Shadows in Death

“I’m not your weakness, Roarke. I’m your goddamn weapon.” – Eve Dallas, Shadows in Death

Shadows in Death
Shadows in Death US Hardcover
Book Number	51
Release Date	September 8, 2020
Publisher	St. Martin’s
ISBN	978-1250207234
Publication order
Previous	Golden in Death
Next	Faithless in Death

Plot Summary

While Eve examines a fresh body in Washington Square Park, her husband, Roarke, spots a man among the onlookers he’s known since his younger days on the streets of Dublin. A man who claims to be his half brother. A man who kills for a living—and who burns with hatred for him.

Eve is quick to suspect that the victim’s spouse—resentful over his wife’s affair and poised to inherit her fortune—would have happily paid an assassin to do his dirty work. Roarke is just as quick to warn her that if Lorcan Cobbe is the hitman, she needs to be careful. Law enforcement agencies worldwide have pursued this cold-hearted killer for years, to no avail. And his lazy smirk when he looked Roarke’s way indicates that he will target anyone who matters to Roarke…and is confident he’ll get away with it.

Eve is desperate to protect Roarke. Roarke is desperate to protect Eve. And together, they’re determined to find Cobbe before he finds them—even if it takes them across the Atlantic, far outside Eve’s usual jurisdiction…

Spoiler warning! This article contains plot details about an upcoming episode.

Timeline

Story Date: May, 2061

Day 1

Chapter 1

• As Lieutenant Eve Dallas examines a dead body in Washington Square Park, Roarke reflects that even though they missed the last scene of an entertaining play when their evening was interrupted, the woman whose belly was sliced open missed the rest of her life. Eve identifies the victim as Galla Modesto, age thirty-three. Roarke recognizes the name, as he knows her brother a bit – they’re from Modesto Wine and Spirits, based in Tuscany, Galla was dressed for the gym, and since she still had her jewelry and wrist unit, it doesn’t look like a mugging.
• Peabody and McNab arrive, dressed up from a date night. Eve has Peabody help turn Galla’s body while she fills her in on the victim. Modesto has a key swipe for Body and Mind Fitness Center, and Eve bags it into evidence. Roarke hands her a go-cup of coffee that he says is somewhere between cop coffee and palatable. He tells her he’s having her car sent to the scene and arranging his own transportation home. As she’s watching him, he sees a familiar face in the crowd and quickly takes off after him, “a bloody shadow from his past,” not seeing him again. Roarke thinks it was a taunt, that the man deliberately let himself be seen and then melted back into the crowd, with Roarke saying to himself, “We’re a long way from the alleys of Dublin now, boyo.”
• Meanwhile, Eve talks to the man Galla was planning to meet at the park, Marlon Stowe. He’s an artist, and even though Galla had broken off their affair a week ago, he asked to meet one last time so he could give her a companion piece to the painting of Tuscany she bought from him the previous summer, which is how they met. He’s devastated and leaves to walk home. Roarke returns, telling Eve they need to walk.
• During the walk, he fills Eve in on Lorcan Cobbe, contract killer for hire, who worked for Roarke’s father, Patrick Roarke, in Dublin, when they were boys – he’s a few years older than Roarke and had no talent for thievery and considerable for viciousness, so he did enforcement and intimidation, helping with the protection racket. Roarke tells Eve to take a great deal of care because Cobbe would enjoy killing what matters to Roarke. Cobbe is the one who gutted Galla – he was hired to do it since that’s what he does. He works primarily in Europe, but this isn’t his first job in the States.
• Roarke heads home, telling Eve to be extra careful, because Cobbe would enjoy hurting what’s his. McNab has info from security, but says the killer likely knew where the cams were, keeping his head down at those spots, so it’s pretty generic. Eve tells Peabody and McNab about Cobbe and they head to the victim’s home to do the notification, agreeing that the husband is the first suspect. Peabody runs Jorge Tween, the husband, seeing that he’s worth about a tenth of what Galla was worth, and likely put out the hit because she’d cheated on him and might take her money away if she decided to leave him.
• The Modesto-Tween house is dark, despite Tween thinking his wife would be returning home late after working out, indicating that he was sure Galla wouldn’t be returning home. The housekeeper last saw Galla around nine p.m. when she (Elena Rinaldi) retired to her quarters for the night, and assumed Galla and Jorge were both sleeping.

Chapter 2

• Jorge Tween is annoyed to have police in his home, and pretends not to know Galla is missing and dead, claiming that he had a headache and took a blocker, and knowing that he occasionally suffers from migraines, Galla would have slept in one of the guest rooms when she returned from the gym. When Eve asks him if he was aware his wife had an affair, he acts furious and says, “You dare to sit there, minutes after you tell me my wife’s been murdered, and call her a whore?” Eve thinks that’s probably how he thinks of her, and after Tween alerts the maintenance droid to provide a copy of the security feed, he tells them to leave. Eve looks around Galla’s room, saying the painting of Tuscany is lovely. She sees not fury, not jealousy, but satisfaction flicker into Tween’s eyes.
• At home, Roarke ordered security for his Ireland family and refreshed himself on all things Cobbe. Cobbe did some time in his late teens for “being foolish enough to get caught in a sweep of an underground gambling den – and having several illegal weapons in his possession at the time.” He used his eighteen months of prison time to make contacts and shortly after his release, the police informant on the raid took a swim in the Seine with his throat cut ear to ear. Roarke calls it Cobbe’s Holy Trinity: “pleasure, profit, payback.”
• Eve and Peabody are unimpressed with Tween, who wasn’t even able to work up a tear, and didn’t ask where Galla was, when he could see her, if she suffered, or mention her family. They agree to talk to the housekeeper and the Modestos the next morning. McNab, who had waited in the car sucking down cherry fizzies and raiding Eve’s DLE’s AutoChef for chips, shows them security footage of Cobbe, and they plan to meet up at eight, either at the Modestos’ New York residence or at the morgue if the parents are still in Italy.
• Eve runs Cobbe on her way home, seeing his impressive and colorful past. He started young, with assaults, B and Es, muggings, and animal abuse (“the reddest of red flags”). His mother, Morna Cobbe, had her own sheet, mostly unlicensed prostitution and illegals possession, and high on the list of Cobbe’s known associates was Patrick Roarke. Cobbe found his groove in his twenties, as a killer for hire, with no more arrests.
• Eve arrives home and fills Roarke in on the notification and Tween’s obvious guilt. He fills her in on Cobbe’s profession, and they speculate that he was paid a million dollars for Modesto’s murder, and Tween hired him in Italy, since Cobbe mostly works in Europe. Roarke tells Eve of the time Cobbe went after a young busker in Dublin, when they were children, trying to steal his money, and the boy’s small (under ten pounds) dog bit him and chased him off. Cobbe later went back for the dog, slicing him to pieces and bragging about it. Roarke ratted him out to the Garda and since Cobbe had taken one of the dog’s ears as a trophy, it didn’t go well for him. He used to like to return to the scene of the crime to watch the cops and smirk at his superiority.
• Roarke says Cobbe tried for him once, in the South of France when Roarke was “on an art deal.” The night he “closed the deal,” Cobbe had slit the throat of the patriarch of a famous family on his yacht, and they ran into each other at a lively bar. Roarke saw Cobbe come in, and when he sat down next to Roarke as if they were the best of mates, and asked for his old friend to stand him a pint, he told him to bugger off. Cobbe told Roarke he’d been lucky but weak, and he (Cobbe) was Patrick Roarke’s true son. Seeing as that made them half-brothers, he wouldn’t gut him with the knife he had under the table if he paid him 500,000 pounds sterling and admitted he was Patrick Roarke’s true son and heir by letting go of the name.
• Roarke declined the offer, using the stunner he had pointed at him under the table and leaving him jittering on the floor. After Roarke returned to his hotel room, he heard about the murder and made an anonymous call, leaving a tip with Cobbe’s name and description. They couldn’t pin it on Cobbe but he did spend considerable time in the French version of an interview room.
• That was the last they’d seen each other until that night, and Roarke promises not to kill Cobbe in cold blood, preferring he live out his life in a concrete cage far from what he (Roarke) loves. Eve tells him she is not his weakness, but his weapon. Eve contacts Galla’s parents in Florence since it’s now 8:30 a.m. there, and then calls it a night.

