22

IT WAS AN ODD GROUP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, Eve supposed. Odder yet when she was trying to pay attention to the chitchat, watch the kid for reactions, structure a major operation, coordinate her team, and play hostess.

Richard and Elizabeth had weathered the storm of murder, scandal, and horror, and looked the stronger for it. She watched them both engage Nixie in conversation, together and separately. The kid was polite, and distracted enough, Eve thought, by both Mavis and a child near her own age, to enjoy herself.

It was a strange group. But from the sound of conversation, Eve seemed to be the only one who thought so.

She slipped away long enough to check on Peabody's progress with the real estate angle, and thought it showed strength of character to leave the comfort of cop work to head back down to social hour.

Elizabeth Barrister waylaid her in the foyer. “She's a beautiful child.”

“She's got spine.”

“She must, and she'll need it as time goes on. Grief comes in waves. Just when you think you've weathered one, another swamps you again.”

Elizabeth Barrister, Eve thought, knew plenty about grief. “It's a lot to take on, from your position.”

Elizabeth shook her head as she glanced toward the parlor. “We made mistakes, Richard and I. So many. Too many. And we've accepted that our daughter paid for them.”

“Senator DeBlass was responsible.”

“From your position,” Elizabeth agreed. “But she was our child, and we made mistakes. We've been given another chance with Kevin. He's lit up our lives.”

There was no question of that, Eve noted, when just saying his name litElizabeth 's face.

“We'd give Nixie a home, if she wants it. Give her a chance to heal. We'd be good for her, I think. Kevin certainly would. They're already making friends. She's been telling him about the game room, which is, apparently, the ult. I wonder if I could take them in for a while.”

“Sure. I'll show you where it is.”

Eve remembered Kevin as a scrawny kid of about six with ragged clothes and a bony cat in tow. He'd filled out, cleaned up, grown a couple of inches, and showed a gap-toothed grin as he clutched a pudgy Galahad in his arms.

“He's fat,” Kevin said cheerfully. “But he's soft.”

“Yeah, well…” Galahad aimed his dual-colored eyes at Eve in a way that promised payback for the indignity. “You don't have to carry him.”

“I like to. I have a cat named Dopey, and now I have a puppy, too, named Butch. I go to school and I eat like a horse.”

Behind them, Elizabeth laughed. “He certainly does.”

“If I had a horse.” The way Kevin slid his eyes slyly in his mother's direction told Eve he knew where the butter was best slathered. “I would ride him like a cowboy.”

“One step at a time, little man. Let's see how you handle Butch. Do you like horses, Nixie?”

“I got to pet one that pulls a carriage around the park. It was nice.”

At his first sight of the nirvana of Roarke's game room, Kevin let out a shout, dumped Galahad on the floor, and raced to the closest arcade game.

“I'll take it from here,” Elizabeth told Eve. “I've become an expert in this arena.”

With considerable relief, Eve left her to it. And took the opportunity to head back upstairs.

This time, Webster was leaning over Peabody 's shoulder.

“Stop crowding my partner,” Eve snapped.

Webster straightened, but held his ground. “I have to head downtown shortly, give my report.”

“Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. What've you got?” she asked Peabody.

“Looks like you hit on something with the properties. I've got what you call a townstone on the Moss's block. Purchased three months after the custody resolution in the name of the Triangle Group. No financing, so they plunked down the whole-considerable-shot. No income until six weeks after Moss's death. Got rentals coming in after that. Tenants are clean and unconnected as far as I can tell. Triangle Group also owns, since March 2054, a two-family building two blocks south of the hospital where Brenegan was murdered. Tenants in and out, every six months like clockwork. I think we might find some of the names from Cassandra or Doomsday in here.”

“Kirkendall, Clinton, Isenberry. Triangle Group. Cute. We tie them to it.”

“It's a tangle, Dallas.”

She paced away, paced back. Webster was a solid cop, she knew. But he was still IAB. Overtime was racking up, and nothing made the review board, the brass, the nut crunchers bitch like unauthorized OF.

But there were ways around it.

“You're past shift,” she said to Peabody. “You and the rest of the team. Clock out.”

“But we've got-”

“You're off the clock.” She smiled thinly at Webster as she spoke. “What you do with your own time, in your own home, isn't my business. Or the department's. You want to do something useful,” Eve told Webster. “Go file your report. Get them off my back for the next forty-eight.”

“I can do that. Give the detective her orders. I've gone suddenly and strangely deaf.”

“Shoot this to your desk unit and get down to Central.”

“Do you want to move on these buildings?”

“Tomorrow. Try for at least six hours' downtime. We're going to put this in place tomorrow. We move this team back to Central, avoid inquiries from IAB about what the hell we're doing here. Get a conference room booked for seven hundred tomorrow. Tell the rest of the team to do the same or work from home.”

She could see it, and in her head was already outlining strategy.

“Start looking for other properties under that name or similar ones. Under any of the tenants' names who lived in the building near the hospital. I want their base. We get their base, we change this op around, and that's where we move on them.”

“Will you work from here?”

“I'll be pursuing the same data. I want your unit talking to mine. Something breaks, I'll come downtown. Got all that?”

“Got it.”

“Then get all these cops out of my house.”

“ Dallas.” Webster stopped her as she turned to the door. “Nobody's business what I do on my own time, either. If I happened to get copies of this data Detective Peabody's finessed, I could entertain myself by seeing if I could beat her, or you, to the rest.”

“ Peabody, have you got any problem having a race with an IAB suit?”

“I thrive on competition.”

“There you go. Beat his ass.”

Better yet, she thought as she walked out. She'd get Roarke to work unraveling. And she'd work with him, and they'd ring the goddamn bell. There had to be enough civilians in the damn house to ride the controls on a couple of kids while she worked.

She swung by the computer lab, and the lounge where Baxter and Trueheart were set up to relay the data. “Check out the owners before the buy,” she ordered. “See if there's a connect-military, paramilitary- siblings, spouses, offspring in same. Get current status. Let's see if we can squeeze out a weasel. But do it from home. You're officially off the clock.”

She veered off to start downstairs, and Summerset intercepted.

“Lieutenant, your guests require some of your attention.”

“Cram the etiquette lesson. Tell Roarke I'm working in his office and I require some of his attention. Now.”

Pleased to save time, and to have been able to tell Summerset to cram anything, she backtracked and sat at Roarke's desk.

“Engage computer.”

One moment, please, to verify authorization by voice scan. Verified, Darling Eve. Engaged.

“Christ, what if somebody hears that? Don't you know there are cops in the damn woodwork around here? Search all data, Triangle Group.”

Searching… Triangle Group, licensed real estate brokerage company, subsidiary of Five-By Corporation.

“Location or locations of Triangle Group's offices or company headquarters.”