Fantasy in Death

“How do you see it going down, if they’re in it together?”

“They walk her home, just the way they said, but they come up, talk her into distracting herself with the holo-game. I don’t get that because the place is pretty well soundproofed, but the holo-area would be the more secure and soundproofed section in the space. And, she would be distracted. They attack her, or one attacks, one keeps watch. They leave her for dead, go home. Pull the ‘We were worried about her’ this morning so they can be the ones to find her.”

“Alive. Why not finish her off then?”

“We’d have TOD to coincide with their presence. They have to think fast, decide on calling it in, getting to the hospital. She’s a mess, Dallas, and her chances aren’t good. Either one of them could finish her there. Or could if we didn’t have a man on her.”

“It’s not a bad theory. Run some probabilities on it.”

“You don’t like it.”

“It’s not in my top five.” She gestured to the power drink tube. “That wasn’t there yesterday, and she didn’t come home until last night.”

“Okay. And?”

“If she has company, why does she have an open drink-just one drink and one it doesn’t look like she touched? We’ll check the supply, and the recycler, but I don’t think you’re going to find a couple more drinks of any sort taken out last night. Just here, standing by the window, deciding she doesn’t want the damn drink after all. She did the same thing the day we notified them Bart was dead. Got the drink, opened it, set it aside.”

“Too upset from the memorial,” Peabody concurred. “Yeah, that plays.”

Eve gestured to the shoes. “What do you do when you get home and your new shoes hurt your feet?”

“Take them off.”

“But if you’ve got company you’re probably not going to leave them in the middle of the room, right in the traffic flow.” She shrugged. “Neither may mean anything, but there are little details that give me a different picture.”

“She doesn’t secure the holo-room, so they could’ve come in while she was in game.”

“How did they know she’d be in game?”

“Because… one or both of them knew she’d logged out the disc.”

Now Eve nodded. “Yeah, and I’ll go one up from that. One of them gave her the disc to take home. The game, under it all? That’s the murder weapon. The killer likes the weapon.”

She walked to the door herself to let the sweepers in. While Eve showed them the holo-room, gave them the setup, Peabody chewed over theories.

“They give her time to come up,” Peabody said when Eve came back. “Time to settle in a little, to start the game. They come in. She’s distracted, into the game. And the rest follows my previous theory.”

“Also possible. You should run all variations.”

“I’m asking why. Why Cill, why now? Right on top of Bart, it’s absolute we’re going to be looking at the last partners standing. So, did she become a threat? Find something out? Was she asking the wrong questions?”

“Could be. Yesterday Roarke told her his people have been working on a similar game, similar technology, and have been for months.”

“That had to be crap news for them.”

“Yeah. And she’d have passed it to the others. She’d have told them. Maybe somebody was pissed enough to kill the messenger. And that one’s between you and me. I don’t want Roarke going there.”

“Understood.”

“I’ve got other reasons that’s not my number one. You play a game, you make decisions, and one leads to the next. You face off with different obstacles and opponents. It’s a good strategy to throw a new problem at your current opponent.”

“Which would be us. She was a ploy? Beating her half-and a good chance all the way-to death is a ploy?”

“And it ups the stakes. Yeah, we’ll be looking at the last two standing. And isn’t that exciting? Especially when you think you’re so fucking smart, so much better than the rest of the field. And now? There’s one less person who knows him, in and out. Intimately. Or thinks he does. It’s a calculated risk, but a good move.”

“If she comes out of it, she’ll ID him.”

“Yeah, that’s the sticking point. I’m working on it.” She went to the door again, this time for Feeney and McNab.

“Holo-room. I need whatever you can get me. But before you start, I want to talk to you about a setup I have in mind.”

Cill was still in surgery when Eve arrived at the hospital. “Go check on the partners. Be sympathetic, and try to get them to talk.”

Eve hunted down a floor nurse, badged her. “I’m on the Cilla Allen investigation. I need to know everything you know or can find out.”

“I can tell you they worked on her down in ER, had to zap her, but got her back. She’s lucky Doctor Pruit’s on today. She’s the neuro. The head wounds are severe and priority, but the other injuries are considerable. She’s going to be in there awhile.”

“Chances?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Educated guess.”

“She’s lucky she made it in at all. She looks like she’d been thrown off a cliff.”

Eve took the nurse’s arm before she could move on. “A fall? Not a beating?”

“I can’t tell you. If she beats the odds, she’ll tell you herself.”

She frowned as the nurse hurried away. And the frown deepened when she saw Roarke coming toward her.

“I heard. I thought I should come.”

“Are the partners in there?”

“Yes. Peabody’s with them now.”

“Impressions?”

“Shocked, scared-as you’d expect. Propping each other up you could say.”

“Did either of them ask you about your game in development?”

“No. I don’t think that’s on their scope at the moment.”

Eve shifted her gaze toward the waiting area. “It is for at least one of them.”

“You believe one of them beat that girl-from what I understand-to pieces?”

“No question about it. Not anymore. The only question is how to nail it down. Buy a little time, change the focus, tug the heartstrings. She was the short end of the triangle, hotheaded, impulsive, the weak spot. So she’s a logical sacrifice in the game. She-”

“Christ Jesus, Eve. The girl’s shattered like glass, and it’ll take a bloody miracle to put her together again. And you’re standing here talking about fucking games?”

She met fire with ice. “Obviously your heartstrings are playing a tune.”

“It might be because I have them,” he shot back. “Because I’m not so caught up trying to win some shagging game that I consider a young woman a logical sacrifice. She’s still alive, Lieutenant. She’s not on your side of the board yet.”

“Why don’t you go back to the waiting area. You can all join hands. Maybe hold a prayer meeting. You go ahead and do that while the one who put her in the OR is chuckling up his sleeve. I’ve got better things to do.”

She strode away, steeling both her heart and her belly against the hurt. It wasn’t just the body, she thought, that could shatter. And it wasn’t only fists and pipes and bats that could shatter it.

She found an empty restroom, leaned against the wall, and gave herself a moment to settle. She checked in with Feeney, updated Whitney, consulted with Mira.

This is how it worked, she reminded herself. How she worked. Sitting around patting heads, stroking hands didn’t get the job done. It wouldn’t bring Bart’s killer to justice or save Cill.

She’d be damned if she’d apologize for doing her job the way she saw fit to do it.

Calmer, she found another nurse, badged her, and arranged for a setup in a private observation room. She stood, alone, drinking hideous coffee, and watching as the medical team struggled to put that shattered glass back together again.

Even if she lived, Eve thought, those pieces would never fit quite the same way.

Not on her side of the board yet? Fuck that, she thought. Cill had moved to her side of the board the minute she fell to the floor.

She glanced back as the door opened, saw Roarke come in, then turned her attention back to the screen.