With his eyes half-closed and his big, muscular body draped in a long robe of black silk, he listened to the swelling strains of Beethoven.
Such moments, he believed, were a man’s right after a successful day’s work.
And soon, very soon, such moments would stretch to days, and days to weeks as he moved into quiet retirement. Oh, he would miss the work, he supposed. Now and then. Of course, if he missed it enough he could certainly take the occasional contract.
Interesting ones, just to slay any dragons of tedium.
But for the most part he was certain he would be quite content with his music and his art, his leisure and his solitude.
When this contract had been offered, Yost had taken it as a sign. It was the perfect end to his career. Never before had he had occasion to come so close to a man of Roarke’s stature or capabilities. Because of that, he’d been able to demand, and receive, three times his usual fee for three targets.
The fourth was to be acted on only at his discretion. If he saw his way clear to assassinating Roarke himself within two months after the initial contract was fulfilled, he would receive a lovely bonus of twenty-five million dollars.
Such a pretty retirement nest, Yost thought.
He had no doubt he would see his way clear, quite clear.
It would be the most brilliant act of his career. And one he looked forward to with relish.
chapter eleven
Eve methodically picked her way through the first reel of red tape to access personal data on Justice Thomas Werner. According to official data, Werner had suffered a fatal heart attack and died at his home in an exclusive suburb of East Washington.
It had taken a little time to identify the judge from the scanty data she’d been given, but she’d run through the archives of the screen news bulletins for the previous winter and had finally hit on Werner’s death.
Now, it was a matter of winding her way around and through the Privacy Act that shielded a man of Werner’s standing from curiosity seekers. And, even with proper identification, hampered an official inquiry.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” she muttered. “I’m a cop. You’ve got my badge number, my case file code, my voice print. What do you want now, blood?”
“Problem, Lieutenant?”
She didn’t bother to glance over at Roarke’s question. “East Washington bureaucracy bullshit. It wants me to submit my request again during working hours. Well, I’m working, aren’t I?”
“Perhaps I could—”
She snarled at him, hunched protectively over her unit. “You just want to show off.”
“Would I be that small?”
“To cut me down on this, you’d shrink to microscopic.”
“Just to show how big I really am, I’m going to overlook that insult. Why don’t you take a look at the purchase list I’ve printed out for you, and I’ll see if I can unravel some of your red tape.”
YOUR REQUEST, THE COMPUTER ANNOUNCED IN DULCET TONES, FOR PERSONAL AND MEDICAL RECORDS CONCERNING JUSTICE THOMAS WERNER CANNOT BE PROCESSED AT THIS TIME. PLEASE SUBMIT REQUEST THROUGH THIS AGENCY BETWEEN THE HOURS OF EIGHT A.M., AND THREE P.M. EST, MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY. REQUESTS OF THIS NATURE MUST BE SUBMITTED IN TRIPLICATE AND ACCOMPANIED BY THE ATTACHED FORM, WITH ALL QUESTIONS ANSWERED THEREON. AN INCOMPLETE OR MISSING FORM WILL DELAY PROCESSING. NO REQUESTS WILL BE CONSIDERED OTHER THAN THOSE MADE BY PROPERLY AUTHORIZED PERSONS. IDENTIFICATION MUST BE INCLUDED AND VERIFIED. NORMAL PROCESSING TIME FOR RECORD REQUESTS IS THREE WORKING DAYS.
WARNING!!! ANY ATTEMPTS MADE TO ACCESS RECORDS WITHOUT PROPER REQUEST, PROPER IDENTIFICATION AND VERIFICATION OF SAME IS A FEDERAL VIOLATION AND WILL RESULT IN ARREST, A FINE NO LESS THAN FIVE THOUSAND U.S. DOLLARS, AND POSSIBLE IMPRISONMENT.
“Not very friendly, is it?” Roarke murmured.
She said nothing, merely pushed to her feet, stalked around the desk, and picked up the hard copy he’d brought with him. Deliberately, she took it with her to the kitchen on the pretext of getting coffee when he took her place.
