Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“Do you think the staff didn’t notice the time you spent in there? With and without him. The time you spent in there with Joy Barrister?”
Magdelana let out a quick, frustrated sound. “Of course I spent time in there with him, but he never showed me a vault. And I’ve never actually met his daughter.”
“Really? That’s strange.”
“Playback time, Lieutenant?”
“Yeah, let’s roll that. You know where to start.”
Joy, sweetheart, you know you shouldn’t contact me at this point.
Magdelana’s lips trembled open, shut again firmly as the playback continued.
“The two of you seem chummy enough, for people who never met, to conspire to hire a paid assassin to take me, a police officer, out. To kill me.”
“That’s certainly not me on that recording.”
“Jesus, dumbass, do you think we haven’t traced it back to the clone ’link in the luggage in the freaking bridal suite in the Cochran Estates?”
“I don’t have a clone ’link.”
“Not anymore you don’t. It was tucked away up there with your fancy underwear, and it has your prints. Voice and finger. We have the conversations on that ’link and Joy Barrister’s.”
Eve rose, strolled around the table, leaned down. “You’re going down for that one, bitch. No getting around it. You’re cooked there.”
“I want a deal.”
“Yeah? I want a nice big glass of wine. In a few hours I’ll actually get my want. You never will.”
“I have information, and plenty of it, on James Mulligan and on Joy Barrister. They used me, they colluded and used me. I was in love, and that made me foolish, vulnerable. I didn’t know what they planned, then I was in too deep. I want immunity, and I’ll tell you everything.”
“Gee, what do you think, Peabody?”
Peabody made a buzzing sound. “Too late.”
“You know, that’s right. Barrister’s already confessed to everything, and given us just a big shiny treasure trove on you. And we made a deal with Mulligan already. He added to that shiny.”
“They’re lying!”
“So Joy Barrister didn’t kill Nathan Barrister and pay a hit man to kill me?”
“No. Yes, yes, she did all that, but they’re lying about the rest.”
“Selectively lying, all while confessing—in Joy’s case—to murder and more so she’ll spend the rest of her life in a cage. Man, she must have something against you.”
“She does! She hates me. She and James were lovers. She loves him, and wants to punish me for being with him, for taking him from her.”
“Here I thought you took him from his wife.”
“I was blinded by my feelings for him, and he … he twisted them. Used them. And she hated me for being with him, for my close friendship with her father.”
“How did she know you were friends with her father if you never met? You’re tripping over yourself here, Magdelana. I bet you’re a lot better at this if you have some time to think.”
She rounded the table again. “Listen, stupid! We have the ’link conversations. The lab verifies it’s your voice. And none of those conversations support what you’re making up here on the spot. You ran the show, start to fucking finish. You’re nobody’s dupe, and you’re not capable of love.”
Magdelana’s breath came too fast now, and her fingers twisted together. “You’ll be sorry,” she murmured.
Eve got down, pushed her face close. “No, I won’t, but you will be.”
She saw that fear again, and the belief with it.
“I can give you others, plenty of others.”
“Not interested.”
“Thieves, murderers, hired killers, weapons runners.”
“Don’t care, got you. But it does cause me to wonder what kind of pool you swim in.
Last December, Joy Barrister caught you in Henry’s office, vault open.
And you drew her in, you offered her what she wanted most. Control, more, her brother out of the picture, and she traded that for what you wanted. The Royal Suite.”
“If any of that were true, why only that if there was so much more?”
“Biggest prize. Get your hands on that, your rep’s made. You’ll be rolling in it. You can be whoever you want wherever you want.”
“An innocent man and a cop have to die,” Peabody added. “You don’t care about that, as long as you get that big prize, that big rep, throw that big party.”
“Interpol and the locals are going through that villa in Sorrento, inch by inch. They’re going to find plenty.”
“I want a deal. I’ll confess to arranging the theft, but that’s all. I want a deal.”
“You hired someone to break into Barrister House. You gave them the security system, the combination of the vault, and you instructed them to take only the Royal Suite. To leave the vault open and the window closed.”
“That’s right. That’s all I did. The thief I hired is Jenna Delaney.”
“We already have her name, and she has immunity.”
