Chapter 14

"Smart, she's a smart girl," Roarke murmured.

At his station he worked on the trace manually while McNab stood at another station, tick-tocking his hips while he ran an auto-trace.

"Got chops," McNab agreed. "Got flex. Bounce and swerve, echo it, pass on, bounce again. Got a fence line here, too, and a wall behind it."

"I see it, yes. And the bloody pit beyond it."

"Watch the three-sixty," McNab warned. "Virus."

"Aye, but a distraction's all it is. Does she think we're a couple of gits? She's set a Dragon's Tail under it, Ian."

"Crap, crap. Got it."

Eve burst in, Peabody right behind her. "Do you have her?"

"Quiet!" Roarke snapped, and sat, jacket off, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back. Full work mode.

"She wants to play." Now McNab's shoulders wiggled into his e-geek dance. "I got trip spikes here. Man! Then a trip to fricking Bali."

Roarke's flying fingers paused a moment. He angled his head, danced those fingers in the air. "It's bollocks is what it is. Misdirection and false layers. I'm doing a clean sweep."

"Jesus, are you sure?"

"Sure enough."

"How come they can talk?" Eve complained.

"It's how it works. Uh-oh," Peabody said when Roarke's screen went blank.

"Fuck, fuck, lost her." Eve rushed forward.

"Quiet!" Roarke snapped again, and played the keyboard like a concert pianist hyped on Zeus. Weird lines of some sort of code jumped on one screen, a world map shimmered onto another.

Eve watched arching lines spear across the map.

"Underlayment," Roarke mumbled.

"Stupid, simple. Genius. I'm going manual," McNab told him. "Squeeze play."

"Done. There you are now, there you are. Canny bitch, aye, that you are, but... Got her."

"Tagged." A little wild-eyed, McNab turned to grin at Roarke. "Totally tight trek, man. Totally."

"Where?" Eve demanded. "Where?"

Roarke rattled off an address even as he brought it on screen.

"Son of a bitch. Ledo's flop. She sent it from Ledo's flop."

"She won't be there now," Roarke said. "That little game took us over twelve minutes."

"Giving me a slap, that's what it is. Showing me she can go where she wants. A little pissed at me right now because I didn't say thank you. Peabody, with me."

"It's the four of us for this." Roarke pushed to his feet—an angry motion even as he calmly rolled his sleeves down again. "She'll have had ample time to lay a trap before sending this, if she's inclined. Backup's logical."

More than logical, it was SOP. She'd already intended to call in uniforms to secure the building. But a couple of e-men added good weight.

"Then saddle up."

He chose the burly All-Terrain, and Eve didn't complain. Thin, glittery ice coated the branches, dripped from them like frozen jewels. The slick sheen of it covered the roads as more fell from a dull, irritable sky in snaps and sizzles.

While it cut down on traffic, of those who ventured out, at least half posed more threat than all the ice in the Arctic.

Cars slid, spun, shimmied. Twice in under three blocks, Roarke hit vertical to avoid a collision. A Rapid Cab and a late-model sedan hadn't been so lucky, and crossed together, sedan's nose in the cab's side, like a vehicular T.

Pedestrians without Peabody's Sure Grip soles did the same sort of slide, spin, shimmy—and in a few cases added an ungainly sprawl.

Eve snatched her comm when it signaled. "Dallas."

"D-Officer Carter, Lieutenant. I'm on scene with D-Officer Bates. Police seal on crime scene door has been compromised. The door is closed but unsecured."

"Stand where you are, Carter. Scan for heat source, for booby traps, for explosives. Do not enter crime scene. Allow no one to exit same."

"Understood, Lieutenant. D-Officer Carter out."

"She could get through a couple of beat droids," Eve speculated. "But it would be messy and loud."

"She won't be there, Eve."

She flicked a glance at Roarke. "No, she won't be there, but she went there for a reason. She sent that e-mail from that location for a purpose, even if it was a fuck-you."

She sniffed the air, caught the scent of chocolate, and glanced back to see Peabody and McNab each with steaming cups—courtesy of the rear AutoChef, she assumed.

"Hot chocolate." Peabody smiled, a little on the sheepish side. "Real as opposed to morgue. Want one?"

Eve only grunted, turned back—in time to brace as a little silver mini skidded sideways into the intersection. Roarke swerved, hit vertical, and hopped over the silver roof with a couple of inches to spare.

