“Okay, it doesn’t add up.” Eve reached for her comm again, and it signaled in her hand. “Dallas.”
“Lieutenant, Officers Gregg and Vols. We’re at the Rogan/Greenspan residence. Greenspan’s been worked over, and was bound, locked in a basement storage room. The minor child’s unharmed except for some bruises and minor lacerations. We called the MTs for the woman. Both she and the kid claim home invasion.”
“That adds up. Secure the scene. If the MTs need to take Greenspan to a med center, one of you goes with her, one sits on the residence. I’m on my way.
“Peabody,” she said as she clicked off. “Inform Salazar of the situation, and contact EDD. I want all Rogan’s e’s—office and home—taken in. I want an e-man at the residence to go over security. I’ll seal this office and get a team in here. Move. Meet me at the car.”
She bagged the memo book, sealed and labeled it as she contacted her bullpen.
“Yo, LT,” Detective Baxter said.
“Are you and Trueheart clear?”
“Clear enough. What do you need?”
“I need you at Quantum Air, coordinating with Lieutenant Salazar.”
“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.
“I think maybe that’s Jupiter.” Peabody frowned at the ball, tipping her head back to look up at the window.
Eve avoided the shards, studied the security as they approached the doors. “It’s one of Roarke’s systems, so it’s good. Palm plate, voice ID, solid locks and alarm, double cameras.”
The door opened. “Lieutenant. Officer Vols.”
“Status.”
“Sir. Officer Gregg and I arrived, rang and knocked. Automated security engaged. The comp said no one was currently in residence. Before we attempted a bypass, Gregg stepped down to check windows, go around to the back. And the ball back there? Planet Jupiter?”
“I knew it,” Peabody said with quick triumph, before Eve shut her down with a cold stare.
“Well, it nearly beaned Gregg. And the kid who managed to throw it through the window started screaming for help. Gregg called up to her, told her we were the police. She said she couldn’t get out of her room.
“We couldn’t get through security, LT, had to use the battering ram.”
“Did the alarm go off?”
“No, sir, it didn’t. Disengaged. We found the kid upstairs—holding on to herself pretty well. She said they’d hurt her mom, and had taken her away. They’d taken her dad away. Then we heard the pipes. The mother managed to bang on the pipes in the basement room. We found her down there, beat up, tied up. The kid fell apart a little then.”
A ripple of emotion ran over his stony cop’s face. “She’d thought they’d killed her mom. Two men, they both state, broke into the house sometime in the early hours of Saturday after all three were in bed. From what the wife said, it sounds like they may have drugged the husband while he slept, taken him out that way, then they dragged the wife out of bed, smacked her around a little, tied her up, hauled the kid in. Tied her and the father up.”
“Did you get a description?”
“Masks. Both say white, featureless masks. Hoods, gloves. They both say male going by voice and build, but they can’t give us race, facial features, hair or eye color. I’ll tell you, we didn’t push too hard, Lieutenant. The mother needed medical attention, and the kid . . . She holds it together, like I said, but she’s pretty shaken up. We haven’t given Greenspan notification on Rogan. She and the kid asked about him, but we didn’t want to step in it on that.”
“Okay. You and Gregg stand by. I’ve got an e-man coming to evaluate the security breach and pick up all electronics. Where do you have them?”
“There’s a family area in the back of the house, off the kitchen. Gregg’s sitting on them.”