Page 11

Eve took her ten, then sat to read Peabody’s background reports. She’d started with Alice Dormer first, so Eve did the same.

Not a great deal of data there, as Alice’s life had been cut so short. And the life she’d lived seemed usual, even ordinary. No mention, none at all, about her work for the Underground.

A London native—no siblings, parents divorced. Her father died in a fire that may or may not have been arson in the months before the Urbans had been termed war. Her mother left London while Alice remained, continued her career as a teacher. And the mother had died of injuries from a vehicular accident just over a year later.

Her data claimed she married, not a man named Basil Kolchek, but one called Lawrence Summerset, and continued to teach throughout the conflict. She gave birth to a daughter in November of 2025. And died in May 2026 from injuries sustained in a bombing.

Nothing about it being Dominion headquarters. Nothing about her setting the charges herself, giving her life to complete her mission.

Peabody had done good work, finding small details—Alice’s education, her residences. Even a mention of the bombed school, and her rescue work there.

But her partner found nothing that added a link in the chain to Potter.

She moved on to Harry Mitchell—Magpie—the thief.

She imagined Roarke would find some common ground there. A street kid, a runaway with a father cited for child abuse, a mother with a couple rounds of rehab.

Not as slick a thief as Roarke, she thought, as Harry had done some small time—as a juvenile, and again as an adult—for his choice of career.

He’d had a younger sister, sixteen to his nineteen when he’d done the second stint. Six months for attempting to pawn a stolen ring. The sister had perished while he’d been inside, a victim of stray bullets fired when she’d walked home from her job as a hotel maid.

And there, the story changed. An early release—compassionate reduction—and employment as a supply clerk.

“Bogus, Harry, bogus. The Underground recruited you straight out of prison when you were vulnerable, angry, grieving. You stole and scouted for them while they had you listed as counting inventory and stocking cans of soup.”

According to the data, he’d continued to live in London after the wars, as a photographer. And indeed, Peabody had attached a number of his photos starting with the aftermath and rebuilding after the Urbans.

His photography took him all over Europe.

“So you kept your hand in, too.”

He hadn’t married until the age of forty-eight, when he became the third husband of a woman of considerable means. They lived in London, had a home in the Lake District and a flat in Florence.

At the age of sixty-three, he traveled primarily with his wife, and continued his photography.

“Retired, maybe, or semi. Unless the well-off wife’s in the covert business, too.”

She turned to the third report when Peabody sent it.

She found nothing in Iris Arden’s background—the Mole—to indicate she was anything but a woman born into a wealthy family who’d grown up privileged, entitled, traveled well and extensively with her family.

She’d grown up in a London mansion, with a full complement of staff—private tutors, then public school. Which meant important and private in England for some reason.

Everything pointed to a young, reckless, live-for-today sort. The parties given and attended even while blood splattered.

She’d inherited the family business after the wars, and had, by all evidence, run it shrewdly, expanded it successfully.

Generous to her charities—one of which she’d founded herself. A school, not, Eve realized, unlike An Didean.

She’d married and divorced in her mid-twenties. Then at thirty-four had married again. Was still married to Sebastian Griggs, a portrait artist. The marriage had produced three children, two of whom worked for the family business. The third had begun to make a name for herself as an artist.

“You could’ve hidden any additional intelligence work, but I think you said enough. Maybe had enough. And there was the family business to deal with.”

Sitting back, she shoved her hands through her hair.

When her ’link signaled, she found a text from Roarke:

No need to interrupt what I’m sure is a very busy day for you. You should know preparations are in place for company. I should be home by three. If you need or want something else in place, let me know, and I’ll see to it. Feed my cop.

She had to laugh at the last bit. He never quit. Plus, it couldn’t possibly be time to eat again.

Then she glanced at the time. Sighed.

“How the hell does that happen? How the hell did it get to be noon?”

She didn’t have time—okay, didn’t want to take time—to feed the cop. And now if she didn’t, she’d feel guilty. Which was stupid. It was her stomach.

A candy bar was food, but she realized if today of all days she found the Candy Thief had struck again, she might just implode.

Not worth the risk.

She considered, stared at her AutoChef.

“Okay, okay, fine.”

She got up, programmed for a sandwich—ham on rye with hot mustard.

Then she sat, took a bite, and answered the text.

It is busy, and I’ll brief on what I know when I get there. I’ll try for about three. Peabody with me to meet the company. I’m sure you’ve seen to everything that needs to be done. And I’m feeding the cop right now.

“There, done.”

And taking another bite of ham on rye, got back to work.

She skimmed through Marjorie Wright’s background. Early years, middle-class upbringing. Acting career got started when she was still in her teens, and continued—long and storied. Lots of awards, critical praise, blah blah. Some kudos for charity work, emphasis on environmental issues.

A couple of husbands, a couple of offspring.

