensie. None of these women are idiots.”

“So they panicked.”

“Panicked? I don’t think so. MacKensie fixed herself up, according to the neighbor. Makeup, hair, perfume. You don’t take time for that if you’re panicked. This is like Plan B. Things get too hot, we go to ground. She fixed up, so maybe she’s the bait set to lure Easterday.”

“They’d have to be crazy to go after him now.”

“They’ve already spread the wound, Peabody. It’s all there is. And they’ve got a place we don’t know about, a place they make their plans, a place they can take these men and torture them, pay them back. Start digging now—any property under any variations of their names, mothers’ names.”

She yanked out her ’link. “Reo.”

“Coming through now,” Reo told her.

“I need two more. Lydia Su—that’s S-U—and Charity Downing.” She rattled off the addresses.

“Dallas.”

“These three are working together, Reo. They’ve killed two and they’ve got number three. He’s got hours at best if I don’t find them.”

“I’ll push.”

“Push fast. Warrant’s coming through. I’ll get back to you.”

Eve checked the readout on the warrant—no mistakes now, she thought—then nodded to Peabody. “We’re clear to enter.”

She checked her recorder, used her master. Drew her weapon.

“Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Peabody, Detective Delia, entering residence of MacKensie, Carlee. We are duly warranted and authorized.”

She gave the door one more good pounding. “Carlee MacKensie, this is the police. We are entering the premises.”

They took the door, high and low, did a quick sweep.

Eve straightened. “She’s gone, and she isn’t coming back.”

“Furniture’s still here.”

“She cleared her workstation. She took the electronics. Let’s clear the place, but she’s gone.”

The bed was tidily made, the bathroom and kitchen areas spotless. Never let it be said Carlee MacKensie didn’t keep her area clean.

“It looks like some clothes are missing,” Peabody said, “just by the way they’re arranged, but she left plenty behind.”

“Didn’t matter to her. The mission matters. She took what she wanted—and didn’t leave any electronics. Nothing we could use to trace her that way, nothing where she might have communicated with the others.”

Eve circled the small, dull living area. “They all probably have a drop ’link. Something they use only with each other. If they use a comp, they use codes. But no chances taken: Don’t leave any behind. But do you remember everything? Every little thing? Let’s turn this place inside out and see.”

“They didn’t get the keys. Betz,” Peabody said while they worked.

“Not his. Might be Wymann had the same, or the senator. We’re dealing with a brotherhood there, so it’s my take they all had keys. Just like we’re dealing with a sisterhood on this end. United purposes, loyalties, a singularity.”

Eve paused, closed a drawer, looked around. “No sign she had sex in this apartment. No toys, no enhancements, no sexwear.”

“She could’ve taken that stuff with her.”

“Why? It’s not mission-oriented. She left clothes, some jewelry, photos, book discs, all the flotsam and jetsam of life. But she took the electronics, any spare discs, memo cubes, and any hard copies of business. Food in the kitchen, in the AutoChef. The neighbor claims not to poke in, but she’s not blind and deaf.”

Eve wandered, searched for a sense. What came to her was this was an alone place. She knew it, recognized it. She’d had one of her own once.

The apartment—the one Roarke had replicated for her.

Her alone place, because she’d had little but the mission—the job—in her life.

She knew MacKensie, she thought. She knew her under the skin.

“The neighbor? I bet she’d have remembered if MacKensie had a lover—male or female—show up regularly. There’s no love in this place—just work and sleep. The neighbor remembered Downing because they bumped into each other, and Downing was crying. That stuck. She’d have remembered seeing her before, so either coming here hadn’t happened before, or it was rare and they kept it on the down low.”

“You think she and Downing are lovers?”

“No. I don’t think she had anyone for that, not for that. They’re sisters, that’s what counts here. A shared experience—and one Su also shares. And a shared goal.

“What do you do when a sister comes over crying?”

“Ah. You listen, you sympathize.”

“You provide alcohol and crying food. Let’s check the kitchen.”

They found a nearly empty bottle of white wine, a half-pint bottle of bourbon.

“Let’s get the sweepers in here, do it right.” Eve stepped over to the AutoChef, ran the program. “Keeps it pretty well stocked, healthy crap.”

“Got ice cream—the real deal—in the freezer. Chocolate Coma, which is awesome. It’s unopened, Dallas.”

“Bet she got it to replace what she gave Downing. Downing comes to her, crying. How about this: Downing’s the one they’ve got doing the senator. She’s set up as his sidepiece. And she’s wearing thin, doesn’t see how she can keep going with it. Su doesn’t strike as the have-a-drink-and-some-ice-cream type, so she comes here for sympathy. Comes here because MacKensie had played the same role earlier. MacKensie knew what she was dealing with, could empathize. And maybe because Downing’s wearing thin, they decide to move on the mission.”

“One of them poses as the Realtor,” Peabody continued. “Like posing as the biographer, and like—don’t you think MacKensie was probably the one who got Edward Mira into Eclectia, so she could switch him off to Downing?”

“Yeah, I do. Taking turns with it, working on him.”

“So the young, sexy Realtor, who isn’t a Realtor, is willing to try to help the senator circumvent the deathbed promise.”

“That’s what plays. Unless there are four of them.”

“Crap.”

“Or more.”