Day 2

Chapter 3

• Eve wakes up to coffee and a half-dressed Roarke. After a shower, Roarke redresses her, schooling her on the difference between indigo and black, gray-influenced celadon for an accent, and cream versus white, completing the look with new indigo boots from the closet fairy.
• Over omelets, Eve reviews her strategy - morgue, consult with Whitney for the alphabets and Mira for profiles on Cobbe and Tween. Galla’s family is coming to New York, so Eve and Peabody will interview them and the housekeeper. The Modestos took the news of Galla’s death a lot harder than Tween did. Roarke tells her a little about Galla’s brother, Stefano Modesto, and his wife and family. Roarke’s going to talk to Brian Kelly and he’s put some men in Clare on his family. Eve will add police presence to Dóchas and An Dídean, which is set to open, and she adds a stiletto and wrist shield to her outfit before leaving, advising Roarke to do the same.
• Roarke brings Summerset up to date on Cobbe, asking him to stay home for a few days, which he refused, but he says he’ll take precautions.
• Morris confirms COD - a quick and vicious death - a stiletto-style blade that after entry was drawn up and into the umbilical region, effectively gutting Galla - two seconds for the move and under two minutes for the painful death. Eve tells Morris they know who the killer is, but need to find him and his stiletto, demonstrating her accessory. She tells him Galla’s family will contact him to see her, Tween might, and if Marlon Stowe does, it’s ok to let him come in, but keep it quiet: “There’s lovers and there’s love. Cheating’s still cheating, but you don’t deserve to die for it. But don’t tell Roarke I said that.”
• On the way to Central, Eve updates Peabody on Cobbe and tells her to bring the housekeeper in and set up a consult with Mira while Eve meets with Whitney.

Chapter 4

• Peabody sums it up as: “So, we’re going after a professional killer a whole bunch of law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies - worldwide - haven’t been able to bag.” She suggests Roarke talk to Mira since Cobbe is fixated on him, which Eve thinks is a good idea.
• Roarke sends Eve the info on Tween’s payments to a numbered, sheltered account in Andorra - 500,000 euros two weeks ago and 515,000 last night at 2300 (11 p.m.). Eve figures not only does Tween inherit a good chunk of Galla’s considerable estate, but becomes the single parent and guardian of her only child, who most likely has a trust fund already in the works and loving and wealthy grandparents who would be generous to the widower.
• Rinaldi is heartsick about Galla’s murder, having known her since she was fifteen and Elena went to work for Galla’s parents. She came to New York on Galla’s request, so somebody from home would be with her. She suspected Galla was having an affair because she was suddenly happy again.
• Tween was not physically abusive, but “with words...like water against a rock, it eats away over time.” She says he’s cold in his heart and fired her and the nanny, Sofia Grinaldi, that morning - told them their services were no longer required, and he wants to be alone with his son, in his grief, but there is no grief in his eyes. He planned to have droids take over the household and nanny duties. Elena is afraid he killed Galla, and will hurt his son. Eve tells them Galla’s family is on their way to New York, and will take care of Angelo.
• Eve talks to Reo, with the plan to bring Tween in that afternoon. She gives Whitney the outline of the murder for hire and he recognizes Cobbe’s name, adding Feeney to the meeting. There was a home invasion about twenty years ago, with three dead - Adam Solomen was an accountant for Colin Boswell, who ran a protection racket in New York, as well as human trafficking, illegals, and protection going in London and Dublin. Whitney was in the Organized Crime division and Adam was his CI.
• Solomen was tortured and killed, and his wife and sixteen-year-old son were also killed painfully, with a knife. Thomas Ivan partnered with Cobbe on the hit, and left blood on the scene. He claimed Cobbe did all the killing, but died from the wounds Cobbe inflicted on him. Whitney worked the murder jointly with Feeney - they knew Cobbe was the perpetrator, but Ireland refused to extradite him on the word of Ivan, a dead man with a sheet, especially given the rampant corruption in Ireland at the time.
• Eve asks for whatever files the agencies have on Cobbe and to have Roarke attached to the investigation and assigned a weapon. She also asks for EDD help once they bring Tween in so they can get any communication between Tween and Cobbe. She gets a text from Roarke letting her know Tween has just put the Stowe painting up for sale; between that and not contacting the ME’s office to see Galla’s body, Feeney says, “He doesn’t even pretend to give a shit.”

Chapter 5

• Eve fills Peabody in on the Whitney-Feeney triple homicide home invasion case, telling her to review the case, and that Cobbe’s the one who got away. Eve writes it up and adds the Solomens, Big Tom Ivan, and a twenty-year-old Cobbe to her murder board. She ran Boss Boswell, seeing that he was stabbed, bludgeoned, and tossed in the river fifteen years ago.
• She calls Roarke to give him the case details and to let him know he’s been assigned to this investigation and assigned a weapon, for defense purposes. She’ll have Tween in the box that afternoon. Roarke bought the painting, thinking Galla’s brother might want to have it since it meant something to Galla. Eve suggests he talk to Mira for insight into Cobbe, so it’s direct from him instead of passed through her.
• Mira calls Tween “an egotist – his wife insulted him by having an affair. It was more about the insult to his ego and manhood than a betrayal. And the person she chose wasn’t in or of the same social and financial strata – another insult. His ego is his dominant trait, and therefore his dominant weakness.” She and Eve agree Tween will be easy to break.
• Mira assisted on the profile twenty years ago, and remembered Cobbe as being deliberately vicious in his killings – allowing the wife to wake up before killing her, and even though the son wouldn’t have heard anything, Cobbe killed him, and by degrees rather than a clean slice across the throat, to cause extra suffering. Solomen was bound and gagged, so he wasn’t tortured to get information, just to be cruel. Mira didn’t think Boswell ordered Ivan’s death since he was a loyal employee - it was all Cobbe, who then stole his wallet, which likely had at least part of the payment still in it, and tried to get it all pinned on him.
• Eve tells Mira about Cobbe slicing up the boy’s dog and about his meeting with Roarke and the outcome, minus the bits about the jewel theft. They agree Cobbe is fixated on the Roarke name and acknowledgement. Although Cobbe kills for enjoyment and profit, and lives and travels well, he has no friends, just contacts, and will never reach the success Roarke has built. He must stay in the shadows to work and survive, while Roarke lives in the light, has a family and friendships, and is still the only son Patrick Roarke acknowledged.
• Mira thinks Cobbe took the New York job because Roarke is now married, to a woman he loves, and has a real family, things Cobbe will never have. Roarke’s also done good works - the shelter and the school. Seeing Roarke at the murder scene wouldn’t have been planned, but it triggered his hatred and obsession. Mira offers to contact Roarke and talk to him outside of the office, either at her house or Roarke’s, so it’s less official.
• Eve has her bullpen faves coordinate a search and seizure with EDD on Tween’s home and office, at 2 p.m., and tells Reo to get started on the warrants. Galla’s family arrives at Central. The sister-in-law, Tereza Modesto, knew about the affair but kept Galla’s confidence.

Chapter 6

• During a visit to New York last spring, Galla spilled to Tereza, who was like a sister to her, how unhappy she was – Tween didn’t want her to work and she felt no lover from him. Galla didn’t tell her parents because she knew they’d be disappointed with her since they didn’t want her to marry Tween to begin with. A few weeks later she told Tereza she’d met an artist and found love. Then she thought about the vow she’d made and the child she and Tween had, and couldn’t end her marriage, break her family, so she told her a week or two ago that she had broken it off. Tereza thought she made a bad decision, but didn’t say that.
• Galla’s father asks Eve if she thinks the artist killed his daughter, and she says no. Gallavs mother says “Jorge. There’s coldness in him. Galla couldn’t see it. She was blind to it, but there is coldness in him.” Eve tells them there is no evidence that placed Tween at the park at the time of Galla’s death and asks for discretion, saying nothing they discuss there can leave the room, nobody in the room will take any action that will interfere with the investigation.
• Once they agree, Peabody puts up the picture of Cobbe on the screen. They don’t recognize the name or picture. Eve tells them he is a professional killer and they have evidence he was in the park and was hired to kill Galla. Stefano goes very pale, remembering a discussion he and Jorge had in Rome when he was there for meetings. Tween joked “where is the Mafia when we need it?” Stefano thought they were talking about a competitor undercutting their prices, and it was a joke. He said they call Salvadore Bellacore - he knows the cutthroats and where to find them because he used to be one. There were rumors that he brokered such matters now that he was retired. It was the third week of March, and Roarke finds a payment from Tween to Bellacore’s farm for ten thousand euros on March 24.
• Stefano and Tereza were named Angelo’s guardians should anything happen to Galla and Jorge. Eve tells them to go see Galla, don’t contact Tween, and don’t respond if he tries to contact them. Go to their apartment, although it turns out Roarke has gotten them a suite at one of his hotels since the apartment is somehow not large enough. She tells Peabody about the payment and they have pizza in her office. Eve writes it up and Peabody contacts Child Services to expedite the paperwork, getting Angelo to the Modestos. Eve figures Whitney can take care of getting the Italians or Interpol on Bellacore.
• Court recessed early, and Reo puts the warrants through for conspiracy to commit murder and murder in the first. Eve tells Peabody to send two female officers to execute the warrant and bring Tween in: “Fucker used a woman to advance his career, social status, and line his pockets. Then he had her gutted. Female cops? He’ll consider it more of an insult. It’s petty, but I feel petty.” Eve says they’ll offer him a deal if he flips on Cobbe, but just because he’ll only get possible parole in thirty years doesn’t mean there won’t be other charges from the alphabets that extend that term.
• Reo returns to the office, Eve thinks Tween used a PI to get info about Galla’s affair, and tells Reo she wants to deal, which will give Reo a part in bringing down an international assassin. Renaldi calls Eve to say they’ve arrested Tween. She tells her to contact Stefano and bring Angelo to him since he will be his legal guardian. Tween is bringing his corporate lawyer, Milton Barkley, who will bring a criminal attorney.
• Roarke stops in to tell her Tween has listed Galla’s Tuscany farmhouse, evicting the custodians, and her Florence flat, evicting her young art student cousin who was living there. He tells her there’s a difference between need and greed and worries that since he and Cobbe came from the same streets, maybe he’s more like him than he thinks. Eve assures him that he’s nothing like Cobbe, has never killed for profit. She tells him it’s her duty to worry about him when applicable, according to the Marriage Rules.