In the back, Peabody mopped a spill of chocolate off her lap, and wisely said nothing.

To take her mind off a potential wreck, Eve sent updates to Whitney, Mira, Feeney. Then using her PPC, brought up the latest e-mail, studied it again.

The change in tone, she thought, a little dramatic. Starts off with an apology, feeling bad, feeling sad.

Doesn't like feeling bad and sad, doesn't like the idea of screwing up. That's the turn. It isn't my fault, so it's yours.

She glanced up, then put the handheld away when Roarke pulled to the curb in front of Ledo's flop.

"Whatever anti-theft and vandalism features you've got, light them up," she told Roarke. "Even in this weather somebody's going to try for a rig like this."

"It's standard and auto. It's slippery as a nest of eels out here," he added when he stepped out. "Watch your footing."

He wasn't wrong, Eve noted, but her boots held traction. "The city probably leaves this sector alone when it comes to ice and snow, hoping it holds back crime."

"Making it suck sideways for people who have to get to work or buy provisions," McNab observed, skidding a little on his hyper-fashionable airboots. "I had some blades I could skate on this."

"He really can," Peabody added, striding with confidence on her hot-pink Christmas boots. "We've hit the rinks—I literally hit them—in Rock Center and Central Park a few times."

"Lake or river ice is where it's happening."

Ignoring them, Eve yanked open the unsecured exterior door. She didn't even consider the elevator, but started up, taking the stairs two at a time.

Both beat droids—the same as she'd encountered two days before, stood at attention.

"No movement from inside, Lieutenant. We booted up our enhanced auditory, heard nothing. The probability is ninety-six-point-three the apartment is empty of living organism other than insects or possibly rodents. No booby traps scanned."

"I'm sure you're right." But Eve drew her weapon anyway. "You're backup," she reminded Roarke, and took the door with Peabody.

She didn't expect the UNSUB to be waiting, maybe picking through one of Ledo's grimy skin discs, but interior booby traps still held some concern.

"Watch your step," she ordered Peabody. "We do the sweep and clear slow."

"There's a new message, Dallas."

"I see it. Clear first. She might have left us a surprise."

But they found nothing but dirt, sweeper's dust, dried blood, and a battalion of annoyed cockroaches.

"McNab, have the droids canvass the building. Start with across the hall. Misty Polinsky. She might— Shit." She glanced at Roarke. "Did you follow up on getting her a place at Dochas?"

"She moved in yesterday."

"Yeah, yeah, good deeds kick you in the ass. Have them canvass."

Then she holstered her weapon, studied the latest message.

This time the letters were huge, written in red rather than black. Uneven, Eve mused.

Angry.

IT MATTERS!

I MATTER!

SHOW ME IT MATTERS OR I CAN'T BE

YOUR TRUE FRIEND

"She's losing it. She misses Hastings, can't follow through there, and now she's losing it. Just that quick, just that easy. One mistake, and she starts falling to pieces."

"It's like..."

Eve turned to Peabody. "What? Finish it."

"It just strikes me as middle school. You know, when you're about twelve and you get mad at your best friend. You get all pissy, and it's okay, I'm not going to be your friend anymore unless you—whatever."

"A long-winded way of saying immature?"

"Yeah, but it's a little more. That's the stage when your hormones are zapping around, and everything's so emotional. Your connect with your BFF is so intense, and a breakup is more traumatic even than a romantic breakup. It feels like life and death."

Eve had never dealt with any of that. The hormones, sure, she thought, she had some vague recollections of mood swings, quick anger, the sudden, hateful urge to cry over nothing. But she'd never had a BFF during puberty. She hadn't wanted one, hadn't wanted that kind of connection.

"So she's breaking up with me?"

"It sounds like she's giving you a chance to stop her from breaking up with you."

"It's a girl thing," McNab observed. "Boys just punch each other a few times, then they're done with it and off riding their airboards."

Peabody sent him a withering look, but Eve thought the "boy" way entirely more sensible.

"I'm going to send this message to Mira now so she can factor it in. Take a look at the police seal, will you? How did she get through it?"

"Should be a code." McNab pulled a mini-reader out of one of the many pockets in his bright pants, scanned the lock on the seal. "Yeah, got a code, time of entry, six hundred hours seventeen minutes, this morning. Code read Zero-Eight-Zero-Echo-Five-Three-Delta-Niner. Running that for holder... Shit, Dallas, it's yours."

