Kindred In Death

7

EVE FLASHED HER BADGE AT THE STERN-FACED droid riding the desk at the check-in for the dorm. She assumed they’d gone droid to try to avoid any possibility of bribery or human weakness with infractions. But she figured that area would be offset by the ability of probably half the residents in reprogramming or memory erase.

The droid gave Eve’s badge both a naked eye study and a red-beam scan.

“Purpose of business?”

“That would be filed under none of yours.”

In droid fashion, the machine dubbed “Ms. Sloop” according to its nameplate stared blankly during processing.

“I am responsible for the residents and visitors of this building.”

“I’m responsible for the residents and visitors of this city. I win.” Eve tapped her badge. “This requires you to answer one simple question: Is Darian Powders on the premises at this time?”

The droid blinked twice, then consulted its comp, though Eve imagined it had the information in its own circuits.

During the process, Eve wondered if the pinched-face, tight-lipped, slicked-back-bun look of the machine was an attempt by whoever was in charge to intimidate the residents into behaving.

Since the stern, disapproving facade reminded her of Summerset, she didn’t see how it could work.

“Resident Powders logged in at oh-three-thirty. He has not since logged out.”

“Okay then.” Eve turned toward the elevator.

“You are required to log in.”

Eve didn’t bother to glance back. “You scanned my badge. That logs me in.” Stepping on, she ordered the fourth floor. “Why can’t they use humans?” she complained to Roarke. “Droids aren’t nearly as much fun to screw with.”

“I don’t know. I found it mildly entertaining. And it did look considerably put out.”

“Maybe, but it’s already moved on.” Hands in pockets, she rocked on her heels. “A person would probably sulk or stew about it for a few minutes anyway. That’s more satisfying.”

When the doors opened, the noise slammed her eardrums, and made her eyes throb. Music-clashing styles, volumes, lyrics-pumped out of rooms with their doors propped open. Voices mixed with them, some raised in argument or debate, others singing along. People, possibly under the influence of pharmaceuticals and in various stages of dress, wandered the hallways.

A couple twined in deep kiss/grope mode just outside a closed door. Eve wondered why they just didn’t go inside and finish the job.

She stepped in front of a girl sporting two nose rings and what might have been a tattoo of a honking goose on her left shoulder.

“Darian Powders? Where do I find him?”

“Dar?” The girl flapped a hand behind her while giving Roarke a long, slow, smoldering study. “Straight back, last on the right. Door’s open. I’m over that way,” she said to Roarke, “if you’re interested.”

“That’s an offer,” Roarke said pleasantly. “But I’ll be going this way.”

“Bummed.”

With a look more of wonder than annoyance, Eve watched the girl stroll off. “She completely eye-fucked you.”

“I know. I feel so cheap and used.”

“Shit. You got off on it. Men always do.”

“True enough, which is why we’re so often cheap and used.”

She snorted, then heading down the corridor glanced in rooms. She saw a jumble of possessions and people, smelled very old pizza and very fresh Zoner. Peace Day signs lay scattered among snoring bodies and bottles of brew, which were probably as illegal as the Zoner.

“Does anyone actually study around here?”

“The ones with the doors closed, I imagine.” Roarke shrugged. “And it being the end of a holiday weekend, I’d think most are still in the mode.” He looked as she did at a couple curled up together on the floor in front of a blasting vid screen. “Or simply unconscious.”

Eve could only shake her head. “The droid’s useless, and they know it.”

She stopped at the open door at the end of the corridor. Inside ten young people sprawled on big colorful floor pillows or slumped on a small red sofa. The source of the music here was a comp game blasting on screen. The two remaining people seemed to be dueling on stage. Their icons, outfitted in the pinnacle of trash rock gear, held guitars while their counterparts played the air version and sang at the top of their lungs.

She considered shouting, but judged it a waste of air and effort. Instead she walked in and shoved her badge in front of one of the sprawlers.

It was just a little disappointing that no one scrambled to conceal or dispose of illegals. The boy she badged, scooped a hank of red and black hair out of his eyes and said, “Whoa! What do?”

