The In Death Collection Books 26-29 - J.D. Robb [90]
It might’ve been a weird dream, maybe a stupid dream, Eve thought, but she rearranged her murder board in her home office the next morning.
Take a new look, she told herself. Look with fresh eyes.
Roarke came in behind her, studied the board with his hand on her shoulder. “Making patterns?”
“It’s that damn dream.” She’d told him about it when she’d dressed. “See, she’s got her infield—the people she trusts most because she’s seen to it they trust her, or have that connection to her through Anders. She’s aiming to take him out. She’s aimed for him from the first pitch of the first inning, but they don’t see it. He doesn’t see it, even though the batter and pitcher are in an intimate, one-on-one relationship.”
“And she doesn’t throw strikes.”
“Exactly. No, no, not the first inning,” Eve corrected. “The first was Bronson—warmed up on him, got some rhythm going on him. Maybe there were others, before Bronson, between him and Anders.”
“But she struck them out, or let them get on base, then picked them off. No score, no memorable stats.”
“Yeah.” She glanced back at him. “For an Irish guy you get baseball pretty well.”
“And still you benched me in the dugout. No batter on deck, either.”
“No, no potential next batter. This ends the game. When she goes for Ben, and she will, it’ll be another game, after a nice, relaxing hiatus. She pitches, she coaches, she manages. And she’s the center.” Eve put her fingertip on Ava’s photo. “She’s always the center. She didn’t call in relief, she called in a shadow. Nobody sees, nobody knows. And the shadow just follows the steps. One strike, in this case, and he’s out.”
“And the shadow fades off, so that she—once more—remains the center. If it follows your metaphor, the late inning relief pitcher only has one job, doesn’t she? Throw the strike.”
“Exactly right. This pitcher doesn’t have to do anything but follow orders. Doesn’t have to strategize, or worry about base runners because there aren’t any. Doesn’t have to depend on the field, or even know them. Follow orders, throw the strike, fade away. No postgame interviews, no locker-room chat. One pitch, and out of the game. It’s smart,” Eve had to admit. “It’s pretty damn smart.”
“You’re smarter, slugger.” Roarke gave Eve’s hair a quick tug. “It’s going to piss her off when you step up to the plate and hit a grand slam.”
“Right now, I’d settle for a base hit. With Bebe Petrelli.”
“Ava would never have considered you’d look that deep in her lineup. And that is the end of the baseball analogies.” He turned her, kissed her. “Good luck with the former Mafia princess.”
Bebe Petrelli lived in a narrow row house on a quiet and neglected street in the South Bronx. Paint peeled and cracked like old dry skin over the brittle bones of the houses. Even the trees, the few left that used their ancient roots to heave up pieces of the sidewalk, slumped over the street. Along the block, some windows were boarded like blind eyes while others hid behind the rusted cages of riot bars.
Parking wasn’t a problem. There couldn’t have been more than a half a dozen vehicles on the entire block. Most here, Eve thought, couldn’t afford the cost and ensuing maintenance of a personal ride.
“Revitalization hasn’t hit here yet,” Peabody commented.
“Or it took a detour.”
Eve studied the Petrelli house. It looked as if it might’ve been painted sometime in the last decade—a leg up on most of the others—and all the windows were intact. And clean, she noted, behind their bars. Empty window boxes sat like hope at the base of the two windows flanking the front door.
“You said both her kids go to private school on Anders’s nickel?”
Why the empty window boxes stirred pity inside her, Eve couldn’t say. “Yeah.”
“And she lives here.”
“Smart,” Eve replied. “It’s smart. What better way to keep someone under your thumb? Give them this, hold back that. Let’s go see what Anthony DeSalvo’s girl, Bebe, has to say about Ava.”
As they walked toward the front door, Eve saw