Damned if she’d watch how easily he cut through the tape.
She stood, scanning the lists as she reached in the AutoChef for her mug of coffee. He’d already done the work there, she noted, highlighting the range of cash purchases made on a single date in February.
It fits Yost’s style, she thought. Another little shopping spree. New briefcase, new shoes—six pairs—new wallet, four leather belts, several pairs of socks—silk or cashmere. He’d ordered two shirts, tailored to his measurements, from the fancy shop Roarke had identified from the Talbot disc.
In only two stores, two stops, he’d dropped over thirty thousand Euro dollars.
Roarke had added the data from the jeweler in London. The New York clerk’s cooperative cousin had confirmed that Yost had purchased, for cash, two two-foot lengths of silver wire.
No backup tool, she thought. That was his arrogance again. He was confident in his skill.
And according to the best estimate on time of death of the smugglers in Cornwall, he’d done his shopping two days, three at most, before he’d headed north and killed two people.
He’d had to get north, she thought. Did he keep a car in London? A house? Did he stay at some swank hotel, then rent transpo, take the train, fly?
Since it was a good bet he hadn’t walked, she might be able to track his movements.
“Question,” Eve said as she stepped back into her office. “Do you have a house in London?”
“Yes, though I rarely use it. I generally prefer my suite at The New Savoy. The service is impeccable.”
“Got a car there?”
“Two. Garaged.”
“How long a drive to Cornwall?”
“I’ve never done it, so I’d have to check.” He spared her a glance now, turning in the chair and looking, she thought, entirely too comfortable at her work station. “If I were going that far north, I’d likely save time and take the jet-copter from one of my offices. Unless I was in the mood to see the countryside.”
“If you wanted to keep a low profile?”
“I’d probably rent a discreet, well-built vehicle.”
“That’s what I think, because if you took the train or an air shuttle, you’d have to arrange for transpo on the other end. That adds an unnecessary step. He doesn’t like unnecessary steps. The New Savoy’s the top digs in London?”
“I like to think so.”
“Yours?”
“Mmmm. Do you want to see this data?”
“Are we going to be arrested, fined, and imprisoned?”
“We can insist on adjoining cells.”
“Gee, that’s real funny.” She walked to the desk, leaned over his shoulder, and scanned the data. “This just confirms the heart attack. If the Feebie’s info was right, there’s got to be something under it.”
“Accessing private hospital records.” He clucked his tongue. And since it was there, he turned his head a fraction to nip her jaw. “I’m quite sure there’s a law against it.”
“If it’s good enough for the feds, it’s good enough for me. Dig them out.”
“I love when you say that.” He simply executed one keystroke, and had the files he’d already accessed popping on-screen.
“You did that before I told you to.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I merely followed the orders of the primary investigator, in my capacity as expert consultant, civilian. But if you feel you must discipline me—”
She leaned over just a little more, and bit his ear.
“Oh, thank you, Lieutenant.”
She stifled the laugh, but stayed where she was. “Broken nose, fractured jaw, separated eye socket, four broken ribs, two broken fingers. Subdural this and hemorrhaging that. A lot of damage for a bad heart.”
“Sodomized as well.”
“But alive through it. Cause of death’s the strangulation. The feds fed me straight on this. While we’re in here, let’s see if they brought the girl
in for exam and treatment. Look on this date, same time frame, for a female, under eighteen. Probably examined for sexual molestation, for shock. Maybe minor bruises and lacerations, possible illegals consumption.”
He set the scan, then picked up her coffee. “What does finding her matter? You know who killed Werner.”
“It ties an end. And there’s a possibility she helped set him up for the hit.”
“There she is,” Roarke murmured when the data popped. “Mollie Newman, female, age sixteen. You hit it down the line, even to the traces of Exotica and Zoner in her system.”
“She’s the only one we know of who’s seen Yost on the job, and lived.”
Zoner, she thought. That wouldn’t have come from Werner. Why screw around with a kid who’s zoned? That would have been Yost’s addition to the mix.
