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“Lieutenant Eve Dallas and aide, NYPSD.” She held up her badge to be scanned. “To see Selina Cross.”
“Are you expected?”
“Oh, I don’t think she’ll be surprised.”
“One moment.”
While she waited, Eve studied the street. There was plenty of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, she noted. But most of those who walked used the other side of the street, and many of those eyed her and the building warily.
Oddly, there wasn’t a single glida grill or street hawker in sight.
“You are cleared to enter, Lieutenant. Please proceed to elevator one. It is already programmed.”
“Fine.” Eve looked up, caught the shadow of movement behind the topmost glass. “Look official, Peabody,” she murmured as they approached the heavily grilled front doors. “We’re under observation.”
The grills slid back, locks snicked open. The light on a recessed security panel blinked from red to green. “A lot of hardware for an apartment building,” Peabody commented, and ignoring the fluttering in her stomach, stepped in behind Eve.
Like a viewing parlor, the lobby area was heavily into red. A two-headed serpent slithered over the bloodred carpet, the gold threads of its eyes glinted as it watched a black-robed figure slice a curved knife over the throat of a white goat.
“Lovely art.” Eve lifted a brow as Peabody carefully picked her way around the snake. “Wool doesn’t bite.”
“You can’t be too careful.” She glanced back as they stepped to the elevator. “I really hate snakes. My brother used to catch them out in the woods and chase me with them. Always had a phobia.”
The ride up was smooth and fast, but it gave Eve enough time to detect yet another security camera in the small, black-mirrored car.
The doors opened into a spacious foyer with floors of black marble. Twin red velvet settees flanked an archway and boasted carved arms of snarling wolves. A floral arrangement speared out of a pot shaped like a boar’s head.
“Wolfbane,” Peabody said quietly, “belladonna, foxglove, skullcap, peyote.” She shrugged at Eve’s considering look. “My mother’s an amateur botanist. I can tell you that’s not your usual flower arrangement.”
“But the usual is so tedious, isn’t it?”
They got their first face-to-face look at Selina Cross exactly as she wanted to be seen. Flanked by the archway in a snug black dress that brushed the floor, her feet bare with the toenails painted a violent red, she posed. And smiled.
Her skin was vampire white, the slash of red over her full lips glossy as fresh blood. Her eyes glittered green and feline in a narrow, undoubtedly witchlike face that wasn’t beautiful, but was eerily compelling. Her hair fell, black against black, from that rigid center part, to her waist.
The hand she gestured with held rings on every finger and her thumb. A silver chain was attached to each and twisted into an intricate mesh over the back of her hand.
“Lieutenant Dallas and Officer Peabody, isn’t it? What interesting visitors on such a dull day. Will you come in…to my parlor?”
“Are you alone, Ms. Cross? It would simplify this if we could speak with Mr. Alban as well.”
“Oh, what a shame.” She turned, silks whispering, and slipped through the arch. “Alban’s busy this morning. Sit down.” She gestured again, encompassing a generous room crowded with furniture. Every seat boasted the heads or claws or beaks of some predator. “Can I offer you something?”
“We’ll skip the refreshments.” Considering it apt, Eve chose a chair with the arms of a hound.
“Not even coffee? That is your drink, isn’t it?” Then she shrugged, slicked a fingertip over the pentagram above her eyebrow. “But suit yourself.” With that same studied skill, she lowered to a curved settee that stood on cloven feet and draped her long arms over the back. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“Alice Lingstrom was killed early this morning.”
“Yes, I know.” She continued to smile pleasantly, as though discussing the nice run of weather. “I could tell you I witnessed the…accident through my scrying mirror, but I doubt you’d believe that. Of course, I’m not one to disdain technology and often watch the news and other forms of entertainment on-screen. The information’s been public for hours.”
“You knew her.”
“Of course; she was a pupil of mine for a time. A dissatisfactory one as it turned out. Alice complained to you about my tutelage.” It wasn’t formed as a question, but she waited, as if for an answer.
“If you mean she reported to me that she was drugged, sexually abused, and was a witness to an atrocity, then yes, she complained.”
“Drugs, sex, and atrocities.” Selina let out a low, purring laugh. “What an imagination our little Alice had. A shame she couldn’t use it to broaden her vision. How is your imagination, Lieutenant Dallas?” She flicked the hand gloved with mesh. In the small marble fireplace, flames burst to life.
