“He was waiting for me when ...” She pushed up, jabbed a finger at Roarke. “You got her.”
“Not quite, but I’m closing in there. I’ll want a bit more time to tie that knot. But I have Garnet and can serve him to you—or IAB, I suppose—on a platter.”
She sat down, grinned—and made her lip throb again. “I love you.”
“Excellent news. You can prove it with lots of sex.”
“We had sex a few hours ago.”
“No, we made love a few hours ago—angels surely wept. I want sex for this job, as it’s given me a buggering headache trying to straddle your far-famed line. I want mad sex, with costumes—maybe props—and an intriguing story line.”
“Milking it, pal.”
“Until it runs dead dry.” He tossed her a disc. “He owns property in the Canary Islands under the name Garnet Jacoby—Jacoby being his maternal grandmother’s maiden name. Amateur.”
“What kind of property?”
“A house to start, with two acres. It’s appraised at five and a half million, and some change. Jacoby paid cash. His ID has him as an entrepreneur, with Brit citizenship. He also owns two vehicles kept there, and a boat. A yacht, you could say. Jacoby is a few years younger than Garnet, has green eyes rather than brown, and lost his first and only wife in a tragic climbing accident.”
“That’s very sad.”
“He has a healthy account in that name, and another, smaller—I’d say backup money—in another under Jacoby Lucerne—the street where he lived as a child. Lucerne is Australian. Between the three—Garnet, Jacoby, Lucerne—they’re worth in the neighborhood of sixty million. Not bad on a cop’s pay.”
“And he called me a whore,” she murmured.
Roarke eased onto her desk. “I’d be very sorry if that hurt you.”
“It doesn’t hurt me. It’s a pisser of biblical proportions to be called a whore by that motherfucker.”
“All right then.”
“Renee?”
“A bit more time there. She’s smarter, and a great deal more clever than Garnet. I think I have her, but I want to finish verifying and gathering it up. You’re not going to ask how I came by the data on that disc?”
“No. You told me you straddled the line, so you straddled it. Sorry about the headache.”
“That’s what blockers are for. I have Bix on the disc as well. That took some doing, and I’m really going to want costumes. He’s not smarter than Garnet, necessarily, but his ass was surely more covered.”
“That’s interesting.”
“It is. He doesn’t really spend the money, but banks it. Several accounts, various names, nationalities. He has a little place in Montana. A cabin, really, worth a fraction of his partner’s home away from home. And an all-terrain. Collects weapons under several of his aliases, so none of them cause much of a ripple. Added together, it’s quite the arsenal. Still, nothing flashy for Bix.”
“It’s not about the money for him. It’s about the chain of command.”
“I’ve started on the others, made considerably more headway tonight. But I thought you’d be most interested in those three.”
“You’d be right. Anything on Brinker?”
“Brinker.” Roarke’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Ah, yes. He’s the little chateau in Baden-Baden—going back to his roots, I’d say—the manor house in Surrey, and the three mistresses.”
“Three? No wonder he’s asleep at his desk.” So, Lilah’s instincts were off there. “Asserton or Sloan?”
“No, nothing as yet—and as I haven’t had a single hit on either, there’s likely not to be.”
“Agree. Shift them over, push the rest. We serve Garnet up to IAB tomorrow, garnish him with the charges stemming from tonight’s temper tantrum with me. He’s cooked. What you’ve got? It’s the sauce.”
“The clever cooking analogy doesn’t distract me from the fact you don’t want to serve him up alone. You want Renee sharing the platter.”
“Be tastier,” she admitted, then waved a hand. “We’ve got to get off the food stuff. I’d rather have her nailed before I take Garnet in. Her, and the rest. But it’s not an absolute. He’ll flip if I need him to flip, and he’ll still go away a good, long time. If you’re done with this for the night, no problem.”
“And I look like the weak sister?”
“Don’t make me smile again. It hurts.”
“I’ll finish it. If I get further along, I should be able to program it to complete the task while we both get some sleep.”
“I need to contact Webster.”
“Eve,” Roarke said as she reached for her ’link. “He’s with Darcia.”
“Yeah, so? He needs to . . .” She broke off, winced as she had when her lip throbbed. “You think they’re having sex?”
“Oh, at a wild, what-the-hell sort of guess? Yes. Very likely.”
“I can’t think about that. I don’t want to know that. I know what he looks like when he has sex.”
Roarke flicked a finger on the top of her head. “I wonder why I need to be reminded of that.”
This time she pressed her fingers to her lip to hold it as it throbbed since she couldn’t quite swallow the laugh. “I’m just saying. I like how you look having sex better.”
“Darling, how sweet of you.”
“I need to scrape off the sarcasm you just piled on me, then I’ll contact him—but straight to message. I want him and the rest here by oh seven hundred.”
Bix picked Garnet up at one A.M.
“It’s about fucking time,” Garnet said.
“It took awhile for the LT to get it set up. Nobody wants any mistakes on this. Like she said, you and Dallas had a confrontation. Don’t want this to blow back on you.”
“Freeman’s got me covered.” Resentment oozed out of his pores. “If Oberman had done the damn job, I wouldn’t need to be covered.”
Bix said nothing, then glanced over. “Dallas do that to your face?”
Color—anger and humiliation—stained Garnet’s cheeks. “She’s not looking so pretty either. Cunt sucker-punched me.” The lie came so easily, as it had when he’d told Freeman the same, he nearly believed it himself. “Pulls her weapon on me. Says she’s going to take my badge. Maybe go after Oberman next,” he added, knowing Bix’s loyalties. “She’s jealous of the LT, that’s what it is. Bitch wants to take her down, cause trouble. If she causes enough, the whole thing’s going to break down. We’re all in the shit can then, Bix.”
“I guess so.”
“What’s the plan? You didn’t lay it out before.”
“The boss is using a bogus weasel to tag Dallas with a tip. A big one, deals with Keener. The boss says how Dallas is hot to close Keener, really wants to tie it to use that to discredit her. So we draw her in tonight, back to the scene.”
“That’s good.” Garnet nodded, tapped a little of his go-powder on his hand, inhaled it. He wanted the buzz, fresh and rising, when he sliced the bitch to pieces. “What’s the tip?”
“I didn’t ask; don’t need to know. The lieutenant said she’d get Dallas there, she’ll get her there. We take care of business, and that’s that.”
“She might call it in.” Garnet tried to figure the angles through the rush in his head. “Tag her partner anyway.”
“So what if she does?”
“Yeah. We do them both.” He was eager for it. “Maybe better that way. Better yet if we have somebody to pin it on. The whole thing—Keener and the two bitches.”
“The boss is working on it,” Bix said simply, and pulled to the curb.
“Dallas is mine.” Garnet patted the sheath on his belt. “You remember that.”
“If that’s how you want it.”
“Did you bring me a piece? Bitch took mine.”
“We’ll take care of it inside.”
Bix didn’t speak as they walked the short distance to the abandoned building. He knew there were probably some eyes on them—on two men in black—but it was unlikely they’d be approached. People rarely approached him looking for trouble. His size backed them off.
If anyone did, well, he’d do what needed to be done. He had orders, he had a mission. He would follow orders and complete his mission.
He unsealed the door, opened the locks.
“Dark as a tomb in here. Smells worse.” Garnet reached in his pocket for his penlight. “It’s a good place for her to die.”