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“What the hell does this mean?” she asked aloud. “Peabody, any new shit on the streets going by the name Purity?”
“I haven’t heard of it.”
“Computer, identify Purity.”
INVALID COMMAND.
Frowning, she entered her name, badge number, and authorization. “Identify Purity.”
INVALID COMMAND.
“Huh. Peabody do a run on new and known illegals. Computer, save current display. Display last task performed.”
The screen wavered, then opened a tidy, organized spreadsheet detailing inventory, profit, loss, and coded customer base.
“So, according to the last task, and time logged, Louie was sitting here, very efficiently doing his books when he got a bug up his ass to bust his neighbor’s head open.”
“It’s hot, Dallas.” Peabody looked over Eve’s shoulder. “People can just get crazy.”
“Yeah.” Maybe it was just that simple. “Yeah, they can. Nothing on his inventory named Purity.”
“Nothing on the current illegals list by that name either.”
“So what the hell is it, and how was it achieved?” She stepped back. “Let’s take a look at Louie K., see what he tells us.”
Chapter 2
He didn’t tell her as much as she’d have liked.
The best she could determine on-scene with her field kit was that Louie K. had died due to neurological melt-down. That wasn’t exactly the sort of term that elicited sage nods from the brass.
She passed the body off to the ME, flagged for priority.
Which meant, due to summer hours and summer glut, she’d be lucky if she got a confirmed
pathology by the first frost.
She meant to push, calling in chips with the chief medical examiner.
Meanwhile she spoke with Trueheart’s departmental rep via ’link, and danced the bureaucratic dance. She sent the still shaken rookie home, and ordered him to stand by for Testing.
Then she went back to Central to write, and rewrite, a detailed report on the incident that had resulted in two deaths and one critical injury.
And though her stomach curdled, she followed procedure and copied Internal Affairs.
By the time she got home, it was well past the dinner hour.
The lights were on, so that the urban fortress Roarke had built glowed like a beacon in the night. Green shadows from grand and leafy trees threw patterns on velvet grass and slid softly over rivers of flowers that were bright and bold by day.
The Lower East Side neighborhood that had eaten up most of her evening was a world away from this private paradise of wealth, of privilege, of indulgence.
She was almost accustomed to straddling worlds now without losing her balance. Almost.
She left her vehicle at the base of the stone steps and jogged up them more out of a desperate desire to shrug off the weight of heat than out of hurry.
She’d barely stepped in, taken that first breath of cool, clean air, when Summerset, Roarke’s majordomo, appeared in the foyer like an unwelcome vision.
“Yes, I missed the dinner,” she said before he could open his mouth. “Yes, I’m a miserable failure as a wife and a poor example of a human being. I have no class, no courtesy, and no sense of decorum. I should be dragged naked into the streets and stoned for my sins.”
