Page 116 of Thankless in Death

“Fire escape?”

“Yeah.”

“I wouldn’t bother with the costume. I’d invest in a good jammer, a good scanner. He grew up in the neighborhood, and has probably accessed fire escapes before. I’d go that way, scan the windows for alarms, jam if any. If they’ve locked the windows, which a great many people comfortable in their third-floor unit don’t, a simple glass cutter can be used to lift a window lock. A child could do it.”

“Which you did.”

“Oh, as often as possible. Then he’s in, and unless he’s drawn any attention getting in, he doesn’t have building security picking him up.”

“He’s got a bum foot.”

“That’s what blockers are for.”

“Yeah.” She jammed her hands in her pockets. “The comp likes the model.” Eve tapped the photo.

“She’s lovely.”

“And she’s got a male cohab. He’s lovely, too—and bigger and fitter than Reinhold. Plus her security’s out of his reach. This would be his first break-in, if he goes that route. He was already in his parents’ apartment, had the key for the ex’s, and bashed the teacher as she came back in with her dog. He’s never had to deal with locks, security, or an actual break-in. Logically, he should aim for the target with the easiest access.”

“And you see this couple.”

“No, I see Asshole Joe—this guy. He’s the only one of Reinhold’s friends who’s shrugging off what he’s done. I think Reinhold could talk his way into Joe’s place, or lure him out, depending on what he wants. He may even know a way in since he’s probably hung there often enough. He’s the easiest hit, but probably not the most satisfying.”

“Ah.” Roarke scanned the board, the photos, the notes applied. “And not covered, I see, as the others are.”

“No, he shrugged off protection, too. Crowding him, cramping his style with the ladies or some such shit according to the reports. I’m going to have a face-to-face with Asshole Joe today.”

“Who’d be the most satisfying?”

“On my scale, Wayne Boyd. Reinhold’s carried that grudge close, and I’d bet every time he bashes someone with a baseball bat, he thinks of Coach Boyd, getting benched, being the goat instead of the hero in the championship game.”

“Boyd said he hadn’t come down on the boy about the strike out, but kids being kids...”

“Yeah, some of them would’ve had some choice words for him. And reaching that conclusion, I’ve done what I can to find and reach all the members of Reinhold’s team, the opposing team.”

“Do you honestly think he’d go that deep, that far?”

“I think it’s a damn good thing he wasn’t involved in Red Horse,” she said, referring to a major case she’d closed. “If he had a chance to use the Menzini virus? He’d take out everyone who’s ever sent him a cross-eyed look, and all the bystanders he could while he was at it.

“He’s not that different from Lewis Callaway—the same whining, entitled, pay-you-all-back mentality. The difference is he likes being there, he likes the power of killing face-to-face, having his hand in it.”

“He lacks Callaway’s control, if control’s the word for it. And needs that connection, we’ll say, with his victims.”

“That’s close enough,” Eve agreed. “Still, with the Boyds, you’ve again got pretty good security on their building, and a whole family to take on. He’d never get in the door, or a window without excellent equipment and honed B and E skills. His best move there would be to grab the wife or one of the kids, use that to bait Boyd into coming to him or giving him access. But that’s risky. Really risky.”

She paced away, paced back. “He’s pissed off. The injury has to have him pissed off. At the same time, he walked out of Farnsworth’s with millions, so he’s smug. He’s won every round, so that’s made him cocky. And still he’s a coward. He thinks he’s brave, he thinks he’s found his strength, his purpose, his life’s work, but everything he’s done is with the mind-set of a scared, spoiled, ungrateful child inside a man’s body.”

“Well now, it couldn’t be said by any definition I was spoiled as a child, but ungrateful I surely was. It’s hard to be thankful for the boot or the fist. And scared, that, too, most of the time. I’d’ve gone for the shiniest prize, I’m thinking.”

“You were never a coward.”

He met her eyes, thought of his father. “He terrified me, every day, even when I learned defiance could be a shield of sorts. And the last beating he gave me, one that nearly put me in the ground? I wonder still if I’d’ve been scared enough to go back to him, as he was all I knew. But Summerset found me, took me in. Gave me a choice. Not that I was altogether grateful for it, at the start of it.”

Eve took his hand. Sometimes she forgot he’d been a child, as frightened, lost and beaten down as she.

“He’d have been my shiniest prize,” Roarke murmured. “Somewhere down the line, if someone hadn’t beaten me to it. I couldn’t have lived in the world, or felt a man if he’d been breathing in it.”

She wondered what he would think or feel if he knew the person who’d beaten him to it had been Summerset. And that, she thought, wasn’t hers to tell.

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