Apprentice in Death Read online

  “If?”

  Eve stepped out of the office, scanned the empty locker room. “Because I’m betting it came from outside the park. We’re going to be looking at buildings with west-facing windows, starting with Sixth, working east until Lowenbaum tells me to stop.”

  “Lowenbaum?”

  “He’s coming in to consult. I want this rink feed on my screens at home, with equipment that doesn’t argue with me.”

  “Lowenbaum. He’s so cute.” At Eve’s steely stare, Peabody hunched her shoulders. “I’m with McNab through and through, but I can see cuteness through my eyes and my Cute-O-Meter. You have to admit, he ranks high on the Cute-O-Meter.”

  “Cute’s for kids and puppies—if you’re into kids and puppies. I’ll give you he’s frosty enough.”

  “Completely. I’ll push on the security feeds, and see if I can find anything new from the kid and his parents.” As she spoke, Peabody began to rewind her long scarf. “We’re going to be wading through piles of wit statements.”

  “Take the first ten. I’ll start on the rest. Let’s see if we can find anything that connects the three vics other than a visit to the skating rink. And let’s hope we do. If this was pure random, it’s already gotten worse.”

  As she stepped outside, Eve looked over the heads of the sweepers busy working on the scene, and stared east.

  Again she thought: It could get a lot worse.

  2

  Hard to say, Eve thought as she finally headed home, if notifying next of kin was worse in person or over the ’link. Either way, she had just sliced Ellissa Wyman’s parents in two, face-to-face, and had done the same to Brent Michaelson’s daughter, who was in Philadelphia on business, via ’link.

  Their lives would never be the same. Death changed everything, she knew, and murder added a bloody smear to the change.

  She had to cut through the grief—it blurred focus.

  No enemies, no threats, no trouble. No bitter exes, no big piles of coveted money. At this point, it appeared the three victims had been ordinary, law-abiding people.

  Wrong place, wrong time.

  But why those three—two of them regulars to the rink? Out of the dozens and dozens there, why those three?

  There was always a reason, she reminded herself. Even if the reason was bat-shit crazy.

  She toyed with reasons as she turned through the gates, started down the winding drive toward home.

  Lowenbaum’s remark broke through her theorizing.

  Dallas Palace? Seriously? Is that how some of the cops saw it?

  Maybe it did look something like a castle (was that the same thing as a palace?) with its grand stone walls catching the first glints of winter’s bright stars. It had towers and turrets, and with the white expanse of snow, the ice shimmering on denuded branches of trees, maybe it looked like something out of another time.

  Another world.

  But that was Roarke’s doing. He’d built it—his personal fortress in the heart of the city. And maybe it had impressed and intimidated the crap out of her at first—and for a while after. But now?

  It was home.

  Where fires would be burning, where the man she loved would look at her in a way that showed her, in an instant, she mattered. Where a cat would rub against her legs in greeting.

  Where, she thought as she parked at the front entrance, Summerset would loom in the foyer like a ghoul.

  Like he expected her to trail mud and blood over the pristine floors. And, okay, maybe she had, more than once. But not today.

  She checked her boots as she got out of the car, just in case.

  Today she didn’t have time to give or receive any shit.

  She stepped in, and there he was—bony, black-suited, stone-faced, with the pudgy cat sitting at his feet.

  “Save it,” she said before he could lead with whatever insult he’d devised for the day. “I’ve got a cop coming in. Lowenbaum. Send him straight up.”

  “And will your guest be joining you for dinner?”

  She figured the silky tone took the place of the insult—though the question itself threw her off. “I . . .”

  What the hell time was it? She had to force herself not to check her wrist unit, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  “He’s not a guest, he’s a cop. It’s work.”

  To get some of her own back, she walked around the cat rubbing against her legs, shrugged out of her coat, and tossed it over the newel post.

  “Naturally.”

  Ignoring him, she started up the stairs, the cat running behind her.

