“It's what I do best. Hey, maybe I'll get everybody down to the pool before we eat. That chilly with you?”
“It's great.” She tried to envision Mavis cavorting in the water with Elizabeth and Mira. “Ah… But wear a suit, okay?”
Outside, Nixie dashed behind a tree when she heard the engine. She watched, breath quick and short as Dallas 's car streamed out of the garage and toward the front of the house. She watched it stop, heard locks click.
It was wrong. She shouldn't do it. But she wanted to go home. Even for a little while. Before they sent her away, before they made her have another mom and dad.
She took one last glance toward the house, then ran for the car and crawled onto the floor of the backseat. She pulled the door shut only a moment before the door of the house opened. And she lay there, eyes squeezed shut.
“Some smooth ride you scored this time, Dallas.”
Baxter. He was nice, funny. He wouldn't be too mad if they found her.
“Don't play with my controls. When we're done with this, I need you to hook up with Peabody, keep pushing the property angle. We're going to find them Upper West. Shit, they could be a fucking block away.”
“There goes the neighborhood. We scattering for the night because of the IAB hound?”
“Webster's okay-but if I've got the team officially on the clock, and working out of my home, it's a gray area. Politicians grumbling, and they don't like gray unless they're painting it. We got dead cops, we got injured cops, we're poking into other cops' cases-one of them closed with a guy doing cage time for it. And I'm not shutting it down fast enough to suit them. I'm not going to give them a reason to pull me off.”
“Taking the kid into your place opened you up to it.”
“I know it.”
“It was the right thing, Dallas. The right thing for her. Kid didn't just need protection. She needed… comfort.”
“She needs me to close this thing, and I can't if I get jammed up with bullshit. So we straddle the line, and Webster will keep the brass off our ass until we do. There's the black-and-white. Let's get this done.”
Eve strode to the two uniforms. “Either of you go inside?”
“No, sir. We were ordered to hold. Light was on up there, right front window, second floor.” One of them nodded toward the house. “Switched off when we pulled up. No one's come out.”
“You check the back?”
“We were told to hold.”
“Jesus, don't either of you have possession of a brain today? Kids've probably scrambled. Baxter, go around the back. I'll take the front. The two of you stand here and give the appearance of being cops.”
She approached the front entrance, examined the seal and lock. Both had been hacked and mangled. It screamed kids, but she followed the suggestion of the tingle at the base of her spine and drew her weapon before she booted the door.
She swept, center, right, left, back to center. Called for lights and listened. There was some debris scattered around. Home brew bottles, bags of soy chips. Snack food littered the floor, and had been crushed underfoot. It all said kids, disrespect, party.
When she heard a soft creak overhead, she crossed to the stairs.
Because she couldn't hear anything, Nixie risked easing her head up, peeking out the window. She saw the two policemen and bit her lip when her eyes welled with tears. They wouldn't let her go inside. If she tried to, they'd see her.
Even as she thought it, there were two bright flashes, and the policemen flew backwards and fell down the steps to her mother's office. So quickly it seemed like pretend, two figures in black ran across the sidewalk and into her house.
The shadows.
She wanted to scream, to scream so loud, but nothing came out of her throat as she squeezed her body down onto the floor again. The shadows would kill Dallas and Baxter, just like they'd killed everybody. While she hid. They would cut them up while she hid.
Then she remembered what was in her pocket, and fumbled out the 'link Roarke had given her. She pushed the button, hard, and began to weep as she crawled out of the car. “You have to come, you have to help. They're here! They're going to kill Dallas. Hurry and come.”
Then she ran home.
At his desk Roarke felt the cool satisfaction of outwitting a foe. He was peeling away layers. He didn't have the core yet, not yet, but it was only a matter of time. Dig deeply enough, and there were always footprints under the muck. He could follow them now. Triangle to Five-By, Five-By to Unified Action-another military term. And all the crisscrossing threads between. He came across the name Clarissa Branson, listed as president of Unified. Jolt from the past, he thought. One of Cassandra's top-level operatives.
Eve had caught her, he remembered, before the crazy bitch could kill them both and blow up the Statue of Liberty for good measure. Clarissa and William Henson, the man who'd trained her. Both dead now. But…
He pulled up another program and ordered a search for New York properties under Clarissa Branson, William Henson, or any combination thereof.
He checked the time, judged Eve would have arrived at the Swisher house. No point in interrupting her fun, he decided. Which she would gain, whatever she said, from busting down on a bunch of foolish kids.
“Ah, well now, there you are you shagging bastards. Branson Williams, West Seventy-third. My cop's right again. Best interrupt her after all.”
“Roarke.” Summerset, normally the most restrained of men, rushed into the office without knocking. “Nixie's missing.”
“Be specific.”
“She's not in the house. She took off the homer, put it on the boy. She told him she wanted to talk with the lieutenant, and left him in the game room. I've checked the scanners. She's not in the house.”
“Well, she could hardly get off the property. Likely she's just…” He thought of Eve leaving with Baxter. “Oh bloody hell.”
As he swung to his desk 'link, the one in his pocket signalled. He yanked it out, heard the child's voice.
“Call for backup,” he snapped out and uncoded a drawer. “Contact Peabody and the rest, give them the situation.”
“I'll do it on the way. I'm going with you. That child was my responsibility.”
Rather than argue, Roarke checked the weapon he'd taken out, tossed it to Summerset, and chose another. “You'll have to keep up.”
23
AS SHE REACHED THE STEPS, EVE EASED HER communicator out of her pocket. She keyed in a code, ordering Baxter in as backup. When there was no response, she let the curses roll in her head. She tapped into Dispatch, keyed in for officer-needs-assistance. If it was kids playing hide-and seek upstairs, she'd live down the humiliation.
She backed down, made her way quietly toward the rear of the house. She'd call Baxter again, and she'd use the domestic's steps.
She'd reached the kitchen when the lights shut off.
She crouched in the dark, and though her heart gave three solid bumps, her mind stayed cool. They'd sprung a trap before she did, but it didn't mean she'd wouldn't take the cheese and walk away.
She keyed her communicator again, intending to order armed response, and found it dead in her hand.
Jammed all electronics. Smart. Goddamn smart. Still, they had to find her before she found them. She thought briefly of Baxter, and blocked emotion. He was down, no question. The cops out front, too.
Just me and you, then. Let's see who brings it first.
She stayed low, and with her eyes adjusting to the dark, slipped toward the domestic's quarters. A movement from behind had her swinging around with her finger trembling on the trigger.
She recognized Nixie by scent almost before she recognized the small shape of girl. Biting off curses, she slapped her hand over Nixie's mouth and dragged her into Inga's parlor.
“Are you fucking crazy?” Eve whispered.
“I saw them, I saw them. They came in the house. They went up the stairs.”
No time for questions. “You listen to me. You hide in here, you hide good. You don't make a sound, not a fucking sound. You don't come out until I say so.”