Vendetta in Death (In Death 49)

“Kindness isn’t a job, Eve, it’s a choice. I’m keeping you from doing what you must.” She rose, extended a hand. “Thank you. I’m going to pack what I need, contact my son. He’ll want to come to New York.”

“I’ll contact you when you’re clear to see her.”

Eve went downstairs where sweepers and uniforms and techs moved through the house. She wished she could spare Eloise the journey through the logjam of cops, but it would be one more point of pain to push through.

In the basement it was more of the same. Much more.

Peabody broke away from a conversation with a couple of white-suited sweepers. “I’m having them get scrapings from the floor for the match. We’ve got her cold but more evidence isn’t wrong.”

“More the better. Let’s go get her in the box.”

As Eve did, Peabody looked toward the e-team still swarming the toys. “I think they’d like to live here.”

“Hold on.” Eve crossed over. “The droid there? That’s the one she’d have used to drive her to get the targets, and to help her transport them to the dump site. I need his memory banks.”

“We’ll get to ’em,” Feeney assured her. He actually had roses in his cheeks. “We got plenty on here, too. Docs, schedules, photos, backup plans if she missed one the first time out, alternate routes, the works.”

“Kept, like, a diary, too,” McNab put in.

“Yeah, her type would. She’s a planner, a grudge holder, a freaking organized soul.”

“She also has the skeleton of a business plan in the works,” Roarke said. “A solid one even in the early stages. If, well, on the mad side of things.” His gaze stayed on her face. “Are you heading in then?”

“Yeah, I’m going to get her in Interview, so I’ll want copies of whatever you get off the comps and out of the droids.”

“Give us a moment,” he said to no one in particular, then steered Eve away until he found a relatively quiet corner. “Must it be tonight? She won’t be going anywhere, after all.”

“Yeah, I need Mira to observe. I have Reo coming in. And I need to hit her while she’s whacked about not getting her kill. She’ll be more open.”

“Then eat something first.”

“Oh, for fuck sake.”

He simply snagged her by the chin. “You’re near to pale enough to see through. You’ll take a moment with your steady partner there in your office and have a shagging pizza while you work out your interview strategy and look over some of what we send you.”

When he put it that way. “I didn’t know they made shagging pizza.”

“Still have some smart left in your very tired ass. What happened upstairs to make you so sad?”

“I was witness to grace and strength, and for some reason it scraped me raw. I’ll eat some shagging pizza.”

“Good. And it’ll do you no good to snap at me, because I need this as much as you do.” He pulled her in, just held her, felt her stiffen, then give.

“Well, if you need it.”

“I do.” He brushed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll be with my EDD mates till you’re done.”

“It’s going to be—”

“A long night,” he finished. “Won’t be the first of them for us.”

Or the last, she thought as she started out. “Peabody, with me.”

She had pizza—but rather than in her office with Peabody, in a conference room with Peabody, Mira, and Reo.

“Eloise Callahan’s going to get her a serious lawyer,” Eve began. “I’m going to take the window before she can get that going to get what I can out of her.”

“You and several other cops caught her in the act of torturing her fourth victim.” Reo bit into a slice, went mmm. “We’re going to match the hair from the wig, the scrapings from the floor. We have her journal, her documentation. I don’t care if she gets the ghost of Clarence Darrow, she’s cooked.”