  She headed straight to her office, stopped short when she saw Roarke, leaning back against her desk.

  The man could stop her heart, then send it into full gallop. Just a look at him. They’d been married more than two years, she thought. Shouldn’t that ease off? Where was that in the Marriage Rules?

  But a man who looked like Roarke broke every rule.

  That absurdly beautiful face set off with the wild blue eyes of some Irish god, and the perfect poet’s mouth. The black hair, silkier than Summerset’s tone, tied back in work mode. The tall, lean length of him all in black—no tie or suit coat, the sleeves of his shirt rolled to the elbow.

  So he’d been home, and working, for some time.

  Yeah, the look of him broke the rules, stopped the heart. But it was that instant, just that instant when those amazing blue eyes met hers that sent it into the gallop.

  In them lived love. Just that simple, just that extraordinary.

  “You’re just in time,” he said, the Irish sliding through the words.

  “I—for what?”

  He simply held out a hand.

  She walked to him, and the first thing he did was draw her in, his clever hands skimming up her back as he brushed his lips to hers.

  Home, she thought again, and the last few hours dropped down on her, had her wrapping around him, leaning in. Knowing she could, here she could lean and not lose what she was.

  “You caught one,” he murmured. “It’s the murders at Wollman Rink, isn’t it? I thought of you as soon as I heard the bulletin.”

  “Yeah. I just left the first victim’s parents and her fourteen-year-old sister smashed to bits.”

  “The most brutal part of a brutal job. I’m sorry for it.”

  “Me, too.”

  He tipped her face back, brushed those lips over her forehead. “You’ll tell me. I think a glass of wine first—there’ll be plenty of coffee later, but a moment to settle for now.”

  “Don’t really have one. Lowenbaum’s on his way over. I need him to look at the security disc. I need a consult. He’s SWAT,” she began.

  “Yes, I remember him, quite well, from the Red Horse investigation last year. Why him, particularly?”

  “They were laser strikes, one strike for each vic, and each one lethal. And I think they came from outside Central Park.”

  “Outside? I see.”

  Because he did, because he could, it relieved her of long explanations.

  “Maybe one of them was a specific target, the other two cover. Maybe I’ll find a connection linking the three of them. But . . .” She shook her head. “I need to set up my murder board, start the book.”

  “I can help you with that.”

  “Yeah, thanks. Maybe if you—” She turned, and once again her heart stopped. But not in a good way.

  On her wall screen lived a pink and purple nightmare.

  Pink walls with purple squiggles framed a room filled with worse. Some sort of S-shaped seat sat in the middle of it all, carrying pink squiggles on purple, and that mounded with pillows in every color, with dizzying designs. And fringe.

  A chair angled toward it—pink again, with big green dots, and—were those feathers? Feathers rising up from the back in a bright rainbow fan
.

  Under the window—framed in more feathers—a bright green glossy table stood flanked by two pink chairs—purple dots. The table held a huge purple vase full of weird flowers.

  Her heart started up again with a sputter as she spotted a U-shaped workstation, candy pink with a purple border.

  “This can’t be real.”

  “Charmaine put it together as a joke.” Roarke shifted so he could cup Eve’s face in his hands. “Which we’d both have enjoyed more if you didn’t have murder on your brain.”

  “A joke.”

  “Designing what we’ll call the polar opposite of what you want and need in the remodel here.”

  “Opposite.”

  “Completely opposite. I’ll add when she sent this, and the three actual designs, she said she thought the shock of this would smooth the way to the others.” He smiled now, traced a finger down the shallow dent in her chin. “Let’s take a moment, just scan the others, and see if she’s right. Just a quick glance. Then you won’t worry I’ve nudged you into doing something you’ll hate.”

  “You couldn’t nudge me into that with a stunner on full. But I don’t know if—”

  “Computer, Design One, on screen. As I said when we talked about updating your space, nothing you don’t want.”

  She started to argue, then saw the image. One of quiet colors, simple lines—and what had turned her tide in the first place—a big, kick-ass command center.

