J. Robb - Survivor in Death

“Start looking for other properties under that name or similar ones. Under any of the tenants' names who lived in the building near the hospital. I want their base. We get their base, we change this op around, and that's where we move on them.”

“Will you work from here?”

“I'll be pursuing the same data. I want your unit talking to mine. Something breaks, I'll come downtown. Got all that?”

“Got it.”

“Then get all these cops out of my house.”

“ Dallas.” Webster stopped her as she turned to the door. “Nobody's business what I do on my own time, either. If I happened to get copies of this data Detective Peabody's finessed, I could entertain myself by seeing if I could beat her, or you, to the rest.”

“ Peabody, have you got any problem having a race with an IAB suit?”

“I thrive on competition.”

“There you go. Beat his ass.”

Better yet, she thought as she walked out. She'd get Roarke to work unraveling. And she'd work with him, and they'd ring the goddamn bell. There had to be enough civilians in the damn house to ride the controls on a couple of kids while she worked.

She swung by the computer lab, and the lounge where Baxter and Trueheart were set up to relay the data. “Check out the owners before the buy,” she ordered. “See if there's a connect-military, paramilitary- siblings, spouses, offspring in same. Get current status. Let's see if we can squeeze out a weasel. But do it from home. You're officially off the clock.”

She veered off to start downstairs, and Summerset intercepted.

“Lieutenant, your guests require some of your attention.”

“Cram the etiquette lesson. Tell Roarke I'm working in his office and I require some of his attention. Now.”

Pleased to save time, and to have been able to tell Summerset to cram anything, she backtracked and sat at Roarke's desk.

“Engage computer.”

One moment, please, to verify authorization by voice scan. Verified, Darling Eve. Engaged.

“Christ, what if somebody hears that? Don't you know there are cops in the damn woodwork around here? Search all data, Triangle Group.”

Searching… Triangle Group, licensed real estate brokerage company, subsidiary of Five-By Corporation.

“Location or locations of Triangle Group's offices or company headquarters.”

Working… Triangle Group is listed as an electronic company with base office 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue, East Washington.

“Display map, East Washington. Highlight given address.”

Map displayed. Highlighted location is The White House.

“Yeah, even I knew that. Little power trip. Search data on Five-By Corporation.”

She leaned back as the computer fed her data, then glanced over as Roarke came in.

“You needed something?”

“Kirkendall acquired real estate near two of the targets. Prime stuff, good investment. Looks like he kept them. Using a couple of blinds, or a couple we've got so far. Triangle Group out of Five-By Corporation.”

“Triangle.” He moved toward her, brushed her out of his chair. “Logical. Five-By? Is that an indication there are two more prime players in this?”

“Five-by-five.”

“Is twenty-five?”

“No, not math. Military term.”

“You've got one on me.”

“It's like loud and clear. Like I hear you fine. Everything's solid. Like that.”

“Ah.” He looked over what she'd already done. “The White House. Don't we think a lot of ourselves? And the parent organization is ostensibly housed in the Pentagon and the UN, and I believe this is Buckingham Palace. However grand their delusions, they don't make much of a blip in the business world. I've never heard of either company. Let's just see what we see.”

“Can I leave you on this a minute? I need to update the commander. It might keep them off my ass a while longer.”

“Go on, but pop downstairs and see if all's well, will you? I left Mavis as acting host, and Christ knows what she might think up.”

She made the call, and put off her social obligations long enough to pop in on Feeney as he was wrapping up.

Once she made it down, she found all the adults, including Elizabeth, in the parlor.

“They're fine,” Elizabeth told her. “Having such a good time I thought I'd let them hang together, as Kevin says, for a little while.”

“Good. Okay. Fine.”

“Don't worry about us,” Mira told her. “It's obvious you've had something come up. We can easily entertain ourselves for a while.”

“Even better.”

In the game room Nixie and Kevin took a break from the machines. She liked having another kid around, even if he was a boy. And his mother and father seemed nice. His mother had even played Intergalactic War with them. And nearly won, too.

But she was glad she'd gone away for a while. There were things you couldn't say with adults around.

“How come you don't talk like your mom and dad?” Nixie wanted to know.

“I talk like everybody.”

“No, they have a sort of accent. It's different. How come you don't?”

“Maybe because they haven't been my mom and dad the whole time. But they are now.”

“They, like, adopted you?”

“We had a party when they did. Almost like a birthday. There was chocolate cake.”

“That's nice.” She thought it was, but there was a jittery feeling in her stomach. “Did somebody kill your real mom and dad?”

“My other mom,” he corrected. “Because I have a real mom. You get to be real when you're adopted.”

“I mean your other. Did somebody kill her?”

“Nuh-uh.” He began to pet Galahad, who'd deigned to stay and have his belly rubbed. “Sometimes she'd go away, and I'd get hungry. Sometimes she'd be nice, and sometimes she'd hit me. 'Smack the crap out of you, little bastard.'“ He grinned when he said it, but it wasn't a pleasant expression. “That's how her face looked when she hit. But my mom now, she never hits, and she never has that face. My dad either. Sometimes they get this one.”

He drew his eyebrows together and tried to look stern. “But mostly they don't. And they don't go away, and I don't get hungry, not like before.”

“How did they find you?”

“They came and got me from the place where you have to go if you don't have a mom or something. You get to eat there, and they've got games, but I didn't want to stay there-and I didn't for very long. Then they came and we got to go live in Virginia. We have a big house. Not as big as this,” he said, stringently honest. “But it's big and I have my own room, and Dopey came with us.”

Nixie moistened her lips. “Are they going to take me to Virginia?” She knew where that was, sort of. She knew the capital was Richmond because she had to learn all the states and their capitals in school. But it wasn't New York. It wasn't here. It wasn't home.

“I don't know.” Obviously intrigued, Kevin cocked his head and studied her. “Don't you live here?”

“No. I don't live anywhere. People came in our house and killed my mom and dad.”

“Killed them dead?” Kevin's eyes popped wide. “How come?”

“Because my dad was good and they were wrong people. That's what Dallas said.”

“That's the doom.” He gave her a pat, as he had Galahad. “Were you scared?”

“What do you think?” she snapped back, but the sympathy on Kevin's face didn't fade.

“I think I'da been so scared I wouldn't even be able to breathe”

The little flash of anger died. “I was. They killed them, and they didn't kill me, and I have to stay here for protection. Dallas is going to find them and put them in a goddamn cage.”

He slapped a hand over his mouth and slid his gaze to the door.

“You're not supposed to say goddamn,” he whispered. “Mom gets that look on her face if you forget and say it.”