Brotherhood in Death (In Death 42)

“I am unable to answer accurately. Mrs. Betz shut me down at ten-thirty-eight yesterday morning at her departure. Mr. Betz had already left the residence. He departed for his office at approximately nine-fifteen.”

“His return?”

“I am unable to answer accurately as I have been on off mode since ten-thirty-eight yesterday morning.”

“Would Betz generally put you back on when he returned?”

“Most usually, yes.”

“How does Mr. Betz get to work?”

“He engages a driver. Royal Limo and Transportation Service. His most usual driver is George. I regret I have no last name.”

“Peabody.”

“On it.”

“Do you know if Mr. Betz had any appointments scheduled yesterday, appointments here, in the residence?”

“No such appointment was programmed into my calendar.”

Maybe he hadn’t had one, Eve thought, and they’d taken him by surprise.

But they’d taken him.

“I’m going to need contact information for Mrs. Betz, and I need to know where the security center is in this residence. Security center first.?

??

“Dallas, he didn’t order his driver for this morning.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

The droid led her through a second door, and one look told her everything.

“Hard drive and disc are gone. And so’s Betz. They’ve got him.”

She turned to see Sila in the doorway, arms clutching her middle, hands clutching her elbows. “Oh my God, Lieutenant. Oh my God. Do you think he’s . . . we haven’t been all through the house yet. Do you think he’s . . .”

“Not yet, but we’ll go through it. I want you to get your mother and . . . Dara, right? Get them downstairs, into the room at the front. I’m going to need you to tell us exactly what you touched this morning. Peabody—”

“Contacting EDD. Do you want Baxter and Trueheart?”

“Send them to the admin. Send EDD there, too. We’ll probably need a warrant, but I figure we’ve got cause at this point. Let’s have somebody sit on the Easterday house, and see about getting protection for the others. They’re probably all right for the moment, but we won’t risk it.”

It might be too late for Betz, she thought, and that would make it three for three. But she’d be damned if she’d let them add another to their scoreboard.

15

Eve gathered the cleaning team, and got the first buzz from the “retired” Frankie.

“We started on the master—it’s big as a house on its own, especially with the two bathrooms and all the fuss. Started with the bathrooms, and the two sitting rooms. And Sila said why didn’t I go ahead and work on the baby’s room, so I was just about to when she came down to let you in, then you called us off.”

“Okay. Anything strike you?”

“Not there, no, but when you called us off, I thought, Why, something’s going on here, so I poked into the guest suite—the gold one. That’s the big one, opposite end of the house from the master. And it was set up.”

“Set up how?”