"I can't lock it. Driving me bat-shit. But I did scrape the layers off the disc you brought back from the Emerald Isle. Projected image. Hologram."
"A holo? You're sure?"
"Don't I look sure?" He let his cocky smile go when Eve only stared coolly at him. "Yeah, it was a holo. Damn good one, but I enhanced, did heat and light testing. The image was projected."
"Good." It was one more stone to weigh on Summerset's side. "Any hits yet on the analysis of the security discs on the Luxury Towers?"
"They're whining in EDD. Backlog. I used your name and got them to promise we'd have results within the next forty-eight."
Feeney, Eve thought, where the hell are you? "What else have you got?"
"The transmission had the same echo as the others. Exact match."
"Even better. Now find the source." She rose. "It's time for me to put in a public appearance. Let's get this jerk now that I'm up for another round. Peabody, you're with me."
"My favorite place. Lieutenant."
"Sucking up noted." She pulled her palm 'link as she started out, coded in for Nadine Furst at Channel 75.
"Hey, Dallas, you look pretty good for an invalid."
"Get this. Lieutenant Eve Dallas has recovered from her injuries and is reporting back to duty. She remains in charge of the investigation involving the murders of Brennen, Conroy, and O'Leary. She is confident a suspect will be in custody shortly."
"Hold it, let me get my recorder."
"That's all you get, pal. Put it on." She clicked off as she jogged down the stairs. There, draped across the newel post, was a new and butter-smooth leather jacket of golden brown. "He doesn't miss a trick," Eve murmured as she picked it up.
"Man oh man." Unable to resist, Peabody stroked a hand down the sleeve as Eve shrugged into it. "Like a baby's bottom."
"It had to cost ten times what my old one did, and I'll have it banged up in a week. I don't know why he—Shit, where's Roarke?" She turned to the house computer. "Locate Roarke."
Roarke is not on the premises at this time.
"Well, hell," Eve muttered. "Where the hell did he go so fast? He damn well better be out buying some country and not poking into this."
"Does he really buy countries?" Peabody wanted to know as she hurried outside after Eve.
"How the hell do I know? I stay out of his business, which is more than he does for me. Central Park Arms." She swore, suddenly sure that's where he'd gone. Then she stopped, stared at the empty space in front of the steps. "I don't have a vehicle," she remembered. "Goddamn it, I don't have a ride."
"Auto requisition hasn't come through. You can make a personal order."
"Oh yeah, that'll only take a week or two. Shit." Jamming her hands in new, silky pockets, she jogged to the end of the house.
The garage attachment melded with the main structure. The massive doors were wood with thick brass fittings. The windows, arched and majestic, were sunscreened to keep the finish on the vehicles housed there from fading. Inside the temperature would be kept, year-round, at a comfortable seventy-two degrees.
Eve uncoded the locks, identified herself through voice and palm print. The doors swung gracefully open.
So did Peabody's mouth. "Holy cow."
"It's excessive," Eve said, sniffing. "It's ridiculous and such a cliched man-thing."
"It's frigid," Peabody said reverently.
Vehicles were housed in individual bays, on two levels. Sports cars, limos, air cycles, all-terrains, sedate sedans, and sleek solo-riders. Colors ranged from flashy neon shades to classic blacks. Peabody stared dreamily at a tandem-style air cycle and imagined herself riding the skies, wind in her hair, with some muscled hunk behind her.
She snapped out of it when she saw Eve heading toward a discreet compact model in industrial gray.
"Dallas, how about this one?" Hopefully, Peabody gestured up to a snazzy electric blue sportster, its silver wheels gleaming, its narrow grille a piece of automotive art.