“I want to find Mollie. She should have parents or guardians listed here. . . Freda Newman, mother. We’ll run her, see what we get.”
“Lieutenant? Your federal friends already have this data, and in all likelihood know where she is. They tossed you this to bog you down.”
“I know it. But I still want to run it down. And I want to find where he bought the wire in East Washington. Habitually, he buys it near the hit. Let’s see where—” She broke off, turned to the signaling ’link. “Yeah, Dallas.”
“Lieutenant, I think we’ve got something from the porn sites.”
“Peabody, what the hell are you wearing?”
Her aide flushed, looked down at herself and the wildly flowered ankle-skimmer she’d installed in McNab’s closet for convenience. “Um, it’s a robe type thing.”
“And quite fetching,” Roarke put in.
Peabody’s flush turned into a glow as she fiddled with the bright pink lapels. “Oh, well, thanks. It’s just for comfort, really. I—”
“Save it,” Eve ordered. “What have you got?”
“I’ve run through the sites, pulling screen names and hits until my eyes fell out. You wouldn’t believe some of the handles these jerks use. Anyhow, going by profile, I figured this guy would use something classier. I started picking up hits on Sterling. Just Sterling. You know, like—”
“Silver. I get it. Did you trace source location?”
“Well, we—”
She was bumped rudely aside as McNab came on-screen. He wasn’t wearing a robe. Or, Eve noticed with a scowl, a shirt either.
“That’s when the excitement started. Now, some of these pervs use some cloaking, especially the ones with families or high-powered jobs. Don’t want people to know they’re getting off watching sex discs. But when I started running Sterling, the beam bounces all over hell and back. Nobody goes to that much trouble, especially on legal sites. I got him zipping transmission from Hong Kong to Prague, from Prague to Chicago, from there to Vegas II, and on.”
“Give me bottom line here, McNab.”
“I can’t even come close to true source, especially on my home units. I’m going to take it into EDD. Better toys there. I might be able to smoke him out. I can’t tell you how long, but I’ll head in now and get started.”
“No, you’ve already put in fifteen, sixteen hours today.” Though it was a good bet some of the activities hadn’t been of a professional nature. “I’ll do it from here.”
“Ah, no offense, Lieutenant, but you need pretty sharp tech skills to get through the primary layers, and after that, you gotta have magic.”
Roarke simply shifted again, so that he came on-screen. “McNab” was all he said.
“Oh. Well, if you’re doing it, frigid. I’ll shoot what I’ve got going over. Like I said, the hits we got with this Sterling are on legal sites. A couple of them are on the edge, but hold up. Nothing’s popped on the real nasty stuff yet, but we’ve got a long way to go.”
“Good work. Take a break.”
“We already did.” He couldn’t help but grin. “We’re pretty recharged now.”
“Thank you for sharing,” Eve said dryly. “Send the data to Roarke’s home office unit.”
She broke transmission, wandered away to let her mind clear.
“I’ll leave the tracking to you. You can pass it, at whatever stage you might be in, to Feeney and McNab in the morning. I know you’ve got other stuff going on.”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“I should have told you, I have a press conference tomorrow. You might want to squeeze in one of your own.”
“Already scheduled. Don’t worry about me, Eve.”
“Who said I was?” She heard the beep from his office. “That’s your data coming in.”
She tracked the wire. Now that she knew where and how to look it was remarkably simple. One length, cash purchase, the day before Werner had his “heart attack.” The store, Silverworks, carried a Georgetown address. Its ad page boasted of seventy-five years in business, serving the discerning.
She imagined she would find that Yost had dropped in on several other shops that day, treating himself to a few gifts.
She did a travel search, requesting the top five hotels in the East Washington area, then switched to transpo, picking out companies who offered rentals on high-end vehicles.
She ordered her computer to cross-reference, and list any names that appeared on both scans.
While it processed, she got more coffee and decided to give her overworked eyes a rest. She didn’t know how the drones in EDD managed it. She kicked back in her sleep chair, closed her eyes, and went through her mental list of priorities for the morning.