  “Not a trace of pink—not a single feather or flounce,” Roarke said. “Design Two, on screen.”

  Stronger colors, but rich rather than bright. Maybe a few more curves, maybe a little plush on the seating, but not embarrassing.

  “And Design Three, on screen.”

  She thought this one hit between. The colors muted, a little more streamlined on the furnishings.

  “Better?”

  “Anything would be.”

  “You’ll look at them later, when you’ve not so much on your mind.”

  “Okay. Take it down, will you? I hear somebody coming. It must be Lowenbaum.”

  His cop, Roarke knew, would be mortified if another cop discovered her considering interior design. He ordered the images off as she went to the door to greet.

  “Lieutenant Lowenbaum,” Summerset said, then backed away.

  He came in grinning. She’d still term him frosty, but she got Peabody’s Cute-O-Meter scale.

  “Let me say wow, some place.” He glanced around, quiet gray eyes taking in every detail. “You ever get lost?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “I bet. Hey, Roarke.”

  “Lowenbaum.”

  “I just got here myself,” Eve said. “I haven’t set things up.”

  “No rush. Who’s this?” He crouched down to scratch the cat who’d prowled over to check him out.

  “Galahad.”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah, I heard the story. The cat tripped the asshole, saved your bacon. You took a hit.”

  “You heard the story?”

  “You take down a sitting U.S. senator, Dallas, the story goes around. Two different eye colors. Frosty.”

  “He’s a pretty good cat,” Eve told him as Galahad preened under Lowenbaum’s stroking hand.

  “More a dog man myself, but yeah, he’s a pretty good cat.” He straightened. “So.”

  “Would you like a beer, a glass of wine?”

  Eve frowned at Roarke’s invitation. “We’re working.”

  “Would a beer impair you, Lowenbaum?”

  A quick grin that came with a flash of dimples. “Not hardly, and I could go for one.”

  “As it happens we have a special brew, just arrived. Deputy Banner’s family brew,” Roarke told Eve. “As promised.”

  “The cop from Arkansas,” Eve explained. “Helped us bag those murdering lovebirds.”

  “Heard about that, too. Let’s have a home brew and see what you’ve got.”

  “Give me a sec.” Eve went to her desk as Roarke strolled into the adjoining kitchen. “Rink security disc. Peabody’s rounding up security from the rest of the park, but this shows all three strikes.”

  She plugged in the disc, gestured to the wall screen. “Run disc where cued, on screen. See the girl in red?”

  “Can’t miss her. She’s a beauty and she knows what she’s doing.”

  “Was, did.”

  Lowenbaum nodded at the screen as Ellissa took her last flight. Then his eyes flattened out at the next strike. And the third.

  “Run it again, cut the speed.”

  Roarke came back in, two brews hooked in one hand, a third in the other. He paused, watched the screen.

  “Okay, enhance the last strike, start a few seconds before, slow it more.”

  Eve ordered the enhancement, slowed the speed. Narrowed her eyes when she thought she caught the faintest flash.

  “Your shooter’s nest is east of the rink, and that kind of accuracy? He’s got serious training. That’s not luck. East of the rink and above.”

  “Above.”

  “ME should confirm that, unless I’m full of shit. Thanks,” he added to Roarke, took a beer. “I’m going to be surprised if general park security picks up anything. Even in New York, somebody’s going to notice somebody else climbing up a tree with a weapon, and I’m thinking higher anyway. Run it back, watch again.”

  “I thought I saw a flash, a red . . . glimmer.”

  “The beam. Sorry,” Roarke added.

  “No, you’re right.” Lowenbaum nodded approval as he continued to watch the screen. “A laser strike emits a beam. Hard to catch it, and it’s fast. You get this to the lab, they can clean it up more, bring it up more. But there.”

  Eve froze the image. “Yeah, I see it. And yeah, I can just make out an angle. East and above.”