Chapter 7

• Tween denies everything, of course, and is insulted and appalled that Eve would add to his grief. He claimed not to know about Galla’s affair until Eve told him the previous night, but reluctantly admits he did pay a private investigator to tail Galla, from his business expense account, saying he did know but wanted to protect her reputation, having just learned of her murder. Eve points out that he learned of Galla’s murder about twenty minutes after it happened, when the killer sent him a message with a picture of a gutted Galla. Eve also brings up the payments to a numbered account in Andorra and to Bellacore, a criminal broker, and the message from “Blade” setting the terms of the payment and offering to dispatch the wife’s lover for an additional fee (declined).
• The criminal lawyer, Denise Gotte, asks to consult with Tween, Eve tells him putting his wife’s properties up for sale while she’s still in a drawer at the morgue? “Cold and obvious. Also blocked.” Peabody adds, “You didn’t even bother to go see her. You couldn’t even pretend to give a damn.” Gotte is pissed at being lied to. Mira says Tween is more of a situational sociopath - he has no conscience regarding his wife, as he doesn’t believe she deserves any regret, remorse, or guilt. She’s done, as she deserves to be, and he’s entitled to what belonged to her. He’s angry he was caught since he didn’t even kill her.
• Barkley was stunned and removed himself as counsel, saying he liked Galla very much and it seems appropriate that women are working to find justice for her. He offers to assist with the arrangements for Galla since Tween doesn’t seem to be doing anything, and Eve tells him her family is in New York now and they’ll take care of her. Gotte asks for a deal before Tween gives up Cobbe. Eve offers two consecutive life sentences, no parole, off-planet. Reo counters with two consecutive thirty-year sentences, and they settle on twenty-five with the reduction to twenty if Tween’s info helps convict Cobbe.
• Back in Interview, Tween tries for tears, appealing to the police on behalf of his young child, saying “I’m all he has.” Eve tells Gotte paying somebody to make the minor child’s mother dead disqualifies him for the Father of the Year Award, and Galla’s brother and sister-in-law are the minor child’s legal guardians per Galla’s will. Tween says it’s Stefano’s fault for telling him about Bellacore, for putting it in his head, but backs off when Eve asks him if he’s naming Stefano as a co-conspirator.

Chapter 8

• Bellacore told Tween about Cobbe, saying he had over twenty years’ experience. Tween insisted on a job interview, so he acquired two clone ’links, one for the initial contact and one for the work. Tween says Galla would have ruined him, and all for some man she met on the street because he painted her goddamn hills and he made a copy of the ’link before destroying it. He then lay his head on the interview table and cried like a baby.
• Eve and Peabody listen to the interview with “Blade” (Cobbe). He asked Tween to tell him about his wife and Eve realized he really didn’t know or care to understand her because all he could give Cobbe was her background and obsession with Tuscany. Finally, Cobbe asked Tween “Why is it you don’t just kill the whoring bitch yourself?” Tween said, “I’m not a killer” and Cobbe replied that if he didn’t follow instructions the cops would see him the same as if he did the killing himself. Cobbe gave him names of three people who had been killed and Peabody runs them to confirm their deaths.
• Eve tells everybody in the bullpen they will work on catching Cobbe, and gives the basics. She tells them he’s still in New York, and has a personal target: Roarke. Cobbe has successfully eluded worldwide law enforcement, including every damn alphabet you can think of. Jenkinson says, “Not the NYPSD,” but Whitney fills him on the case from twenty years ago where he did get away. Jenkinson says, “Fucker’s going down. Fucking fuck’s going the fuck down. Pardon my fucking French, Commander.”
• Cobbe is a person of interest or suspect in 443 murders in a twenty-four year span, with his usual fee one to two million euros, and his preference close-up kills with knives, quick, but for an additional fee will torture the target for info or to cause extra pain. His mother lives in Dublin, but they haven’t been able to put them together or trace him through her. He rarely uses hotels, preferring rental houses, and drives, including piloting shuttles, which he once did to elude authorities, killing the pilot and flying a group of twenty businesspeople from London to Provence for a conference. Inspector Abernathy from Interpol will work with them, but Dallas is still primary since it’s an NYPSD op. He’s been working on catching Cobbe for nearly eight years and will assist.
• Feeney puts a tracker on Dallas and insists she put one on Roarke, advising her to “pull out some wife shit: how you know he’s smarter and stronger, and whatever other crap you need to toss in, but how you’re worried, how worrying messes you up. Shit like that, so he does it because he’s worried and guilty, because you’re worried. Just wife shit.”

Chapter 9

• Summerset picked up a shadow while he was out marketing, but lost it before returning home.
• Roarke spent some time at An Dídean before stopping by the Miras. Dr. Mira asks Roarke for his first memory of Lorcan Cobbe. Roarke was around seven or eight, and Cobbe was watching him and his mates on Grafton Street. The next day Cobbe came knocking on the door at suppertime. Roarke had just earned a backhand and didn’t want to go back out until he’d eaten. Cobbe pushed by Meg, walking straight up to the old man, strutting, and announced, “I’m Lorcan. I’m your son, first born. I’ll be living here now and working for you.” The old man laughed, picked him up by the scruff of the neck, and tossed him out of the house. He told Roarke if he didn’t want the same he’d get his lazy arse out and earn his keep. Cobbe was lying at the bottom of the stairs, and Roarke offered him a hand up, since he’d taken that tumble himself a time or two. Cobbe pulled a knife and tried to slice Roarke, who danced out of his way, having seen the blood in his eyes. He was still there when Roarke returned that night, so he went around the back and climbed in the window. He was still there in the morning, but Patrick Roarke never took him in, although he did give him work, never acknowledging him as his son.
• Roarke made it a point to learn about Cobbe, who was a prince in his mother’s eyes, but wanted Roarke not to exist, and to have what Roarke had. Dennis Mira said it was an innate need for a child to long for a father if he lacked one. He was born with his own cruelty, but strove not just to emulate the man he believed was his father, but to outdo him and earn his respect and pride. A mother’s love is weak to someone like Cobbe, but the pride and respect of a father, one who lives outside the law and takes what he wants, would be considered strength and power. Roarke blocked that power from him, and still does even with Patrick Roarke dead.
• Cobbe didn’t have a talent for thievery so he did enforcement, and probably killing, for Patrick Roarke., from the time he was twelve or thirteen. Roarke remembered a time when Cobbe got a very bad beating - he told the old man some tale about Roarke, and Patrick beat him bloody for it. He didn’t tolerate whiners or rats. Roarke got bashed as well, but Cobbe took the brunt that time. Dr. Mira thinks the beating was still attention, focused on him, so a kind of proof that he mattered.
• Patrick told Cobbe he had no drop of Roarke in him, and he’d crack his skull if ever he used his name as his own. He called him Cobbe or Jabber (for the knives), and called Roarke boy or young Roarke or the Irish words for brat or devil. Together they realize that the reason Roarke got his last severe beating when he was reading instead of working was that Cobbe ratted him out to his father. Also Cobbe saw it as weak that Roarke left him alive in France, just stunning him. Roarke has the name Cobbe covets, wealth and position, love and family.
• Mr. Mira says he and Eve are strong separately but together they are a force, and meant to be - not two lost souls, but two waiting souls. Mira says she’ll send Eve an updated profile.
• Eve pulls in at home, ready to end the day, but there’s a bag in front of the gates, with bloodstains and a note. She calls for beat cops and reads the note: “Curiosite killed the cat. Your next.” Eve freaks, quickly sees it’s a cat, not Galahad, but gutted and with its throat slit. She looks up to see Cobbe a block away, laughing.

