“You want a confession?” She jerked a thumb at Roarke. “He’s the key.”
Abernathy downed the last of the whiskey. “Bloody hell. We’ve gone this far. Once the medic clears him, you have thirty minutes.”
Eve looked at Roarke, smiled ferociously. “That’ll do it.”
Epilogue
Outside the root cellar, Eve stood in the damp air.
“It’s my lead,” she told Roarke. “When I pass it to you, you run with it, but it’s my lead.”
“I’ve seen you work in the box often enough to know how it’s done.” He wore his own clothes again, and a black eye, a sunburst bruise on his jaw.
His ribs were killing him. And he found a dark satisfaction in the pain.
“I want to say I got what I needed out there, so if you’d rather Peabody or—”
“I’m not the hammer.” Peabody, sans apron, shook her head. “You are. The way he fought you? He’s probably better at it than that, but he couldn’t control it. He won’t control it down there, either.”
“That’s exactly right.”
“I’m going back to the kitchen. You guys are going to miss out on all the food. Man, these people can put on a spread, and put it on fast. Go nail his sorry ass.”
“Well then.” Roarke rolled his shoulders. “Let’s go nail his sorry ass.”
They walked down into the dank. The light was dim, but strong enough to show Cobbe’s face wasn’t close to pretty.
Broken nose. Eve checked off the list. Split lip, two black eyes, and Roarke’s sunburst looked like a guttering star in comparison with the black, blue, and purple over Cobbe’s face.
The medic had dealt with it—reported three cracked ribs, now strapped for healing, had closed the numerous cuts.
Like Roarke’s, his knuckles were scraped raw and swollen. But there, Eve saw with satisfaction, Roarke had him beat.
More blows landed.
“Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and civilian consultant Roarke, representing the NYPSD, entering Interview with Cobbe, Lorcan, primarily but not exclusively on the matter of H-6981, H-6989, and H-32108.”
Eve sat at a scarred wooden table in a scarred wooden chair in the windowless room that smelled of earth—and what might’ve been potatoes.
And felt right at home.
“Also present is Abernathy, Inspector George, representing Interpol; Whitney, Commander Jack; and Feeney, Captain Ryan; also with the NYPSD. Podock, Marshall, licensed security, is also in attendance.”
“Takes this many of you to hold me in a bloody cellar.”
“You’ve been read your rights, first by me, and subsequently by the inspector. Do you understand your rights and obligations in this matter?”
“Cunt cop.”
“I take that as a yes.” Eve opened the file Peabody had put together.
“We have Jorge Tween—a recent client of yours—and his confession to hiring you to kill his wife, Galla Modesto, for a sum of one million euros, plus expenses of an additional fifteen thousand. We have security feed, and an eyewitness putting you on the scene of that murder. Do you have any statement?”
He smirked. “Bullshite.”
“That’s your full statement?”
He leaned forward. “Do you know why I haven’t said lawyer?”
“No, I don’t. Care to tell me?”
“Because I don’t need one with this bullshite. Have you evidence—eyewitnesses—anything but some arsehole trying to save his own skin that shows me sticking a knife in some bitch?”
“We have the arsehole’s payment to you.”
“More bullshite. I don’t know that arse wipe. I came to New York to talk to Roarke. Nothing illegal about that.”
Eve took a document from the file, laid it on the table. “Your account in Andorra, using one of your aliases, but your account, and the payment from Tween.”
Cobbe shrugged. But his eyes flickered. “Not my name, not my account.”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t be upset to learn that account’s been frozen, and the funds in it will be confiscated.” She leaned over as if reading the numbers again. “Wow. That’s what we call a tidy sum. But it is your account, as forensic accountants have documented. There’s also the reversible jacket. Nice touch, by the way.”
“Don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“We have security feed of you in the black hoodie, and of course in the reverse red side. By the way, you left that back in New York, in Central Park, after you dropped the cat you’d slaughtered at my gates.”
“Know nothing about some dead cat.” But he smiled. “And it’s not my jacket.”
“I saw you, you moron.” Infusing her face, her voice with disgust, she sat back. “I thought you were a professional. You’re acting like the rankest of rank amateurs. You know we have you on Modesto. We’ve got you on Kaylee Skye—and don’t bother saying you don’t know who she is. You may not remember her name, but witnesses in the bar remember you. You left DNA behind in her apartment, for Christ’s sake.”
“You don’t have my DNA.” He sneered at her. “And by rights I don’t have to give it to you.”
“We’ve got your blood,” she reminded him. “From the body of Kaylee Skye. From today, as Roarke spilled plenty of it for DNA. You were sloppy, sloppy with Skye because you didn’t kill her for money. You killed her because you were pissed, maybe a little drunk.”
“You’re trying to set me up because I blackened your man’s eye.”
She tipped back now, laughed. “Jesus, Cobbe, you’re sitting there with two shiners, a busted nose, the left side of your face swollen up like rotted meat, and you think I care that Roarke let you get a couple shots in? Two women are dead in my city, and you sliced them to pieces. You did the same to a damn cat, which is the low, petty, sick shit of a twisted child.”
He smiled, wide enough to open the split in his bottom lip. “So charge me with animal abuse. Just sending a message.”
“It’ll be in the charges. As will the attempted murder of Wayne Goddard, the security guard you stabbed when you stole the shuttle. He’s still critical, so if he dies, that’s one more murder on your tally. We found the shuttle—rough landing for you. And we recovered your go-bag. Lots of false ID and cash in there. Your tablet and PPC, which I just bet have some interesting data on them. Plus a whole bunch of sharps in a lead-lined case. I’m leaving all that to Interpol.
“Oh, and Sal Bellacore’s been singing, another tie to Modesto. And our friends at Interpol have picked up the Privets, brother and sister. Imagine how pissed—and vindictive—Alicia’s going to be when she finds out you flipped on her, gave us chapter and verse on her organization.”
“That’s a lie! I’ve said nothing, will say nothing.”
“Really?” Eve studied her file again, smiling. “Things do get tangled up in translation, don’t they? She’s going down, so’s her brother, so are you. I wonder what conclusion she’ll come to, with a little help in that tangled translation.”