Down the Rabbit Hole

Roarke moved up beside her as they headed out. “He must have abilities. He’ll try to read you.”

“I know how to block. Peabody’s father’s a sensitive, and he taught her how to filter. She’s anxious about it, but we’ve got to go in. I want to see his place, see his reactions before we bring him in.”

“He’s not working alone.”

“Thought of that. This is what we do, Roarke.”

He knew it, all too well. “It’s one thing when your body’s on the line. This is your mind as well, so have a care with both.”

“Plan to.” She separated from him in the garage, got into the car with Peabody.

“I’m a little nervous,” Peabody admitted. “What if he tries to put—”

“Don’t say whammy.”

“What if he tries to put the thing I’m not saying on us?”

“Think about sex with McNab.”

“Huh?”

“Didn’t you say your father told you to fill your mind with other thoughts, confused and jumbled? Do that. Nobody’s going to want to keep pushing in if all he gets is you and McNab and sex.”

Catching Peabody’s smile, Eve hissed. “Not now. Stop thinking about it now. It creeps me out.”

“Just practicing.” Happily, Peabody practiced all the way uptown.

Rather than search for a space, Eve flipped up her On Duty light and double-parked. She didn’t think this first stage would take above fifteen minutes.

“Wow, this place is really beautiful.” Peabody studied the wide, three-level townhouse as they approached. “It looks sort of European. I bet it’s on the historic register. One of those great old buildings from the nineteenth century that survived the Urbans.”

“We can admire the architecture later.” Eve had been studying it as well. Doors, windows, exits. She doubted her quarry would rabbit—a loss of control and power—but she wanted the layout.

“Cop face—no bullshit, straight out.”

“Sorry, I’m thinking about sex with McNab.”

“I could learn to hate you,” Eve threatened, and rang the bell.

Palm plate, cams, police locks, she noted. She stared stony-eyed ahead until the voice came through the intercom.

“Please state your business.”

Not a computer, she thought. Not with that squeaky tone. So, at least two to take on.

“NYPSD. We need to speak with Doctor Bright.”

“Doctor Bright’s unavailable. Go away, and come back later.”

“You can open the door, or I’ll stand right here until I get a warrant to open it myself.”

And if he didn’t, she’d use the warrant she already had. But the door opened a crack. She had to look down a half a foot to meet the eyes of the man with a wild thatch of brown hair. Those eyes had the pinkish tint of a funky junkie.

“The doctor can’t talk to you now.”

Eve solved the first problem by getting her foot in the door, nudging it open a little wider. “Who are you?”

“I’m Dorbert Mouse. Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Eve Dallas.” Dormouse. It suited. “Why don’t you tell Doctor Bright I’m here, along with Detective Peabody?”

“Because he can’t be interrupted when he’s communing with the Other Side!”

The quick excitability spoke of something in addition to the funk.

“He needs to commune with us.” Eve nudged the door wider still and saw the brightly colored painting of a hookah-smoking caterpillar curled on a toadstool.

“Nobody invited you! Go away!”

“Look Mouse—or is that Dormouse?”

His pink-rimmed eyes filled with rage. His nose twitched manically. “You can’t see my whiskers! They’re not for you to see.”

He kicked her, the move so unexpected his foot connected with her shin before she anticipated it. Then he ran, bolting up the steps.

“Shit. Call the e-team in for backup,” Eve ordered, and pulled her weapon as she gave chase.

He bounded up, with her and her aching shin in pursuit, and Peabody coming up behind her shouting for the e-team to move in.

He made a fast turn on the second-floor landing and vanished. But not before Eve caught the movement of a wall panel sliding shut.

She tugged at it, got nothing, then ran her fingers along the carved chair rail. When the panel slid open again, she grabbed a statue of a white rabbit with an oversized pocket watch and used it to prop the panel open.

Inside, in half light, she saw crooked steps leading up, and leading down. She closed her eyes for a moment, heard the sound of feet scrambling.

“Up,” she said. “Watch your step.”

She went up two at a time and caught sight of the shin-kicker darting down an oddly slanted corridor toward a closed door. Blue light leaked under it.

At a full run she hit the door seconds after he scurried through and went in low, weapon sweeping.

Mouse jumped up and down in the blue light, the blue fog, squealing about his whiskers. A woman with long, dark hair giggled and twirled just outside the fog. She stopped when she saw Eve, and her face filled with rage.

“Off with her head!”

To Eve’s bemusement, the woman hefted fisted hands over her head as if brandishing an axe, then charged.

Because there was yet another woman—older, sitting in a chair blanketed with that blue mist, her head cocked under a feathered hat, her eyes glazed and glassy, Eve took the quickest route.

Two short, hard left jabs put the charging woman down.