Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

“On the boomer.”

She sealed the office as she barked out orders.

“Bring a couple of uniforms. Peabody started getting statements. You finish. Everybody, down to the cleaning service. Two honchos are coming in—family of CEO. I’m going to want to talk to them as soon as possible.”

“How many dead?” Baxter asked.

“Eleven, so far. Nine injured.”

“It could’ve been worse. I’ll contact Salazar, let her know we’re coming in. Are you on scene?”

“I won’t be. I’ve got a second crime scene. I’ll brief you when I know more. Dallas, out.”

It could’ve been worse. Baxter said it, she’d thought it. The thing was, when things could be worse, they usually got there.

* * *

Eve beat Peabody to the car, and peeled out of the slot the minute Peabody hopped in. She wove through the underground lot at a speed that had her partner gripping the chicken stick.

“You said it added up.” Peabody’s eyes, dark brown and widening at every swerve, closed to spare her brain the visual of a crash. “I’m putting some of the numbers in columns. Somebody broke into Rogan’s house, threatened his wife and kid, and forced him to kill himself? I don’t get the two-plus-two.”

“Somebody says take this boom vest to work Monday morning, strap it on and wear it to the meeting at nine. Blow it up. Do that, or we kill your amazing girls.”

“His amazing girls?”

“That’s what he called his wife and kid. In his memo book. I don’t know why this guy, why this meeting, why this company, or why this method, but that part adds up.”

“Wit statements say he was alone in his office, at least for a few minutes before the meeting. He doesn’t call for help?”

“Could’ve had him wired. I would have. Let him hear the wife getting slapped around, or the kid crying for her daddy.”

“That’s unbelievably cruel.”

“Nothing cruel’s unbelievable.” She arrowed out of the underground, zipped into traffic. “Why the marketing guy? They needed somebody who’d not only kill for his wife and kid, but die for them. But how did they know he would? We need to know more about this Quantum-Econo deal. Was the deal the thing? Was there something about it that made someone willing to kill—to use what appears to be an innocent man and his family as the weapon?”

“I use Econo a lot,” Peabody said. “Or did before I had a mag partner with a magalish husband who lets me use Roarke’s private shuttles.”

She’d used Econo herself, Eve thought, before Roarke. They were as bare as bare bones got, and therefore affordable if you had to use air travel. She wondered if Roarke had ever used them, before becoming one of the richest men in the known universe—and one who had his own transpo lines as well.

She’d tap that source, she thought, that expert consultant, civilian. If anybody knew the ins and outs of the QuantumAir-EconoLift deal outside of the particulars in the deal, it would be Roarke.

She swung in behind the mobile medical unit. Since it was already double-parked, horns and curses were already blasting anyway.

As she stepped out, the Rapid Cab driver behind her laid on his horn, stuck his head out of the window. “Gimme a fucking break, girlie!”

Eve held up her badge, smiled with all the warmth of the early March wind. “Lieutenant Girlie. What would you like me to break?”

He steered around her, shooting her his middle finger on the way.

“You know Charles and Louise live just down the block,” Peabody commented.

“Yeah.” The doctor and the former licensed companion had an elegant brownstone within easy walking distance. “Nice neighborhood.”

Upper class, Eve thought. Reasonably quiet and safe. Brownstones and townhomes tucked back from the sidewalk, often with little front gardens or paved rear courtyards.

This one had a front garden—dormant now, but neat—with a walkway leading to a short set of stairs, a pair of bold blue double doors. One of the doors hung crookedly.

The house rose up three stories—decorative (and she’d wager effective) bars on the lower windows. All the privacy screens were engaged but for one on the second floor. Someone had broken that window. She noted the shards of glass and some sort of good-size ball, cracked, in shades of red and orange and brown.