More shock. “How could she—”
“She has a moral compass. And she’s one more person, it turns out, who’s smarter than you. Hiring her’s not all you did. Jesus, have you forgotten the conversations, on record, with Joy Barrister?”
“I’ll give you more.” Another tear spilled, and struck Eve as genuine. “I want a deal.”
“You get nothing. Two men are dead, six officers were injured at your big show last night. A family’s lost a husband and father.”
This time when Eve slapped a hand on the table, Magdelana jumped.
“You get nothing. You’ve confessed, on record, for arranging the break-in and theft at Barrister House, a felony. A death resulting from the commission of a felony makes you just as responsible as the person who bashed in his skull.”
“I didn’t kill anyone!”
“You planted the seed, you watered it, fertilized it with your particular brand of bullshit. Now reap the harvest. You are on record conspiring to hire an assassin to murder a police officer.”
“You won’t give me a deal like the others because you’re jealous. You’re burned up with jealousy because Roarke loved me, because he had the best sex of his life with me.”
The laugh just burst out. “Yeah, right, that’s it.” She lifted her left hand. “Didn’t put one of these on your finger, did he?”
“He just wanted a cop in his pocket.”
“The lieutenant’s in no one’s pocket.”
“It’s fine, Peabody. She can try to convince herself to believe that. She’ll have the rest of her life to try to convince herself to believe that. You gotta have something to hold on to when you’re doing a couple of lifetimes in an off-planet cage.”
“I’m not going to prison.”
“Oh yeah, you are.” Once more she leaned down, leaned in. “For Nathan Barrister, you’re going to prison. For arranging the theft of the Royal Suite, you’re going to prison—you’ve confessed, on record, of your own volition.”
She stared into Eve’s eyes now with pure hate.
“I should’ve found a better hit man.”
“That’s right. Why didn’t you?”
“We were in a hurry. Tim was handy.”
“Your mistake. And since he’s dead, killed in his attempt to kill me, you’re also on the hook there. You’re going over, Magdelana, and you’re never coming back.”
“I’ll get out, and I’ll do you myself. I’ll kill you myself.”
“No and no, but you can hold on to that, too.”
“I’m adding threatening a police officer with bodily harm to the charges, Dallas.”
“Oh hell, Peabody, give her that one.”
“No, sir. I won’t.”
Eve shrugged. “Anyway. Interview End.”
“He stole the Royal Suite.”
Eve paused at the door. “He who?”
“Roarke, you know damn well. He stole it from the Tate.”
“Really? He’d have been, what, about eighteen? Nice try.”
“He told me!”
“Uh-huh. You buy that one, Peabody? That some kid from Dublin went to London, broke through the security of the Tate Gallery, then through the security around the Royal Suite, and walked away with it?”
She could see Peabody did, at least sort of. “Nope. It was a team. No other way.” She rolled her eyes at Magdelana. “I’m saying she’s the one who’s jealous. Kind of pathetic. I’ll take her back down.”
“Thanks.”
Eve stepped out, breathed out. And every cop in her division, including her commander, stepped out of Observation.
And, obviously preplanned, every one of them gave her a golf clap.
“Cute. Go the hell home.”
“I’m writing it up.”
“Detective Sergeant, go home.”
“No, sir, boss, I’m writing up the interviews, filing them.” Jenkinson jabbed a finger at her. “You go the hell home.”
“I’ve got a couple of personal matters to see to first,” she said when Roarke and Mira stepped out with Reo.
“You go on and do that. We got you covered here. I hear you’ve got a cop bar opening up soon. When you do, first round’s on me.”
“That it’s not.” Roarke laid a hand on Jenkinson’s shoulder. “Drinks on the house opening night for everyone here.”
“Who’s going to argue with that?” And Jenkinson strolled off with the others.
Whitney stepped up. “Exceptional work, Lieutenant. Relay the same to Detective Peabody.”
“I will, sir, thank you.”
“I enjoyed this. Damn if I didn’t enjoy this.”
When he left, Mira moved up. “As classic a sociopath as I’ve ever seen. The planet will be the better with her off it. You handled her perfectly.”
“In the end, she turned out to be an easy mark.”