And during the Urbans, volunteered in food banks, shelters, lent her voice and image to calls for peace.

Not a single hint she was or had ever been part of a covert group.

She already knew Ivan Draski, as she’d hunted him down after he’d killed a woman on the Staten Island Ferry. The woman, the HSO assassin, who’d butchered Draski’s wife and twelve-year-old daughter years before.

The mild-eyed, quiet-voiced middle-aged man, the scientist, the inventor of Lost Time—a device he’d destroyed rather than have it fall into HSO’s, or any agency’s, hands.

She’d come home to find him sitting in the parlor, drinking coffee, petting the cat. He’d come to turn himself over to her.

And in the end, she’d let him go. She’d let him go, told him to disappear, because if she’d taken him in—done what the job demanded—he’d have been dead within hours.

She’d told him never to come back to New York, but he would. For Summerset, for Rossi, for The Twelve.

She’d deal with it.

She moved on to Cyril Snowden—Cobra. E-whiz, a young, gifted cyber expert with his own IT company before, and supposedly during, the Urbans. Age six when parents divorced. Two half-siblings, one from each parent’s remarriage.

Beyond aced it academically, she noted, and got himself a scholarship to Oxford, where he also aced it.

Tried to sign up with the military during the Urbans, but was deemed physically ineligible.

“There’s bullshit. Recruited. Big brain, more useful underground.”

His data listed him instead as an ambulance driver during the conflict.

After, he’d expanded his business. He and his husband of thirty-two years maintained a home in London, but primarily lived in Sussex. Two children, son, age twenty-nine, daughter, age twenty-seven. One grandchild, female, age ten months, through the daughter.

So that was the crew, she thought, and sat back. Those who’d survived. She supposed they qualified as motley, and spanned from late fifties to mid-seventies.

Now she had to keep them confined, keep them safe. And find the way to use them to locate Conrad Potter.

She heard Peabody coming, and wished she had a few more minutes to sort out her thinking.

“I think I need a minute,” Peabody said. “Ivan Draski.”

Eve couldn’t claim surprise. She’d trained Peabody herself. If the name hadn’t clicked, Eve wouldn’t have done her job well.

And she damn well had.

“Close the door.” She rose. “Take the chair.”

Clearly distressed, Peabody shut the door.

“The name kept trying to click, then when I did the background, the scientist, the murder of his wife and daughter, it did. It’s a cold case now because we identified him, but we never found him.”

“Because I let him go. I didn’t tell you at the time, as I didn’t see any reason for you to take any blowback, if it came, for my decision. I let him go,” she repeated. “Now I’ll tell you why, and you’ll need to decide if you can respect that decision. Not only because I let him go, but because he’s coming back.”

“He killed the woman, a paid assassin, who killed his wife and daughter.”

“That wouldn’t have been enough for the decision I made. Couldn’t have been enough. The courts decide that, not us. The system decides that, and we’re only part of the system. But in this case, the system would never have held up. He’d have been dead or abducted before it could.”

She laid it out, every detail, from the moment she’d walked in and found him in the parlor with Roarke and Summerset to when she’d walked away.

At the end, Peabody looked down at the hands she’d folded on her knee. “If that got out, you’d have been off the force and charged with accessory after the fact. You risked that to save his life. He saved lives on the ferry that day. If that bomb had gone off— He saved lives, then put his in your hands. And you saved his.”

She looked up now. “I hope I’d have the courage to do exactly the same.”

“It wasn’t courage—”

“Oh, bullshit!” Temper sparking, Peabody shoved up from the chair. “It was fucking courage, and integrity. It was the heart of the goddamn job, and it was right! If I hadn’t come to the same decision, I wouldn’t deserve the badge.”

“That’s not—”

“You could’ve told me.” Wound up, Peabody kept going. “You could’ve trusted me.”

“Peabody, trust had nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing. If I didn’t trust you, I’d’ve come up with some bullshit story because I knew the name would click for you sooner or later.”

That didn’t dull the anger, or the hurt blended with it, in Peabody’s eyes.

“You were protecting me, but I don’t want that. Standing up for me, having my back, that’s different. I’m your partner. It matters. It has to matter.”

“It does matter. I’m not going to say you’re wrong, but I did what I thought I needed to do at the time. I made the decision, and didn’t give you a choice in it. I’m your partner, Peabody, but I was responsible. You weren’t. I’m telling you now because, from this point, we’re both responsible.”

“Good!” The single word snapped like a whiplash. “We’re both responsible. That’s how I want it.”

“Want it or not, that’s how it is. According to the law, when we meet with him, you should arrest him.”

“Then I guess I’ve got enough courage, because I’m sure as hell not going to do that. And I’m pissed off you’d think I would.”

If knowing she had to deal with Draski again had kindled a headache, Peabody’s outrage sent it flaming.

