“All over that.”
“I couldn’t live without her,” he murmured when she’d gone. He got up, hefted the considerable bulk of the cat, and walked to the elevator.
Before he did anything else, he needed to sit down and speak to Summerset.
He found the man who’d been his father most of his life sitting in the kitchen. He wore one of his severe black suits as he drank coffee and read the day’s news on a tablet.
He glanced over as Roarke came in, as Roarke set the cat down, and the cat padded straight over to rub against Summerset’s leg.
“Don’t let him con you. He’s had breakfast.”
Summerset reached down, scratched the cat between the ears with his long, bony fingers. “As you have, I trust. Coffee?”
“Thanks, no, I’ve had enough.” He walked over, sat across from Summerset, said simply, “Lorcan Cobbe.”
“That’s a name I’m sorry to hear again. What of him?”
“He’s in New York. He killed a woman last night. It’s Eve’s case.”
Summerset’s keen, dark eyes stayed steady on Roarke’s. “How do you know it was Cobbe?”
“Because I saw him. Because he made certain I did.”
As Roarke added the details, Summerset accepted Galahad on his lap, stroked while he listened.
“The lieutenant’s quite sure the husband hired Cobbe.” Considering all, Summerset nodded. “And intends to track Cobbe through that connection.”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“As far as nuts go, it’s doubtful Cobbe will be as easy to crack as the husband.”
“No.”
“You’ve accumulated data and shared it with her?”
“Of course.”
“That’s helpful. I still have some contacts with certain groups and agencies. It’s a simple matter to contact old friends and compatriots, see if more can be found.”
“Groups. Eve calls them the alphabets.”
Summerset smiled. “Governments are fond of their acronyms.”
“And not just official government groups.”
The smile remained. “Not just. If you clear it, I could brief Ivanna. She also has contacts.”
Roarke considered Summerset’s old friend and current … companion seemed safest, he decided. A man didn’t want to think too deeply about his father figure taking a lover. “Yes, I think reaching into any corner in this case is expedient.”
“I’ll speak with her, and others this morning.”
“It would ease my mind if you stayed inside the gates today, for a few days.”
Summerset’s eyebrows arched. “I have marketing to do, and other errands.” He held up a hand before Roarke could insist. “Do you think I’ve missed so many steps, boy, I can’t look out for myself or handle a ruffian like Cobbe?”
“He’s a professional assassin, a successful one,” Roarke pointed out. “It’s not a matter of you missing steps, but of the steps I’d miss if anything happened to you.”
Drawing air through his long, narrow nose, Summerset sat back. “That’s a clever way you have, and I have to commend it. But I’ve no intention of hiding away, or of being murdered on the street. Nor do you, unless you’re about to tell me you and the lieutenant intend to stay behind the gates. We’ll all play gin rummy.”
Despite a sudden weariness, Roarke smiled. “I always won.”
“You cheated.”
“So you always said, but never proved. You’ll take precautions.”
“Yes, as will you.”
Now Summerset leaned forward, his dark eyes intense. “He doesn’t know you, boy. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t know you and never did. He’ll look now, and hard, but still only see the surface. He’ll envy your money and your reputation, the dark and the light there. And your freedom, because the life he chose doesn’t allow him real freedom. But he’ll never see who you are, he’ll never understand what you’re made of. And that’s your advantage. Or one of them.”
“I see him. I know what he’s made of.”
“Yes, you do. He’s not a complicated man. I’ve no doubt by now the lieutenant knows him as well. She’s a dangerous woman when she knows her quarry.”
“She is that. I’ve things to see to.” Roarke rose, then laid a hand over Summerset’s. “Remember what you are to me, and take care.”
“And you do the same.”
Alone, Summerset sat another moment, stroking the cat. “Well, my friend, let’s do what we can do to keep our children safe.”
Eve spent the drive downtown listening to the audio of the files Roarke compiled on Cobbe.
Summerset was right. By the time she arrived at the morgue, she knew her quarry.
She walked down the long white tunnel with its air filters trying—and failing—to completely mask the scent of death. She was making her way down to the chief medical examiner’s doors when she heard the clomping echo behind her.
Peabody had her dark hair with the strange red streaks in a short, bouncy tail. The clomping came from striped pink-and-white gel skids—likely chosen due to feet still aching from dancing shoes. She wore her pink magic coat over brown pants and a brown blazer with pink trim. And a shirt Eve suspected was cream.
She stifled a yawn.
“McNab went straight to Central to finish the security feeds, and to do a search on the vic’s ’link.”
“Good. I’ve already put in for a warrant for the electronics at her residence—Tween’s included.”
“He won’t like that.”
“Which only gives a lift to the start of my day.”
Eve pushed open the doors.
Morris stood by the body just completing his Y-cut.
Peabody turned a little green—perhaps celadon—and turned her head to stare hard at the wall.
“Bright and early,” Morris remarked, and ordered his music—Eve thought maybe Italian opera—to mute.
Under his protective cape he wore a sharp suit of bold blue, a shirt of pale yellow with a tie that played both colors in slim stripes. His long braid fell down the back of his cape with yellow cord wound through the black.
When he efficiently opened Modesto’s chest, Peabody made a soft gagging sound.
“A lovely young woman,” Morris began as Eve stepped up to the slab. “Excellent muscle tone. No visible signs of body or face work. I’ve sent blood and tissue samples to the lab for tox, but see no signs of chronic use.”
“What can you tell me about the wound?”
“Quick and vicious. The blade entered here, the hypogastric area, deep.” He turned away to take a gauge from his tray.
Eve could see the gauge slide into the abdomen on-screen, but bent over as Morris did to judge it in the body.
“Six and a quarter inches in, and the width … point seventeen.” Grabbing his microgoggles, he leaned in again. “It’s a spear point, so I’d say a stiletto-style blade. After the entry, the blade was drawn up and into the umbilical region. Effectively gutting her.”
He straightened again. “So many internal organs live in the belly, and others connect. The damage, the shock, the blood loss would have killed her within a minute or two, and she’d have been, blessedly, unconscious before that.”