J. Robb - New York to Dallas

She turned around, gestured. “Look at this place. He took a lot of time and care putting all this together, and from prison. Now he can’t use it. When he goes to access more funds, he’s frozen out.”

“He’s going to try to get out of Dallas.”

“Maybe, but we don’t have to make it easy for him.”

She crossed over to the locked door, glanced at Roarke. When he disengaged the locks, she stepped in.

He’d covered the walls with pictures of his victims. All the girls, all the eyes.

“These are case-file shots,” she stated. “It mattered enough for him to get them. He wanted me in here, locked in with them.”

She studied the shackles, remembered how they weighed on her wrists and ankles in her dream.

Then she turned away, walked out. “Let’s see what else he left behind.”

The high life, she thought as they turned the apartment inside out. Sheets of Irish linen, towels of Turkish cotton. French champagne, Russian caviar.

Tranqs and paralytics and syringes all meticulously organized in an embossed case.

“Fresh flowers in every room,” she said to Mira. “And enough food for months. A lot of it fresh, too. So it would spoil.”

“He needed to acquire—collect again—and purchase and have. And he’s likely having trouble deciding what it is he wants.”

“So he buys too much. Too many flowers, too much food, too many clothes. He knew how to live light once—well, but light. I bet we find his prints everywhere, overlapping each other. He’d want to touch everything, over and over. He’d stand out on the terrace, feel like the king of the world. Then he’d come in here, lock up like a fortress. Where’s he going now?”

“London was in the plans,” Roarke told her. “We’re getting through some of his blocks, and found where he’s started researching accommodations and real estate in London.”

“He can’t get there now.”

“He knows New York.”

Eve nodded at Mira. “And expects I’ll go back there. He’ll need to ride the grift for a while, pump up his funds. He’ll need to hunt, and that’s soon. But he’s got nowhere to take her, keep her. A motel maybe, something he can pay cash for. He’d have to keep her under. No soundproofing this time. But he’ll need that release.”

She paced. “Or break into a home, a private residence. Take what he needs, regroup.”

“He’s angry. He’ll be rash,” Mira warned her. “And violent.”

“The media should be useful. Blanket it with his face, his name, feed the media some of the data on the manhunt. If he catches it, he’ll get more pissed, more shaken. He’s alone now, and has to go back to living on his wits. It’s been a long time.”

She had a pair of uniforms take Mira back to the hotel, watched EDD carry out the electronics.

“They could use you on that,” Eve said to Roarke. “I know you’d rather not work at Ricchio’s house, but that’s where the equipment’s going.”

“Yes. So we’ll go there.”

“I’m going to stay here, keep looking. A dozen cops in here,” she said when he frowned. “Not counting me. When I’m ready to go back to the hotel and work, I’ll have a couple big bad cops take me to the door if you’re still at it. Good enough?”

“Nowhere alone. Your word.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to give him a chance to get me alone.”

“I’m going to nag you,” Roarke warned, “contact you every hour.”

“Okay, fine, but I’m going to finish here, get an escort back, then close myself up and try to find a new angle on where he’d run, how, and how the hell he expects to get to me when the cops have Dallas—the city—sewed up like . . . whatever gets sewed up.”

“Tag me when you leave for the hotel. If I’ve done all I think I can do at that point, I’ll meet you there. We can find the fresh angle together.”

“That’s a deal.”

Reduced to shoplifting, McQueen thought, like a common street thief. One more thing Eve Dallas would pay for. Still, it didn’t hurt his feelings to know he hadn’t lost his touch. Three relatively quick stops, and he had what he needed.

Maybe it had been tedious to have to ditch one car, boost another, but he had to admit, just a bit exciting, too. Nostalgic.

He hadn’t boosted since he’d been a lad at his mother’s knee. Plus, the second car had netted him a briefcase—a nice stroke of luck. Props always added to the illusion.

It was time, he thought, to get to the point . Time to finish it, finish her , and get the hell out of Dallas. The city was bad luck, nothing but stinking bad luck. Back to New York. That would be like rubbing her dead face in it, wouldn’t it?

But no, no, he’d had bad luck in New York, too.

Philly maybe, or back to Baltimore. Maybe Boston. No, no, winter was coming despite the vicious heat in this godforsaken bad-luck city. He should head south. Atlanta, no, Miami. All those fresh bad girls on the beaches. Easy pickings. Like a vacation.

He’d take a vacation in Miami, he decided, and saw himself trolling South Beach in a white linen suit.

In the pretty roadster, in a happier state of mind with the prospect of sun and surf in his future, he pulled up in front of the hotel. Fussed a bit with his safety belt, the briefcase, to give the doorman time to open the door for him.

“Good evening, sir. Checking in?”

“Just meeting a friend at the bar.”

“Enjoy your visit, sir.”

“Oh, I will.” He didn’t resent the tip. He intended to leave with more than he’d come in with, so he could afford to be generous.

He strode in, took a moment to glance around as any man would, noting the layout just as advertised on the webpage. Noting, too, lobby security—the cams and the manpower.

Swinging the briefcase, he strolled into the lobby bar, chose a table facing a bank of elevators.

He had some time, he considered. They wouldn’t be back soon—they had work to do! Searching his apartment, going through his things. Coordinating their roadblocks and manhunt.

They could arrange all the media bulletins they liked. He’d taken care of that, the snip, snip in the restroom of the pharmacy, the careful comb through of color, the use of his own shorn hair and some lifted spirit gum for a jaunty goatee, and he had a whole new look.

And not unattractive, he mused as he flirted with the waitress and ordered a club soda, extra lime. And she flirted right back. They always did, he thought. And what did she see? A man with short chestnut hair, a bit on the choppy side, with a trim and narrow goatee. The well-cut suit, the briefcase.

She didn’t see a man the police chased their tails for. No indeed.

His hand flexed and unflexed under the table. He wanted blood, and soon. Wanted the just-budding body of a bad, bad girl. Wanted to see the life drain out of a certain bitch of a cop. But he had to take some time. He had to choose carefully.

His luck was up, he reminded himself. And gave the waitress a cheerful wink when she brought his drink, a dish of olives, and a pretty bowl of snack mix.

Olives, he thought, losing his thread a moment. What was it about olives?

The stock boy, the other, the cops. All those jars.

He took a slow sip. Club soda now, champagne later, he promised himself. Everything would go according to plan. He only had to wait for the mark.

He scanned the bar, the lobby, considering and rejecting as he sipped his club soda.

It took twenty minutes, but he spotted her. Pretty and petite in a short black dress. Costume jewelry, a bit too carefully made up, and brown hair that could’ve used some highlights and a zippier style.

But he gave her credit for the hot-pink heels.