“You can stop being pissed off about that, because I don’t—I didn’t. But we’re partners, and you need to have the choice.”

“Good!” A second lash. “Choice made. And you’re just—just stupid if you think there’s another detective in that bullpen who wouldn’t make the same choice. Not for you—or not just—but because they know the heart of the job.”

Eve gave it a moment. “I’m not stupid.”

“Okay then.”

“Have you finished swearing and snapping at—not only your partner, but your lieutenant?”

“I think so.” The hot color fury brought to her cheeks ebbed. “Yeah, pretty much done.”

“Then let’s go meet with this bunch of spies.”

Peabody waited until they’d reached the garage.

“Quilla asked to interview me for her school project, about our current investigation.”

Eve said, “No,” and got behind the wheel.

“I already told her no, that I couldn’t discuss with her details of an ongoing investigation. I said she could pick any closed case I’d worked on.”

Peabody strapped in as Eve pulled out of her slot.

“She decided on the Francis Bryce investigation.”

“Could’ve figured. Recent, relevant to her, as the victims were teenage girls. Add Jake and Nadine right there with the first victim.”

“Mavis said Avenue A’s working on Jenna Harbough’s music disc. Her parents gave them a lot of what she’d written and recorded in her room, some she’d written but hadn’t actually recorded yet.”

Bryce took Jenna’s life, Eve thought, but he hadn’t taken her dream. Avenue A was making sure of that.

“Mavis told me what she’d heard so far is seriously mag and heading for ult,” Peabody continued. “She’s going to do some vocals on a couple of them.”

She should’ve figured that, too, Eve realized. It was so very Mavis.

“They’re establishing a foundation thing in her name, for scholarships. I guess you know Roarke’s putting it on his label, and that cut’s going into the foundation, too.”

“He mentioned it.”

“It means a lot to her family. It doesn’t bring her back, nothing can. But it gives life to her music, and she wanted that so much. I’m glad Quilla wanted to bring that into her project.

“We got her justice, and they’re giving her the dream. When you’re a murder cop, it’s the best you can get.”

“Plus the murderous little shit’s doing a couple rounds of life in a cage,” Eve added, “and that’s the best we can get.”

“There is that.”

She looked over at Eve. “We’re going to get this one, too. Different motives, different methods, different backgrounds. But Potter and Bryce are, in some ways, the same.”

“Arrogant fuckers.”

“That’s the one. So.” Peabody butt-wiggled in her seat. “I’m kind of excited about meeting a bunch of spies. You have to be a little bit excited.”

“No, I don’t. For one thing, they’re potential victims. For another, they’re friends of Summerset’s.”

“Well, I am. I mean, imagine the things they’ve done and seen, and all that while maintaining a cover. Like being a vid star since you were like seventeen. I guess that’s not so much a cover as what she is.”

“If you fan-geek over Wright, I’ll hurt you. I’ll seriously hurt you.”

“I can maintain. But think about it, we’re going to be talking to a famous actress, to a woman who was born dripping rich then runs a global company that’s made her more dripping rich, an expert e-man, a former prima ballerina, a guy who invented a device that conquers time. Which we can’t really talk about, but he did that!”

“Don’t forget the thief.”

“Who’s a well-respected photographer. And Summerset. I actually know Summerset, and now I know covert agent Summerset.”

“Former.”

Peabody pulled her shoulders in like a self-hug. “It’s frosty. This part of it’s mega frosty supreme. You know the tea Mira drinks—you stock it for her in your office AC—it’s the dripping-rich woman’s tea.”

“Of course it is.”

Resigned, Eve drove through the gates.

And saw Ivanna Liski walking arm-in-arm with the woman she recognized from the photos as Marjorie Wright.

“Oh wow!”

“I’m warning you, Peabody. There will be pain.”

“Which is why I’m getting it out now. You know, since you pulled me into Homicide, I’ve met famous actors, I’m actually friends with rock stars, a fabulous designer, a bestselling writer and Oscar winner.

“I’d love my job even if that wasn’t true, but that part of it is mega frosty ex treme. Whee! Woo! Wow! Okay, fan-geeking complete.”

“If you don’t want to be limping for the next several days, it better be.”

Eve parked, got out while the two women strolled in her direction.

Ivanna, who carried a delicate beauty beside the striking glamour of the woman next to her, smiled. Her eyes, a soft blue, looked directly into Eve’s as if searching for something.

“Marjorie, our host, Lieutenant Eve Dallas, and her partner, Detective Delia Peabody.”

“Marjorie Wright.” She stuck out a hand to shake Eve’s. “First, thank you for inviting us into your truly magnificent home. Delighted to meet you. And you, Detective.”

She shook Peabody’s hand in turn.

“Dame Wright. I admire your work.”

“Thank you. God knows there’s enough of it. I’ve been around since the discovery of dirt.”