“Turn it off.”

“The what?”

“Turn the game off.”

He gave her saucer eyes. “But it’s like the final round, and dead heat. Dar could maybe lose his title.”

“Heart bleeds. Turn it off.”

“Whoa.” He scooped his hair again, then scooted over to the main controller to switch it manually. He used pause, which suited Eve. But the participants, and the audience who hadn’t seen the badge, went ballistic.

“What the fuck? The fuck? Who did that?” The boy player-who Eve recognized as Darian-whirled around. He looked ready to bash someone with his invisible guitar. “I was about to take Luce down!”

“Bogus.” Luce sniffed, tossing a yard of hair the white-blonde of bleached straw. “I had you. Totally under.”

“Not this eon. Jesus, Coby, what?”

“Got cop,” Coby said and jerked his head toward Eve.

Slouchers and sprawlers came to attention. Darian shifted toward Eve, goggled a little. “Whoa. Seriously?”

“Seriously. Darian Powders?”

“Yeah, um, me!” He raised his hand. “If we’re too loud and like that, so’s everybody.”

Eve saw, out of the corner of her eye, one of the sprawlers butt-scoot toward the door. She stopped him with a single finger point.

“I’m not campus, I’m NYPSD. I have some questions.”

Luce sidestepped to Darian, put her hand in one of his pockets in a way that told Eve they weren’t just game rivals, but involved. “You need a lawyer, Dar.”

“What? Why? Why?”

“When a cop asks questions, you should have a rep.”

“I bet you’re a law student.”

Luce looked at Eve out of eyes such a pale blue they looked like springwater. “Prelaw.”

“Then why don’t you rep him on the first question. It’s an easy one. Darian, can you account for your whereabouts from six p.m. last night to four a.m. this morning?”

“Well yeah. Come on, Luce, that is easy. A bunch of us went down to the Shore yesterday afternoon. What, about two maybe?”

“About.” Luce kept those pale eyes on Eve. “We got back about seven.”

“And we chowed at McGill’s, and hit a party at Gia’s. She’s got an off-campus group. Gia.” He gestured to a tiny brunette.

“Um, I don’t know when he left, exactly, but it was pretty late. Or early, I guess,” Gia offered. “We started the Rock Your Ass tourney, and we were going till close to three. Close anyway.”

“We came back here after and crashed,” Darian told Eve. “Time, I don’t know, exactly, but the log’ll have it below.”

“Okay, see? Easy.” Eve thought of connections, and Jamie’s comment about partying late on Saturday night.

“So… I did good?” Darian offered the same blasting smile from his ID shot.

“Yeah. No lawyers necessary,” she said to Luce. “Do you know Jamie Lingstrom?”

“Sure. We’ve had some classes together, hang sometimes. Hey, he was at the party last night for a while. You could ask him… Wait. Is he in trouble? He’s not trouble. He wants to be a freaking cop. Sorry, I mean, he’s studying to be an e-cop.”

“He’s not in trouble. It happens I know Jamie, too. You’re not in trouble either, but I still have questions. Everybody else, clear out.”

Bodies lurched up, scrambled. Luce remained glued to Darian’s side, and the boy Coby stayed on the floor.

Eve pointed at Coby, pointed at the door.

“But I live here and all that.”

“Find somewhere else to be. And close the door behind you.”

When he had, Eve looked at Luce.

“I’m not leaving. I’m within my rights.”

“Fine. Sit down, both of you.”

Eve showed them Deena’s ID photo. “Do you know this girl?”

“No. Wait. No… Maybe.”

“Pick one,” Eve advised Darian.

“I think I’ve seen her maybe?” He looked at Eve as she imagined he might have looked at one of his professors. Earnestly. “Maybe with Jamie? But not like at the party last night, or for a while. I just think maybe. Luce.”

Luce frowned over the image. “Yeah. A couple times with Jamie. Not a girlfriend. I asked because she’s younger. He said they’d been buds forever. I didn’t really talk to her much or anything, but I saw her a couple of times with Jamie at Perk It-the coffee shop. Why?”