Chapter 10

• Eve gives chase, but loses him in Central Park. Cobbe ditches the reversible hoodie he’d been wearing, and Eve returns home to see Summerset standing between her car and the dead-cat bag, outside the gates. Eve scolds him for touching the bag and for making himself a target, and he gets in the car while she gives orders for sweepers and gathers evidence to be given to Harvo (cat hair), Dickhead (the jacket, blood, bag, and note) and Morris (the cat for an autopsy).
• Eve and Summerset argue - he came out because he saw the gate security register her vehicle ID but the gates opened and closed without her vehicle entering, and he saw her empty vehicle and the bag on the monitor. She said Cobbe could have doubled back and gutted him, he reminded her he’d been through the Urban Wars, she said those weren’t on her watch, he showed her the mini blaster he’d taken to carrying with him since Liam Calhoun got by him and inside the house.
• Summerset also pointed out he knew Galahad was safe, but Eve didn’t. She asked how Cobbe knew they have a cat, and he thinks Cobbe used an amplifier when he shadowed him, and heard him talking to Mr. Tilly, the fishmonger, about their cats. He tells Eve, “He butchered that poor animal because I bought salmon and chatted about cats.” Eve tells him, “He butchered that animal because he’s a sick fuck, and wanted to see what I - or Roarke, depending on who got here first - would do.” Roarke’s at the gate, and neither of them thought to alert him to the crime scene people.
• Eve fills Roarke in, and Summerset tells them what he learned from Ivanna (not much, but she knows of Abernathy). They eat together and Roarke tells them about his visit with Mira. Eve thinks Cobbe didn’t go after Roarke directly when Patrick was alive because he wouldn’t have taken his place, he would have lost his, so he hated Roarke even more.

Chapter 11

• Eve breaks the news about the tracker to Roarke, showing him she’s wearing one too. “The weight of the entire NYPSD is behind this because some fuckhead wants to kill us so your dead father can give him a high five from hell. I wear it, you wear it.” He agrees: “Bloody fucking hell. I’d peel Cobbe’s skin from his bones for this alone.” Roarke will provide one for Summerset, since they’re made by Roarke Industries.
• They have sex, after which Eve wonders if the trackers monitor that kind of movement, but decides not to think about it. Roarke figures Cobbe is staying in a house belonging to a bad guy he’s done work for, or will do a future job for at a discount. Summerset sent his day’s itinerary, and Eve puts Uniform Carmichael on retracing the steps to question vendors.
• Mira’s report is: “Cobbe’s need to eliminate Roarke is more than a goal. It is his mission, central to his identity. Only cowardice and lack of clear opportunity ... has stopped him... As long as Roarke exists, Cobbe remains unable to claim his most essential desire. He cannot be Patrick Roarke’s true son...” Roarke also needs retribution for rejecting Patrick and replacing him with Summerset, He lives a good life, all while carrying the name Cobbe desires above all. Seeing Roarke at Galla’s murder scene was a sign that this is the time and place to fulfill his destiny.
• Baxter calls Eve with the name of the hotel Cobbe stayed at the nights before and after he killed Modesto. Eve explains the new Cobbe pattern to Roarke - he’s careless and sloppy, but only with Roarke - he allowed himself to be seen when it would have been smarter to stay out of sight. He should have taken Roarke’s hand and lulled him into friendship when they first met, but he can’t.
• They watch the feed from the Parkview Hotel of Cobbe arriving, checking in under the name “Reginald J. Patrick” (J for Jabber, probably) with a Brit passport, then leaving a couple of hours later to stroll around the neighborhood, then the next night before Modesto’s murder with an empty face: “He might as well be heading to the office to deal with paperwork.” He came back after the murder with his jacket reversed, even though it would have been smarter to reverse it back in case the desk clerk noticed the switch. He was revved up and a little pissed, and the clerk wonders why he was so friendly before but now is angry. The last feed from that night is an LC Cobbe hired, arriving, and then leaving after 26 minutes looking mildly amused and a little baffled.

Chapter 12

• Eve and Roarke watch Cobbe check out the following morning, in a better mood. They figure he has his place picked out, so it’s probably through a contact - bad guy safe house, which will be an upscale single-family residence in a good neighborhood with high-end security. It will have rotating tenants, so the cover will be owner travels extensively for business, uses it as a New York base, rents it out short-term to execs or it will be owned by a dummy corporation, same deal about renting to execs.
• Cobbe is wearing custom-made boots when he checks in and top-of-the-line, Roarke-made running shoes when he leaves to kill Modesto. He will need to buy more clothes since his trip was extended - high-end menswear stores. The ground transpo was booked under Patrick R. Blade. Roarke is skeptical about how all this will help find him, but Eve explains that every detail they can find about Cobbe helps track him down.
• Baxter tags her with the results of his and Trueheart’s interview with Yvette Conroy, the LC Cobbe used. She took a last-minute job, which included an additional ten percent for a booking in under two hours for “Reginald J. Patrick” aka Lorcan Cobbe. The minute she arrived, he pointed to the bedroom. When she started talking to him, he told her to strip and get on the bed, he’s not interested in fucking conversation, just fucking. The whole encounter took about ten minutes on the outside: “Wham-bam, with no thank you ma’am.” He snarled and swore the whole time and said, “I’ll do the fucker this time. Fucking bastard, lucky prick bastard gobshite. I’ll drink his fucking blood before he’s done.”
• She earned nine thousand dollars for the job (the full grand for the late booking plus 80% of the ten K fee) and provided a good description of both Cobbe and his high-end products - That Man skin products and Underworld hair products, including the daily treatment to address hair loss, which is only available from a licensed salon, and it’s generally used to supplement salon treatments, recommended every three months.
• Roarke tells Eve he stands corrected and starts looking for salons that carry both brands. Eve thinks it was sloppy to leave his kit out, but sloppy and wasteful to spend eleven thousand dollars when he could have just whacked off. Roarke said he needed the release, but also to feed his ego with a beautiful woman who’s there to do whatever you want. They set their searches to auto and go to bed.
• Roarke dreamed of Dublin, the city that represented the canvas for the worst of his childhood memories, and the best of them as well. He dreamed of the boy he’d been and his mates, all but one gone now, taken in vengeance and gone to dust. The man he was couldn’t help but admire the boy’s nimble fingers. He heard the boy with the angel’s voice and the little dog singing an old one designed to bring a tear to the eye and money in the cap. He found his mark and moved into position, and as the boy sang of young, dead Willie McBride, he spotted Lorcan Cobbe - boy and man - across Grafton Street. The boy he’d been looked up at the man he was. “Well, now, he’s after killing me dead, isn’t he then? But he won’t be having what he wants today. You’ll have to make for certain he doesn’t get it tomorrow.” And ran. Cobbe the boy pulled out a knife and ran after him. And Cobbe, the man, grinned across Grafton Street before sprinting in the opposite direction.
• All at once Roarke stood in the alley over the broken, bloodied boy he’d been. The girl Eve had been sat on the filthy ground beside him. Hollow-eyed, cradling her broken arm, she looked up. “They like to hurt us, the fathers.” He crouched down, heartsick as he could do nothing for either of them. “I know it. We’ll be all right. We’ll get through.” “He broke my arm. I think yours, too.” Even in dreams he couldn’t help himself, and reached out to stroke her tangled hair. “But they didn’t break us, did they, darling?” Cobbe, both boy and man, stood two feet away. “I won’t break you. I’ll just cut you to pieces. Her first.” With knife in hand, the man grabbed Eve by the hair. When the boy charged, Roarke lunged. Into a void, and out of sleep.
• Eve tells him it was a bad one and they shared a soother as he told her his dream. She says next time dream of her as a cop so they could have kicked his asses together. They go back to sleep.

