She continued on to Roarke. “I need to ask you for something.”
“Are you asking your husband or your civilian?”
“Looks like you're both. I need you to stay close to me. If I start to lose it — ”
“You won't.”
“If, I think you can help me stay grounded. She's in here.” Eve touched a hand to her chest. “This is the guy who took Beata, the guy who killed her. She might want some payback. If it looks like I'd turn that way, stop me. You stop me.”
“I have every confidence in Lieutenant Dallas, but if it makes you feel easier, I won't let you do anything you'll regret.”
“Good. But be, you know, subtle about it.”
He had to laugh. “You are absolutely you. All right then, while preventing you from taking a dead Gypsy's revenge, I'll do whatever I can to preserve your dignity. How's that?”
“It'll do.”
She reviewed the blueprints again on the way to the building, checked in with her teams, focused on the work.
“We go in the front, pass the main stairs, to the right and straight to the basement access door. It's going to be locked. If the master doesn't work, we use the battering ram or” — she glanced at Roarke — “other means. If Feeney picks up images down there, we follow his lead. Otherwise, Peabody, Baxter, Trueheart, take this sector. Roarke and I this one. One of you sees a mouse riveting, everybody hears about it. We clear sector by sector. If a door's locked, take it down. Call for backup if you need it.”
She toggled to the exterior view. “Locations of cams are highlighted. I don't see anybody watching them this time of night. But there are very likely cams down there not on the blueprints.”
Think like him, she ordered herself. Not like a frantic old woman.
“He'd want to watch her, and want his area secured in and out. Can't have somebody stumbling across her, and can't let her find a way out. If Renicki and Jacobson lock him down, they can work him for more information — but we won't count on getting it. We'll bring in the others, and we'll go through every inch of that basement.
“Feeney,” she said into her mic, “give me the word.”
“Got nothing in the suspect's place. Got two in the other apartment. Everything else aboveground is clear. Got nothing for you in the basement, but there are voids down there, Dallas, either due to the thickness of walls, jammers, or sensor blocks.”
“Tucks them up tight,” she murmured. “Give me the location of the voids.”
She keyed them in, felt the adrenaline begin to pump. “We hit those first. If he's not upstairs and didn't go for a goddamn walk, he's down there with her now. We're green. All teams, we're green. Move.”
She jumped out of the back of the transport, weapon out. She prayed she hadn't missed a deeper level of security, prayed he wasn't monitoring the cameras as she used her master to access the main door.
Cops spread out to the exits, up the stairs, moving quick and quiet while she and her team rushed to the basement door.
“Master's ineffective.”
“Give me a minute,” Roarke told her. “Battering rams are crude, and they're noisy.”
She stepped back to give him room, mentally checking off each exit as her men reported them secure.
When Roarke's clever tools and fingers unlocked the door, she signaled to Peabody. “High and left,” she told her, “then straight down.”
She went in low and right — and knew immediately her instincts had been on target.
Lights burned in the ceiling, dim but activated. The old metal stairs led down to a concrete floor, thick walls, narrow corridors.
She signaled Peabody to lead her team, then set off in the opposite direction with Roarke.
They passed through a cavernous room piled with old furniture, lamps, fabrics, down another dim corridor. She heard the clink and hum of the building mechanicals as they moved through a utility area where tools were neatly stored on freestanding shelves.
“This area needs to be maintained,” she said quietly, sweeping with her weapon as Roarke did the same with the one he'd slipped out of his pocket. “Wherever he keeps them has to be soundproofed and fully secured.”
“This sector's void's west. Down that way.”
Eve started to turn, then went into a crouch, weapon up. Her muscles trembled as the ballerina blocked her way.
“I can't get out,” the woman said and held out her hands. “We can't get out. Can you help me?”
“You have to wait.”
“Eve?”
“It's Vanessa Warwich.” Eve fought off shudders as her skin shivered from the sudden cold. “You have to wait a little longer.”
“I couldn't dance anymore.” She lifted her sparkling white skirt. “He cried when he killed me.” She touched her fingers to the gaping slice across her throat. “But I couldn't dance anymore.”
“Just wait.” And gritting her teeth, Eve walked through the pleading woman. She reached out to try to balance herself when her head spun.
Roarke grabbed her, braced her. “Bloody hell. Stay here.”
“I have to finish it. You know I have to finish it. I have to make it stop.” She glanced back and into Vanessa Warwich's eyes but saw the others behind her. All the pretty girls in their sparkling skirts and toe shoes.
All those white throats gaping.
“She's waiting. Warwich waiting — trapped. And God, she's not alone. We have to move.”
“Hold on to me if you have to.”
He took the lead, brooked no argument. She steadied herself as she followed, cleared her throat as she listened to team updates.
Her op, she reminded herself. She was in command here. She had to be.
Natalya and Alexi were secured, Peabody had reached the first of her voids. An empty room. The search of Sasha's apartment was under way, but neither he nor the murder weapon had been found.
Roarke held up a hand, stopped her. “Sensors,” he murmured. “They'll read us.”
“Then we're getting close.”
“They'll likely signal in his apartment but could very well alert him if he's down here. Give me a minute to jam them.”
“You're handy.”
“We do what we can.” He took out what looked like an innocent PPC, keyed in various codes. “It's rudimentary,” he told her. “Just a precaution to let him know if anyone's down this way.”
“Or if his current ballerina managed to get out. Are we clear?”
“We are.”
“Peabody, we hit sensors. Watch for them. We're moving.”
Another turn, another twenty feet, and they spotted the door. “Secured door,” she said into her mic. “Accessing now.”
She rolled her shoulders as Roarke got to work. She was ready, she thought. She was herself.
When he nodded, they went through the door together, swept it.
She supposed it would be called a sitting room — windowless, but with a softly faded carpet, a sofa, a lamp. And a small monitoring station.
He could sit here and watch her before he went in, she thought, studying the blank monitor, then the second secured door, the one painted bright bloodred.
“The red door,” she murmured. “Locked behind the red door.”
Without a word Roarke went to the door, checked the security. She had to breathe deeply, slowly, fighting the voice inside her begging her to hurry, hurry, hurry.
“Got his lair,” she said to Peabody. “Key in on me. Secondary door and inner security being bypassed. Feeney, I've got a monitoring station here. Send McNab in. We're clear,” she said at Roarke's nod. “We're going in.”
She looked at him, trusted him to keep her centered. She held up three fingers, closed to a fist, then held up one, two. On three they were through the door.
Ten
He'd set his prison with a stage with filmy white curtains on either side and lights to enhance the mood of the music that soared. Roses, their petals glowing silver in the light, scented the air. Eve spotted all this, and another door, in an instant, but her focus centered on the stage and the dancers.