Eve ignored the question. “Darian, you requested a new student ID in January.”

“Yeah. I lost mine.”

“How’d you lose it?”

“I don’t know. If I did, I’d probably find it.” He smiled, a little weakly.

“Let’s try when did you lose it?”

“It was right after winter break. I know I had it when I got back-I went home for Christmas-because you’ve got to show it to log back into the dorm and all after a break. I got back early, for New Year’s and like that, because, well, who wants to be with the fam for the big Eve. Plus, Luce and I had started…”

“We’re a unit.”

Eve nodded at Luce. “Got that.”

“We started uniting last fall, and I wanted to get back. I missed her.”

“Aw.” Luce cuddled closer.

“And we had a big bash for the Eve here. Major bash. I know I had it on the Eve because I had to show it to get the discount on supplies. Not like brew or anything, being underage.” He smiled again, very, very innocently. “So we partied until way into the new, and we didn’t go out again until the third-the day classes started. I mean, we cleaned up, dumped trash and all that, but we stuck around. We were all wiped from the party, and it was freaking cold anyway. Then I go to check in for class, and no ID.”

“On the third? Why is your replacement for the fifth?”

“Ah… Well, you know you report and apply, and… crap. Okay, okay, so I slicked on the third. I just figured I’d left it back here or something.”

“Slicked?”

“I, ah…”

He glanced at Luce for direction, but she was staring hard at Eve. “She doesn’t care about that, Dar. She’s not going to care about slicking.”

“Okay, yeah, well, I got another student to pass me through on his ID. You’re not supposed to but, it’s not against the law. Is it?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I looked everywhere when I got back. No go. Then, okay, I slicked my early classes the next day, cut a couple so I could go back to the stores where we bought stuff, in case I left it there. No go again. I reported it, end of day on the fourth, so it got issued on the fifth.”

“Where do you keep the ID?”

“In the wallet, or sometimes just in my pocket ’cause it’s easier. You show it a lot, so it’s handy in the pocket.”

“Where was it on the night of the party?”

“I don’t know. My pocket? Maybe. Or I maybe tossed it in my room, which is why I tore the place up when I realized it wasn’t on me. It costs seventy-five for a reissue, plus the forms. It’s a hassle.”

“I’ll need a list of who was at the party.”

“Lady-”

“Lieutenant.”

“Whoa, seriously?” Surprised respect goggled in his eyes. “Lieutenant, I couldn’t do it if you put me in cuffs and hauled me in. We jammed. People came and went, and I didn’t know half of them. Somebody from somewhere brings a friend. You know how it is? We got a corner suite here, so it’s the biggest on the floor. We get banged when we party. Jamie was here,” he remembered. “You could ask him. We were wall-to-wall and then some, so… Shit. I’m stupid. Somebody lifted it that night. Damn it, people suck wind.”

“They do,” Eve agreed.

“And someone used it to do something illegal,” Luce put in as Darian paled. “Something that happened last night. Something between six p.m. and four a.m. It wasn’t Darian.”

“No, it wasn’t Darian. I may need to talk to you again, but for now I appreciate your cooperation.”

“Aren’t you going to tell us what he did, whoever took it?” Darian asked.

They’d find out soon enough, Eve thought. No point in it now. “I’m not at liberty.”

“It’s about that girl,” Darian murmured. “She did something or something happened to her.”

Eve signaled Roarke and started to the door. “Take better care of your ID.”

“Lieutenant? Is Jamie all right? Is he okay?”

“Yeah.” She glanced back, the dark-haired boy and the pale, pretty girl. “Jamie’s all right.”

She brooded over it a bit as they drove home. “So, the kid, Darian, throws a party on New Year’s Eve, and the killer just happens to walk in and cop the ID? Just too fucking lucky in my world.”