Day 3

Chapter 13

• Eve and Roarke get early starts to the day, with Eve getting a workout and impressively arming herself with wrist knives and a mini blaster on her hip. Cobbe’s private shuttle came in from Brussels, and they have the info on the pilot and company. Roarke will finish looking for the Dublin salon (Eve has it down to eleven), so Eve can hand the name to Abernathy, “Oh, look here, I think you guys might’ve missed this angle. And how fucking easy it might’ve been to plant somebody there, have a whole buncha badges ready to swoop in when Cobbe strolled in for his goddamn hair boost.”
• Roarke tells her that bureaucracy played into it, but also “they’re not you. You’re not just good, not merely exceptional. You’re an extraordinary investigator. I’ve watched you pick up a detail others might miss as a spot of lint. It might mean little on its own, but you dig at it, pull at it, intuit from it, and fit it into the rest.” They agree they’re glad she never had to try to apprehend him, and they discuss the opening of An Dídean that week and Roarke’s dream.
• As Eve is driving to the morgue, Harvo calls with info on the kitty - history of mange, and still on meds, along with flea treatments. Morris equates the kitty to a sidewalk sleeper who’d been taken into a shelter - a year of malnutrition, but on the mend before Cobbe, and killed by the same weapon that killed Modesto, a stiletto.
• At Central, Eve updates the bullpen on the cat and the salons, plus safe houses and clothes. Trueheart found the cat - a one-year-old tabby, adopted the previous day; the website showed the progression from finding her four and a half weeks ago to a healthy orange tabby the day before.
• Eve and Peabody head to Caring Hearts Pet Rescue, where the owner, Tara Undall, tells them Mr. Patrick, a widower, adopted Sweetie yesterday for his young motherless daughter, Colleen. Eve breaks the news: “I regret to inform you, Sweetie is dead. Cobbe killed her. We’re sorry for your loss.”

Chapter 14

• They visit with Tara and her three cats, including the one who sits on Eve’s lap, Regal, making Eve sure Galahad would make her pay when she got home. Cobbe called the office yesterday afternoon and adopted her right away, paying an extra $100 on top of the $400 adoption fee. She was able to describe his clothing and provide a copy of his application. He left with a cat carrier, the meds, and the welcome basket, so Eve figures he had a car. Eve lies to Tara, saying the cat didn’t suffer and it was a quick death. She wonders if she has time for a spin in the fume tube and if that would help.
• Roarke calls with the name of the salon and the technicians who worked on “Niall Patrickson” regularly, last visit five weeks ago. Whitney brings Abernathy to the bullpen so Eve can brief everybody. Abernathy tells her Cobbe will change locations to continue his research on eliminating Roarke. She tells him he’s wrong, that it’s a mission, and Dr. Mira gives a thumbnail sketch. There’s a little back and forth since Abernathy thinks he’s the expert, but she emphasizes his obsession with Roarke.
• Baxter reports on the LC and the hair loss products, Eve gives them the name of the salon and the tech statements: Cobbe is polite, fussy, exacting, tips well, and doesn’t like to chat. Abernathy is impressed, and says details on Roarke’s background are rare as hen’s teeth, and he would like to speak with him. Eve points out that everything that applies is already in the file. Everybody else gives their updates and Abernathy asks for a desk in the bullpen so he can immerse himself in the rhythm.
• Abernathy tells Eve he missed getting Cobbe by less than an hour in Berlin two years ago - Cobbe eluded them by driving out of the city with the body of a 36-year-old mother of two in the trunk of her own car - she had stopped to pick up a cake for her daughter’s fourth birthday and there was a media leak that they were closing in on catching the murderer of a prominent industrialist, so Cobbe didn’t take his scheduled shuttle. Abernathy says he doesn’t care who gets credit, he just wants Cobbe stopped. Eve tells him, “I believe you want justice for Ingrid Frederick [the mother], and all the others. If you attempt to interrogate Roarke, it would be a mistake.”
• Eve calls Roarke, who’s at the school for the first group of children entering. She tells him Abernathy wants to talk to him. “An inspector of Interpol wants to talk to me. Why, I’m stunned and surprised.” He says he will if it helps take Cobbe down. Eve says she’ll give the safe houses to Feeney and McNab to narrow down and she’ll try to swing by An Dídean on her way home.

Chapter 15

• Roarke visits An Dídean, where the oldest kids are being moved in, and enjoys watching teenagers, but not in a creepy way. He heard music coming from the music room, finding a 14-year-old prodigy playing the heck out of a guitar. He made a deal with Gee, that he can keep the guitar if he signs up for music classes, telling him there was a time when no one gave him anything but a hard hand, but someone did give him a chance and it changed his life.
• He goes up to the roof to look at the memorial to the lost girls and finds Quilla there with her video cam, documenting the move-in for her vlog. Roarke has her show him ten minutes of footage and then he sat in the quiet alone until his ’link signaled with more info on Cobbe, which he passed along to Eve before returning to his office.
• His admin, Caro Ewing, fills him in on what work items he needs to look at and tells him he’s had three calls from somebody calling himself Grafton, all from different ’link numbers, all blocked video. She traced the most recent one to Hudson Street, moving uptown from Christopher to West Tenth. She tells him to be careful, he updates Eve, and he eliminates uptown places from his safe house search.
• Cobbe calls again, Caro puts him on hold while she starts a trace, and Roarke adds Eve to the call, muted, blocking video. Cobbe tells him he’s been wanting a word with him, and Roarke invites him to visit. He tells Roarke to come out in the world and meet him man-to-man instead of hiding behind security and walls, and Roarke asks “when and where?” Cobbe tells him he’ll let him know and that he has no right to the name he uses that’s his.
• Roarke takes off toward his location, Perry, using his fast car, and catching up to Eve’s car and the EDD van, plus two black-and-whites, landing on the roof of a triple-decker. He joins Feeney in the van while Eve sends her team in various directions to look for Cobbe. Abernathy is impressed because they couldn’t have missed him by much, but Eve is frustrated because they missed him.
• Eve sends her team to scout the perimeter for upscale menswear shops, figuring he will be back in his hole by now, and it will be outside the area. She has them send his info to the top LC agencies in case he wants sex again. She tries to shake Abernathy off so she can talk to Roarke alone, but he greets Roarke as he gets out of the elevator and they go to the lounge.

Chapter 16

• Inspector Abernathy asks Roarke about a famous jewel heist, a necklace called the Green Flash stolen in May, 2046 in the South of France from an American socialite, an heiress famed for her jewels and her parties, and some ten and a quarter million - USD - in diamonds, emeralds. It was stolen from the vault on her estate in Cannes, was worth nearly half that amount, and was never recovered. This was around the time of Roarke’s last encounter with Cobbe, but Eve asks, “Do you think Cobbe took time out of murdering targets to steal necklaces?” When Abernathy tells her no, she tells him, “Then it doesn’t apply. If you’re screwing around with crap like this, it hasn’t helped you nail Cobbe. Don’t fuck with me, Inspector. And don’t fuck with him.” She tells him if he tries it she’ll have him booted back to London.
• Roarke asks Abernathy for his opinion of the lieutenant’s integrity and dedication to her badge, and he tells him there’s no question about that and her dedication to justice. Roarke tells him he’s puzzling over why Eve married him, and if the relationship is a convenience for him. He tells Abernathy, “She is often hugely inconvenient to me. And she is everything to me. If giving you exact dates, reasons, confessing a thousand crimes would help you take Cobbe down, I would cite chapter and verse. He would kill her to taunt me. Closing a jewel heist from fifteen years ago might add a sparkle to your file, Inspector, but it won’t help you with Cobbe. Which do you want?” Abernathy reluctantly tells him Cobbe, and Roarke says, “Our goals are the same.”
• Eve is pissed that Roarke held her hand: “No hand kissing in front of Interpol.” Abernathy asks if Roarke would consider being bait. He says he would but Cobbe wouldn’t fall for it. After Abernathy leaves the lounge, Roarke assures Eve he isn’t draping her in pieces of some necklace stolen from some idiot American. He sold it, as contracted, long ago and bought the nice little resort in Cannes he told Abernathy was his reason for being in the South of France at that time. He tells Eve they should go to the resort sometime.
• Back in Eve’s office they discuss Cobbe’s purpose in luring everybody into a chase that afternoon. Eve thinks it was to gauge their response time and also to get info on their vehicles. She tags Feeney and asks him to use a different van for the safe house searches, and he tells her they will have better luck after midnight or one since most people are out and about during the day.
• Jenkinson found an upscale clothing shop where Cobbe spent over four thousand dollars that morning. Urbane is seven blocks south of where they traced Cobbe’s call to Roarke, so they think they’re canvassing the wrong sector for his safe house, that it will be closer to the shop than the position they tracked him to.
• The very helpful assistant manager is delighted to meet Eve and Peabody: “if eyes could squeal, his did.” He waited on Cobbe, saying he doesn’t know what he would have done if he’d known he was a criminal: “if eyes could gasp, his did.” They tell him if Cobbe comes back, he needs to treat him exactly the same way he treated him that morning: “if eyes could gulp, his did.”
• Eve has Jenkinson and Reineke dress down, and she and Peabody do the same, with Eve wearing Peabody’s scarf and buying a newsboy cap for a flip of insouciance, unexpected in a police officer, according to Bilbo, and they look for other shops Cobbe hit in that area.

