A/N: There will be a few scenes that will be definitely Out of Character for Eve, but due to her being raised in a more positive environment, she has learned to tolerate babies in this universe a bit more than in the books.
Standard Disclaimers Apply
Chapter 5
I TOOK THESE OFF THE CUNT COP, AND KILLED HER WITH HER OWN WEAPON. SHE WAS EASY. YOU CAN HAVE THEM BACK. MAYBE SOMEDAY SOON, I'LL BE SENDING YOURS TO SOMEBODY ELSE.
That was the message that the disc read in the package that was sent to Eve. The package contained both of Coltraine's weapons, her badge and her ID. She checked for prints and sure enough they didn't find any. No hair, no fiber, no nothing.
Shortly after that, Eve and Peabody had a tense conversation with the messenger who sent the box, with Roarke and Baxter doing the observing.
"You gotta admit," Roarke began to say as he drove her car to the gates of home. "You probably scared off a few weeks of his life."
"Yeah," Eve nodded. "With all the stress I've been feeling today, maybe projecting my anger to a connected stranger would've helped with this case. But even I knew I was being naive for thinking that."
The mail drop led nowhere. Bogus name and address on the receipt, prepaid, comp-generated form the killer could have picked up at any of hundreds of locations at any time, or, in fact, downloaded on his own unit or at any cyber-café.
All she had there was the location of the drop, and the time the package was retrieved and logged in.
Same-day drop, expedited delivery ordered and paid for.
He'd been prepared, she thought now. Prepared to move on it as soon as the media ran with the story and reported the murder-and the name of the primary investigating officer. Fill in her name, dump the package, go.
That told her it had always been part of the plan. Not just the in-your-face shipment to Cop Central, but the use of Coltraine's weapon against her. The entire setup was all planned in steps and stages.
And that was something to chew on.
She thought of Morris, what he was doing, how he was coping with the fact that he was waiting for Coltraine to wake up with her new body. When they turned through the gates toward home, the spring she'd nearly forgotten about during the long day, exploded here. White and pink blossoms shimmered on the trees, glowing like chains of pastel jewels against the twilight.
Cheerful heads of daffodils danced with the more elegant cups of tulips in cheerfully elaborate sweeps. It seemed to her as if some happy artist had dabbed and stroked and twirled all his joy across this one secluded slice of the city, spilling it out here so the grand house could rise through it.
The towers and turrets speared up into the deepening sky, the terraces and strong lines jutted out. The lights in the many windows welcomed her, and sent the rich stone to a sparkle as evening shifted toward night.
They left her humble vehicle at the foot of grandeur, walked between the pansies Roarke had planted for her-that blooming welcome home-and into the house.
"Perhaps you'll feel better once you and I have dinner with Mavis, Leonardo and Bella." Roarke said as he helped Eve out of the passenger side.
"Just looking at the pansies alone have started the process," Eve said as she actually walked to those flowers to smell them. The scent reaching her nose felt like she was given some aspiring for her headache.
"Then after that, I want you and I to have a talk about all this."
"Well if you and I are going to talk," Eve looked at him with a smirk. "I want you to make me hurt so good after the talk."
"You'll have that paid in full by the end of the night," Roarke gave out his own smirk as he opened the door for her.
They found Summerset lurking in the foyer like a black cloud over a sunny spring day. It threw her off-stride for an instant not to immediately confront Roarke's majordomo and her personal nemesis. But she gotten a big surprise as the butler had gently removed her coat from her, instead of her usual habit of putting it on the newel post. A gesture that felt very fatherly. Though Eve wouldn't outright admit it, Summerset was definitely like a father-in-law to her, him having raised Roarke since finding him near death on the alleyways of Dublin.
"Words cannot describe how sorry I am for you, Lieutenant," Summerset said as he released his hug from Eve.
"And here I was hoping you'd give me one your usual spats at me," Eve said hopefully to break the tension. "But in this case, I'll make an exception."
Roarke shook his head over her attempt at her usual sniping match with his butler, "I assume you have everything ready for our dinner with Mavis and her family this evening?"
"There's lasagna, garlic bread, salad and chilled red wine in the dining room. There's also sparkling grape juice for Mavis to drink as well. Your guests should be here in thirty minutes, they're busy getting Bella ready."
"Well I could definitely kiss you for the lasagna alone," Eve said after picking up their cat Galahad after he rubbed his body around both their legs. "Who knows, maybe that would take some points off your ugly face."
