“True enough.” Once she’d parked, he got out of the car with her. “Then again, logic would say don’t kill in a room with only one out, and a public one, don’t take the body, and don’t leave a witness. So, it may be hard to hold to one logical line when the others are badly frayed.”
“They’re only frayed logic until you find the reason and motive.” Eve pulled out her badge as they walked into the health center.
The Grogans crowded into a tiny little room with Carolee sitting up in bed, a bouquet of cheerful flowers in her lap. She looked tired, Eve thought, and showed both strain and resignation when she saw Eve come in.
“Lieutenant. I’ve been poked and prodded, screened and scanned and scoped. All over a bump on the head. I know something bad happened, something awful, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“You still don’t remember anything?”
“No. Obviously I hit my head, and I must’ve been dazed for a while.” Her hand snuck from under the flowers to reach for her husband’s. “I’m fine now, really. I feel fine now. I don’t want the boys to spend their vacation in a hospital room.”
“It’s just a few hours,” Steve assured her. The youngest, whose name was Pete, Eve remembered, crawled onto the bed to sit at his mother’s side.
“Still. I’m sorry someone was hurt. Someone must’ve been hurt, from what Steve said. I wish I could help, I really do. But I don’t know anything.”
“How’s the head?”
“It pounds a little.”
“I have a photo I’d like to show you.” Eve offered the printout of Dana Buckley. “Do you recognize her? Someone you might’ve seen on the ferry.”
“I don’t think…” She lifted her hand to worry at the bandage on the forehead. “I don’t think…”
“There were a lot of people.” Steve angled his head to look at the photo. “We were looking out at the water most of the time.” He glanced with concern toward the monitor as his wife’s pulse rate jumped. “Okay, honey, take it easy.”
“I don’t remember. It scares me. Why does it scare me?”
“Don’t look at it anymore.” Will snatched the photo away. “Don’t look at it, Mom. Don’t scare her anymore.” He thrust the photo back at Eve. “She was in the picture.”
“Sorry?”
“The lady. Here.” He pulled a camera out of his pocket. “We took pictures. Dad let me take some. She’s in the picture.” He turned the camera on, scrolled back through the frames. “We took a lot. I looked through them when they had Mom away for tests. She’s in the picture. See?”
Eve took the camera and looked at a crowd shot, poorly cropped, with Dana Buckley sitting on a bench sipping from a go-cup. With a briefcase in her lap.
“Yeah, I see. I need to keep this for a while, okay? I’ll get it back to you.”
“You can keep it, I don’t care. Just don’t scare my mom.”
“I don’t want to scare your mother. That’s not why I’m here,” Eve said, directly to Carolee.
“I know. I know. She-that’s the one who was hurt?”
“Yes. It upsets you to see her photo.”
“Terrifies me. I don’t know why. There’s a light,” she said after a hesitation.
“A light?”
“A bright flash. White flash. After I see her picture, and I’m scared, so scared. There’s a white flash, and I can’t see anything. Blind, for a minute. I… It sounds crazy. I’m not crazy.”
“Shh.” Pete began to stroke her hair. “Shh.”
“I’m going to speak to the doctor. If Carolee’s clear, I want to get her and our boys back to the hotel. Away from this. We’ll get room service.” Steve winked over at Will. “In-room movies.”
“God, yes,” Carolee breathed. “I’ll feel better once we’re out of here.”
“Let’s go find the doctor,” Eve suggested and sent a glance at Roarke. He nodded, and moved to the foot of the bed as Steve went out with Eve.
“So, Mrs. Grogan, where would you be staying here in New York?”
It took another thirty minutes, but Roarke asked no questions until they were out of the health center. “And so, how is the lady?”
“I had the doctor dumb it down for me. He was giving it to the husband-he’s a doctor, too-in fancier terms.”
“You can keep it dumbed down for me.”
“She’s good,” Eve told him, “no serious or lasting damage. The contusion, mild concussion, and most interestingly what he dumbed down to a ‘smudge’ on her optic nerves-both eyes. He seemed to be pushing for another test, but he’d already done a recheck and as the smudge was already dissipating, I don’t think Steve’s going to go for it. Added to it, the brain scan showed something wonky in the memory section-a blip, but that’s resolved, too, on retest. Her tox is clear,” Eve added as she got back into the car. “No trace of anything, which is too damn bad, as that’s where logic was leading me.”
“A memory suppressor would’ve been logical. And may be yet.” He shook his head at her look. “We’ll have some things to check into when we get home. You’ll likely have to follow up with the Grogans?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’ll find them at the Palace. They’ll be moving there tonight.”
“Your hotel?”
“It seems they’re a bit squeezed into a room at the moment, and it struck me they could use a bit of an upgrade for their troubles. Plus the security’s better there. Considerably.”
“I’m putting a watch on them,” Eve began, then shrugged. “It is better.” She engaged the ’link to update her men on the change. “Let’s go home and start ‘checking into.’ ”
Six
Summerset, Roarke’s man about everything, wasn’t lurking in the grand foyer when Eve walked in. She spied the fat cat, Galahad, perched on the newel post like a furry gargoyle. He blinked his bicolored eyes twice, then leaped down with a thud to saunter over and rub against her legs.
“Where’s Mr. Macabre?” Eve asked as she scratched the cat between the ears.
“Stop.” Roarke didn’t bother to sigh. The pinching and poking between his wife and his surrogate father were not likely to end anytime soon. “Summerset’s setting things up in my private office. We need to use the unregistered equipment,” he continued when she frowned. “Any serious digging on your victim is going to send up flags to certain parties. And there’s more.”
He took her hand to lead her up the steps.
“If I don’t dig into the vic through proper channels, it’s going to look very strange.”
“You have Peabody on that,” he reminded her. “And you can do some of your own, for form. But you won’t find what you’re after through legitimate channels. Set up your runs, on Buckley, the Grogans, the possible causes of this optic smudge. All the things you’d routinely do. Then come up and meet me.”
He lifted her hand to kiss her fingers. “And we’ll do the real excavating. She’s a freelance spy and assassin, Eve, who works for the highest bidder or on a whim. That work would definitely include certain areas of the U.S. government. You won’t get far your way.”
“What’s the ‘more’?” She hated the cloak-and-dagger crap. “You said there’s more?”
But he shook his head. “Start your runs. We’ll go over what I’ve heard, know, suspect.”
Since there was no point in wasting time, Eve walked into her home office to set up the multiple runs and searches. She sent an e-m ail to Dr. Mira, the NYPSD’s top profiler and psychiatrist, to ask about the validity of mass hypnosis. It made her feel foolish, but she wanted a solid opinion from a source she respected.