Chapter 17

• They found where Cobbe bought his underwear and a few other items of clothing, and some basic provisions at a market, cautioning the shopkeepers and clerks to contact her if he comes back but not to engage. The last stop she and Peabody make is at a high-priced bar, where they learn that Cobbe came in the previous night at midnight and left with the talent, a blues singer named Kaylee Skye, when they closed at two.
• Peabody reviews the security footage from Kaylee’s apartment building while Eve tries to get her to answer the door and/or get permission to enter. They came in at 2:23 a.m. and he left at 3:01, disheveled and with his knuckles scraped up. The super cleared them to enter, and they find Kaylee, raped, beaten, and strangled. Eve thinks Abernathy’s file is wrong and there have been other times Cobbe has killed this way - probably unsolved or wrongly closed murders, probably civilians rather than LCs since they would be less traceable.
• Peabody will write up the report while Eve does the notifications and they will meet at Central after midnight to resume the safe house search. Eve is full of grief, but decides to stop by An Dídean for a few minutes. A jubilant Rochelle Pickering greets Eve, telling her the day students were gone and the live-in ones were in the kitchen or unpacking in their rooms. Nadine and Quilla were in the video and communication area, editing Quilla’s footage. Quilla shakes Eve’s hand, saying “I don’t much like hugs, either - they’re weird,” and thanks her.
• Rochelle says sorry she doesn’t much like hugs and hugs Eve as she’s leaving to meet Wilson for a celebratory dinner, saying it’s been an absolutely amazing day. Nadine asks how she and Roarke are doing and tells her she hasn’t found anything new on Cobbe but she’ll send what she’s found so far. Eve tells her they’re close but she doesn’t want Cobbe to know how close. She assures Eve that Quilla also has integrity, enthusiasm, and considerable talent, and she’s crazy about the kid, again, not in a creepy way.
• Eve tells Nadine about Kaylee Skye, saying she can break the murder, but not the Cobbe connection, and suggests she research other like murders – unsolved with lookers, quick pickups, probably not too many LCs because those would trace back to him.
• Eve texts Roarke that she’s heading home, and as she’s on her way, Santiago tags her that they found Cobbe’s rental. He rented it using the name Liam O’Patrick, with an Interstellar credit account under the same name. Carmichael puts out an APB on the vehicle to track it rather that stop or approach it, with the info that Cobbe may have changed the plates. Eve updated Abernathy as she arrived home.

Chapter 18

• Summerset greets Eve with news of lemon meringue pie and she tells him to watch his bony six, and he can always yank the stick out of his ass for an extra weapon. She goes upstairs, where Galahad gives her the cold shoulder and she tells Roarke a cat sat on her lap while they interviewed the cat lady. She gives Roarke the good news: lemon meringue pie and also the vehicle ID. He’s upset about the singer, but Eve points out if he had left New York, it would have been another dead, and even more until they stop him.
• Eve talks about her visit to An Dídean, saying everything’s so possible. Roarke tells her about the guitar prodigy, Gee. They decide that maybe the next time they visit the family they’ll head over to Dublin and see about opening a school there. After dinner she left her kitchen with a handful of cat treats for the still-sulking Galahad, holding them out to him until he butted her shoulder with his head, and she explains that there will be other cats on the job, and, in fact, she was on the job when she found him. Also, he’s the one she brought home, and the other cat meant nothing to her.
• Carmichael tried to bet Santiago they’d have Cobbe within twenty-four, and “he wouldn’t take the bet. Detective I’ll-Bet-On-Anything wouldn’t take the bet because he thinks the same.” She put them off duty. Roarke has it down to his top four and three alternatives. The first was rented the morning after the Modesto murder for the month, immediate occupancy, and although it’s on the edge of walkable from the shops, it has a covered loading dock for the vehicle. The second one is a bit outside the area, but it suits – a gated home with a garage, owned by a rather nefarious Russian, whose name Abernathy will recognize. The other two are more convenient but don’t offer off-street parking. Eve has him send her the first four and the next three to Feeney so they can start searching.
• They take a couple hours downtime to recharge with sex and a shower before heading back out.

Day 4 (after midnight)

Chapter 18 (Continued)

• They dress in black, with extra weapons and magic coats. Eve learns that Roarke has an arsenal in his clothes closet. She reminds him it’s a police operation so they want him alive, but if Cobbe gives him the chance to give him a little pain, she has his back. Nadine calls on the way into Central – Lorcan Cobbe’s mother put her house up for sale that morning, meaning her son expects the heat to turn up considerably after he kills Eve and Roarke, and has decided to relocate to a cooler clime. She asks her to check other residential properties that went up for sale in Dublin that day so they can find Cobbe’s base.
• At Central, Eve expects to find Feeney, McNab, Calendar, Peabody, and Abernathy, but she also found the rest of her detectives (not the one-offs) and a number of uniforms, all in black and ready to go. Jenkinson said they’re not looking for OT: “‘Somebody goes after one of us?’ He jabbed a finger at Roarke. ‘He goes after all of us. And we fucking take the fucker down.’” Carmichael says she and Santiago are up if they get a call but until then Feeney has a second van for them. Eve tells everybody to suit up and as she’s putting the map on screen, Whitney joins them, also in operation black and carrying a protective vest, saying she’s still in charge, and he’s one of the team.
• All the key people go in the first van, with Callendar, Santiago, and the rest of the detectives, plus the uniforms in van two. Eve runs through the locations and the op.

Chapter 19

• Abernathy starts to tell Eve it was an inspiring display of loyalty and dedication, and she stops him, saying “they’re damn good cops.” Feeney tells Whitney, “If anything happens to you, your wife is going to kill me until I’m dead, then kill me again.” He replies, “Only after she kicks my lifeless body into a boneless husk.”
• They scan the first house for heat signals, and quickly realize it’s a house of orgies, embarrassing Trueheart. Nadine texted her with Cobbe’s Dublin address, which went on the market that day. It was owned under a shell company, the Padriac O’Karre Foundation (O’Karre being an anagram of Roarke). His single-family home, just outside the city, listed for three and three-quarter million euros, “a jewel at twice the price, according to the listing hype.”
• The next location is Alexi Godinov’s New York pied-à-terre. He runs a wide and dubious organization throughout Russia, Ukraine, and into the Baltic, with vodka and other spirits as his cover. In addition to the distilling and distributing of spirits, he does money laundering, excellent false identification creation, Internet scams, and smuggling. He steers clear of violent crime, but Roarke says that’s by carefully putting a few degrees of separation between himself and any violence he may, indirectly, order. They deduce from the heat sources that he is there with his family
• Abernathy works on a warrant to enter and search Cobbe’s Dublin house while they approach the next possibility. Safe house 3 is owned by a shell company, the Amazonian Group, which is registered to Reginald Privet, who, along with his sister, Alicia Privet, are very bad people who deal in weapons and sex, basic money laundering, gambling, and an extensive smuggling business - people, goods, weapons, illegals. Interpol picked up the brother three months ago and turned him, according to Abernathy, but the sister is the one who was really controlling the organization, as he had a gambling problem.
• They run into major blocks at the Privet house, and Eve tags Reo for a warrant. Eve gives instructions to cover all the exits and start on the security the minute the warrants clear. As it comes in, McNab gets through and Roarke tells them to wait, but an instant too late. The fail-safe alert kicked in - lights flashed on and then all went dark. Eve has everybody go, and they track the heat source once they’re inside - Cobbe escaped through smuggling tunnels from the basement.
• They head to the nearest transpo station, while Whitney coordinates shutting down bridges and tunnels. Officer Carmichael and the other uniforms secure the scene and begin the search. Eve and the rest of the team head for the private area, assuming he will either bribe or kill his way onto a long-range shuttle. Roarke thinks he already scoped this out - he knew the route to the nearest private terminal and probably took an hour or two, under the guise of being in the market to purchase a shuttle, to get a tour and the layout.
• As the head of security is telling them they are the first vehicle to arrive, they hear a shuttle taking off and Baxter reports a man down, alive but cut up. Eve tells Whitney she needs clearance to go after him and Roarke can get a shuttle faster than they can deal with the paperwork. Roarke tells them it’s arranged, since he anticipated the possibility, and they are in hangar one. Whitney tells her he will take care of shift coverage so everybody can go. They board the sleek and shiny LR-10, with Feeney working on tracking Cobbe’s stolen shuttle, a mere LR-3, and they take off.

