meet you, I’d have nothing, just nothing that could compare even to this single moment.”
“Where we’re standing in your closet strapped with weapons?”
He laughed, cupped her face. “Yes.”
“Let’s go find this bastard, and make an even better moment.”
They walked down. It didn’t surprise her to find her long black coat, and Roarke’s, waiting on the newel post. Roarke would have let Summerset know what they needed at some point.
Her DLE sat outside.
“You drive,” she told him. “I’ll let Feeney and Peabody know we’re on our way in.”
As she did, her ’link signaled.
“Nadine,” she told Roarke. “Maybe she picked up something useful.” She answered, “Dallas. Little busy here, Nadine.”
“Too busy to hear Lorcan Cobbe’s mother put her house in Dublin on the market today?”
“How did you get that?”
“Sources, Dallas.” Nadine tossed her streaky blond hair, tapped a finger to her lips. “Sacred. But we’ll say I have friends who have friends who cover the gossip and society beat in Ireland. Morna Cobbe lives high, so she’s worth some clicks. It hasn’t hit yet because the reporter wants more juice, but it’s going on the list tomorrow. Well, today.”
“Hold on.” She muted the ’link. “Coincidence is bollocks.”
“It is, yes.”
“Okay. Top two reasons Morna Cobbe would suddenly sell her house?”
“The second would be she wants to move—downsize, upsize, different location. But that would be the bollocks of coincidence.”
“Agreed.”
“Number one? Her son’s figured when he kills me, the heat turns up. Not only because he’s all but taken out an ad blimp on his intentions, but because I have connections in Dublin that would squeeze him, and potentially his mother. So he’s decided to get out, relocate himself and her to a cooler clime.”
“And that’s the winner. Nadine?”
“Yeah, yeah, still here.”
“Find out what other properties—residential—went up for sale today in Dublin.”
“Are you serious?”
“Because one of them’s Cobbe’s hole there, and it would be really nice to pin it down.”
Nadine’s foxy reporter’s eyes lit. “It would, wouldn’t it? I’ll see what I can do. You’re in the car,” she realized. “Where are you going? Do you have a lead on Cobbe? What’s the—”
“Cop work,” Eve interrupted. “Sacred.”
And clicked off.
When Roarke shot her a look, she shrugged. “When we get him, I’ll tag her back.”
“Fair enough. She’s working late. And apparently her source in Dublin’s working early.”
“Let’s hope Cobbe’s sleeping the quiet sleep of assassins. Do they dream, you think? Of the last hit, the next? I don’t think so. I think they go somewhere dark and still, and never have a single twinge. When ending a life means something—whatever it means, however it means it—your dreams aren’t dark and still.”
Because it brought her own dreams to mind, she shook it off. She programmed coffee for both of them, then spent the rest of the drive reviewing her notes, studying the map, planning the op.
When they got to Central, they rode the elevator up to Homicide. At least at that time of night the cars weren’t generally jammed. The occasional cop with a mugger—or the victim of same—maybe an unlicensed LC or illegals dealer.
A man with a straggly stubble of beard, matted hair under a stained flop-cap, a torn T-shirt, and ragged pants—and an amazing smell—stepped on.
“Jesus, Rigby, you smell like a sewer.”
“ ’Cause that’s where I’ve been. Caught me a couple of rats.” He grinned. “Heading up to shower.”
“You need the fume tube.”
“Maybe, but I hate that shit.”
When he got off again, she breathed out.
“You have the most interesting friends,” Roarke noted.
“Undercover cop, works the underground mostly.”
“As I said.”
They stepped off on Homicide, walked to the bullpen.
She expected to find Feeney and McNab, probably Callendar, Peabody, and of course, Abernathy. Instead she found them, along with the rest of her detectives and a number of uniforms, standing around drinking cop coffee and shooting the shit.
“What is this? After-hours meeting?”
Baxter, in black nearly as elegant as Roarke’s, turned. “Hey, LT, Roarke. Whatever hour, we’re in this and on this.”
“I haven’t cleared—”
“We ain’t looking for the OT,” Jenkinson said, and scowled. “Somebody goes after one of us?” He jabbed a finger at Roarke. “He goes after all of us. And we fucking take the fucker down.”
“So say we all,” Carmichael added. “Santiago and I are up if we get a call somebody’s dead. Otherwise, Feeney’s got a second van for us.”
“We’re going to back you up,” Trueheart told her.
She looked at Feeney. He wore black just as baggy and saggy as his usual shit brown. “Did you know about this?”
“I knew enough to have a van that