On my way.
“How do I access the blueprints?”
As he soared over buildings, Roarke gave her step-by-step directions in the simplest terms he could manage.
“That doesn’t sound exactly legal.”
“It’s a gray area.”
She grunted, followed the steps until she was looking at the floor plan of a two-story building, with full basement.
“That’s where they have him,” she muttered, and began to study the egress, the access, and working out the bones of her op.
He landed with some bumps on the helipad, and she jumped out into the cold, angry wind. She badged them both inside, jumped on the elevator.
“Doors front, rear, side. Corner building. Prime real estate. There’s a basement, and my money says that’s where they’ve got the torture room set up. No access to the basement from the outside, so we have to go in from above.”
“They’ll hear you coming.”
“Maybe, but if I had a torture room— I don’t, do I?”
“No. Perhaps Charmaine can design one.”
“Har har. If I had a torture room, it would be fully soundproofed.” She jumped off on her level. “I’m going to confiscate a conference room. You want to be a hero?”
“Yours, darling? Every day.”
“Ha. Help me transfer the board from my office. And program a vat of real coffee. I need to get the blueprints, the schematics up on screen so I can really see them. Peabody should be here pretty quick, but not quick enough.”
“Doesn’t your conference room have a swipe board?”
“I hate those things.” She hissed out a breath. “But okay, faster.”
“Ah, technology.” This time he did pat her ass. “You program the vat of coffee, and I’ll transfer your data. You can set it up how you please after. What room?”
She shoved open a door, saw it empty. “This one.”
In her office, she hit the AutoChef while Roarke sat down at her desk. Since she didn’t actually have a vat, she calculated, then programmed three large pots. It should get them going.
“Swipe board or not,” she muttered, stuffing Yancy’s sketches in a file.
“I’m going to start setting up. Maybe you could bring the rest of the coffee.” She strode out without waiting for his answer.
In the conference room, she scowled at the computer. “Activate swipe board.”
You are not registered for this room and this equipment at this time.
“Bite me. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Register it, goddamn it.”
The use of profanity is not—
“I’ll beat you to death with a hammer, then stomp what’s left into dust. I’ll torch the dust. Register this room and this equipment at this fucking time to Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.” She slapped her badge on its pad. “Scan it. Do it. Or I swear, you’ll be in the recycler in two minutes flat.”
Identification scanned and verified. This room and this equipment is registered to Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.
“Damn right. Activate the motherfucking swipe board.”
Board is now activated. Profanity is against regulations, and must be reported.
“This time you can blow me. And bring up all data currently transferred from my office comp.”
Images flickered on. Ignoring the drone of the comp informing her of the regulations, and her violations, she began to arrange them in the way she needed.
“Activate wall screen.” She frowned at her PPC, at the comp, at the screen, and started the sticky—for her—transfer when Roarke came in with two large pots. “Save this comp’s motherboard and transfer the blueprints to the wall screen. I’ll get you coffee.”
She’d barely picked up the pot when it was done—so she shoved the pot at him.
“I have to see this.”
He poured for both of them while she stepped closer to the screen, shoved her hands into the coat she’d yet to take off, and fell silent.
Like a general, he thought, studying the battlefield. He said nothing, just handed her a mug of coffee, until she finally nodded.
“Okay,” she said, turning just as she heard the clomp of Peabody’s boots, the prance of McNab’s.
They both looked a little hollow-eyed, Eve noticed, but sniffed the air like hounds on the hunt.
“Is that the smell of real coffee?” Peabody asked.
“Grab some. This is the building. It’s two blocks from here.”
“Son of a bitch.” McNab angled his head, currently covered in yet another watch cap of green and blue stripes. “How’d you nail her?”
“Utility bills,” Roarke said. “The property itself? Ownership’s buried behind two interlocking shells, and under that, it turns out, is deeded to Grace Blake’s great-grandmother—and they used the woman’s maiden name. And the deed is in trust, as the woman herself is deceased. And the trust—”
“Get into that later,” Eve ordered.
“Well, it’s a clever ruse and worth the time, but for now, it was the payments for the heat and so on. Still not in her name, or I’d have found it sooner, but again, the great-grandmother—one Elizabeth Haversham—nee Pawter—and the utilities came to an account under Beth Pawter, so it took some doing to link it up.”
He glanced at Eve, who was again studying the screen. “She has an account in that name, if you’ve an interest, with a brokerage firm in Iowa, where Elizabeth Pawter Haversham lived. It’s well funded, that account, even with the cost of the building and its expenses coming out of it. Until a year ago, the dead Mrs. Pawter rented that building for a nice, steady income.”
“Because she started to plan how she wanted to use it,” Eve said, still studying the screen. “She met at least one of the others, found their mutual history, and it began.”
Uniform Carmichael arrived next, with three others. Baxter and Trueheart followed.
While they made short work of the coffee, Feeney walked in.
“There better be some of that left.” He stole the mug McNab had just poured in case there wasn’t. “That the target?”
“That’s the target, and here’s how we’re going to take it.”
It would work, Eve thought as she went over the timing, the contingencies. And by hitting the target before first light, they’d take the women by surprise—and likely unprepared.
She frowned as she noticed Roarke step out while she went over positioning with Baxter and Trueheart. When she glanced back, he walked in carrying a stack of bakery boxes.
Every cop in the room caught the scent of yeast and sugar.
She should’ve known.
“Donuts may be a cliché, but they do the job, don’t they?” Roarke set the boxes on the conference table. “And so will all of you.”
He shot Eve a quick grin as hands darted and grabbed for jelly-filled or crullers, bear claws or honey-glazed.
“Stuff them in, and suit up. Feeney, the donut king’s with you. Peabody, Baxter, Trueheart, with me. Uniform Carmichael, take your men to the pre-op location. We go in quiet.”
She gave Roarke a long, flat stare when he offered her a donut.
“Bavarian cream—with sprinkles. Be happy oatmeal would have taken too long, and can’t be eaten on the go.”
There was that. She took the donut, and followed her own orders. She stuffed it in, and she suited up.
—
New York was rarely quiet, but at just past five in the morning, it hit a lull. Night-shift workers still had time on the clock, and the day shift hugged their pillows. Street LCs would have called it a night, and those higher on the food chain slept in their own beds or the client’s—depending on the payment schedule.
Shops were dark, and even the 24/7s ran sleepily.
Barricading a block around a particular building could be done quickly and quietly, and barely caused a ripple on the frigid air.
And that building held dark.
She’d considered the timing, the positioning, the partnering carefully. And now, the team moved through the dark, silent as shadows.
Baxter and Trueheart on the side door, McNab and Peabody on the front. And she took the back—the closest to the basement, and her hunch—with Roarke.