Chapter 20

• Cobbe’s vehicle was found - one tunnel split off and went directly to the shuttle terminal, explaining how Cobbe beat them there and was able to get in and steal a shuttle. Eve asks Abernathy for help with passports and permissions once they know where they’re going.
• The search team found a hidden, secured area in Privet’s safe house with full comm capabilities and unregistered equipment, so they have EDD working on decrypting Cobbe’s activity. Eve tells Abernathy to pick Morna Cobbe up, or at least shadow her, figuring her son will meet up with her.
• Eve advises food and rack time for her detectives. Feeney gets a lock on Cobbe’s shuttle and it looks like he’s going to Ireland, so they figure he’s meeting up with his mother in/near Dublin. EDD was able to decrypt Cobbe’s activity on the unregistered equipment; they find searches on the Lannigans, the Brodys, and Tulla, so they know he’s going to try for the farm, and will be about two hours behind. The plan is to box him in, so security needs to be low-profile to not scare him off.
• Roarke tries to convince his family to leave the farm, but most won’t leave, and they prepare to land in the north pasture to set up for taking Cobbe down when he arrives. Eve is thrilled with the idea of a quick drop landing, but sucks it up. She tries to convince Robbie to take the family into Tulla until they have Cobbe in custody, but no go, although he said he sent the children and some of the women off with the Garda. They meet the security Roarke hired for them when this all began.
• Eve tells Aidan she needs her team outfitted to look like farmers and tries again to convince him to leave: “I get this is your place, your home, but this man’s a professional killer. We’re the cops and you’re not. We’re here to stop him, arrest him, and to protect you and your property.” She asks him how he will defend himself against a pro killer with hundreds of bodies, hundreds of dead, asking if he has weapons. He shows her his fist, and adds, “We’ve axes and picks and shovels, knives, and that baseball bat young Ryan bought himself when we visited you in New York City last. We’re Irish, you see. We’ve fought on and for the land for all time.”
• Roarke apologizes to Sinead for bringing trouble to his door and she cuffs him on the side of the head, saying, “Never did I take you for such a lurk, and insulting with it. Are we your family? Don’t let me hear such a foolish thing come out of your mouth again.” Brian arrives to join the fun, and Sinead explains to Roarke, “The man who’s coming here thinks of the man who murdered my sister, my twin, as his father. He would murder the child she gave that vicious man, the child who is mine now. And so, I ask you, would you leave and sit and wait? Do you think my man would, my boys would, my brothers?”
• Brian is getting a huge kick out of seeing all the cops who are here to support Roarke and his family, and Eve says that’s the problem – she needs them to look like farmers. Sinead leads a delighted-to-be-in-the-old-sod Feeney off to a side parlor so when he works on the electronics he won’t be visible with field glasses, while Robbie and Mary Kate outfit the rest of the team.

Chapter 21

• Eve puts Whitney and Abernathy in the barn because they’re dark-skinned and would stand out as not related to the Brody/Lannigan clan. Abernathy is not pleased, but understands the logic. Eve tells him she’d feel the exact same way in his place, and he leaves to take lookout from the hayloft, after assuring Eve he can handle himself in hand-to-hand.
• The plan is to let Cobbe come into the house so he can’t escape and he can’t hurt or kill anybody else. If he approaches anyone outside, stun him, but otherwise let him think he’s walking into the kitchen to kill Roarke’s aunt and other family. Sinead refuses to leave the kitchen until Cobbe comes in because he’s using field glasses and will be able to tell if it’s somebody different in the kitchen. Peabody puts on an apron and sticks close, while Eve remains in the mudroom since she won’t look natural in a kitchen.
• They put some music on and Sinead stays away from the windows. Whitney takes satisfaction in knowing that Cobbe is getting pretty wet as he approaches the house on foot. Peabody goes outside to shake a rug so he can see the kitchen is occupied and unlocked. Eve watches the doorknob turn slowly and the door open a crack. Peabody lets out a quick laugh to lure him in. He came in fast, but Eve moved faster, had her left arm around his neck and her stunner at his throat.
• Instead of dropping his knife, as ordered, he pivoted and jabbed it at her. It bounced off her coat but he shot an elbow back and caught her on the jaw. She shows remarkable restraint by not giving in to the temptation of fighting him, but instead giving him a light jolt and kicking his feet out from under him, dropping him to his knees. She slapped on restraints and disarmed him: folding knife from one pocket, spring-action stiletto from the other, jagged-edged combat knife from a sheath at the small of his back, and knives from each of his boots (in addition to the one he was carrying when he came in).
• Eve reads him the Revised Miranda and tells him he will be remanded into the custody of Interpol, represented by Inspector Abernathy. Cobbe tells Roarke he’s hiding behind a woman, and he replies, “She’s a hell of a woman.” Cobbe spat in his face, and fury rose in the room. Eve looked at Roarke and said, “You want?” Roarke: “Oh aye, more than I can say.” Eve: “Then you got.” He tells her it’s no wonder she’s the love of his life, but not in the house because he has too much respect for the homeplace to kick his sorry arse in the house.
• Abernathy starts to step in, saying, “You can’t let Roarke beat a prisoner. A man in restraints.” Eve asks what she takes him for - of course she’ll remove them first, pointing out that she hasn’t turned him over to him yet, so Cobbe is still in her custody. “This is family.” Brian says any other time he’d be making book on this bout, not that he would ever bet against Roarke. Eve assures Cobbe nobody will use a weapon unless he tries to run, telling him Roarke doesn’t need the cops.
• Roarke starts off by telling him he put a mark on his woman, and Cobbe charges him, while Roarke shifts to get out of the way and boots him in the ass. He punched Cobbe in the face, mid-section, jaw, and let Cobbe land a few blows, mostly to the ribs. Robbie: “Our boy can take a punch. And give one. Show the bleeding jackeen what a Clare man’s made of! Our boy’s more Clare man than Dubliner, and make no mistake of it.” Jenkinson adds, “Plenty of New York in him, too. Fucking ring that fucker’s bell!” apologizing to Sinead for the language: “Not a’tall.”
• Cobbe tried to kick him in the balls, so Roarke wrapped things up with a series of short-armed jabs and punches to Cobbe’s face. He stops himself, telling Cobbe, “We’re a long way, you fecking bastard, a long way from the streets and alleys of Dublin when you made the misery of my life worse for the sport of it. You’re done now. And so am I.” Eve tells Abernathy his prisoner needs medical attention, and Aiden says he’ll ring his sister-in-law, Ailish, who’s a medic, so she can tend to that worthless shite who meant to kill his mother this very day.
• Abernathy is wondering how he will explain the condition of the prisoner to his superiors, and Whitney tells him, “In his attempt to escape capture and cause harm to civilians, the prisoner assaulted Roarke, whom he vowed to kill. They engaged in a physical battle during which the expert consultant, civilian, attached to the NYPSD, contained the prisoner, who is now herewith remanded to your custody.” Abernathy says that sounds about right to him.
• Roarke thanks Eve for knowing he needed it, and she tells him he’d have done the same for her. He points out, “Have done.” Ailish tends to Cobbe in the root cellar, while Sinead tends to Eve and Roarke in the kitchen. She tells Eve it takes a strong woman to stand back and let her man do what she wants to do herself, and she tells Sinead it takes a strong woman to stand her ground when a bunch of cops try to move her aside. “You’re unshakable, Sinead. I see where Roarke gets it.”
• Abernathy tells Eve the NYPSD did an excellent job of capturing Cobbe within days of being assigned to the investigation of Galla Modesto’s murder, and he’d like to offer her the first interview. Eve asks if he wants a confession, and if he does, Roarke needs to be in there also. He says they have thirty minutes once Cobbe is medically cleared.

