Part 26 (1/2)

Power and privilege.

Roarke had both, and, yeah, she thought, maybe part of the reason he was who and what he was was due to the fact he'd grown up hard, and grown up hungry. But that wasn't the sum of it.

She thought of him and Brian Kelly, that long, strong connection, affection, trust. Brian owned and ran a successful pub in Dublin, and Roarke owned and ran half the d.a.m.n world. But when they came together, as they had at the park, at a murder scene, at a family farm, they were simply friends.

Equals.

I t was more than what you had, even more than how you'd come by it. I t was what you did with it, and with yourself.

Power and privilege, she thought again. Just another excuse for being an a.s.shole.

Two blocks from Peabody's, Eve tagged her partner. ”Five minutes. Get your a.s.s down.”

She cut transmission without waiting for a response.

When she pulled up, double parking while other vehicles objected bitterly, she scanned the building where she'd once lived.

Ordinary again, a squat tower like so many others in a city jammed with people who needed s.p.a.ce to eat, sleep, live. A hive, she thought, honeycombed with those s.p.a.ces, those people, all living on top of each other. Now she lived in a home far from ordinary, one Roarke had built through ambition, need, style, wealth-and which she was still faintly embarra.s.sed to admit was a mansion.

Maybe she wasn't exactly the same woman she'd been when she'd lived in the hive, and maybe she'd come to understand that she was better for it. But the core remained, didn't it? She still did what she did, still did the job, lived the life.

Maybe you just were what you were, she considered. Evolving, sure, changing as your life changed. But that core was still the core.

She watched Peabody come out, her dark hair pulled up and back in a short, bouncy tail; a thin, loose jacket swinging at her hips; short, summer pink gel boots on her feet. A long stretch from the square helmet of hair, the buffed and polished uniform she'd worn when Eve had taken her on as aide.

Changes, and Eve admitted she wasn't always comfortable with change. But pink shoes or not, Peabody was a cop right to the bone.

”Money doesn't make you an a.s.shole,” Eve said when Peabody opened the door, ”it just makes you an a.s.shole with money.”

”Okay.”

”And people who kill for thrills? They always had the thirst for it, the predilection for it. Just maybe not the stones.”

Peabody wiggled her b.u.t.t to settle in. ”And you think we're going to see that about Dudley when we talk to the ex-fiancee?”

Cop to the bone, Eve thought again. ”I 'm going to be pretty d.a.m.n surprised if we don't.”

”From the background I ran, she seems like the solid type. Volunteers as a counselor at the local youth center and he coaches softball. They belong to the country club, and she chairs a committee here and there. Feels like sort of the usual bits for that social and financial lifestyle.”

Ordinary people, Eve thought again, with money.

”She'd have been a lot higher on the ladder if she'd married Dudley.” Peabody shrugged. ”But she's not exactly sc.r.a.ping bottom. Anyway, with what you dug up last night she's connected to Dudley and Moriarity with the cousin thing, the college pal thing. Makes you wonder, if we're rightabout these two, how far back they've been into the nasty.”

”That kind of partners.h.i.+p requires absolute trust-or stupidity. I don't think they're stupid-or not completely stupid.” Eve considered. ”And that kind of trust has to build over some time. Because if one of them cracks, it all cracks, if one talks, they both go down. And still ...”

”Still?”

”I f it's compet.i.tion, one has to lose. Losing would be not making the kill, or getting caught, or s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up. I can't turn it any other way.”

”Maybe neither one of them believes he can lose.”

”Somebody has to,” Eve countered.

”Yeah, but when McNab and I play, for instance, I 'm always sort of shocked and p.i.s.sed off if I lose. I go in knowing I 'm going to win. Every time. I t's the same with him. I think because we're pretty well matched in the games we get into. And separately we usually destroy whoever else we're playing against.”

”I t's a thought.” Eve squeezed it a little harder. ”I t's a good thought,” she decided. ”They're arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Maybe the concept of losing isn't on the table.” She rolled it around in her mind, let it b.u.mp against the other elements. ”The killings are planned. They're orchestrated, and so far we know two were orchestrated back-to-back. There's no impulse about it. Someone plots and plans and basically ch.o.r.eographs murder, there's something in there that wants the kill. You can hide it, spruce it up with coats of polish, but that something's going to eke through off and on.”

Peabody nodded. ”Especially with or around someone who's close enough to see it. So they, you could say, recognized each other.”

Recognition. Wasn't that the same term she'd come to when considering her long friends.h.i.+p with Mavis?

”Yeah. I would say recognition's a factor. What we need is to find other people who recognized them. We need to build on that until we have enough to bring them in, sweat them some. Or enough to get a search. Because they have to be communicating after a kill. There's no way either of them would or could wait until the media hits to confirm the round.”

”On my fork, I haven't found any connection between the vics, between the vics and Sweet or Foster, between the vics and Moriarity or Dudley, or any combination thereof, except for the known company connections.”

”Might still be there, something more subtle, or something that just doesn't show.”

Connecticut was different, Eve mused. The s.p.a.ce people could claim for their own purposes spread, with lots of green, lots of trees, gardens manicured as luxuriously as any society matron after a salon session. Vehicles showed off their style and s.h.i.+ne on paved driveways-and as those private s.p.a.ces increased in size, she caught glimpses of red clay tennis courts, the Caribbean blue of swimming pools, the dark circles of helipads.

”What do people do out here?”

”Whatever they want” was Peabody's opinion.

”What I mean is, you can't walk anywhere. There's no deli on the corner, no handy glide cart, no buzz, no movement. Just houses.”

”I guess that's why people live out here, or move out here. They don't want the buzz. They want the quiet, and the s.p.a.ce. You get to have both,”

Peabody pointed out.

Using the navigation on her wrist unit, Eve turned into a driveway that circled to a house on a small rise. VanWitt had gone for a modified U- shape with the center two-story leg connecting the long, single-story juts in a mix of stone and wood and gla.s.s.

Flowers were cheerful and plentiful, trees tall and shady.

She angled where the drive widened into a small lot, and pulled in beside a spiffy little topless number in stoplight red.

”I t's pretty.” Peabody looked around as they walked to the main door. ”Probably a nice place to raise kids with all this room. Low crime area, good schools.”

”You thinking of moving?”

”No. I want the buzz, too. But I can see how people aspire to places like this.”

A woman in cropped pants and a tucked white s.h.i.+rt answered the bell. ”May I help you?”

”Felicity VanWitt.” Eve held up her badge. ”Lieutenant Dallas and Detective Peabody, NYPSD. We'd like to speak with her.”

”The children.” The woman's hand rushed up to slap against her heart.

”I t has nothing to do with the children.”

”Oh. Oh. They're on a field trip in New York today, with their youth club. I thought ... Sorry. Doctor VanWitt is in session. Can you tell me what this is about?”