“Been collecting since I was ten. Seriously since I was about twenty, but in the last five years I’ve really been able to indulge myself. Do you see this? Farm section. It’s an elevator, John Deere replica in pressed steel at one-sixteenth scale. Circa 1960. Mint condition, and I paid a mint for it, but it was worth it. And this over here… ” He took a few steps, swayed. “Whew. Gin’s gone to my head. I’m going to grab some Sober-Up. Look around.”
“Hold on.” That wouldn’t do, not at all. Trevor wanted the alcohol, and plenty of it, in his system. Added to that, the impairment of it would make it simpler to kill him. “What’s this piece?”
It was enough to draw Dix’s interest, to have him shift direction and move just out of the line of sight of the side window. “Ah, game department,” Dix said cheerfully. “It’s a pinball machine, toy-sized version, baseball theme. Circa 1970. Be worth more in the original box, but there’s something to be said for the fact it saw a little action.”
“Hmm.” Trevor turned around, grinned broadly. “Now, that’s a hell of a piece.”
“Which?” Dix turned as well. “In the military section?”
Trevor slipped his accordion baton from his pocket. “The tank?”
“Oh yeah, that’s a jewel.”
As Dix took a step, Trevor snapped his wrist to extend the baton. He swung it up in an arc, then brought it down across the back of Dix’s skull.
Dix fell as Trevor had positioned him, away from the shelves and out of the line of sight of the unprotected window.
“Spending this much time in your company,” Trevor said as he took out a handkerchief and meticulously cleaned off the lethal wand, “I’ve discovered something I only suspected previously. You’re an unbearably tedious geek. The world’s better off without you. But first things first.”
He stepped over the body, toward the toy that had once been his father’s. As he reached out, the doorbell buzzed.
His heart didn’t leap, but stayed as steady as it had when he’d fractured Dix’s skull. But he spun around, and calculated. To ignore it-and how he wanted to ignore it, to take what was his and see it at last-would be a mistake.
They’d been seen coming into the building, riding up in the elevator. In a building like this there would be security cameras in the halls outside. He’d have to acknowledge whoever was at the door and dismiss them.
More irritated than uneasy, he hurried to answer the summons. He engaged the security screen first and studied the thin young man in an eye-searing pink shirt covered with purple palm trees. The man looked bored and was chewing what appeared to be a fist-sized wad of gum. He carried a thick zip-bag. Even as Trevor watched, the man blew a bubble the size of a small planet and hit the buzzer again.
Trevor flicked on the intercom. “Yes?”
“Delivery for Dix. Chad Dix.”
“Leave it there.”
“No can do. Need a sig. Come on, buddy, I gotta get back on my horse and ride.”
Cautious, Trevor widened his view. He saw the purple skinpants, the pink air boots. Where did these people get their wardrobes? He reached for the locks, then drew his hand back.
Wasn’t worth the risk. There’d be too many questions if he accepted a package, if he signed Dix’s name, or his own, for that matter.
“Leave it with the downstairs desk. They’ll sign. I’m busy.”
“Hey, buddy-”
“I’m busy!” Trevor snapped, and disengaged the intercom. He watched, just to be sure, and sneered as the messenger flipped up his middle finger and walked out of view.
Satisfied, he switched off the screen. It was time he accepted his own special delivery, long overdue.
“Shut down the coms and screens,” Eve ordered Feeney through her communicator. “We’ll have to take the door.”
“Shutting them down.”
She turned to McNab. “Nice job. I’d’ve bought it.”
“If that was Dix and he wasn’t under duress, he’d have opened the door.” McNab drew his weapon from the base of his spine and holstered it at his side.
“Yeah. Take care of the locks,” she told Roarke. “Weapons on stun,” she ordered the team. “I don’t want a hostage taken down. Hold fire until my command. Peabody and I go in first. You take the right. McNab, you’re left. You, you, you, fan out, second wave. I want this door secured behind us. Roarke?”
“Nearly there, Lieutenant.” He was crouched, delicately disarming locks and alarms with tools as thin as threads.
She squatted beside him, lowered her voice. “You’re not going in.”
“Yes, I don’t believe I heard my name in today’s lineup.”
She suspected he was armed-illegally-and that he would-probably-be discreet about it. But she couldn’t justify the risk. “I can’t take a civilian through the door until the suspect is contained. Not with this many cops around.”
He shifted his gaze and those laser blue eyes met hers. “You don’t need to explain or attempt to quell even my infamous ego.”
“Good.”
“And you’re in.”
She nodded. “You’re a handy guy to have around. Now step back so we can take this asshole.”
She knew it was hard for him to do just that, to stand aside while she went through the door. Whittier was almost certainly armed, and he would kill without hesitation. But Roarke straightened, moved away from the team.
She’d remember that, she thought-or she’d try to remember that-when things got heated between them as they tended to do. She’d remind herself that, when it mattered to her, he’d stepped aside so she could do her job.
“Feeney? Emergency evac?”
“It’s down. He’s boxed.”
“We’re on the door. Peabody?”
“Ready, sir.”
With her weapon in her right hand, Eve eased the unsecured door open with her left. With one sharp nod, she booted it, went in low and fast.
“Police!” She swept, eyes and weapon, as Peabody peeled to the right and McNab came in from behind and shot left. “Trevor Whittier, this is the police. This building is surrounded. All exits are blocked. Come out, hands up and in full view.”
She used hand signals to direct her team to other areas, other rooms as she moved forward.
“You’ve got nowhere to go, Trevor.”
“Stay back! I’ll kill him. I have a hostage. I have Dix, and I’ll kill him.”
She held up a closed fist, signaling her team to stop, to hold positions, then eased around the corner.
“I said I’ll kill him.”
“I heard you.” Eve stayed where she was, looking through the open glass doors. Light glittered on the toy-decked shelves and on the blood smeared on the white floor.
Trevor sat in the center of it, the prize he’d killed for beside him. He had an arm hooked around Dix’s neck, and a knife to his throat.
Dix’s eyes were closed, and there was blood on the otherwise spotless floor. But she could see the subtle rise and fall of Dix’s chest. Alive then. Still alive.
They looked like two overgrown boys who’d played just a little too hard and rough.
She kept her weapon trained and steady. “Looks like you already did. Kill him.”
“He’s breathing.” Trevor dug the point of the knife into flesh, carving a shallow slice. Blood dribbled over the blade. “I can change that, and I will. Put down that weapon.”
“That’s my line, Trevor. There are two ways you can leave this room. You can leave it walking, or we can carry you out.”
“I’ll kill him first. Even if you stun me, I’ll have time to slit his throat. You know it, or you’d have hit me already. You want to keep him alive, you back out. You back out now!”
“Kill him and the only thing I put down is you. Do you want to die today, Trevor?”
“You want him to die?” He jerked Dix’s head back, and stirring slightly, Dix moaned. “If you don’t clear this place, that’s what’s going to happen. We start negotiating, and we start now. Back out.”
“You’ve been watching too many vids. You think I’m going to deal with you over a single civilian who’s probably going to die anyway from the looks of things? Grab some reality, Trev.” She smiled when she said it, wide and white. “I got pictures in my head of the two women you killed. It’d just fucking make my day to end you. So go ahead, finish him off.”