"Personally, I'm more satisfied with how I look, but thank you anyway."
Eve and Roarke then crossed the foyer to the parlor, and as they sat comfortably across the already lit fire-place, took some preliminary servings of their red wine.
ooooOOOOoooo
They spent the thirty minutes in the parlor basking in some much needed silence. The silence only being deafened by a crackling fire and a purring cat being petted by Eve. Being around those two elements combined with Roarke's heartbeat against her ear had taken a good chunk of the edge off Eve's stress, an edge that was put more at ease when she took some sips of the red wine, the alcohol hitting her brain like aspirin.
The silence was immediately broken when she heard the voice to one of the most happy personalities that clashed against her darkness.
"Dallas!" A bundle of color and cheer with her artfully tangled pink-tipped blond curls, Mavis bounced up.
She tended to bounce, Eve thought, as Mavis hurried over in towering, triangular-shaped heels covered with rainbow zigzags. The bounce sent the green-and-pink diamond pattern of her microskirt fluttering. She wrapped Eve in a hug, then just beamed pleasure out of eyes currently the same sharp green as her skirt.
A deep contrast to what Bella was wearing, all pink and white and gold.
"What do you know, I actually keep my half of the dinner plans for once," Eve said as she gave her oldest human friend a hug.
And she didn't know what came to her, because normally it was not her nature, she reached for the baby without feeling uncomfortable. 'Perhaps this is the final piece of my comfort,' Eve thought as she gave Bella the type of hug she used on Galahad earlier. And without missing a beat, Bella happily returned the hug.
"Awww, that is so precious!" Mavis cooed at the sight of Eve hugging Bella.
"You can only imagine the hard day I've been having," Eve said as she looked at Mavis. "I don't even know if it's Saturday yet."
"Oh, I just heard the news before we got ready to leave," Mavis said as she took Bella from her grasp. "I bet if you talk with us about Coltraine, maybe it might help."
Leonardo started over. He was big where Mavis was tiny, copper-skinned where his wife was rosy pale. And together, Eve had to admit, they looked pretty damn perfect.
He leaned down, kissed Eve's cheek. The sausage twists of hair in the style he was currently sporting brushed her skin like silk. "We are so sorry."
"Well let's get ready to eat," Eve said as the group made their way to the dining room.
ooooOOOOoooo
"So let me get this straight," Mavis said after a bite of lasagna. "You had to let Baxter take co-primary on your case because of a meeting?"
"Sometimes being a Lieutenant comes with those responsibilities," Eve replied after taking her own bite. "Especially since it involved problems with the budget of the department."
"You're not wasting money are you?"
"More like somebody in my department was stealing it from us, so once I found out who it was, I had to arrest him for larceny which took another three hours of paperwork."
"And all that time, you couldn't even roll up your sleeves to work on Coltraine," Mavis took a sip of the sparkling juice. "No wonder you were giving my Bellamina a hug."
"No that wasn't the reason," Eve said without missing a beat.
"Oh?" That stopped Mavis mid-bite.
"I was hugging her because, unlike me or Coltraine, she's lucky to have you. She's lucky that she has a chance to be raised by a good mother like you."
"Wait you and Coltraine?"
"She was an orphan like me, didn't even have the chance to bear children." Eve then proceeded to tell everyone about Coltraine's parents and their fatal accident.
"My God," Leonardo said in a shock. "This poor woman has been through so much."
"Yeah," Roarke agreed. "And someone had to kill her just to put the icing on the cake."
"We only met her that one time." A tear slid down Mavis's cheek as she began to remember her and Leonardo's encounter of Morris at the club. "She seemed so up, and they were so into each other. Total vibe, total sparkage. Remember, honey-pot, how I said after they were just gone squared over each other."
"I remember."
"I don't care if it's you, Baxter or Peabody." Mavis firmed her chin, patted Belle's back as she began to prepare herself for feeding the baby. "You'll find the bastard who did it. Morris knows that. We're going to leave so you can do the cop stuff. If there's anything-you know, stuff I know how to do-you just tag me. I'm there."
"You have my word," Eve replied with the same firm tone. "I will keep in touch with you in case something comes up."
Mavis then walked into the foyer to feed her daughter in private.
ooooOOOOoooo
It amused Eve to watch Bella roll-over from her back to her tummy and flailing her arms to learn how to crawl. She obviously wasn't at an age to do it yet, but she was able to compensate by shaking her rattle and giggling at it, at the same time. She then eyed Eve and made some sort of gooing, cooing sound.