Epilogue

• Eve notes Cobbe’s injuries: broken nose, split lip, two black eyes, the left side of his face swollen up like rotted meat, three cracked ribs, and knuckles scraped raw and swollen (but not as bad as Roarke’s, since he landed more blows). She starts with Tween’s confession to hiring him to kill his wife, which Cobbe says is bullshite - they have no evidence or witnesses. She points out the payment, which he says isn’t in his name. He came to New York to talk to Roarke.
• Eve lets him know his account in Andorra has been frozen, and forensic accounting has shown it to be Cobbe’s, using one of his aliases. Also, they have the reversible jacket that he dropped after dropping the cat he’d slaughtered at her gate. He doesn’t know anything about the cat and it’s not his jacket. She tells him, “I saw you, you moron. I thought you were a professional. You’re acting like the rankest of rank amateurs” and says he left his DNA in Skye’s apartment. He tells her they don’t have his DNA and by rights he doesn’t need to provide it. They have his blood from Kaylee’s body and a lot from Roarke spilling it.
• Cobbe insists she’s trying to set him up because she blackened her man’s eye. Eve points out the absurdity of that, given his condition. He tells her to charge him with animal cruelty, which she assures him is included in the charges, along with stabbing the guard at the transpo station when he stole a shuttle. They recovered his go-bag with lots of false ID and cash, plus his tablet and PPC and a case of sharps in a lead-lined case, but she’s leaving all that to Interpol.
• Sal Bellacore’s been singing and Interpol picked up the Privets. “Imagine how pissed and vindictive Alicia’s going to be when she finds out you flipped on her and her organization... Things do get tangled up in translation, don’t they?” That’s what finally makes him sweat, and Eve turns the interview over to Roarke, who starts by telling Cobbe they have his mother, and he’s sorry for that since a mother is a precious thing. He asks if his old man bragged when he beat and killed his mother and tossed her body in the Liffey, and Cobbe tells him, “Why wouldn’t he?” He proceeds to insult her and Roarke says he’s Patrick Roarke’s son in his cruelty and bloodlust, but not in blood.
• Cobbe insists he’s Patrick’s son and Roarke tells him if that were true, he’d be shamed by him, getting nicked by a woman and going about his “work sloppy, leaving such a trail a noseless hound could follow it. Taking no pride in that work, refusing to stand for it, stand up to the bloody cops and tell them to get fucked, as it took them twenty years and more than 400 dead before they pulled you in.” It’s the one thing in life he’s done better than any, but he takes no pride in it, refuting the way he made his fame and fortune.
• More insults of Roarke’s mother, and Roarke calling him “a sniveling coward so feared of cops” he denies the only true legacy the man he calls father left him, shaming his name. Cobbe starts boasting, “Four hundred, you say. Double it. The cheating ¢unt in New York was business, but the whore who sang like a nightingale? That was for the pleasure. He should have killed you that day, in the alley where you lolled around with a fucking book like a little lord. His fist in my face was worth the hope he would when I told him. I’ve money enough for all the lawyers I need. I’ve friends who’ll do the job for me if needed. I’ll get out and come for you, you and the whore you’re fucking so the cops look the other way.”
• Roarke tells him he has “no money a’tall” since they’ve frozen all of his accounts, and seized the houses he and his mother put on the market. Eve adds that he shouldn’t count on friends or associates once word gets out that he helped take down the Privet empire, whining for a deal. “Call me a liar. Call me a whore. I won’t be the one thousands of miles off-planet in a concrete cage, wondering if Alicia Privet has any associates in the vicinity. You gave Roarke a black eye. He got justice for everyone you killed, and took your freedom. He won.”
• Eve and Roarke leave, and it’s Whitney and Feeney’s turn for the Solomen family. Roarke makes Sinead cry when he tells her that he told Cobbe he’d never seen joy for him or pride in him shine in his mother’s eyes. “But that’s not altogether true, because I’ve seen it in yours.” Sean pops in for an update. Eve tells him, “Got him cold, full confession. Details later.”
• Eve and Roarke walk, him telling her he thought he didn’t need to be in on the interview, but he needed that as well as the fight. Beating Cobbe up was a long-due payment, but interviewing him was justice, which matters more. They end up at Siobhan’s memorial tree, rioting with pink blossoms. “Once I’d have wished him dead and done. But I’ve come to see it’s the justice of a long life that’s true.” They see a rainbow, Eve asks about the bag of money, and Roarke tells her he has better than a pot of gold right there.

Character List

List of Main Characters Appearing in this Book

• Eve Dallas
• Roarke

List of Secondary Characters Appearing in this Book

• David Baxter
• Detective Carmichael
• Uniform Carmichael
• Ryan Feeney
• Mavis Freestone
• Nadine Furst
• Galahad
• Jenkinson
• Leonardo
• Ian McNab
• Charlotte Mira
• Morris
• Delia Peabody
• Reineke
• Santiago
• Lawrence Summerset
• Troy Trueheart
• Jack Whitney

List of Recurring Characters Appearing in this Book

• Dick Berenski
• Callendar
• Crack
• Caro Ewing
• Harvo
• Brian Kelly
• Jake Kincade
• Sean Lannigan
• Sinead Lannigan
• Dennis Mira
• Quilla Magnum
• Rochelle Pickering
• Cher Reo
• Officer Shelby
• Chief Tibble
• Trina

List of Minor Characters Appearing in this Book

• Inspector George Abernathy
• Milton Barkley
• Trent Bilbo
• Aidan Brody
• Lorcan Cobbe
• Dory
• Denise Gotte
• Handler
• Gregg “Gee” Harding
• Robbie Lannigan
• Marta
• Mary Kate
• Anna Maria Modesto
• Antonio Modesto
• Stefano Modesto
• Tereza Modesto
• Marshall Podock
• Rigby
• Elena Rinaldi
• Londa Stanski
• Marlon Stowe
• Mr. Tilly
• Jorge Tween
• Tara Undall

List of Peripheral Characters Appearing or Mentioned in this Book

• Ailish
• Ando
• Angelo
• Baby (dog)
• Salvadore Bellacore
• Miranda Bester
• Colin Boswell
• Nan Brody
• Liam Calhoun
• Carlo
• Breen Casey
• Morna Cobbe
• Amaryllis Coltraine
• Mick Connelly
• Shawn Conroy
• Yvette Conroy
• Milo Cummings
• Carleen Digby
• Dolliger
• Bridgit Feeney
• Fitzwalter
• Ingrid Frederick
• Officer Frist
• Oscar Gill
• Wayne Goddard
• Alexi Godinov
• Anja Greenspan
• Sofia Grinaldi
• Nigel Harris
• Thomas Ivan
• Jenson
• Clinton Jones
• Joseph Karim
• Kevin
• Mr. King
• Seamus Lannigan
• Julietta LeFarge
• Ivanna Liski
• Marcus
• Max (dog)
• Michael
• Galla Modesto
• Officer Nadir
• Frankie Nalley
• Genita O’Brian
• Jenny O’Leary [sic]
• Darla Pettigrew
• Aidan Pierce
• Alicia Privet
• Reginald Privet
• Regal (cat)
• Meg Roarke
• Patrick Roarke
• Ulga Rominov
• Rory
• Rosco
• Rosie
• Ryan
• Kaylee Skye
• Adam Solomen
• Ellen Solomen
• Thaddeus Solomen
• Sweetie (cat)
• Trace
• Richard Troy
• Detective Waver
• Yang
• Yin

Memorable Quotations

Peabody: “You’d never ask me to do something that wasn’t right. There’s a difference between right and regs sometimes. That’s why regs can change, but right doesn’t.”
And that, Eve realized, might be the long and short of why she’d made Peabody her partner.

• “Separately, you’re strong, clever people. Together you’re a force.” - Dennis Mira to Roarke
• “We might get that kind of unilateral support and screw the budget if Cobbe was just your average international contract killer, but we sure as hell have it because he wants to add you to his four hundred and forty-three kills. So don’t bitch to me about bleeding cops. Because they would. Every goddamn one of them would bleed for you” - Eve to Roarke about putting a police tracking device on himself
• “She now had a small army of cops to—if they actually found the bastard—take down one man. But she understood the sentiment, and the need. You came for one, you came for all.” - Eve musing about bringing her entire bullpen to Ireland to take down Lorcan Cobbe
• “One doesn’t leave one’s mates behind at such a time.” - Roarke about bringing Eve’s bullpen and commander and their EDD pals to Ireland to take down Cobbe
• “I said to him I’d never seen joy for me or pride in me shine in my mother’s eyes. But that’s not altogether true, because I’ve seen it in yours” - Roarke to Sinead about his misstatement to Cobbe

YANNIs

• Roarke told Eve he “was in the South of France, on what we’ll call an art deal,” but later tells Eve he “sold it [the Green Flash), as contracted, long ago and bought the nice little resort in Cannes.”
• Abernathy had been trying to apprehend Lorcan Cobbe for “nearly eight years” or “nearly six years.”
• Jennie O’Leary’s name was written as 'Jennie' throughout Vengeance in Death (except once) and as 'Jenny' in Salvation in Death and Shadows in Death.
• Audio Errors:
  • In the book, Eve said, “Lots of gold to mine,” but it was read in Roarke’s voice by Susan Ericksen.
  • When Eve and Roarke left Cobbe’s interview, Susan Ericksen said, “‘I’ll come for you!’ Roarke shouted.” It should be Cobbe shouted.