“Agreed, though it’s not impossible it was a moment of opportunity. More likely, your killer had his eye on Darian, or a few candidates including Darian, then took the opportunity to slip into the party, among the crowd. Not difficult to snag the ID then, whether it was on Darian’s person, or left in his room. People in and out, jammed together, undoubtedly alcohol or some illegals in the mix.”

“He knows the campus, he blends there. He’d targeted Deena, so he had to know she was tight with Jamie, who goes there.”

“You’re thinking Jamie knows him, or has at least brushed up against him at some point. A friend of a friend of a friend.”

“It fits, doesn’t it? He might’ve even used some names she was vaguely familiar with to make her more comfortable with him right off. Those two kids recognized Deena and put her with Jamie. So the killer mentions their names, or others. She automatically feels safe. He’s had the ID for months before he first approaches her. Patient as a fucking spider.”

She went back to work to write up the interview with Darian, and to begin the laborious process of studying the results from her search of MacMasters’s case files.

It was nearly two in the morning when Roarke found her nodding over the data.

“You can’t work in your sleep,” he pointed out. “It’s time both of us were in bed.”

“I’ve got a handful of possibles.” She pressed the heels of her hands to eyes gone fuzzy. “Connections to people MacMasters sent over for long stretches, ones who bought it in prison. He’s got no terminations in the last five years. I need to go back further, maybe. And I need to talk this through with him.”

“Which is for tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.” She pushed up. “Why are you still awake?”

“Working on digging out wiped data, which with the system MacMasters has is like trying to find a ghost in a dark room while wearing a blindfold.”

Since they were both too tired for the stairs, he called for the elevator. “And running the analysis on the copy of the recording. And that would be a hell of a lot more concise with the bloody original. There’s no reflection. He’s not in her eyes.”

“Would’ve been too lucky.” She yawned her way into the bedroom. “I set up a briefing here for seven hundred, since Peabody and I are going to hit the park. Feeney can take the disc in, log it, start the analysis.”

She stripped on the way to the bed. “I’ll meet with Mira, she’ll have a profile. And I’m going to pick Jamie’s memory. This guy will have been around, on the fringe, blending in, but he’s been around. He’s not a ghost. There’ll be tracks.” She flopped facedown on the bed. “There are always tracks somewhere.”

“You’ve found some in less than twenty-four hours.” He slipped in beside her, wrapped an arm around her to tuck her close. “You’ll find more.”

“Maybe it was a vic.” Her voice slurred. “And he figures MacMasters didn’t do enough… blame the cop, punish the cop. Maybe…”

In the dark, Roarke stroked her back as she went under, as Galahad plopped on the bed at her feet. And he thought, Here we are, all safe and sound for the night.

She dreamed of dark rooms, and of tracks dug into the hard streets of her city. Following them as things scrabbled away in the shadows. She dreamed of the young girl watching her with dead eyes.

As she tracked, an animated billboard sprang to life, stories high and filled with the image of the girl weeping, defenseless, bleeding. Her voice filled the dark with pain, with fear.

He was there with her-she felt him behind her, beside her, in front of her. Breathing, waiting, watching while the girl begged and bled and died.

He was there while the image changed to another girl, a girl in a room smeared with red light. There, while the girl Eve had been begged and bled and killed.

So she ripped herself out of the dream with her heart stuttering and the air trapped in her lungs. She forced the air out. “Lights. Lights on, ten percent.”

Her hands shook lightly as she stared at them, turned them over, looking for the blood.

Not there, of course it’s not there. Just a dream, and not so bad. Not so bad. Closing her eyes she willed her heartbeat to slow, to steady. But she couldn’t will away the cold, and Roarke wasn’t there to warm her.

Her teeth wanted to chatter, so she gritted them as she got up, found a robe. She checked the time, saw it was just shy of five-thirty. Going to the house monitor, she cleared her throat.

“Where is Roarke?”

Good morning, darling Eve. Roarke is in his main office.

“What the hell for?” she wondered, and went off to find out.

Stupid, she told herself, just stupid to be too uneasy to go back to bed, catch the half hour she had left. But she couldn’t face it, not alone.

