J. Robb - Divided in Death

“Well, I’ll open her up and we’ll see what we see. Do you want to tell me what you’re looking for?”

“I want to know what she took, or was given. The amount, the potency, the time. And I want to know fast.”

“That I can do.”

“How about the tox on the other two bodies-Bissel and Kade?”

“A moment.” He walked over to his data center, called up the files. “Just in. It appears they’d both indulged in several ounces of champagne-French, excellent vintage. Last meal, three hours prior to death… very classy. Caviar, smoked salmon, brie, strawberries. No illegals or other chemical enhancements in the female. Small traces of Exotica in the male.”

“They have sex?”

“They certainly did. At least they should have died in a jovial and satisfied frame of mind.”

“Verified the murder weapon?”

“Yes. Kitchen knife, jagged-edge style. The one recovered from the scene matches the wounds inflicted.”

“Zapped, stabbed.”

“In that order,” he agreed. “No defensive wounds. Some skin under the female’s nails, that matches the other vic. Conclusion: a bit of passionate scratching, very minor, during the throes. They’d had sex, and from the positioning of the stunner marks, were likely having an encore when they were disabled. Someone was very annoyed with them.”

“You’d think.” She glanced back at Chloe, lying white and naked and cold on the slab. “Some people would think she got off easy.”

“But we know better. I’ll take care of her.”

“You can reach me at home as soon as you have the results. Morris, repasscode the files on all three of these, will you? And don’t let anyone else work on them.”

His eyes gleamed with interest behind his goggles. “More and more interesting.”

“Yeah. In fact, I’ll come back and pick up the data when you’re done. Don’t send it.”

“Now I’m fascinated. Why don’t I bring it to you? That way you can offer me some of Roarke’s wonderful wine while you explain.”

“Works for me.”

He’d bought time and space. That was the important thing. Nothing was going exactly as he’d planned, but he could think on his feet. He could, would, keep his head and think on his feet.

He’d thought on his feet with Chloe McCoy, hadn’t he? He’d tied that right up.

The police weren’t buying it, weren’t buying any of it. And that made no sense. No damn sense.

He couldn’t have handed them a sweeter package if he’d tied a damn ribbon around it.

Sweat wormed down his back as he prowled the well-appointed rooms that were, for now, his prison and his sanctuary. They couldn’t tie him to the murders, and that was what counted. That was priority one.

The rest, he’d fix. He just needed more time.

So it was all right, for now it was all right. He was safe. And he’d figure a way out.

He had some money-not enough, not enough even now and a far cry from what he’d been promised-but it gave him some breathing room.

And no matter how maddening it was, parts of it were very exciting. He was the star of his own vid, and he was writing it as he went along. He wasn’t the patsy people had taken him for, oh no, he wasn’t.

He toked a little Zeus, a small reward, and felt like the king of the world.

He’d do what he had to do, and he’d be smart about it. Careful and smart.

Nobody knew where he was, or that he was.

He was going to keep it that way.

Roarke and Feeney stood contemplating a mixed-metal figure in the garden of the house in Queens.

“What do you think it is?” Feeney asked at length.

“I think it’s female. It may be partially reptilian. It may be partially arachnid. It seems to have been built out of copper and brass and steel. Bits of iron and perhaps tin.”

“Why?”

“Well, that’s a question, isn’t it? I imagine it’s symbolic of how woman can be as sly as a snake, as cruel as a spider or some such bullshit. I believe it’s unflattering to the female sex, and know it’s ugly.”

“I got that part, the ugly part.” Feeney scratched his chin, then took out his bag of candied almonds. After dipping a hand in, he held it out for Roarke.

So they munched nuts and studied the sculpture.

“And people pay large bucks for this shit?” Feeney asked.

“They do. Indeed they do.”

“I don’t get that. Of course I don’t know nothing about art.”

“Hmm.” Roarke circled the piece. “Sometimes it speaks to them on an emotional level, or an intellectual one. Whatever. That’s when the piece has found the appropriate home. Other times, more often than not, the money’s spent simply because the buyer feels it should speak to him, and is too idiotic or proud or afraid to admit the thing he’s just paid for speaks to no one because it’s, essentially, an insulting piece of crap.”

Feeney pursed his lips, nodded. “I like pictures, the kind that look like what they’re supposed to be. A building, a tree, a bowl of fucking fruit. Looks to me like my grandson could’ve put this together.”

“Strangely enough, I believe it takes considerable skill and talent and vision, however odd, to create something like this.”

“You say so.” Feeney shrugged, but was far from convinced.

“Canny way to conceal observation devices, if that’s what it’s about.”

“Dallas thinks so.”

“And she generally knows what she’s about.” Roarke opened the remote scanner he and Feeney had configured. “You want to run this, or shall I?”

“Your tool.” Feeney cleared his throat. “Yeah, she knows what she’s about, like you said. A little nervy right now.”

“Is she?”

“Hit the jammer on that thing for a minute.”

Roarke lifted a brow, but complied. “Are we about to have a private conversation?”

“Yeah.” And Feeney didn’t relish it. “I said Dallas was a little nervy right now. About what you might do.”

Roarke continued to set the gauges on the scanner. “About what?”

“About the file on her father, about what the HSO pus buckets let happen to her back in Dallas.”

Roarke looked over now and saw Feeney’s face was tight. Rage, he thought, and embarrassment. “She spoke to you?”

“She circled around it some. She doesn’t know how much I know about it. Doesn’t want to. It’s not something I want to talk to her about either, if it comes to that. Since she feels the same, I didn’t have to say that you’d told me.”

“The two of you amaze me,” Roarke replied. “You’re aware of what happened to her, and with her instincts she’d know you are. But the two of you can’t say the words to each other. You can’t say them, though you’re her father, more than that son of Satan ever was.”

Feeney hunched his shoulders and stared at the mixed media ugliness of a squat toad-like creature several feet away. “Maybe that’s why, and it’s not the point. If she’s worried enough about you going after some asshole spook, then she’s plenty worried. You’re not fixing anything if you twist her up.”

Roarke set the scanner to analyze the dimensions, weight, and chemical contents of the sculpture. “I don’t hear you saying I’m wrong to go after him. That he, or his superiors, don’t deserve to pay for standing back while a child was raped, beaten, and brutalized.”

“No, I’m not going to say it.” Feeney folded his mouth firm, then met Roarke’s eyes. “First, it’d be a fucking lie, the sort that’d burn my tongue clean off because there’s part of me that’d like to give you a hand with it.”

Feeney stuffed the bag back in his sagging pocket, then kicked the base of the sculpture. The gesture was so like Eve, Roarke felt a smile tug at his mouth.