She did sit down, dropping onto the little love seat beside him. “You have to fire me.”
“You’re telling me how to run my own business now?” His tone was cold, deliberately so. “However valued an employee you are, I don’t take orders from you.”
She leaned forward, elbows on knees, and covered her face with her hands. “If this is for friendship-”
“Partially, of course. The friendship and affection I have for you and for Caro. It’s also a matter of you being a very important part of Securecomp. And aside from that, I believe you’re innocent, and trust my wife to prove it.”
“She’s almost as scary as you.”
“And she can be more so, in certain areas.”
“How could I be so stupid!” Her voice was wavering again, tears shimmering in it. “How could I be such a fool?”
“You weren’t stupid. You loved him. Love’s supposed to make us fools, or what’s the point of it? Pull yourself together now. We don’t have much time, for believe me, when my cop says ten minutes, she means ten. The extermination program and shield, Reva, the Code Red.”
“Yeah.” She sniffled, wiped her hands over her face to dry it. “We’re close, nearly there. All the data’s on the secured unit in my office-double passcoded and blocked. Backup copies in the vault, encrypted. The latest was hand-delivered to your office yesterday. Also encrypted. Tokimoto can take it over. He’s the best choice. I can brief him on the areas he doesn’t know, or you can. Probably best if you bump LaSalle up to second-in-command on that. She’s as smart as Tokimoto, just not as creative.”
“Did you ever mention the project to your husband?”
She rubbed her eyes, then blinked them. “Why would I?”
“Think carefully, Reva. Any mention of it, however casual?”
“No. I might’ve said something like I had a hot one and that was why I was putting in some extra hours. But nothing specific. It’s Code Red.”
“Did he ask you about it?”
“He can’t ask me about what he doesn’t know,” she responded in a tone tight with impatience. “He was an artist, Roarke. His only interest in my work pertained to how I’d design and implement security for our house, and his work.”
“My wife’s a cop, and couldn’t be less interested in my business. But occasionally, for form anyway, she asks about it. How was your day, what are you working on, that sort of thing.”
“Sure, okay, sure. I’m not getting this.”
“Did he, or anyone else, ask you about this project, Reva?”
She leaned back. Her face was pale again, her voice thin and weary. “I guess he might have. What’s so hot about this one, something like that. I’d’ve told him I couldn’t talk about it. He might’ve teased me about it. He sometimes did that. Top secret, hush-hush. My wife, the secret agent or something.”
Her lip trembled so that she sank her teeth into it, biting back some control. “He got off on espionage, loved spy vids and games. But if he said anything it was just joking. You know how it is. Friends might do the same now and then, but they weren’t really interested.”
“Felicity, for instance?”
“Yeah.” And now those teary eyes opened, went hot. “She was all about art, fashion, socializing. Sneaky bitch. She’d say things like how could I stand being holed up in some lab all day, fiddling with codes and machines. And what was so damn interesting about that? But I never discussed details, not even on the minor projects. It would violate the confidentiality contract.”
“All right.”
“You’re thinking Blair’s dead and I’m in this fix because of the Code Red? That’s just not possible. He didn’t know anything, and nobody without clearance knew I was on it.”
“It may be very possible, Reva.”
Her head jerked around. Before she could speak, there was a brisk knock on the door. “Time’s up,” Eve called out.
She opened the door just as Reva was getting slowly to her feet. Reading Reva’s expression, Eve nodded at Roarke. “I take it you laid the groundwork.”
“He knew she was working on a top-level project, but the details weren’t discussed.”
“This can’t have anything to do with what happened to Blair,” Reva insisted. “If this was a terrorist hit, why wouldn’t they come after me, or you?” she said to Roarke. “Or any active member of the team?”
“Let’s try to find out,” Eve suggested. “Come back in here so we can lay this all out once, for everyone.”
“What does killing Blair accomplish?” Reva hurried out behind Eve. “It doesn’t affect the project.”
“Got you booked on a double homicide, didn’t it? Sit down. When’s the last time either of you were in Bissel’s studio?”
“Months for me,” Caro responded. “I was there last spring. April? Yes, I’m sure it was April. He wanted to show me the fountain he was working on for Reva’s birthday.”
“I was there last month,” Reva said. “Early August. I went there after work to meet him. We were going to a dinner party at Felicity’s. He cleared me, and I went up, waited a few minutes while he finished changing.”
“Cleared you?” Eve prompted.
“Yeah. He was a maniac about his studio security. Nobody, but nobody got the passcode.”
“You gave me the passcode.”
Reva flushed, cleared her throat. “I accessed it-on that same visit. I just couldn’t resist. And it seemed like the perfect time to field-test a new security scanner we were working on. So I accessed the code, tested it, and got clearance. Then I reset the security, and called up to Blair. I didn’t tell him because it would’ve pissed him off.”
“Did you ever go up there when he wasn’t around?”
“What for?”
“Poke around, see what he was up to.”
“I never spied on him.” She sent a long look toward Caro. “I never spied on him. Maybe I should have, maybe if I had I’d’ve known about him and Felicity long ago. But I respected his space and his privacy, and expected the same from him.”
“Did you know about him and Chloe McCoy?”
“Who?”
“Chloe McCoy, Reva. The pretty young thing who works in his gallery?”
“The little drama queen?” She laughed. “Oh, please. Blair couldn’t possibly have…” She trailed off as the cool, direct gaze had her belly trembling. “No. She’s hardly more than a child. She’s still in college, for God’s sake.” She curled herself into a ball and rocked. “Oh God. Oh God.”
“Baby. Reva.” Caro moved quickly to sit beside her daughter, wrap her arms around her. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry over him.”
“I don’t know if it’s over him, or over me. First Felicity, and now that-that brainless little coed. How many others?”
“It only takes one.”
Reva turned her face into her mother’s neck. “Like mother, like daughter,” Reva murmured. “If what you’re saying is true, Lieutenant, maybe it was some jealous boyfriend who killed them. Somebody who knew they were being cheated on.”
“That doesn’t explain why you were lured there at exactly the right time. It doesn’t explain why the passcodes on the elevator to the studio were changed at nearly the same time Blair Bissel and Felicity Kade were being murdered. It doesn’t explain why the computers at your home, at Bissel’s gallery and studio, and at Felicity Kade’s home-Feeney just verified”-she said to Roarke-”have all been infected with an as-yet-unidentified worm that has corrupted all data thereon.”
“A worm?” She pushed away from Caro. “All those computers, in all those locations? Corrupted. You’re sure?”
“I’ve examined two of them myself,” Roarke told her. “There’s every indication they were infected with the Doomsday worm. We’ll test to be certain, but I know what to look for.”