  “My guess, even if this fucker climbed the park’s tallest tree, is tactical laser rifle.”

  “What’s the range on one of those?”

  “That’s going to depend on the weapon, and it’s sure as hell going to depend on the shooter. But if he’s good enough, equipped right? A mile and a half, two. Even more.”

  “A weapon like that? Has to be law enforcement or military. You can’t just pick one up at the local 24/7. Black market, maybe, a weapons runner, but that’s going to cost for one that’s not a piece of shit.”

  “Twenty large, easy,” Lowenbaum confirmed. “Even a licensed collector’s going to find one hard to come by—through legal means.”

  “A complicated process,” Roarke said, “but doable.”

  Eve turned to him. “You have one.”

  “Actually, three. A Stealth-LZR—”

  “You got an LZR?” Lowenbaum’s eyes shone like Christmas morning. “First man-portable laser rifle—pulse action. 2021 to ’23. Heavy, clunky, but a trained operator could strike a dime credit in just inside a mile.”

  “They’ve improved considerably since then. I have the Tactical-XT, such as your team would use, and a Peregrine-XLR.”

  “Shut up.” Lowenbaum pointed at Roarke. “You’ve got a Peregrine?”

  “I do.”

  “Those suckers are accurate for five miles, more in the right hands. They just released for military use last year. How did you . . .” Lowenbaum paused, took a sip of beer. “Don’t ask, don’t tell?”

  “All legal,” Roarke assured him. “Considerable finagling, but I’ve all the proper paperwork.”

  “Man. I’d love to see it.”

  “Of course.”

  “Really?”

  “What are the odds this shooter has something like that?” Eve began.

  “If he does, he could’ve taken the shot from goddamn Queens. I’d really like a look.”

  “You just want to play with the toys, but fine.”

  “We’ll ta
ke the elevator.” Roarke gestured.

  “You should have a look yourself,” Lowenbaum told Eve. “Get a gauge.”

  “I’ve seen your weapon, Lowenbaum. I’ve used a laser rifle a time or two.”

  “It’s more likely your shooter’s using a tactical—something in that range.” Lowenbaum stepped on the elevator with them. “Three strikes like that, in that time frame? You’ve got someone who’s got possession and training of a long-range laser rifle.”

  “Law enforcement, military—or former in either. I’ll get a list of collectors to add to that.”

  Eve stuck her hands in her pockets as the elevator opened outside the big secured doors of Roarke’s weapons room.

  Roarke laid his hand on the palm plate.

  When the doors opened, Lowenbaum let out a sound a man might make when seeing a naked woman.

  She supposed she couldn’t blame him. Roarke’s collection was a history of weaponry. Broadswords, stunners, thin silver foils, muskets, revolvers, maces, blasters, machine guns, combat knives.

  The glass display cases held centuries of death.

  She gave Lowenbaum a minute to wander and gawk.

  “You and Roarke can play with all the shoot-it, stab-it, stun-it, and blow-the crap-out-of-it toys later. Right now . . .”

  She gestured toward the display of laser weapons.

  Obliging her, Roarke deactivated the locks, opened the glass, took out the Peregrine.

  She’d never seen it, or its like before. And admitted, to herself, she’d like to test it out. But she said nothing as Roarke took it from its place, offered it to Lowenbaum.

  “Is it charged?”

  “It’s not, no. That would be . . . breaking the rules.” And Roarke smiled.

  With a half laugh, Lowenbaum lifted the weapon—black as death, sleek as a snake—to his shoulder. “Lightweight. Our tacticals weigh in at five-point-three pounds. Add another eight ounces if you’re carrying the optimum scope. Spare batt’s another three ounces. This is what, three pounds and change?”

  “Three and two. It’ll sync with a PPC, or you can use its infrared.” Now Roarke opened the door, took out a palm-sized handheld. “This will read up to fifteen miles. Battery life is seventy-two hours, full use, though I’m warned it will start to heat up at about forty-eight if not rested. Recharges in under two minutes.”