"She wants you to pick her up, Dallas," Mavis said when Eve didn't get the hint.
Instead of objecting, Eve proceeded to pick the little girl up, and feeling a little adventurous, gave the baby an experimental bounce. And something white bubbled out of her grinning mouth.
"What is that? What did I do? Did I push something?"
"It's just a little milk puke." Laughing, Mavis dabbed Belle's mouth with a tiny pink cloth. "She ate like an oinker, too."
"Okay. Well. Here you go." She held the baby out to Mavis.
As Mavis took Belle, Leonardo whipped out a larger pink cloth-like a magician-and draped it over Mavis's shoulder.
They began to transfer Belle into her carrier as Summerset walked in with a tray. "You're leaving."
"Bellissimo needs to go night-night." Mavis rose on her rainbow tip-toes to kiss Summerset's cheek. "We'll be back-us girls-for the big bash. A bridal shower and all that girl stuff's just what we all need. And you guys." She elbowed her husband. "Zipping off to Vegas for the man party."
"Vegas?" Eve blinked. "Huh?"
"Actually," Roarke began to say. "I'm planning to talk to Charles about that later tonight."
"What do you mean?" Leonardo asked.
"Something came up last minute that requires me to stay here in New York, so I'm going to talk to Charles about having our bachelor party stay here in the city."
"Oh..." was all Mavis could say at first. "Well that's going to be a bummer for the boys, they were looking forward to having the party."
"Don't worry," Roarke kissed her on the cheek. "I'm sure the bride and groom will understand, especially since the bachelorette party will still be here in the mansion."
"And that is one party, Bellisimmo and I will definitely not miss," Mavis said cheerfully as they made their exit. "Catch you later, Dallas!"
When she was alone with Roarke, the wine, and an elegantly arranged plate of food, she frowned. "You guys were planning to go to Vegas-shit, you do mean Las Vegas, right? You're not going off planet to Vegas II."
"No, we were going to the original."
"Then why exactly were you going to cancel?"
"Because it's our project, Eve, it's part of my responsibility to keep an eye on her in case something goes wrong."
"You've been having that thought as well, have you?" Eve asked knowing that Roarke knew what she was talking about.
"Bring a murder victim back from the dead, we risk her attempting to get revenge on her killer," Roarke replied as he offered her a plate of apple pie and vanilla ice cream. "Best better eat this before the ice cream melts."
"I'm going to take it up, eat at my desk."
As Eve and Roarke began to make their way upstairs, Eve began to ask Roarke about some backup plans for Charles Monroe's bachelor party.
"We're simply going to have it at Purgatory, darling Eve," Roarke said as they entered her home office. "I thought it'd be nice to use that club for something other than a sting for the cops."
"Yeah I was asking for that," Eve as she mixed her pie and ice cream and savoring the vanilla apple taste. "Man for all the insults I shoot at Summerset, he does know how to make a good pie."
"I'm glad you like it, Darling."
"I'm more glad that you're with me in my office. It always helps me see things clearer, or from other angles, when I run the case by you."
"Tell me a little about her first. Did you know her well?"
"No. I ran into her a couple of times at the morgue. She transferred here a few months ago. From Atlanta. Mavis had it-the vibe thing. He was in love with her, Roarke, and with everything I've learned since this morning, she felt the same about him. I get that she was a good cop, detail-oriented. She didn't live the job." She glanced over at him. "I guess you get what I mean by that."
He smiled a little. "I do."
"Organized, feminine. She had eight years on the job. No big flash in her jacket, no big lows. Steady. People liked her, a lot. From what Peabody and Baxter said, her squad, her main weasel, hell, the woman who owns the Chinese place where she ordered her takeout. I can't figure out what she did, who she twisted, to be targeted like this."
"It was target specific?"
"Yeah." In her office, she sat behind her desk, told him the details while she ate.
"The locks were checked for tampering?"
"Yeah, and they say no. Could've used a master, could be another tenant in the same building. Could have managed to dupe her key card, or someone else's in the building. Or he could be as good as you, and didn't leave a trace."
"She was taken down with a stunner," Roarke mused. "They're not easy to come by, and very pricey. Could he have disarmed her first and used her own weapon both times?"
"It doesn't play. No defensive wounds, and other than the kill burns, and the bumps on the back of her head, her shoulder blades, no offensive wounds. No cop turns over her weapon like that, not even to someone she knows."
