The in Death Collection Books 11-15 - J. D. Robb [528]
Julianna tipped her head back and laughed. “Payback’s a bitch, and I haven’t even started. I want what I’ve always wanted. To do what pleases me and to live very, very well. You took eight years, seven months, and eight days from me, Eve. I’m going to balance the scales. I can and I will, tossing the bodies of silly old men at your feet. So you know how simple it is for me, here’s a tip. The Mile High Hotel, Denver. Suite 4020. The man’s name is Spencer Campbell. I’ll see you again soon. Very soon.”
“Yeah, you will,” Eve retorted as the screen went blank. “Peabody, get me that hotel on the ’link. I want head of security.”
The suite had been reserved in the name of Juliet Darcy, who had checked in the night before, securing the room for two nights with cash.
“The victim is Spencer Campbell, of Campbell Investment Consultants. The top man.” In the conference room at Central, Eve brought his image on-screen. “Age sixty-one, divorced, currently separated from wife two. He had an appointment scheduled for a personal consult with Juliet Darcy in her hotel suite. Breakfast meeting, eight hundred Denver time. About the same time I was kicking in the door here in New York. She’s very fucking cocky these days. Campbell had been dead less than thirty minutes when security broke in. Julianna didn’t bother to check out, just grabbed her overnight bag, set the DO NOT DISTURB light on the door, and waltzed out. Autopsy and lab reports will confirm that Campbell’s coffee was poisoned.”
“She goes all the way to Denver to off this guy.” Feeney dragged a hand through his wiry hair. “What’s the point?”
“To prove she can. He was nothing to her. Just an easily sacrificed pawn to show me she can keep racking them up, when and where she wants, while I scramble around trying to find her. She breaks pattern again, because she wants to show me she’s unpredictable.”
And, Eve thought, she doesn’t want me to sniff out that she’s looking at Roarke. For victims she’d stick with what she’d called silly old men. Killing them as decoys to disguise her ultimate goal.
They died because of you.
Eve blocked out the voice, and the guilt. Most of the guilt.
“She had potential targets selected before she went down, and may have continued to select and research from inside.”
“Did some electronic surveillance and research on Pettibone and Mouton from the prison office units,” Feeney confirmed. “We dug out bits and pieces of it. Nothing on this guy or any others at this point. Nothing on personal business—financials, real estate, travel inquiries.”
“She used her personal for that.” Supervisor Miller, she thought in disgust, would have a lot to answer for before she was done with him. “Most likely diddled on the office machines early on, but made sure she had a personal for data she couldn’t risk having traced.”
She took a pass around the room. “She’s got grease, and plenty of it. My personal grease expert states that it’s most likely she stashes it in various numbered accounts in various locations. We’ve got no line to tug to the money. Loopy claims Julianna told her she had her own place here in New York. She’s stuck to that during Interview with the Chicago cops, but can’t or won’t expand. My guess is she doesn’t know the location. Julianna might have passed the time chatting with her, but wouldn’t give her anything traceable.”
“We’re running private residences through EDD.” Feeney dug out a handful of nuts. “But with no time frame of purchase or lease, no area, no name or names to feed in, we’re mostly jerking off there.”
“She’ll spend money on herself.” Eve thought how polished and fit Julianna had looked in person, in the vid. “But she’d be smart enough to use cash. We run high-end stores, salons, restaurants. But as this is goddamn New York, needless shopping nirvana, we’re jammed there, too.”
She tried to clear her head. “We keep at that. Put some drones on the ’links to shops. Maybe we can hook that