Judgment in Death

Still, when she rang the bell, the summons was almost immediately answered by a polite request for identification.

"Police." Eve held up her badge. "I have a warrant. You're required to open the door.

It was opened, quickly, by an attractive house droid in a simple gray maid's uniform. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant, neither Captain nor Mrs. Bayliss are at home this evening."

"And where would they be?"

"Mrs. Bayliss is in Paris on a spring shopping trip with her sister. She has been from home for three days. I am unable to tell you where Captain Bayliss is this evening. He is not at home."

"This warrant allows me to enter the premises and ascertain that for myself."

"Yes, Lieutenant. I am fully programmed on the law." She stepped back. "But you will find the captain is not at home this evening."

Eve stepped in. "Has he been home today?"

"Oh yes. He arrived home at shortly after four o'clock this afternoon. He left approximately fifty-eight minutes later. I do not expect him to return tonight."

"And why is that?"

"The captain left with a suitcase."

"Where's his room? His bedroom?"

"On the second level, first door to the left. Would you like me to escort you?"

"No." Eve bounded up the stairs, shoved into the room, swore.

He'd been in a hurry, she thought. The closet door was open, two drawers were open as well.

"Another clothes horse," she muttered. "Hard to say how much he took. Peabody, find out where the wife's staying in Paris. He's got a weekend place, vacation home, whatever. I think it was the Hamptons. Get the address."

"Do you think he's gone under?"

"I think he's gone," Eve said sharply. "Get the addresses. He's got to have an office in this place. I'm going to check it out."

She found his office on the first level and had already formed an opinion of Bayliss's lifestyle by the time she reached it. The house was as cold and as organized as a computer. Everything in its place.

And, she'd noted, he and his wife didn't share a bedroom. Or, she assumed, a bed, as the bedroom down the hall from Bayliss's was an obvious feminine retreat, complete with dressing area, two-level walk-in closet, and a sitting area that had contained a desk holding fancy writing paper with his wife's name at the top.

His office was ruthlessly organized as well, and she saw immediately he'd run through it quickly. The desk chair was pushed back, and a file box of discs stood with its cover not quite straight.

Nerves, she thought. Nerves that made him not quite so smart and not quite so careful this time. What are you afraid of, Bayliss?

She pulled out her palm-link and, using her badge and identification, ran checks on transportation to Paris. Though she found nothing under Bayliss's name, she couldn't be sure he hadn't used an alias.

She walked to the door, gave a shout to Peabody, who came on the run. "I have the information for you." She ran it off.

"Good. We're going to stretch the warrant to its limit. I want you to contact Feeney. That unit," she said, jerking her thumb back. "I want it gone over with microgoggles. He took data with him, but Feeney will find what's on the machine. While he's doing that, I want you going over this house inch by inch."

"Yes, sir. Where are you going?" she asked as Eve strode out.

"I'm going to the beach."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Eve checked the fit of her safety harness and resisted the urge, the increasingly desperate urge, to simply close her eyes. "I'm not really in that much of a hurry."

Roarke cocked a brow in her direction while piloting the new Air/Land Sports Streamer through a sky turning soft with evening. "That's not what you said when you asked me to get you there."

"I didn't know you had some new toy you were dying to try out. Jesus." She made the mistake of glancing down and saw the coastline and its complement of houses, hotels, and beachfront communities whiz by. "We don't have to be this high, either."

"We're not that high." If Eve had one phobia, it was heights. To his way of thinking, she'd feel better as soon as they landed, so why not open the ALS up and see what it could do?

"High enough to crash," she muttered and ordered herself to think of something-anything-else. It would have taken her a great deal longer to make the trip to Bayliss's beach hideaway in her city unit, particularly now that it was acting up.

Even if she'd used one of Roarke's spiffy cars, the distance couldn't have been covered so quickly by road.

The most logical solution was to draft him to fly her there. Logical, she thought, if she lived.

"Bayliss is up to something," she said over the smooth roar of the ALS's engines. "He was in and out of his place too fast, didn't re-program his house droid, and he took files."

"You'll be able to ask him what he's up to yourself in a few minutes." Testing the controls, Roarke took the sleek little streamer up another twenty feet, executed a turn.

Eve cut her eyes in his direction as he fiddled with controls, manually, then through voice command. "What are you doing?"

"Just checking. I'd say this baby's ready for production."

"What do you mean ready for?"

"This is just the prototype."

She felt the color drain out of her face. Actually felt it. "As in experimental?"

With his dark hair whipping in the air blowing through his open window, he tossed her a wide, delighted grin. "Not anymore. We're going down."

"What?" She braced every cell in her body. "What?"

"On purpose, darling."

If he'd been by himself, he'd have taken the streamer into a dive to check the responses, but in consideration of his wife, he kept the descent slow and smooth, targeting the road, hovering over it.

"Switch to landing mode," he ordered.

Switch in mode confirmed. Flaps lowering. Retracting.

"Touching down."

Touchdown confirmed. Switching to land drive.

There was barely a bump as the silver streamer set its wheels on the road. And barely, Eve noted sourly, a decrease of speed.

"Slow down, hotshot. This is a posted area."

"We're on official business. When the weather warms up a bit more, we can try this with the top down."

As far as Eve was concerned, hell wouldn't be warm enough to induce her to skim along in the fancy little two-seater without a roof. But she looked at the dash map, impressed that it not only had Bayliss's house targeted, but that Roarke had set down less than a mile from their destination.

Logic, she thought now that she was on solid ground again, had its uses.

She could hear the water, a steady rise and slap of sound to the east. Houses, predominately of glass and recycled wood rose and spread, each seeming to try to outdo the next with how many decks they could manage to jut out toward sand and sea. The patches between them were manicured with sea oats, sand roses, and odd little sculptures that carried over the ocean theme.

Lights twinkled here and there, but for the most part, the houses were dark. This was where the rich and the privileged escaped from New York on weekends or during the long, hot summer.

"How come you don't have a place here?"

"Actually, I do have a string of properties that rent out, but I never had a yen to stay in one. Too ordinary and obvious." He smiled at her. "But if you'd like one…"

"No. It's too much like a neighborhood or something. You'd come down to kick back and probably have to talk to people. And have, I don't know, get-togethers and stuff."

"Hideous thought." Amused, he turned off and pulled into the drive behind a hulking black sedan. "Do we assume that's his car?"

"Yeah." She scoped out the house. Not so different from the others lining the coast. Big arches filled with glass that opened to decks and were loaded with enormous urns of enormous flowers or potted trees. The structure was blond and gleaming in the half light and came to triple points on the third level where another deck ran in a ring.