"You'd give yours to me," he pointed out. "If I asked to see it for a moment, you'd give it to me."
Eve considered that. "Okay, maybe she would, to someone she was really tight with. But it still doesn't stream that way for me. She was heading out, sidearm and clutch piece. Taking the stairs, because she always did. That's a setup. And it had to be done fast and smooth. No time to ask her nice if she'd let you hold her stunner."
She pushed up, began to pace. After, Roarke noted, she'd eaten only half her meal. "We ran all the tenants. Got a few criminal pops, but nothing major. We'll interview everyone again who came up with any sort of a sheet, but I have to ask myself why she'd be going out, armed, to meet one of her neighbors."
"She might have been using the stairs simply to get to one of the other floors rather than the exit."
Eve stopped, frowned. "Okay, that's a thought. She arms herself first, though, so it's not a neighborly visit. It wouldn't be smart, going to another apartment for a meet when it's on the shady. Then why did the killer, if he's inside, need to jam the rear door security camera? Maybe to throw us off," she said, answering herself. "So we're looking outside the building."
She paced again. "Unnecessary complication. But we'll interview the tenants again. It just feels like an extra step to take, when SOP would be to run and interview everyone anyway."
"I can help with the electronics."
"That's Feeney's call. He's always happy to have the uber e-geek on board, but he may have it well under control. I've got a lot of case files to wade through. I need to study her currents, her closed, her open, and what I got from Atlanta. You can-yeah, yeah, it's an insult to you-but you can think like a cop. Maybe you can take a look at Atlanta while I do New York. Plus, they need to be cross-referenced. I need to know if anything from before connects with now."
"And I can do that faster than you."
"Yeah, you can." She angled her head. "You can also think like a criminal, which is handy. Would you have sent her weapons to the primary? Why or why not?"
"I wouldn't have taken them in the first place. A smart criminal takes nothing-unless it's straight thievery, which this wasn't-and leaves nothing of himself behind. Otherwise, there's that connection."
"But he did take them. And I don't think he's stupid."
"They must have served a purpose. Leaving them-especially if he used one to kill her-would be, in my opinion, more of an insult to her. And you, or whoever caught the case. So taking them served another purpose, even if it was just the jab to you by sending them back. He's not a pro."
"Because?"
"A pro does the job, walks away, moves on. He doesn't taunt the police."
"Agreed. He might be a professional criminal, but it wasn't a professional hit. It looks simple, on the surface, but it was actually much too elaborate-and too personal-for a straight hit. A straight hit, you don't take her in a populated building, but lure her out of it, maybe to a meet. Take her there, or along the way. He wanted something, information or something she might have taken with her we can't know about. Or he wanted to give her a message before he finished her. And he wanted her found without much delay.
"I want to set up my board here, and run some probabilities before I start on the case files." She dug out a disc. "Here's Atlanta. All data's on my office unit, which I know you can access."
"Then I'll get started."
"Roarke." It had niggled at her all day, and still she hadn't meant to ask. Hadn't meant to bring it up. "Morris . . . when I was with him today, he said that being involved with a cop, being in a relationship with one . . . He said every day you have to block out the worry. Fear," she corrected. "He said fear. Is that how it is?"
He slipped the disc into his pocket to take her hands, and rubbed his thumb along her wedding ring. The design he'd had etched into it was an ancient charm. For protection. "I fell in love with who you are, with what you are. I took on the whole package."
"That's not answering the question. Or, I guess, it is."
His gaze lifted from her ring, met hers. Held hers. "How can I love you and not be afraid? You're my life, Eve, my heart. You're asking, you're wondering if I ever worry, if I ever fear, that one day Peabody or Feeney, your commander-a cop who's become a friend-will knock on my door? Of course I do."
"I'm sorry. I wish-"
He cut her off by brushing his mouth over hers-once, then twice. "I wouldn't change a thing. Morris is right, you have to block it out, and live your life. If I didn't, couldn't, I'd never let you leave the house." He brought her hands to his lips now. "Then where would we be?"
"I'm careful."
He gave her a look filled with a mix of amusement and frustration. "You're smart," he corrected, "you're skilled. But not always as careful as you might be. I married a cop."
"I told you not to."
Now he laughed, and kissed her again where her brow had furrowed. "And would I listen? I'm damn good at being married to a cop."
"Best I ever saw."
His eyebrows shot up. "Well now, that's quite the compliment."
