“She’s got some slight bruising at the impact site. Hilt?”
“Yes, I agree. So the killing blade will measure those six and a quarter inches.”
Though the screen showed the body, the wound magnified, Morris bent over Modesto with his goggles.
“He drove it in, up to the hilt. If you find it, it should be a button-release type. He shoved the hilt to her belly, flipped the switch to send the blade into her, then dragged it upward.”
“Efficient,” Eve commented.
“Yes, brutally efficient. Two seconds, and the job’s done.”
“The fucker she was married to knew where she’d be and when.” Eve stepped back from the table, paced around it. “We’re going to find communications between her and the man she went out to meet on her ’link. He knew about the affair. He knew she’d broken things off, but that didn’t matter to him. He hired the hit, passed the information on.”
She looked back at the body. “The killer gets there early, waits, sees her come in. He just walks over. If anybody happens to notice, it just looks like he’s heading out through the arch, bumps into her, keeps walking. But in that two seconds, that bump, the knife’s in her, ripped through her. He keeps going, she staggers a couple of steps. When she goes down, attention’s on her, not him.”
“He went out through the arch.” Though mostly recovered, Peabody kept a discreet distance from the slab. “McNab caught him a couple times, still in the black hoodie. He walked back in before the first on scene arrived to secure the scene. Red jacket. He didn’t go near the body, kept walking, circled around the fountain.”
“You’ve already identified him?”
“Yeah.” Eve turned back to Morris. “We know who he is—a pro. We just have to find him, and his six-and-a-quarter-inch stiletto. Something like this.”
She flicked and twisted her right wrist to release the blade she wore.
Though his eyes widened a bit, Morris stepped to her to examine it. “Yes, something like. Is this new investigator wear?”
“For this one it is.” She retracted the blade. “Her husband—Jorge Tween—may contact you, make some noises about coming in or making arrangements to cover his ass.”
“So noted.”
“Her family, parents, brother, will contact you. They should be in New York shortly.”
“I’ll have her presentable.”
“Thanks.” She started out, stopped. “If you get a tag from a Marlon Stowe, you could let him see her. Just keep it down low.”
“The lover, which means you don’t believe he’s culpable.”
“There’re lovers and there’s love. Cheating’s still cheating, but you don’t deserve to die for it. But don’t tell Roarke I said that.”
“In the vault.”
As they walked back down the tunnel, Peabody gave Eve’s wrist a wary look. “I don’t have to wear one of those, right?”
“Up to you.”
“I know how to use a knife—in combat—but I just don’t like them. It’s the sharp-thing-into-the-flesh thing. It’s like Morris doing the cut on a body.”
“A blade’s personal. It’s an extension of the person using it.”
“I guess it is.”
“Wear a clutch piece until this one’s over.”
“Okay.”
When they got into the car, Eve leaned back a moment. “I’m going to tell you what I know about Cobbe. Some of what I know is from sources I shouldn’t have at this time. I’m going to talk to Whitney and have him push to have some of the sources read me in, but I won’t have my partner in the dark on an investigation.”
Peabody simply nodded. “So you’ll tell me what you know, but until we’re able to access it officially, we keep it out of the book.”
“That’s right. If Whitney can’t get us access to the information, we’re going to use what we have anyway, and keep it out of the book. Are you all right with that?”
“You’d never ask me to do something that wasn’t right. There’s a difference between right and regs sometimes. That’s why regs can change, but right doesn’t.”
And that, Eve realized, might be the long and short of why she’d made Peabody her partner.
“Okay. When we get to Central, contact the housekeeper. Ah, Rinaldi. We need her to come in. We should talk to the nanny, too, at some point. Set me up with Mira whenever she’s got an opening. I’ll make the meet with Whitney.”
She started the car and told her partner what she needed to know.
4
When Eve pulled into the garage at Central, Peabody turned to her. “So, we’re going after a professional killer a whole bunch of law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies—worldwide—haven’t been able to bag.”
“Correct.”
“Check that.” They got out of the car, started toward the elevator. “The bad guy has a grudge against, maybe a kind of fixation, on Roarke.”
“Also correct.”
“No point in asking if Roarke would accept police protection while we go after the bad guy.”
Eve barely spared a dour glance. “None.”
“Check and check. But would he talk to Mira? I get he’s giving you the overview, the details, and you’re going to consult with Mira, but doesn’t that end up filtered through you? If he talked to her directly, it’s, you know, direct.”
Eve started to give that the same response as police protection, then rethought. “That’s a good point. That’s a damn good point.” For personal as well as professional reasons. “I’ll see if I can work it.”
“We’re not going to let a bad guy screw with one of us,” Peabody said as they got on the elevator. “And that’s a fact.”
“Stone-cold fact.”
But she worried, worried enough she didn’t automatically shove her way off and hit the glides when people crowded onto the elevator.
“I’ll set up Whitney—I can get that, too—Mira, and the housekeeper,” Peabody told her. “When you hear from the victim’s family, let me know so I can work that in.”
“Good. Fine.” Eve let out a breath. “Appreciate it.”
“One of us,” Peabody repeated.
When she finally did muscle off the elevator, Eve went straight to her office. She hit the AutoChef for coffee, then buried worry in routine.
She set up her board, started her book. And glanced up when she heard Peabody’s familiar clomp.
“The housekeeper’s already on the way in.”
“That was quick and easy.”
“I mean she was already on her way in—I caught her in a cab en route. She sounded and looked upset.”
“Okay, let’s take her in the lounge.”
“Whitney has a meeting, but he’ll be available in about an hour. Mira can give you fifteen to twenty at eleven.”
Eve sat back. “How did you get through her admin that easily?”
“Her admin likes me. Sort of. And I told her this profile is priority, as the subject is likely to target law enforcement and those connected thereto. Which Mira is.”