Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

“And you’re not going anywhere, like to oversee one of those pendings?”

“No travel plans for several days.”

“If that changes—”

“I’ll let you know.” He took her hand, kissed it. “Don’t worry. I won’t be tempting any wind gusts.”

“Okay.” Satisfied, she finished breakfast, got up to dress.

Since he didn’t comment on her choice—brown trousers and jacket, navy sweater—she figured she’d at least scaled the high bar of his fashion sense.

“I’ll be at Central through the morning at least. I’ve got off-case work I let go yesterday, and I want to finish as much of the eliminations and priorities as possible before I start interviews.”

“I’ll be at my own HQ. And if you start looking seriously at any of my people, I’d like to know it.”

“It’s not going to be one of your people.” She scooped up her pocket debris. “I have to eliminate, but it won’t be. A subcontractor, possibly, but not one of your hotel staff. Your screening’s tougher than the NSA’s.”

“And still.” He rose, gripped her hips, kissed her. “Take care of my cop.”

She framed his face, kissed him back. “Don’t climb any buildings.”

“Only by the stairs.”

“Good enough.” She started out, glanced back over her shoulder. “You looked good in the suit.”

She took the flash of his grin with her out into the bright, blustery day.

Thinking of him as she started the drive to Central, she considered exactly what he’d said.

If he’d targeted a place like Banks’s, he’d . . . take what he needed, wouldn’t have bothered with a painting.

Yeah, the painting bugged her. Why take it—then try to hide that fact by waiting until you were in the escape location before taking it out of its frame? He/they didn’t, as Roarke would have, go the subtle route in the search of the apartment, but took the framed painting across the hall before removing it from the frame, discarding the frame.

Why?

Because it mattered, she decided. I’d take what I came for, Roarke had said. The painting was something they’d come for. It mattered.

She tagged Baxter from her wrist unit.

He said, “Yo.”

“Pick up the iced artist.”

His smile spread. “I like a sexy start to the day.”

“Keep it in your pants, horndog. I need her to go over her own lists again, incomplete or not. Link it up with the record of the artwork—in the main level of the crime scene. One’s m

issing. What is it? Who painted it? Not painted,” she corrected. “Drew. Drew what? When and where did Banks acquire it?”

“I’ve got a list of what he took from the gallery—officially. She added to that, ones she knows he slipped out of there, but she knows she didn’t catch them all.”

“I want her to look again anyway. Focus in on the figure-study types. For right now, we don’t care about paintings—landscapes, portraits, whatever. It’s the black and whites, the nakeds or mostly nakeds.”

“It bugged her,” Baxter commented. “She figured if she’d had the gallery comps, she’d have been able to pin it down, or get closer to pinning it.”

“That’s the point of taking them out. We’re going to have to rely on her notes, her memory. You and Trueheart work with her to match up what’s on the lists, and what’s not. Whatever they took mattered.”

“I’ll tag the boy, swing by and get him. We’ll scoop up the icy one, take a trip back uptown.”