“I’ll remind you, Marj, I’ve got a few years on you.”

Laughing, Marjorie threw back her head so her mane of red waves swayed like flames in a breeze. “We’re a pair of old girls, Vanna.” She draped an arm around Ivanna’s shoulders as she looked at Eve. “But not ready, by any means, to be put out to pasture.”

“We understand you need to speak with all of us. Harry Mitchell and Iris Arden arrived shortly ago,” Ivanna told her. “Summerset is showing them to their rooms. The others are expected very soon.”

“And I had the pleasure of meeting your unquestionably delicious husband,” Marjorie added. “I admire what he’s accomplished. And I’m grateful for what I have every confidence you’ll accomplish to bring Gio’s killer to justice. He was a very good man, a very good friend, and a quiet hero when the world needed them. I’ll help you in any way I can.”

“Summerset told me he and Roarke have set up… I suppose you’d call it an interview room for you. Marjorie and I are at your disposal.”

“If you’d give us a few minutes to set up, I’d like to speak to you first.”

Ivanna nodded. “I’ll be ready when you need me.”

Eve went in just as Roarke walked down the stairs.

“Hello, Peabody. Welcome to… interesting times.”

“I’ll say.”

“You met Marjorie, I take it, and saw both her and Ivanna outside?”

Eve flicked her gaze up the stairs. “Yeah. Two more in here?”

“Just getting settled.”

“You set up an interview room?”

When he crossed to her, he kissed her. Lightly. “You’d need to cloak your board if you used your office. I thought a sitting room on the top floor—quiet, private—might suit better.”

“It doesn’t have to be formal, but it needs to be professional. Nothing swank.”

He smiled and, unable to help himself, kissed her again.

“Come with me.”

He went over to the elevator, gestured them both inside.

“Stairs are fine.”

“Quicker and simpler in this case. Interview A,” he ordered.

“Are you serious?”

“I reprogrammed it, as I thought you’d find it more professional. Or at least amusing.”

She tucked her hands in her pockets. “Sort of both.”

“I forgot you had elevators,” Peabody commented. “The way they’re worked into the walls, you don’t really see them. Smooth ride.”

“We do what we can.”

The elevator didn’t open into the room, but the wide hall just outside it. Once again, Roarke gestured.

“Take a look. If you want changes, we’ll see about making them.”

She stepped in. A big room, a wide view of the back gardens, the grove, the little pond.

A room that maybe edged really, really close to swank on her gauge, but didn’t go over the top.

He’d brought in a table. Nothing you’d see in any cop shop’s Interview A, not with that gleam of polish on actual wood. And the chairs were dark green leather, generously sized. Rather than dull beige walls, these hit creamy. No two-way mirror, but art she imagined he’d personally selected.

It held a sofa as well, a couple more chairs.

She turned to the large wall screen.

“If you need to display anything there, it’s now connected to your command center. AutoChef, friggie.” He opened a carved cabinet with gracefully curved legs. “D and C unit.” Now he pressed a control that had one sliding out of the wall.

“Frost extreme!” was Peabody’s opinion.

“And handy as well. Washroom.” He gestured to a door. “You can speak with our guests individually or as a group, whatever works for you.”

“One at a time for now. A couple more to come, right?”

“Yes.”

“Peabody’s been briefed on Ivan Draski and my decision regarding him.”

“Ah, well then. I did wonder. Will the room suit you?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“I think you’ll find them interesting individuals. I certainly have on this very brief acquaintance. They’re grieving, and they’re grateful. The bond with Rossi, and each other, it’s strong. It shows.

“When do you want to begin?”

“No time like now. Peabody, pull up the files from my office unit. I’ll go get Ivanna.”

“You’ll start with her? I’ll go down for her.”

“Okay, save me a trip. And, Roarke, keep an eye on the rest of them. Especially Light-Fingers Harry. This place is full of the swank.”

He laughed at that. “The bond, Eve. Harry would hardly steal from the home where Summerset lives. Or, if he’s still in the game, from the home of a cop.”

“And still.”

Shaking his head, Roarke started out. “Ah, nearly forgot. Summerset’s planning a dinner for tonight.”

“Hey, I can’t—”

Roarke waved a hand. “I told him he should have tonight, especially, to reconnect with his friends without the cop and the civilian consultant in the mix.”

“Okay then, good.”

“I’ll send Ivanna up.”

“It’s kind of swank in here,” Peabody commented when he left.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Do you want anything on-screen?”

“Not yet. Maybe not at all. We want the option.”

“Got it. How do you want to play this?”

“Straight, and we’ll find out if she does the same. Informal interview. She’s a target, and she’s a source.”

“Protect the target, mine the source.”

“That’s right.” Eve walked to the AutoChef, programmed coffee. “That’s exactly right.”