Both of you have copies on your units.”
“Thanks for that,” Roarke told him. “Have you eaten?”
“Not as yet.”
Eve knew what that hanging silence said. She might have mentally rolled her eyes, but she understood. “So we’ll eat in the dining room. All of us.”
“I’ll see to it.” Rising, Summerset left the room.
“He’s carrying a mini blaster in his damn undertaker jacket.”
“Yes. And?”
“Christ.” She decided to let it go—at least for now. “How’d it go with Mira?”
“I’ll tell you both over dinner. You should both hear. She did say she’d be adjusting the profile, and she’d send that to you.”
“Okay, that’s okay. Are you?”
“I’m not altogether sure.”
Reaching over, she closed a hand over his. “I’m going to get him.”
“I trust you will.”
“He wanted to see what I’d do. I’m betting he expected I’d get back in the car, close the distance fast.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because the park’s right there. I’m in the car, I have to stop, get out again. He’s going to go into the park because it’s right there.”
Roarke turned to her. “You knew what he’d do.”
“That’s what I’m telling you. He takes the easy way when he can, and the park was easy. Tossed off his hoodie so I don’t have a full description—but now I have the hoodie, and maybe we find something. Better if he’d tied it around his waist when he ran. But tossing it was the easy way. And I’m saying the surveillance is going to show him going north in the park, then heading out, fast. In and out, and either to a vehicle he stashed, or catching transpo a few blocks away.
“I’ve got the dead cat for Morris, some of its hair for Harvo, blood for Dickhead, and possible DNA on the jacket. No label in it, but they could find something. We could find out where he got the cat, how he got it. It’s not going to be a stray,” she added, thinking it through.
“If he got the idea from listening to Summerset, he’s not going to be lucky enough to just find a stray cat in a few hours. He doesn’t know New York well enough to know where to look. So a vet, a shelter maybe. Or he spots one in somebody’s window—too much luck on that,” she decided. “He breaks into a vet or a shelter. We track that, we’ll know where he went.”
She rose to pace. “If he followed Summerset, he had to see him go out in the first place, which means he watched the house. Getting the lay of the land. And he had to have transportation.”
“I can’t imagine Summerset or the driver I assigned wouldn’t have spotted a tail.”
“I can assure you,” Summerset said from the doorway. “I’ve set the meal out on the back patio, as it’s a lovely evening.”
“Amplifier?”
“No,” Roarke said as he removed the cat and rose. “Not anywhere on the grounds or in the house, as we have virtual walls to block them.”
“Okay then.” She started to follow Summerset, stopped. “In the car? Would one, a good one, pick up anything said in the car?”
“It would have to be a damn good one. Bloody hell, it’s possible. I’ll be fixing that.”
“Did the driver have your route, or did you tell him as you went?”
“I’ll add my own bloody hell,” Summerset said as they walked to the back of the house. “I told him as we went.”
“I need everywhere you stopped, who you talked to, dealt with. I want the time on every stop.”
“You’ll have it.”
They went outside, and yeah, she supposed lovely hit the mark. Dusk spread, sending the lights along the patio, the paths, sprinkled through some trees glowing. Flowers scented the air, and shimmered in those glowing lights.
He had little white candles in clear cups on the table, three domed plates, the wine she’d already started on, a covered glass basket—and since she could smell the warm yeast, that said bread.
“A meal well presented can be a comfort. I thought we all could use some.”
“If there’s spinach under here, I’m not going to feel the comfort.”
Instead, she found asparagus, her least disliked of the green things, some sort of medallions drizzled with sauce, tiny potatoes still in their thin, golden skins coated with butter and herbs.
She started to refuse the wine, then thought: comfort. Decided she could handle another glass.
“Jorge Tween will be transported to Omega within forty-eight hours. More like thirty-six now,” Eve began. “Galla Modesto’s minor son is with her family, and will remain that way.