CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Eve checked the fit of her safety harness and resisted the urge, the increasingly desperate urge, to simply close her eyes. "I'm not really in that much of a hurry."
Roarke cocked a brow in her direction while piloting the new Air/Land Sports Streamer through a sky turning soft with evening. "That's not what you said when you asked me to get you there."
"I didn't know you had some new toy you were dying to try out. Jesus." She made the mistake of glancing down and saw the coastline and its complement of houses, hotels, and beachfront communities whiz by. "We don't have to be this high, either."
"We're not that high." If Eve had one phobia, it was heights. To his way of thinking, she'd feel better as soon as they landed, so why not open the ALS up and see what it could do?
"High enough to crash," she muttered and ordered herself to think of something -- anything -- else. It would have taken her a great deal longer to make the trip to Bayliss's beach hideaway in her city unit, particularly now that it was acting up.
Even if she'd used one of Roarke's spiffy cars, the distance couldn't have been covered so quickly by road.
The most logical solution was to draft him to fly her there. Logical, she thought, if she lived.
"Bayliss is up to something," she said over the smooth roar of the ALS's engines. "He was in and out of his place too fast, didn't re-program his house droid, and he took files."
"You'll be able to ask him what he's up to yourself in a few minutes." Testing the controls, Roarke took the sleek little streamer up another twenty feet, executed a turn.
Eve cut her eyes in his direction as he fiddled with controls, manually, then through voice command. "What are you doing?"
"Just checking. I'd say this baby's ready for production."
"What do you mean ready for?"
"This is just the prototype."
She felt the color drain out of her face. Actually felt it. "As in experimental?"
With his dark hair whipping in the air blowing through his open window, he tossed her a wide, delighted grin. "Not anymore. We're going down."
"What?" She braced every cell in her body. "What?"
"On purpose, darling."
If he'd been by himself, he'd have taken the streamer into a dive to check the responses, but in consideration of his wife, he kept the descent slow and smooth, targeting the road, hovering over it.
"Switch to landing mode," he ordered.
Switch in mode confirmed. Flaps lowering. Retracting.
"Touching down."
Touchdown confirmed. Switching to land drive.
There was barely a bump as the silver streamer set its wheels on the road. And barely, Eve noted sourly, a decrease of speed.
"Slow down, hotshot. This is a posted area."
"We're on official business. When the weather warms up a bit more, we can try this with the top down."
As far as Eve was concerned, hell wouldn't be warm enough to induce her to skim along in the fancy little two-seater without a roof. But she looked at the dash map, impressed that it not only had Bayliss's house targeted, but that Roarke had set down less than a mile from their destination.
Logic, she thought now that she was on solid ground again, had its uses.
She could hear the water, a steady rise and slap of sound to the east. Houses, predominately of glass and recycled wood rose and spread, each seeming to try to outdo the next with how many decks they could manage to jut out toward sand and sea. The patches between them were manicured with sea oats, sand roses, and odd little sculptures that carried over the ocean theme.
Lights twinkled here and there, but for the most part, the houses were dark. This was where the rich and the privileged escaped from New York on weekends or during the long, hot summer.
"How come you don't have a place here?"
"Actually, I do have a string of properties that rent out, but I never had a yen to stay in one. Too ordinary and obvious." He smiled at her. "But if you'd like one ..."
"No. It's too much like a neighborhood or something. You'd come down to kick back and probably have to talk to people. And have, I don't know, get-togethers and stuff."
"Hideous thought." Amused, he turned off and pulled into the drive behind a hulking black sedan. "Do we assume that's his car?"
"Yeah." She scoped out the house. Not so different from the others lining the coast. Big arches filled with glass that opened to decks and were loaded with enormous urns of enormous flowers or potted trees. The structure was blond and gleaming in the half light and came to triple points on the third level where another deck ran in a ring.
"Pretty snazzy for a cop," she commented. "But then he's got a rich spouse." She glanced at Roarke. "That kind of thing comes in handy."
"So I've heard."