She heard him as she neared the office, but the words were strange, jumbled, foreign. She thought longingly of coffee, and thought she needed the zap of it to clear her brain because she’d have sworn Roarke was speaking in Chinese.

She walked, bleary-eyed, to his open office door. Maybe she was still dreaming, she thought, because Roarke damn well was speaking Chinese. Or possibly Korean.

On the wall screen an Asian held his end of the conversation in perfect English. Roarke stood, circling a holo-model of some sort of building. Every so often the structure changed, or opened into an interior view, as if he or the other man made some small adjustment.

Expanses of glass increased, openings that had been angled, arched.

Fascinated, she leaned on the doorjamb and watched him work.

He’d dressed for the day but hadn’t bothered, as yet, with a suit jacket or tie. That told her the man on screen was an employee rather than a business partner.

He studied the holo, shifted to pick up a mug of coffee from his desk. As he drank he listened to the other man talk of space and flow, ambient light.

Roarke interrupted with another spate of Chinese, indicated what looked to Eve to be the southeast corner of the building.

Moments later what had been solid became glass. The roof on that sector lifted, changed angles, then relaxed into a kind of soft curve.

And Roarke nodded.

She pushed off the jamb when the conversation ended. The screen went blank, and the holo poofed.

“Since when have you been fluent in Chinese? Or whatever that was.”

He turned toward her, surprise flickering over his face. “What are you doing up? You’ve barely had three hours down.”

“Pot, kettle. Was that Chinese?”

“It was. Mandarin. And I don’t speak above a handful of basic words. Comp translator, two-way.”

Her brow knit even as he crossed to the AutoChef. “I’ve never seen-heard-a translator that clear. It sounded like you, not comp-generated.”

“Something we’ve been working on for a while, and are selling in a few key markets.” He handed her the coffee he’d programmed for her. “It makes it easy to do business when it feels and sounds like a conversation rather than a translation.”

“What was the thing? The holo?”

“A complex we’re building outside of Beijing.” His eyes darkened as he studied her face. “You had a nightmare.”

“Sort of. It wasn’t bad. It’s okay.”

But she didn’t protest when he drew her in, held her. The warmth finally came back to her bones. “I’m sorry. I had to take care of this.”

“At five-thirty in the morning? Or earlier, since you looked to be way into it when I got here.”

“It’s twelve hours later in Beijing. I’d hoped to be done before you woke up.” He drew her back. “No point asking if you’d get a bit more sleep.”

“Pot, kettle,” she repeated. “I’m going to grab a swim. That and the coffee should set me up.”

“All right then. We’ll have breakfast when you’re done. I’ve got a few things I can see to.”

“It’s still shy of six in the morning.”

He smiled. “Not in London.”

“Huh. That always strikes me weird.” She stepped back. “How much of this stuff do you do when I’m conked?”

“It depends.”

“Strikes me weird,” she repeated, and used his elevator to ride down to the pool.

By seven, she was fueled, dressed, and ready for the briefing. It didn’t surprise her to find a buffet set up in her office. Roarke, she knew, insisted on feeding her and her cops as well. She wondered why, and decided to ask Mira one of these days.

She poked her head in Roarke’s office through the adjoining door. “I’m going to close this. You’re already up-to-date.”

He made some sound of agreement as he scanned his comp screen. “Tell Feeney I should be clear by two, and can give him some time.”

“All right.”

She shut the door as she heard Peabody, McNab, and Jamie chattering their way down the hall.

“Get what you’re going to get,” she ordered, “and don’t dawdle.”

“I smell meat of pig.” McNab shot to the buffet like a neon bullet with Jamie on his heels.

Peabody sighed. “I’m on a diet.”

“There’s a bulletin.”

“No, really. We’re going to try for the beach next day off. I hate bathing suits. I hate me in bathing suits. And yesterday, there was pizza. I think it’s still in my thighs.” She sighed. “I hope there’s fruit, maybe a few low-calorie twigs.”

