Calculated in Death (In Death 36)

Dreams took her through the day, in their own strange way, into white landscapes, onto frigid sidewalks, through empty offices where weeping echoed and echoed.

She stood in the Dickenson penthouse, hands on hips.

“It’s not here,” she said to Galahad, who ignored her. “Nobody asked you to come, but I’m telling you it’s not here. Nothing’s here but grief. Here’s clear.”

She stepped out of the door and into the apartment still under construction. “Just a little blood, but they shouldn’t have missed it. Sloppy, sloppy. Leave her on the doorstep? Was that a statement, and if so, for who?”

For Whitestone? But he shouldn’t have found the body. An early morning passerby, maybe, more likely one of the construction crew.

And she couldn’t see a link between her vic and anyone on that crew.

She turned a circle, saw the framed photographs of the victim’s kids, the husband. Happier days.

“Family meant everything.” Daniel Yung sat on the comfortable sofa, his hands neatly folded in his lap. “She’d have done, given, said anything to protect them.”

“Yeah, she’d have thought of them after the snatch, of getting home to them. Of the kids, especially. That’s what mothers do, right?”

She smelled her own, saw Stella sneering from the doorway. “She’d have thought about herself, like everybody. She hated being stuck in this place with a sniveling kid. Just like me. She’s no better than me.”

Eve studied her a moment, the bitter eyes, the sneering mouth, the bloody throat slit by McQueen’s blade. And felt little but mild annoyance.

“Fuck off. I don’t have time for you. Everything’s not about you.”

“You think she thought of a couple brats, or the asshole who stuck them in her?”

“Yeah, I do. She thought of her kids, her life, and she gave the bastards who killed her whatever they wanted. But she still knew whatever it was, or enough of whatever it was. Money, audits, portfolios, investments. It’s numbers. Somewhere they won’t add up. How the hell do I find the right ones, the wrong ones?”

Roarke stepped beside her, stroked a hand down her hair. “Do you really have to ask?”

“Oh yeah. I’ve got you.”

She opened her eyes, looked directly into the wild, wild blue of his.

“You’re muttering in your sleep.”

“I am? Was?”

“I’ve got you, you said, and so you do. I have your back.”

Still groggy she stroked his hair as he had hers in the dream. “I was sort of running the case in my sleep. It’s about money, big money, I think. The kind that gets invested and audited and tucked around in special accounts. So you were there, in the dream. At the crime scene.”

“And what did I have to say?”

“Just reminded me that I have an expert on big money in my pocket. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need one.”

“Always happy to serve.”

“McNab found a file I need to look at, or have you look at.”

She started to push up. He simply rolled on top of her.

“I want my fee in advance.”

“I warned somebody about bribery just today.”

“You can arrest me after.” He hit the release on the weapon harness she hadn’t taken off. “I’d prefer you unarmed at the moment. And undressed.”

“You always prefer me undressed.”