"If he's in there, he's in the dark. I don't like it." It had been her plan to convince Roarke to wait in the car. Something she'd assumed would take some doing. Now her gut told her to try a different plan.
They got out opposite sides and walked up a narrow boardwalk to the front door. There were tall, glass panels flanking it, etched with stylized seashells. Through them she could scan the main living area with its soaring ceilings and pale walls.
Instinctively, she hitched her jacket back so her weapon would be more accessible. And rang the bell. "You'd think the place was empty, wouldn't you? Except for the car."
"He might've taken a walk on the beach. People tend to do that here."
She shook her head. "He wouldn't be in the mood to stroll through the surf." She made the decision, bent down, and took her clinch piece from her ankle holster.
"I need you to go around, cover the back. Don't use this, okay? Do not use this unless you're in immediate jeopardy."
"I know the rules." He slipped it in his pocket. "Do you think Bayliss is dangerous?"
"No. No, I don't. But someone is. I'm going up to the second level. I'll circle around, left to right. Watch your back."
"Same goes."
They separated, each confident the other could handle whatever came. Eve moved to the side, up the open steps, over the deck. The doors here were clear sheets of glass and fully secured with their privacy shields lowered. She started to the left, moving slowly, her eyes tracking.
The gleam at her feet had her pausing, crouching. Water, she mused. Someone had slopped water on the deck, a path of it, she noted as she straightened to follow the trail.
The sound of the sea rose, a sly thrash and suck. Stars were beginning to come out, adding faint light to a sky going indigo. Ears cocked, she heard the footsteps mounting the steps to her right. Her fingers danced to her weapon.
It was in her hand when Roarke rounded the building.
"There's water on the steps," he told her.
"Here, too." She lifted a hand, signaled. The side doors were open.
Roarke nodded, moved to the far side of them, and she to the near. Their eyes met, she took a breath, held it. They went through. He took high, she low.
"Take the right," she ordered. "Lights on." When they appeared, she adjusted her eyes to the change, sidestepped left. "Captain Bayliss," she called out. "This is Lieutenant Dallas. I have a warrant. I need you to make your location known."
Her voice echoed off the high ceilings, off the sand-colored walls.
"Bad feeling," she muttered. "Very bad feeling." Sweeping with her weapon, she followed the tracking water. She saw Bayliss's suitcase open on the bed, a jacket tossed carelessly beside it.
She glanced toward Roarke, watched him check a room-sized closet, did the same herself on the other side, then moved along the wet to a door.
She signaled again, waiting until he'd joined her. With her free hand, she turned the knob, then shoving it open went in under Roarke's arm.
Music blared. It gave her a jolt to hear Mavis's voice screeching out into the opulent bathroom. All white and gold, the room almost hurt the eyes with its sheer white walls, gilt pools of mirrors, twin sinks large enough to bathe in.
Under the music she heard the rumble of a motor. She crossed the floor, damp and gleaming white, to the leg of the L-shaped room.
The tub was waist high and white as the Alps, but for the wet river of blood that ran down the side, just below a single hand. Red dripped onto the badge tossed on the floor.
"Damn it. Goddamn it." She leaped to the tub and saw immediately it was far too late for the MTs.
Bayliss lay on the lounging level, his head pillowed on a silver cushion, his body strapped down with long ribbons of adhesive.
His eyes stared up at her, wide and horrified, and already filmed over with death.
Glinting on the floor of the tub were credits. She knew there would be thirty.
"I wasn't fast enough. Somebody wanted him dead more than I wanted him alive."
Roarke lifted a hand to the base of her neck, rubbed once. "You'll want your field kit."
"Yeah." Her assent was a sound of disgust. "Whoever did this is gone, but be careful anyway." She reached for her communicator. "I have to contact the locals. Protocol. Then I'm calling it in. Meanwhile, you're drafted as aide. Seal up before you come back in, and don't -- "
"Touch anything," he finished. "Hell of a way to die," he added. "He'd have been kept alive, aware, strapped down there while the water level rose. The room's soundproofed. No one would have heard him screaming."
"The killer heard him," Eve said and, turning away, opened transmission.