“Why?”
“The kitchen’s often considered the hub or heart of the house. Though that might not be the case for you, I would think your office kitchen would serve.”
“Right.” She started up the stairs, stopped when he spoke again.
“The unrestricted love of a child is a precious gift.”
“I get that.”
“I thought you would tell him, was sure of it. I was wrong.”
She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “I didn’t have proof,” she began, and he said nothing. “And what good would it have done, for him, if I’d told Roarke I suspected the man he thinks of as his father killed Patrick Roarke?”
“I thought you would tell him,” Summerset said again, simply. “Due to—beyond our personal . . . friction—your duty to the law, and your loyalty to Roarke.”
“Those are exactly the reasons I didn’t tell him.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Guess not.” She started to continue up, stopped. “Okay, here it is, then it’s done. I believe absolutely in the law, the need for it, the rules of it, the need and rules of it that lead to justice. I’d be nothing without believing that. But that was a different time and place, and circumstances. You had no one in authority you could trust to serve and protect, to stand for you when a fucking monster threatened to rape, torture, and kill two children. He’d have followed through on that threat because there was no one to stop him. You did. Roarke’s here because you stopped Patrick Roarke, because you protected the child he was at that time, in that place, in those circumstances. That’s enough for me.”
“There were no cops such as you in that time and place.”
“Times change.” She continued up. “Put it away.”
“Perhaps I can,” Summerset agreed.
She stopped one more time. “You don’t get points for teaching him to be a better thief.”
That creepy smile snuck back. “His talent there was innate.”
She shrugged. “Hard to argue.” And walked up to her office.
When Roarke came in two hours later, she’d gone through a pot of coffee, and set up a trio of auxiliary boards. She sat at her desk, boots up, eyes closed.
“I’m not asleep.”
“All right then. You’ve been busy.”
She opened her eyes, studied the new boards as he did. “One for residents—including day staff—one for hotel employees—including subcontractors. One for visitors and outside vendors, delivery people who came in during the relevant time frame.”
“That would be near to three thousand people, I expect. You’re handling all this?”
“Peabody’s got the hotel staff, and since Baxter and Trueheart are finished with the art gallery, they’re taking the vendors and deliveries, the visitors. I want the visual, and I’ll eliminate as they do.
“Screwed up your schedule today,” she said.
“A breech in my security screwed up my schedule, and now that it’s nearly on track again, I want a glass of wine and some food.”
“Gotta feed the cat,” Eve said absently. “He came in a little bit after I did, settled down for one of his marathon naps, so Summerset wouldn’t have dealt with it.”
She rose, wandered to the boards. “I’ve eliminated a good chunk of residents. Kids, elderly, women. Both wits were absolute on the male. And there are more than a few whose out-of-town status checks out. I’ve crossed off a couple more with solid alibis. Still working on that.”
“Here. Diffuse the coffee you’ve been pounding.” He handed her the glass, kissed the top of her head. “I’ll take half after we’ve had some dinner.”
“It wasn’t really a breech in your security.”
“Close enough.”
She followed him into the kitchen, and the cat—sensing the dinner bell—came with her. “You can’t have alarms going off every time a light flickers,” she pointed out.
“True enough.” He stopped to study the finger painting she’d stuck on the friggie. “This is . . . interesting.”
“Mavis brought Bella by my office and the kid gave me this, wanted me to put it up. Summerset said this is how it’s done.”
“Ah. A bold use of color and texture. Perhaps she’s a budding student of the Pollock school.”
“It’s the house.” Eve stepped up, tapped the painting. “And this is me, you, the cat, Summerset.”
Roarke looked closer, then stepped back, trying distance. “You see that?”
“You don’t?” Then with a laugh, she got the kibble. “The kid explained. Did you know Mavis is performing at the Oscar deal?”
Roarke angled his head, still studying the finger painting. “I did, yes.”
“I should’ve known. It’s a big deal for her, so I should’ve known.”
“You don’t pay attention to such things, and Mavis wouldn’t expect you to. You pay attention enough to hang this artwork, and that’s considerably more important, I’d think.”
“It’s not exactly the heart of the house though, is it?”
He turned to her, slid a finger down the dent in her chin. “This house has many hearts.”
Her face cleared. “It does, doesn’t it?”
While the cat attacked the kibble—with a chaser of salmon, they had stew, a comfort at the end of a dreary day.
“How would you have gotten in there?” she asked him. “Into Banks’s place, if you didn’t live in the building?”
“Likely I’d have had time to plan—so there are a number of ways. But in this case, we’re talking of the moment.” He considered as he ate a good, chunky chicken stew generous with dumplings.
“I wouldn’t have complicated it with elevator security and jammers. How long, after all, did it take you to track his coming and going?”
“I still don’t know who he is.”
“But you already know his methods, his skills, and you know he entered the building by normal means.” He gestured to her board. “He’s on one of them.”
“Okay, so what’s the alternate method?”
“Up the outside.”
“Get out! It’s over fifty floors,” she pointed out, and got a shrug.
“The height’s hardly a deterrent with the proper tools. With electronic gloves, booties, it’s simply a matter of choosing your time, then moving steadily up. Again, between the glass to avoid being spotted. I’d have done it after midnight, and when I’d reached the terrace, dealing with those locks is, well, cake as we say. Nothing nearly as complex as the main doors.
“Go in,” he added, topping off the wine, “do my search. Not sloppily. Why alert the cops the moment they step in the door? Be subtle about it—after all, no one’s going to disturb me, and I’m not meeting the man I intend to kill for some time yet. Take what I need, as well as any cash I find as it’s not traceable. I don’t bother with a painting. Then I take my leave the same way.”
He toasted her with his wine. “However, if I’d targeted such a place, it would be for the valuables, so I’d take what I came for. The method would be the same.”
“You’ve actually done that? Climbed up a building?”
“It’s exhilarating. The dark, the air, the life going on below, and on the other side of the wall. All unaware of you. And unlike you, I enjoy heights.”
She thought about it as she ate. “They’re not professional thieves. Already knew that, but what you’re saying caps it. They worked out what to do on the fly. It worked, but you’re right. They’re on the board. Along with a couple thousand others, but they’re on the board.”
“Before they went into that apartment to remove whatever Banks might have that connects them to him, your suspect range was a great deal wider.”
“That’s a point.” She polished off her stew. “Now I’m going to narrow it.”
With focused work she eliminated more than two hundred on her board. Deleted names from the other boards through reports from the rest of the team.
She started a priority list on anyone who’d had military or paramilitary training or had relatives who did.
Roarke worked along with her, then broke to take a scheduled tag from Hawaii. When he came back, she had her head on the desk.
Out, he thought, and ordered her machine to continue her work on auto.
She stirred and mumbled when he lifted her out of her chair. “I’m good.”