“I won’t stop. I’ll never stop. It’s just another case to you, isn’t it? Just another file. What good are you? It’s all over the media that you have nothing. Nothing. What good are you?”
As she began to weep, the older man beside her pulled her to him. “Come on now, Carol, come on now. You need to sit down, you need to come with me.”
When he led her away, the others followed while MacMasters looked helplessly after them. “I apologize, Lieutenant.”
“Don’t.”
“She wouldn’t take a soother. She wouldn’t take anything to help her get through. I didn’t know she’d been watching the media reports until it was too late to stop her, and she’s too . . . too upset to understand. It’s partially my fault. In trying to comfort her I told her you’d have him before today. I know better. I hoped you would, but I . . .” He shook his head, turned into the room.
A moment later, Cates closed the double doors. Carol’s weeping battered against them like fists.
“She was wrong, Dallas,” Peabody said. “She was unfair.”
“Wrong maybe. Unfair’s a different thing.”
“But—”
“Focus on why we’re here.” She walked away from the door and the sound of weeping. “Feeney? Eyes on?”
“Eyes on,” he said through her earpiece. “Peabody’s right, you’re wrong. That’s all on that. Your man’s coming in. Whitney and his missus, the commissioner, some brass from Illegals. We’re getting deliveries, north side, pretty regular. Flowers, messengers, what I take are blowups of dead people. Couple stiffs carted into the basement.”
“Copy that. Keep me updated.” She waited until the elevator opened. “Commissioner Tibble, Commander, Mrs. Whitney. The MacMasterses are inside the suite for the family viewing.”
“We’ll wait.” Dark eyes hard, Tibble nodded. “Anything to report?”
“Not at this time, sir.”
“I hope your strategy justifies the beating we’re taking in the media.” He looked toward the closed doors. “And results in some closure for the captain and his wife.”
“We’ll take him if he shows, Commissioner, and I believe he will. Alternate plans are being formulated to apprehend him tomorrow if—”
“I don’t want to hear about alternate plans, Lieutenant. Your suspect is in custody this afternoon or the sketch is released.”
He turned and walked to the window at the end of the corridor.
“Your plan to make the investigation appear stalled has worked better than we could have anticipated,” Whitney told her. “We’re under a lot of pressure, Lieutenant.”
“Understood, sir.”
Whitney and his wife stepped away to speak to other arrivals.
“That’s not—”
Eve cut Peabody’s mutter off with a look. “Don’t say it’s unfair. I’m primary. I take the knock if there’s a knock coming. Check in with the rest of the team. We’re going to start filling up out here soon. I didn’t expect you to make it for this,” she said to Roarke.
“I adjusted a few things.” He glanced toward her commander, and the city’s top cop. “I’m glad I did, and might have some part in helping you finish this.”
“He’ll show. The probabilities say it, Mira says it, my gut says it. He’ll show, and we’ll box him in, take him down. Then while the department takes a short round of applause from the media god, I’ll have him in my box. And then . . .”
She stopped, took a couple of quiet breaths. “Okay. Okay. I’m a little pissed off.”
Roarke trailed a hand down her arm. “It looks good on you.”
“No room for that. No room. One set of prints on the playbill, no match in any database. We get him, we’ll match them, but it doesn’t help us get him.” She jammed her hands into the pockets of her black jacket. “Nadine and her amazing research team haven’t hit on any likelies on the security system clients.”
“I’ve got some ideas there I’m still working,” Roarke told her.
“Time’s running. It needs to be today.” She spotted Cates coming out of the adjoining parlor to speak to Whitney and his wife, then lead them, along with Tibble, inside.