Peabody shuffled toward temptation as Feeney came in. “Baxter and his boy are right behind me, so I better get over there first. McNab, stop hogging the hog.”

“Told you there’d be food,” Baxter said, and pointed. “Get your share and mine,” he told the young, slightly seasoned Trueheart. Then he crossed to Eve.

As was his habit, Baxter wore a very slick suit. But there was no smart-ass on his handsome face this morning.

“We’re up-to-date, or up-to-date on the last data you sent. I didn’t know the kid, but I know MacMasters. I worked out of the same squad with him when I was a rook and he was a detective on his way to LT. He’s as good as they come. If you hadn’t pulled us in, I’d have angled for it. If budget gets to be a problem, we’ll kick any OT off the books.”

“It won’t be a problem, but the offer’s noted and appreciated.”

“There’s not a man in the division who wouldn’t do the same. We’re going to get the fucker, Dallas.”

“That’s right. Stuff your faces,” she told the room in general, “but kill the chatter. We’re nearly twenty-four hours in. We don’t have time to waste.”

“Where’s your man?” Feeney asked her.

“He’s got work of his own. After two he’ll be your man. Okay, let’s round it up. Screen on.” She stopped as Whitney stepped into the room. “Sir.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt. I’d like to sit in on the morning briefing. And to tell you that Captain MacMasters will be available to you, here, at nine hundred. I felt meeting here would be less complicated for him than Central.”

“Yes, sir. Ah… if you’d like anything that hasn’t already been greedily consumed…”

“Coffee would do it, thanks. Please, go ahead.”

“You’re all aware of the case, and the early steps of the investigation. You’re all aware that this is a cop’s daughter, and that we believe she was target specific. We believe she knew her killer, and had been set up for the events of Saturday night and early Sunday morning. Other data and other lines of investigation have come to light, which I’ll brief you on shortly. Feeney, status on EDD.”

“Slow. I know that’s not what any of us want to hear. The virus used to wipe and corrupt the hard drive is effective. We’re piecing it back together one damn byte at a time, and half of those bytes are useless. None of the D and C units in the residence contain anything useful. As far as we can determine, he never contacted the vic and was never contacted by her on any of the house ’links. He never sent or received any e-mail from her from any of the house comps, including her bedroom comp. The bedroom unit was scanned and searched from twenty-fifteen to twenty-thirty-three. Nothing was deleted during that period.”

“He checked it out during one of his breaks,” Eve concluded, “and didn’t find anything to worry him.”

“There is nothing to worry him,” McNab commented. “There’s no mention of meeting anyone, no allusion to a boyfriend in any of her communications on that unit. Maybe they’re in some sort of girl code, but I can’t crack it.”

“She kept it to her pockets. More personal, more intimate, more secret.” Eve nodded. “Even her messages and conversations with her best friend about him, off the main comps and ’links. He had her snowed. Keep the focus on the security for now.”

She shifted her gaze to Jamie. “Jamie, I need you to leave the room at this time.”

“What for?” He boosted up in his chair. “I’m part of the team.”

“A civilian part of the team. I’ll tag you when I want you back.”

“You can’t shut me out. I’m doing the job.” He turned to appeal to Feeney. “I’m pulling my weight.”

“You don’t argue with your lieutenant. That’s the job, too.”

“I’m asking if the lieutenant has faith in me, believes I can handle myself.” He got to his feet. “If not, then I’m a drag not an asset. This is about Deena. So you tell me, Dallas, if I’m not pulling.”

“That’s for Feeney to say.”

“He holds his own,” Feeney said.

“And I can’t hold my own if I’m shut out of parts of the investigation, don’t have pieces of the data. If you’re going to say something you don’t think I can handle, you’re wrong.”

“It’s not what I’m going to say.” Was it wrong to want to protect him for what was coming? Maybe it was, maybe. But she could regret not doing so. “I located a music and video disc in the victim’s possession, which I believe was created by the killer. Certainly the last section was his work.”

She gave Jamie a last look. “Computer, run disc copy labeled H-23901 from cue.”

Acknowledged…