"That's not my master code." Eve dug her master out. "That's not my code, and this is my master. Scan it. Run it. On record, McNab. Let's keep it clean."

"Yes, sir." He took her master, did the scan. "Code reads Three-Eight-Two-Tango-Zero-One-Alpha-Zero. Not even close. And the run makes it yours."

"She got her hands on a dummy—or someone else's master," Roarke speculated. "Neither would be that difficult. She programmed it with a code, assigned it to you."

"She'd have to register the code. It would have to clear."

"Someone in law enforcement, or doing their research, would know that," Roarke pointed out. "And she has the skills to figure out how to do it."

"She's a geek?"

McNab made an iffy sound. "She's got skills, but my ten-year-old cousin, Fergus, has skills at least on par with what we're seeing here. She did a lot of fancy work to reroute the e-mail, but it took us under fifteen to track it here."

"She wanted us here," Eve pointed out.

"Yeah, there's that." Looking unhappy, McNab stuck his hands in the pockets of his long red coat. "You're going to want to look at EDD. I've got to say that anybody there, including the greenest shoot, could probably do what we're seeing. The thing is, you're going to find plenty in any department or division who could."

"I've got to look. And I've got to consider if I'd been in my usual routine, I'd have been at Central or en route there when the e-mail came in. That means it would've taken longer than the under fifteen. If I'd been en route, considerably longer. If I'd been right at my desk, as I was at home, I'd still have had to shoot it up to Feeney—if he was already in—and get the trace going. She wanted time to get out of the flop, the building, the sector, before we pinned it and I could send officers."

Eve looked back at the fresh message. "Angry, and yeah, immature. But still controlled, still careful, still planning things out. Peabody, let's find out when that master code was registered—and get it canceled on my authority."

"Maybe there's a way to put an alert on it," Peabody suggested. "So if it's used you get instant notification."

"Can do," McNab assured them.

"And tempting," Eve agreed. "But what if she uses it to gain access to another target's residence? I get an alert, and by the time I can get there or have officers there, somebody's dead."

She considered, paced. "Can we kill it, without her knowing it's been canceled? Put the alert on it. She tries to use it, I get the signal?"

"You kill it, the master notifies the holder," McNab began.

"There are ways around that," Roarke put in, drew McNab's attention to him.

"Well, yeah, we could get around it."

"Get around it," Eve ordered. "And this action is need to know. Feeney needs to know—but that's it on your end, McNab. We'll have the four people in this room, Feeney, Whitney, Mira. That's it. No chatter about this, no notification. If she uses it, she finds out, at that moment, it's dead. If she uses it, I find out, at that moment, and the location. I have to have the location."

"Trickier when we kill it." McNab glanced at Roarke again. "Not impossible."

"Make it happen. I'll clear it," she said before he could speak. "With Whitney and Feeney. No electronic chatter on this action either. Just in case we do have somebody in EDD to worry about. Let's seal this place back up and get started."

"You can handle this assignment—you and Feeney," Roarke added. "I'll come into Central as I'd as soon not loiter around here. I can order my own transportation from there, leave the All-Terrain with you."

"That's a plan. Let's move."

···

After he pulled into her slot in Central's garage, Roarke took Eve's hand. "One minute," he said to Peabody and McNab, who discreetly climbed out.

"I've got to get going on this, Roarke."

"Understood. And you need to understand you have to be watchful, not just on the street, but in this building."

"She'd be crazy to go after me in Central."

"I believe the crazy's been well and fully established."

"Okay, your point, but also stupid. She hasn't been stupid, yet."

"And yet is the operative word. Just more watchful, Lieutenant."

"I can tell you I feel like I've been watching everybody for the last forty-eight. Don't worry."

"Worry's already established. But all right. And take this."

She glanced down, fully expecting him to pass her some banned weapon or odd e-device. Instead he gave her a firm jerk to him, covered her mouth in a hot, possessive kiss.

"For good measure," he said when he let her go.

"Measure of what?" But she gave his hand a squeeze before they got out, opposite doors. When he split off toward the entrance she frowned. "Aren't you going to come up, wait for your ride?"

"It's already here. Take care of my cop. That goes for you, too," he said to Peabody and McNab, then strolled out in the very frosty coat she'd given him for Christmas over his ruler-of-the-business-world suit.

