In Death 30 - Fantasy in Death

your com on mute. I don’t want to hear your voice coming out of my ass.” She stuck the communicator in her back pocket as Roarke chuckled.
    “Let’s make this official. Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Roarke, expert consultant, civilian, entering Var Hoyt’s building to interview suspect’s neighbor.”
    She used her master to gain entry.
    “You know, if I were him, I’d have the outer security rigged to alert me if anyone bypassed the normal entry procedure.”
    “Maybe. Still, he’d have to scramble to shut down operations in one space, secure it, get across the hall, unlock, get in, resecure. And when I push for another warrant, the security logs will show exactly that if so. Or we could just be interrupting an old couple’s quiet evening.”
    “Maybe they’re out doing the tango and drinking tequila shots.” He sent Eve a grin. “As we will be when we reach their age. After which we’ll come home and have mad sex.”
    “For God’s sake. This is on the record.”
    “Yes, I know.” He stepped off with her on Var’s floor. “I wanted those future plans to be official as well.”
    She aimed a smoldering look before stopping outside the entrance to the apartment across from Var’s. “He’s locked up over there. Full red. Here, too,” she noted.
    She knocked, waited, with a hand resting on the butt of her weapon. She poised to knock again when the speaker clicked.
    “Hello?”
    The voice was female and a bit wary.
    “Mrs. Stuben?”
    “That’s right. Who are you?”
    “Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD.” She held up her badge so the camera could see it. “We’d like to speak with you.”
    “Is there a problem? Is there something wrong? Oh my goodness! Is it one of the kids?”
    “No, ma’am,” Eve began even as the locks opened, and the security went to green. “No, ma’am,” she repeated when the door opened. “This is just a routine inquiry related to an ongoing investigation.”
    “An investigation?” The woman was small and slim in lounging pants and a flowered shirt. Her hair, tidy and ashy blond rode on her head like a helmet. “Harry! Harry! The police are at the door. I guess you should come in.”
    She stepped back, revealing a large, comfortable living area, crowded with dust catchers and photographs. The air smelled of lavender.
    “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just so flustered.” She patted a hand to her heart. “You can come right in, sit down. I was about to make some tea for Harry and me. A nice pot of tea while we watch our shows. Harry!” she called again, then sighed. “He’s got that screen on so loud he can’t hear me. I’m going to go get him. You just sit right down, and I’ll go get Harry.”
    “Mrs. Stuben, do you know your neighbor across the hall? Levar Hoyt?”
    “Var? Sure we do. Such a nice young man,” she said as she started up the stairs. “Smart as they come. We couldn’t ask for a better neighbor. Harry!”
    “Tea and flowers,” Eve murmured, “everything’s just so homey.”
    “Which, of course, automatically raises your suspicions. Still, some people . . .” He stopped in his turn around the room. “Eve,” he said, just as the locks on the door snapped shut, and the room shimmered away.
    “It’s a goddamn holo.” Eve reached for her weapon, and drew a sword. “Oh, fuck me!”
    “We’ll have to wait on that. To your left.”
    She barely had time to pivot, to block before the blade sliced down. She looked into a scarred face mottled with tattoos. It grinned while twin red suns turned the sky to the color of blood.
    She came up with her left elbow, rammed him in the throat. When he stumbled back she took a fraction of a second to glance toward Roarke. He fought a bare-chested mountain of a man armed with sword and dagger. Beyond him, in the blue observer’s circle, stood Var.
    Frightened, she thought as she met the next thrust. Scared, desperate, but excited, too.
    “They’ll come looking for us, Var!” she shouted. “Stop the game.”
    “It’s got to play out.”
    She felt the boggy ground under her feet, and part of her mind registered the heavy, wet heat, the scream of birds, the wildly improbable green of thick trees. Swords crashed, deadly cymbals, as she fought for any advantage.
    To play the game, she thought, you had to know the rules. “What the hell are we fighting about?” she demanded. She leaped when her opponent swung the sword at her knees, then struck back at his sword