"I don't take it for granted. I know it seems maybe like I do, but I don't. I don't take for granted that when I walk in two hours-or maybe it was three-late like tonight, forget we had plans, you don't get mad. Or all the other things. I don't take it for granted."
"That's good to know." Odd, he realized, that she would need reassurance here. Or not so odd, really. The death of another cop, and one a friend had loved, brought it home. "We made promises to each other, nearly two years ago now. I'd say we've done a damn fine job at keeping them so far."
"I guess we have. Listen, if sometimes you can't block it, you should say it. Even if we fight about it, you've got a right to say it."
He traced his finger down the dent in her chin. "Go to work, Lieutenant. There's no worries tonight."
Sure there were, she thought when he went into his office. But it seemed like they were handling them okay.
She had told him not to marry her, she remembered. Thank God he hadn't listened.
She set up her board, pinning up Coltraine, her squad, the names of any tenant in her building with a sheet, the names of the particulars in her most current cases. She added a photo of the shipping box, the weapons, the note, the badge. Lab reports, the established time line. She had a description of the ring the victim should have been wearing, and a close-up of it she'd extracted from a photo in Coltraine's apartment.
Why had the killer returned the gun, but kept the ring?
She studied the board, angled it so she could study it from her desk. Armed with a fresh cup of coffee, she sat to run a series of probabilities.
The computer calculated an eighty-two-point-six percent that the victim and her killer had known each other or had some previous contact. A ninety-eight-point-eight percent that the victim was a specific target.
So far, she thought, she and the machine were in accord.
She decided to leave it there, and start on the case files.
Neither case contained any actual violence, she noted. The threat of it in the Chinatown case, but no execution of violence. Two males, wearing masks, rush into a market at closing, grabbing the female owner as she wheeled in one of the sidewalk carts, and holding a knife to her throat. Demand all cash and credits on the premises, and the security discs. Get both. Order both the owners-husband and wife-to lie on the floor. Apparently grab a few snack packs and book.
Less than three hundred netted-small change for armed robbery, she mused.
The vics had been shaken up, but unharmed. Though they'd turned over the discs, the husband had noticed a tattoo on the wrist of the knifeman-a small red dragon-and both had stated they believed the robbers had been young. Teens to early twenties.
The snack pack snitch told Eve the same.
They'd given the police a very decent-and unusually consistent-idea of height, weight, build, coloring, clothing. Two witnesses saw two young men matching the description running away from the direction of the market.
Penny-ante, Eve mused. A couple of stupid kids. Confirmed, as the investigating officers had tracked down the tattoo parlor, and were ready to hunt up and pick up one seventeen-year-old Denny Su who'd had the ink on his right wrist.
No idiot teenager, and his as-yet-unidentified dumb friend, had the smarts to access Coltraine's building and get the drop on a cop.
The break-in-literally, as a window had been smashed to access-netted a bigger profit. But a guy who could finesse the solid security at Coltraine's building had the skills to finesse the less solid on the electronics shop. Plus, the glass had been broken from the inside, leading the investigators to conclude-ta-da-inside job. They'd begun to lean on one of the employees. From the notes Eve read, she'd say they were leaning in the right direction.
In this case, the suspect was again young, fairly stupid, and had a short sheet of shoplifting charges. Guy liked to steal, simple as that, Eve mused. He didn't score for her as a cop killer.
She took the time to run both through probability, and in each case the machine agreed with her, with both percentages under eighteen percent.
Eve sat back, studied the board. "Do I run your squad through my comp, Coltraine? It's an ugly business, cops running cops. The comp's going to favor them. Nothing in their data to hint at the dirty. Why does a clean cop, at least clean on record, kill another cop? The machine's not going to find that logical."
"Neither do I. But I have to run it."
Just then her Ghost-Link began to beep in her pocket and saw Motoko's name on the readout, she put the link in her ear.
Eve: What do you got, Major?
Motoko: We found a case she worked around three years ago that you might want to look at. There's something else you also need to know.
She glanced over, saw Roarke in the doorway that adjoined their home offices.
Eve: What is it?
Motoko: Her heart and brain have responded positively to the transplant of her cybernetic body, she's getting ready to wake up.
End of Chapter
Postscript: To give clarification, in between Death in the Shell and Death in the Shell: Promises, a mutual friend of Eve and Roarke had fallen in love with Louise DiMatto the side character on the prequel and after proposing to her is set to get married after this story. Charles Monroe is a former licensed companion (AKA Legal Sex Worker) who was originally introduced in Naked in Death.