"Straight up to Feeney," she told McNab. "Fill him in—in his office, door shut. Tell him I'll be up when I can, or he can come down if he has any questions before I get there."

"On that."

"No chatter," she reminded them, then walked into the elevator and began to outline her next steps.

The minute she stepped into Homicide, Baxter was up, signaling her over.

"We may have a name for you. Former Detective Gina Tortelli. She was under Captain Roth, got busted down to uniform in that sweep, couldn't hack it, turned in her papers. She works private now for some half-assed PI. Arsenial Investigators. She didn't write you," he added as Trueheart walked over to join them.

"Then why should I be interested in her?"

"Because her mother wrote you."

"Her mother?"

"Teresa Tortelli. I don't know about yours, boss, but my mother never used such... colorful language."

Eve thought her mother had done so much worse than spew some four-letter words. And had ended up with her throat slit for it.

"Yours, Trueheart?"

Trueheart flushed a little at Baxter's question, but flashed a grin. "Not in my hearing."

"She reamed you, Dallas, blames you for her daughter getting demoted, then tossing in her badge, her pension, her bennies."

"You think the mother's killing people to pay me back for what happened to the dirty cop she raised?"

"No, I think the mom's got a big mouth and would probably slap you silly if she got the chance. But that's about it there. I wonder if the dirty cop's playing a double-back sort of game."

Eve narrowed her eyes, considered.

"The mother claims the daughter's twice the cop you'll ever be," Baxter added, "and one day she'll prove it."

"And the wrong cop maybe figures, hey, Mom's right, and I'll show that bitch. Drag her into the media center, make it look like she's got a psycho killing people for her. She could still do the job—in a twisted way. It's worth looking at.

"We got that and another one, Lieutenant," Trueheart told her. "Officer Hilda Farmer—or she was Officer Farmer. She wrote you about six times, before she left the job, and after. She claims she wasn't being used to her potential, being she had, um..."

"Tits, Trueheart," Baxter said. "The LT's heard the word before. My boy's still dewy fresh," he added. "This twist claims all the guys—and half the females—in her department hit on her or sexually harassed her. She filed a total of eight claims inside one year, none of which bore fruit, so to speak. She quit in protest. She figured you'd be able to intervene, and she should be your aide, work directly with you. Lots of the key words in her communications. Justice, disrespect, friend."

"She works as a skip tracer now, Lieutenant," Trueheart put in. "And she's got a sheet—she's racked up some assaults, destruction of property. I sent the data on both to your machine."

"Okay, good work. I'll follow through."

Before she could get to her office, she got another two names from Jenkinson, three from Santiago.

It promised to be a long day in what was turning into a very long week, she thought. And found Mira in her office, sitting gingerly on the brutal visitor's chair, drinking tea.

"I wanted to catch you as soon as you came in," Mira said. "I hope you don't mind I helped myself."

"No, that's fine." Eve shut the door, then hit the AutoChef for coffee.

"I didn't expect her to turn this quickly," Mira began. "I'm inclined to believe you're looking for a woman, or someone with female sensibilities. Her abrupt switch in the e-mail she sent you this morning tells me she's in the middle of an intense internal struggle. Her failure last night crushed her confidence, and that, in turn, damaged her trust in you. She failed you, and her ego is so merged with her delusion of a personal relationship with you, she's revolved that into you failing her."

"Peabody says it's like middle school—a twelve-year-old."

"She's not wrong. This person is emotionally immature, and very likely socially stunted. Smart, skilled, but shy around people even while craving attention from them. Building a relationship with you made her feel connected. Now she's ashamed, angry, and afraid. Her bravery all along has been false, manufactured. Reflected off you."

"She mentioned Nixie in the first communication."

"Yes, a child—innocent, traumatized, but a survivor. She also spoke of the remains found in the Sanctuary. She relates, was abused or traumatized at a similar age. If you had been there, it wouldn't have happened. If she had been brave and strong, it wouldn't have happened. But justice wasn't served—not in her mind. Now it must be. She set out to do what you were unable to do, in that way she could see herself as your friend and partner. This failure, coupled with the realization you will pursue her—not simply go through the motions, but actively pursue, using your skills—has her seeing you as flawed."

Mira crossed her legs. The suit was rosy-pink today, worn with slate-gray heels.

"This makes her flawed. That's a struggle for her. Together you were a perfect team, a match. You the public face, her the shadow, finishing the job you couldn't—and avenging your good name. It mattered."

