Divided in Death

“And then things went wrong and he needed the place,” Peabody finished. “She had to die, just because she knew it was there.”

“Lieutenant.” Roarke tapped the screen where he worked with McNab. “LeBiss Consultants. LeBiss is an anagram for Bissel.”

“Yeah, he’d want his own name. Another ego thing.” She leaned over Roarke’s shoulder. “Where is it?”

He gave a command and a diagram of the Flatiron came on screen, revolved, then magnified a highlighted sector. “One floor below his gallery. He’d have enough skill to be able to go between floors with minimal risk should he want to access his studio.”

“Fully soundproofed, right?”

“Of course.”

“And privacy shades on the windows. Monitors. Add another level of security and he’d be able to know if anyone tried to get on the elevator or through the door. He could muck that up, the way Sparrow did on the night of the first murders. Then clear out before anybody got in.”

“Probably work at night,” she said half to herself. “Probably work mostly at night when the building’s shut down, offices closed, nobody’s going to bother him. Cops’ve already been through, and there’s nothing in there that applies to the investigation. Lease is paid up. So until the estate’s settled, he can use it without much risk of detection.”

“He loved that studio.” Reva stepped forward, studying the diagram herself. “I’d bring up the possibility of him building one at home, and he wouldn’t consider it. I know it could’ve been because he wanted the freedom of being away, having accessibility to the women he was sleeping with, but I know, at the core, he just loved that place. Damn it, I’m slipping. I didn’t think to put it on the list you wanted of his habits and hangouts.”

“Why would you? It was already on my list.”

“Yeah, but this was his place, and if I’d had my head on straight, I’d have put it together. He always said he needed the stimulation, the energy of the city, of that spot, just as he needed the serenity and privacy of our house. One to charge him up, the other to relax him.”

“We need to go in,” Eve said.

“Dallas,” Reva added. “He wouldn’t just work at night, not if some piece had him. He wouldn’t be able to step away from it. I think, unless I’ve misjudged everything about him, that the risk wouldn’t factor into it. Or maybe it would, in some way, fuel the creative drive.”

“Good. Good point. We need to assume he’s in there, just as we need to assume he’s armed and dangerous. The building’s full of civilians. We need to move them out.”

Feeney, who’d continued to work on McCoy’s data unit throughout the briefing, finally glanced up. “You want to clear out a twenty-two-story building?”

“Yeah. Without Bissel knowing it. Which means first we should verify he’s in there. Don’t want to clear it out while he’s around the corner picking up a sandwich at the deli. So let’s figure out how to verify, then how to clear out the civilians.”

Feeney puffed out a breath. “She don’t ask for much. Side note: I’ve got some data out of this. Reads like a diary. Enough sex stuff with who she calls BB to make a seasoned LC blush.” He colored a bit himself when he glanced toward Reva. “Sorry.”

“It’s not a problem. Not a problem,” she repeated in three viciously bitten off words. “He lied to me, screwed around on me, he tried to frame me for murder. Why should knowing some poor little twit romped around naked-”

She paused, breathed deep when the room remained silent but for the machine. “Okay, I’m making it a problem by trying to prove it’s not. Let me put it this way.” She looked at Tokimoto now. Directly. “Love can die. It can be killed, no matter how alive it was, it’s not invulnerable. Mine’s dead. It’s dead and it’s buried. I just want one thing more, and that’s the chance to look him in the face and tell him he’s nothing. If I can do that one thing, it’ll be enough.”

“I’ll make sure you have the chance,” Eve promised. “Now, how do we get him?”

“A bomb scare would clear it, but there’d be injuries,” Peabody decided. “People panic, especially when you tell them not to. And even soundproofed, he’d get wind of it.”

“Not if you go floor by floor.” Eve paced as she thought it through. “Not a bomb scare. An electrical problem? Something that irritates but doesn’t panic.”

“A potential leak-hazardous waste, chemicals. And keep it vague,” Roarke suggested. “Floor-by-floor evac will take considerable time, and a great many cops.”

“I don’t want to pull any more into this than necessary. A small, tight unit of the Crisis Team for backup. Move fast, keep it smooth, and we can evac in under an hour. We box him in, that’s what we do. We box him in.” She stopped, studied the diagram again. “Three exits on the studio?”

“That’s correct. Main corridor, elevator to lobby, and the cargo elevator to the roof.”

“No glides on the Flatiron, that’s a plus.”

“And more aesthetically pleasing,” Roarke added.

“We block off the elevators. We can bring in a unit from CT on the roof. And we come in from the corridor after he’s boxed. If we can get him in this end, the narrow end, he won’t have much room to maneuver. We work out the tacticals on this space, and we work out tacticals on the studio. And on the space below. He might be in there. But we need to know where he is when we go in, and we need to blindfold him to the fact we’re coming.”

“We can do that.”

She angled her head, looked down at Roarke. “Can we?”

“Mmm.” He took her hand and, watching her horrified expression, brought it smoothly to his lips before she could jerk it free. “The lieutenant doesn’t like me to nibble on her when she’s coordinating an op. So I can never resist.”

“There’s just too much sex around here,” Feeney grumbled from his station.

“How can we verify his position inside the building and blindfold him?” Eve demanded with what she considered admirable patience.

“Why don’t you work out your tacticals and leave those pesky details to me. Reva, how much time do you need to shut down the security and undermine the monitors in this sector of the building?”

Brow creased, Reva fisted her hands on her hips. “I’ll let you know after I study the specs.”

“You’ll have them in a minute. I’ll need a few things from Securecomp,” Roarke said to Tokimoto. “Would you mind getting them?”

“Not at all.” His lips curved. “I think I know what you have in mind.”

“Let’s leave the geeks to it, then.” Eve started out, turned back. “I meant the civilian geeks,” she said when Feeney and McNab stayed in place.

It took her an hour to work out an approach that minimized risk to civilians and her team, and longer to push through the red tape for clearance to evacuate an entire building.

“We know he’s got a short-range launcher. We don’t know what other toys he has in there. Boomers, chemical weapons, flash grenades. He won’t hesitate to use them to protect himself or to expedite an escape. He’s more dangerous because he’s not trained in weaponry. Guy who doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing with a few flash grenades will do more damage than one who does.”

“We clear the building, we could pump some gas in the vents, put him to sleep,” McNab suggested.

“We can’t be sure he doesn’t have filters or a mask. He likes the secret agent toys. Once we verify where he is, we box in that sector. We close off alternate exits, take down the door. We go in fast, and we get him under control. There’s nothing in his dossier that indicates any training or skill in hand-to-hand beyond the basics. That doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.”

“He’s going to panic.” Feeney pulled on his bottom lip. “First kills were incapacitated when he took them out. He drugs the McCoy girl, does Powell while he’s zoned. Tried to hit Sparrow from a distance. This is face-to-face, so if he isn’t taken quick, he’s going to panic. More dangerous that way.”