“So you did. But you could’ve changed it to Hickenlooperstein, and Cobbe would still want you dead.”
“Hickenlooperstein?”
She shrugged. “It’s probably somebody’s name.”
“You’re right on all of this—maybe not Hickenlooperstein—but the rest. It’s been harder for me to get through the fog of it, but you’ve managed to clear it away, and I can see you’re right on all of it.”
Her comm signaled an incoming.
“That’s the feed.”
“Let’s have a look.”
Roarke ordered it on the wall screen, cued it up to where Baxter noted on the attachment.
The door cam picked up Cobbe exiting a black limo. The driver—female, about forty, mixed race, gray uniform—opened the passenger door. Assisted Cobbe—black pants, black leather jacket, light blue T-shirt, black sunshades—with his luggage.
A black midsize rolly, a black messenger-style briefcase, and a second case, metal. His sharps, she thought.
“Those, in the metal case, tools of his trade. He had to fly private to get them through. That’s good to know.
“Not getting the plates on the limo, but we can track it. Find where he came in. Yeah, sloppy.”
He walked into a lobby that could’ve been some historic mansion’s elegant and generous foyer.
The marble floors, white streaked with gray, shined under the light dripping from a trio of chandeliers. Flowers speared out of clear tubes from pale gray walls. High-backed chairs in velvety fabric offered splashes of red.
A woman—blond hair sleeked back—wore pale pink as she sat at a long, polished table with curved legs. She rose, smiled a greeting, offered a hand.
After gesturing him to one of the facing chairs, she took her seat to check him in.
“He used a Brit passport,” Eve told Roarke. “A One Universe credit account. Name Reginald J. Patrick. I bet the J’s for Jabber. The nickname Patrick Roarke gave him. It’s in Mira’s report.”
“Just can’t let the old man go,” Roarke murmured.
A man came out—dark skin, black suit—exchanged handshakes before taking the suitcase, the messenger bag, while Cobbe refused help with the metal case.
“Definitely his sharps in there,” Eve said as the man in the suit gestured to the elevators.
Chatting, Eve noticed, as they walked. The usual blah blah, she imagined as the elevator cam followed them up to the penthouse floor.
Steel-gray carpet here, cream walls, more flowers, some art, doors to match the carpet. Full security on every one.
Double door, corner suite.
The man unlocked the door before offering Cobbe the swipe, then they both went inside.
“The room’s been cleaned, but I’m having it swept. You never know. We’ll track the limo, and Baxter and Trueheart are interviewing the staff. Lots of mistakes here—and all because he couldn’t resist you seeing him.”
She watched the man exit, walk to the elevator. Checking the attachment, she ordered the new cue point.
“Two hours and ten later, he goes out. Jeans now, different shirt, no jacket. Going to stroll around the neighborhood, that’s what he’s going to do. Walk past the target’s house, check out what the husband’s told him are her usual haunts. Grab a meal maybe.”
Using Baxter’s cues, they watched him come in, go out, come in. Watched the evening desk clerk—brunette—greet him.
Then they followed him from his room to the door cam forty-four minutes before Modesto’s murder.
He strolled out casually, lifting a hand to the brunette on the desk as he left the hotel. In black pants, a black hoodie—hood down—black high-tops.
“Look at his face.” Eve paused the feed. “Nothing there. Empty. He’s going out to kill someone. He might as well be heading to the office to deal with some paperwork.”
“It’s the same for him. I’ve known others, not so different.”
“Yeah, so have I.” She continued the feed. “He’s giving himself plenty of time for an easy walk to the park. Then, hood up, around it to get a feel, to blend in. Next cue’s one hour, twenty-four minutes. Wants to wait for the cops to come, take his proof of death. Has to leave the park first, reverse the jacket, come back in, blend again.”
She cued up the return.
“Not empty now. He’s revved up, and a little pissed, but mostly excited. Red jacket—smarter to have reversed it again in case the brunette noticed the switch. Too revved to think of it. Moving fast for the elevator. Fists bunched.
“Look at her,” Eve said. “She noticed—she’s puzzled because he’s been moderately friendly, but now he storms right by her. She’ll remember, and that’s another little mistake.”
Glancing down, she scanned the attachment. “He’s got two more cues on here. Cobbe hired an LC. Baxter and Trueheart have her name, will interview. Let’s have a look.”
Fifty-six minutes after Cobbe stormed in, another brunette—late twenties, blue dress on a curvy frame—got out of a cab, entered the lobby. After a brief conversation at the desk, the desk clerk tapped her earpiece, had another brief conversation, then clearly gave the licensed companion a room number and the go-ahead.
They tracked her through the elevator cam—where she checked a thin, glittering wrist unit, shook back long, wavy hair. She made her way down the hall, pressed the buzzer on Cobbe’s door.
He opened it, unsmiling, wearing one of the hotel’s robes.
She came out again in twenty-six minutes, looking mildly amused and a little baffled.
“Not much staying power,” Eve commented.
They watched her take out a ’link in the elevator, speak with someone, laugh, shrug. Another check of her wrist unit, and she glided out, across the lobby, and away.
12
Eve watched Cobbe check out, noted he seemed in a better mood. He strolled out of the lobby, turned right, and went off the feed.
“Thinking of the cams now,” she said. “Making sure he gets his ride away from them. He’s got his place already set. He’s got the smirking confidence back on. We’ll track the limo he arrived in, and that’ll give us a little more. We’ll try cab pickups within a few blocks, but I don’t think he’d go there. Maybe, maybe, he’d use the same car service as arrival, but low odds on it.”
She glanced at Roarke, who nodded.
“In his place, I’d have already booked another service, under another name, take that to another drop-off, walk again, then catch a cab to my hole. It’s just basic precautions.”
“Agreed, but he may not take that extra step. And if it’s the same service, even if he did take that step, we can hit the cabs for pickups in that area.”
She paced away to the board, added the name of the LC and the ID photos she’d printed out. “We’ll get more from the LC. It’s in their interest to pay attention, notice details on a job. Baxter and Trueheart will get those out of her.”
She paced back. “Unlikely, highly, he’d have been able to rent or buy that hole so fast, wouldn’t be able to zero in and take somebody out to use their place. So it’s a contact, someone he knows. Bad guy safe house, that’s what it is.”