Mira gestured toward the wall, as if the words were written there. "‘I matter.' How can she go on if you can't acknowledge that? If you can't, how can she?"

"She used a master to get back into the crime scene. She registered it, not my code, but under my name."

"Because she sees you as who she wants to be. The friendship would never be enough, even when she convinced herself it was reciprocated. She doesn't simply admire who and what you are. She covets, Eve. I suspect when she's home, alone, she allows herself to pretend she is you—she used first-person plural in the e-mail. She spends her time doing what she imagines you do, very likely has conversations with you that seem very real. It's how she could spend so much of it planning the murders. She might have her hair cut like yours, or wear a wig that emulates your style."

"Now you're seriously creeping me out."

"I hope I am. She now has an excuse to do what, under the facade, she truly wants. She can't become you unless she eliminates you. That's where she's turning now."

"Glad to hear it, because if she focuses on me, I can deal with it. I can't protect the next random person if she targets one."

"I believe she'll go one of two ways, and I wish I could tell you, with confidence, which. But she's in that struggle, and I can't predict which part of her will win. She'll either move immediately to the next on her list, and in this way prove herself, calm herself. Reconnect with you. Or, she'll take the turn that was always coming—she'll have studied and researched. She'll move on someone close to you. A friend. Her reasoning would be you prefer this person over her, and that's intolerable. This person hasn't killed for you, hasn't devoted themselves to you. She'll show you how wrong you've been by taking this person away from you."

Every muscle in Eve's body knotted. "Mavis."

"I've already spoken with her—last night."

Eve let out a breath, eased back in her chair. "Okay. I'll follow up."

"She's performing at the ball drop, New Year's Eve. Otherwise, they'd take the baby for a few days in the sun—away. But they'll be careful. Leonardo's asked her security, the people she uses when she travels or performs, to come in."

"Good. More than good. I know her security. Roarke helped her find them."

"Leonardo will take care of his girls—and I'd say Mavis knows how to take care of herself." Mira added a smile. "She's your oldest and closest friend, and a logical target. But you have more friends."

"You said you and Mr. Mira were on guard."

"And we'll stay that way. Nadine?"

"I've talked to her, but I will again, tell her as much as I can. And Reo, Charles, and Louise. My partner. Isn't Peabody another logical target?"

"She would be—and will be eventually. But I think civilians are more likely, at least initially."

"Because she's too much a coward to go for a cop."

"At this point. Trina."

"Trina's not a friend. Okay, okay," she said as Mira cocked a brow at her. "I'll have Peabody talk to her. If I do she'll start in on how I need a face and body treatment, or my hair trimmed or some crap, and I don't have time for her. Jesus, Morris. All of my division—okay, cops there, but Morris isn't. And there's, Christ, there's Crack. But it's hard to see a coward going up against somebody that big who got his nickname from cracking heads together.

"Still."

She pushed up. "Too many people. How the hell did there get to be so many of them?"

"You changed your life. You opened your life. And it's made you a better cop. A steadier person, in my professional opinion. This woman hasn't done the same. She can't let go of whatever eats her inside. She may have submerged it for years, coped. And, sadly, I think she believes she opened herself when she reached out to you. After the Swisher investigation."

"She left me no way to respond."

"If you'd responded, she couldn't have imagined that response, and made it her reality. Lieutenant Dallas became Dallas became Eve as her imagination—her wish fantasy—became her reality, and the bond between you was formed."

Mira set her empty cup aside. "Whichever choice she makes next, it will lead to the ultimate choice, and that's you. Whether she sees you as enemy or friend at that point won't matter. Killing you will be as necessary as sunrise to her. A hard choice, perhaps, but one that's unavoidable. You would understand, be proud of her for it. And when she kills you?"

"She dies, too," Eve finished.

"Yes, very good. It will have to culminate in the ultimate bond, the epitome of friendship to her. She'll kill you rather than share you, or rather than live with your failure to her. Then herself as she can't exist without you."

"She won't get to me."

"She knows your routines, your habits."

"But not me. Roarke pointed that out. I can switch up routines, and I've got an entire division of cops who have my back. And I'm..." She thought of Roarke's word. "Watchful."

"I'll trust you will be." Mira rose, and laid a hand on Eve's shoulder. "She's crying for help."

"She can get help once she's in a cage."

"‘I matter,'" Mira repeated. "I wonder if she believes she never really has. Until you."