“But he can’t get to her, or them.”
“No, I got them covered. And maybe that’s part of the problem. Why it’s stalled.”
“If you use her as bait, you could lure him out.”
With the wineglass cupped in her hand, Eve tipped back, closed her eyes. “She’d do it, too. I can see that in her. She’d do it because it’s a way to end it, and because it makes a good story, and because she’s gutsy. Not stupidly, but gutsy enough to go for this. Just like her grandma.”
“Gutsy enough, because she’d trust you to look out for her.”
Eve shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t like to use civilians as bait. I could put a cop in her place. We can fix one up to look enough like her to pass.”
“He’d have studied her. He might see through it.”
“Might. Hell, he might even know her. Anyway, I’m too tall. Peabody’s the wrong body type.”
“A droid could be fashioned.”
“Droids only do what they’re programmed to do.” And she never fully trusted machines. “Bait needs to be able to think. There’s someone else he might go for.”
“Judith Crew.”
“Yeah. If she’s still alive, he might try for her. Or the son. If neither one of them is a part of this, he might push those buttons. There’s nobody else left from back then, nobody with direct knowledge of what went down, and how. He can’t even be sure they exist.”
“Eat.”
Distracted, she looked down at the pizza. Because it was there, she picked it up, bit in, chewed. “It’s a kind of fantasy. Now that I see he’s younger than I assumed, it makes more sense to me. It’s a treasure hunt. He wants them because he feels he’s entitled to them, and because they’re valuable, but also because they’re shiny,” she added, thinking of Peabody outside the display windows at Fifth and Forty-seventh.
“You talked me into swimming around that reef off the island. Remember? You said not to wear my pendant deal. Not only because, hey, big fat diamonds can get lost in the ocean, but because I shouldn’t wear anything shiny in there. Barracudas get hyped up when something shines and gleams in the water and can take great big, nasty bites out of you.”
“So you have a barracuda on a treasure hunt.”
Yeah, she liked bouncing a case off Roarke, Eve thought. You didn’t have to tell him anything twice, and half the time didn’t have to tell him the first time.
“I don’t know where this is taking me, but let’s play it out. He wants them because he feels entitled, because they’re valuable and because they’re shiny. This tells me he’s spoiled, greedy and childish. And mean. The way a bully’s mean. He killed not only because it was expedient but because he could. Because they were weaker and he had the advantage. He hurt Cobb because there was time to, and he was probably bored by her. This is how I see him. I don’t know what it gets me.”
“Recognition. Keep going.”
“I think he’s used to getting what he wants. Taking it if it isn’t given. Maybe he’s stolen before. There was probably a safer way to get information, but he chose this way. It’s more exciting to take something that isn’t yours in the dark than to bargain for it in the light.”
“I certainly used to think so.”
“Then you grew up.”
“Well, in my way. There’s a thrill about the dark, Eve. Once you’ve experienced it, it’s difficult to resist.”
“Why did you? Resist.”
“I wanted something else. More.” He took her wine for a sip. “I’d built my way toward it, with the occasional and often recreational side step. Then I wanted you. There’s nothing in the dark I could want as I want you.”
“He doesn’t have anyone. He doesn’t love. He doesn’t want anyone. It’s things he craves. Shiny things that gleam in the dark. They’re shinier, Roarke, because they already have blood on them. And I think, I’m damn sure, some of that blood runs in him. They’re more valuable to him, more important to him, because of the blood.”
She rolled her shoulders. “Yeah, I’ll recognize him. I’ll know him when I see him. But none of this gets me any closer to where he is.”
“Why don’t you get some rest?”
She shook her head. “I want to look at the matches.”
Steven Whittier sipped Earl Grey out of his favorite red mug. He claimed it added to the flavor, a statement that caused his wife, who preferred using the antique Meissen, to act annoyed. Still, she loved him as much for his everyman ways as she did for his sturdiness, dependability and humor.
The match between them-the builder and the society princess-had initially baffled and flustered her family. Patricia was vintage wine and caviar, and Steve was beer and soy dogs. But she’d dug in her fashionable heels and ignored her family’s dire predictions. Thirty-two years later, everyone had forgotten those predictions except Steve and Pat.
Every year on their anniversary, they tapped glasses to the toast of “It’ll never last.” After which, they would laugh like children pulling one over on a bunch of grown-ups.
They’d built a good life, and even his early detractors had been forced to admit Steve Whittier had brains and ambition, and had managed to use both to provide Pat with a lifestyle they could accept.
From childhood he’d known what he wanted to do. To create or re-create buildings. He’d wanted to dig in his roots, as he’d never been able to do as a child, and provide places for others to do the same.
He’d structured Whittier Construction from the ground up, through his own sweat and desire, his mother’s unbending belief in him-then Pat’s. In the thirty-three years since he’d begun with a three-man crew and a mobile office out of his own truck, he’d cemented his foundation and added story after story onto the building of his dream.
Now, though he had managers and foremen and designers on his payroll, he still made it a habit to roll up his sleeves on every job site, to spend his day traveling from one to another or burrowing in to pick up his tools like any laborer.
There was little that made him happier than the ring and the buzz of a building being created, or improved.
His only disappointment was that Whittier had not yet become Whittier and Son. He still had hopes that it would, though Trevor had no interest in or talent for the hands-on of building.
He wanted to believe-needed to believe-that Trevor would settle down soon, would come to see the value of honest work. He worried about the boy.
They hadn’t raised him to be shallow and lazy, or to expect the world handed to him on a platter. Even now, Trevor was required to report to the main offices four days a week, and to put in a day’s work at his desk.
Well, half a day, Steve amended. Somehow, it was never more than half a day.
Not that he got anything done in that amount of time, Steve thought as he blew on his steaming tea. They would have to have another talk about it. The boy was paid a good salary, and a good day’s work was expected. The problem, of course, or part of it, was the trust funds and glittery gifts from his mother’s side of the family. The boy took the easy route no matter how often his parents had struggled to redirect him.
Given too much, too easily, Steve thought as he looked around his cozy den. But some of the fault was his own, Steve admitted. He’d expected too much, pinned too many hopes on his son. Who knew better than he how terrifying and debilitating it could be for a boy to have his father’s shadow looming everywhere?
Pat was right, he thought. They should back off a bit, give Trevor more room. It might mean taking a clip out of the family strings and setting him loose. It was hard to think of doing so, of pushing Trevor out of the nest and watching him struggle to cross the wire of adulthood without the net they’d always provided. But if the business wasn’t what he wanted for himself, then he should be nudged out of it. He couldn’t continue to simply clock time and draw pay.