Contact the silver shops, the hotels, and vehicle rentals in East Washington and London. Request proper authority to locate Freda and Mollie Newman. Won’t get it, but ask anyway. Prep for stupid damn press conference. Check Mira’s progress on profile and Feeney’s on the wire.
Real estate holdings. Private estates. She’d ask Roarke about that.
The lab. Pound Dickhead. The morgue. Check if remains of Jonah Talbot are ready to be released to next of kin.
Better see how Roarke’s doing now. Check on that in just a minute, she thought. And it was her last thought before she dropped into sleep.
Into the dark.
Shivering in the dark, but not from the cold. Fear was like a skin of ice over her small and fragile bones, rattling them together so she could almost hear the helpless, hollow sound of them.
No place to hide. There was never anywhere to hide. Not from him. He was coming. She could hear the heavy, deliberate footsteps growing louder outside her door. She glanced toward the window and wondered what it would be like if she just leaped from the bed, threw herself through the glass, and let herself fall. Fall free.
Freedom in death.
But she was too afraid, even with what would walk into her room, she was more afraid of the leap.
She was only eight.
The door opened, nightmare within nightmare, dark against dark with only the faintest of light washing behind the shadow of him, giving her his shape without a face.
Daddy’s home. And he sees you, little girl.
Please, don’t. Please, don’t.
The plea was a scream in her head, but she didn’t say it. Saying it wouldn’t stop him, could make it worse. If it could be worse.
His hands were on her now, creeping under the blanket like spiders, skittering along her icy skin. It was worse, horribly worse, when he took time to touch her before . . .
She closed her eyes tight, tried to go somewhere else in her mind. Anywhere else in her mind. But that he wouldn’t allow. It wasn’t enough just to defile, just to abuse.
So he hurt her. He knew how. Fingers squeezing, invading, until she began to weep. When she wept, his breath thickened, the filthy excitement of it clogging the air in the room.
Such a bad little girl.
She tried to push him away, tried to make her body somehow smaller, small enough that even he couldn’t get inside it. And now she begged, too desperate, too terrified to stop herself. And she screamed, a long, broken cry o
f pain, of despair when he pushed himself into her and began to plunge.
Her eyes, swollen with tears, opened. She couldn’t stop them. And she watched, frozen with horror, as her father’s face changed, as the features melted and re-formed.
It was Yost who raped her now, Yost who slipped a silver wire around her throat. And though she was no longer a child but a woman, a cop, she couldn’t stop him.
No air. No breath. The cold trickle of blood on her skin where the shining wire cut into fragile flesh. A roar in her head, a torrent of sound like the world screaming.
She flailed out, using her fists, her nails, her teeth, and was pinned.
“Eve, come back. Eve.”
It was Roarke who held her now, but she was trapped in the dream. He could see her eyes, wild and blind, feel the frantic thunder of her heart. And she was cold, so cold.
He said her name, over and over, pressing her close as if that alone would bring the warmth back to her body. Her fear had him by the throat, like a mad dog that refused to release either of them.
She fought him, gasping for air like a woman drowning, until in desperation he pressed his mouth to hers as if to give her breath.
She went limp.
“You’re all right, you’re safe.” He rocked, comforting them both. “You’re home. Baby, you’re so cold.” But he could not bear to leave her, even to get a blanket. “Hold onto me.”
“I’m okay. I’m all right.” But she wasn’t, not yet.
“Hold onto me anyway. I need it.”
She wrapped her still unsteady arms around him, let her face burrow into his shoulder. “I smelled you. Then I heard you. But I couldn’t find you.”
“I’m right here.” It ripped at him; he couldn’t begin to tell her what it did inside him every time she went back to the horrors of her childhood in dreams. “Right here,” he murmured, pressing his lips to her hair. “It was a bad one.”
“Yeah, as bad as they get. It’s over now.” She drew back, as far as he would allow, and tipped her face up to his. His eyes were dark, emotions burning in them. “Bad for you, too.”