“She underestimated you, that’s my take,” Reo said. “If she’s smart, she’ll get a lawyer, even if it’s a PD. Won’t do her any good. Like you said. She’s cooked. I’ll go write up my end of it. Get some sleep.”
Then she stood alone with Roarke.
“There are darker places in her than there were, I think. Or they’ve spread to smother any of the light she had.”
“Do you still want to see her?”
“I do. It can wait if you’d rather be done with this today.”
“No, let’s close the book all the way, then toss it in a fire. I’ll take you down, give you the time and space.”
She took him down, down past the more hospitable holding cells where unfortunates waited for bail or lawyers, down farther to the much less hospitable where more waited for transport to other cages.
A guard opened a security door to let them through.
“Who you going for, LT?”
“Magdelana Percell. Quick visit.”
“Down four, on the left. That one offered me a bang if I let her out.”
“Did she?”
“Yeah. Even if I weren’t gay? I mean, step back.”
“Write it up.”
“You know, it happens.”
“I know, but for this one, write it up.”
She walked Roarke back to where Magdelana sat on the cot in the cell. And stood slowly when she saw them.
Eve stepped back, nodded to the guard.
The electronic bars slid open. Roarke stepped in and heard them close behind him.
Magdelana leaped toward him, threw her arms around him.
“I knew you’d come. Oh God, Roarke, thank God for you. What they’ve done to me! I was a fool, I admit I was a fool, but I trusted…”
She pressed her face against his chest, trembled, wept.
“You’ll get me out, I know you will. Pay whatever needs to be paid. That woman.” She lifted her face now, tears delicately spilling. “She attacked me! Again. Look at me, look what she did. She struck me. Help me get out. Help me get away from her. I think she’s going to kill me.”
“Take your hands off me, Magdelana, or I’ll take them off, and you won’t like it.”
“Roarke.” Stepping back, she pressed her fingers to her lips, brought out more tears. “You can’t blame me for what happened between us before. I love you. I only wanted—”
“Be quiet, and listen to me. Listen very carefully to me. You’ll get no help from me. Not now, not in any lifetime. Be grateful you have a life to spend in prison. You tried to kill my wife.”
“No, no, no. It’s a lie. I never—”
“Be quiet!”
It wasn’t the sharp, commanding tone that silenced her, but the look in his eyes.
And that brought a kind of visible terror.
“I know what you did, all you did. You helped kill a man who leaves a wife and children behind him. For that, I’d never help you. You set a hit man on my wife, and for that, but for her asking it of me, you wouldn’t draw the next breath.
“No,” he murmured. “No, not true. You live because she’s shown me there’s a right way, a just way, and a wrong and selfish way.”
“You can’t mean—”
“I do. Know I do. I never loved you any more than you me. But I cared for the woman I thought you were. I warned you before to stay away. You chose otherwise. Here’s the price you pay for it.”
“I could’ve ruined you. I didn’t.”
“You tried. Some of the eyes and ears behind the glass were mine. You failed, and you always will there. I owe you pain, Magdelana, and I’ll hold that in reserve should you try to come at me, and twice that and more pain if you try to come at her.
“Sit on the cot.”
“No, I—”
He spoke, very softly. “Do you want me to put you there?”
She stepped back, sat. And he stepped up to the bars.
“Eve.”
She’d given him privacy, and trust, keeping clear so he could say what he needed to say without her listening.
Now she moved up again. “On the gate,” she called to the guard.
When the door opened, he came out. Once more he heard them close behind him as he walked to Eve.
Magdelana rushed to the bars. “You can’t leave me here! I’ll die in prison. I can’t live that way. You can’t leave me here.”
He kept walking, never looked back. When they were through the security door, Eve took his hand. Because he needed it.
“Okay?”
“I am, yes.”
“So we close the book?”
“We do, but burning a book, even this one? I can’t do it. So we’ll lock it away.”
“That’ll work. Want to go have a lot of wine, get a little drunk, maybe have some crazy monkey sex?”
He let out a laugh, an easy one that relieved her. Then lifted her hand, pressed her knuckles to his lips.
“I honestly can’t think of anything I could want more.”
“Then let’s go the hell home.”