“It can’t be done by remote. We know it has to be done on site.” Reva sprang up to pace. “It’s a flaw in the system. It has to be uploaded directly into one of the units in a network to infect the network. It requires an operator.”
“That’s right.”
“If the units were infected with the Doomsday, it means someone got through the security. At my house, at the gallery, the studio, at Felicity’s. I can check those systems. I designed and installed all of them. I can run scans to see if they were compromised, and when.”
“If you run the scans, the results are inadmissible,” Eve told her.
“I’ll run them.” Roarke waited until she’d stopped pacing long enough to look at him. “You’ll trust me for that.”
“Damn right, Lieutenant.” Reva came back, sat on the edge of the sofa. “If this is-if what happened has something to do with the project, it means Blair was set up, too. It was all staged, all put together so I’d go running over there, so it would look to me, to everyone as if Blair and Felicity had been lovers. He’s dead because of what he was to me. They’re both dead because of me.”
“You can believe that if you want. Me, I’d rather deal with the truth.”
“But there’s no proof that he was ever unfaithful. It could all be faked. The photographs, the receipts, the discs. He could’ve been kidnapped and taken to Felicity’s. He might’ve been…”
She was running down as the facts, the timelines, the sheer weight of her fantasy began to bear down. “It doesn’t make any sense that way. I know it. But it doesn’t make sense any other way either.”
“It makes sense if Bissel was not only unfaithful with Felicity Kade and Chloe McCoy, but if the terrorists believed he had intel. More sense yet if they had reason to believe it.”
“Because they think I talk to him? But-”
“No. Because he talked to them.”
She jerked back as if Eve had struck her. “That’s not possible.” The words came out in a croak. “You’re saying that Blair had knowledge of, had contact with this radical terrorist group? That he fed them information? That’s ludicrous.”
“I’m saying it’s a possibility I’m going to explore. I’m saying person or persons unknown went to a lot of trouble to kill Bissel and Kade and point the finger at you. And if this had been taken as the classic crime of passion it appeared to be, those units wouldn’t have been given more than a cursory look.”
She waited, just a beat, as she watched the possibilities hit home with Reva. “It would be assumed that you, with your knowledge of computers and your temper, destroyed them out of spite. That the changes in security at Bissel’s gallery would be considered a glitch.”
“I can’t-I can’t believe this of him.”
“What you believe or don’t believe is up to you. But if you look deeper, if you start tugging on all the threads, you start to see there’s a lot more here than a couple of murders and a suspect served up to the cops on a shiny, silver platter.”
Reva got up, walked to the wide window that looked out over the river. “I can’t… You want me to believe this, to accept it, and if I do, it means everything was a lie. Right from the beginning, it was a lie. He never loved me. Or he loved me so little, he was seduced by whatever these people offered him. Money, or power, or just the thrill of playing techno-espionage for real instead of on VR. You want me to believe he used me, exploited everything I’ve worked for, the trust and respect I’ve earned in my field.”
“If you look at it straight, it’s about him. It’s not about you.”
Reva only stared out the window. “I loved him, Lieutenant. Maybe from where you’re sitting that’s weak of me, and stupid of me, but I loved him, the way I’ve never loved anyone else. If I accept all this, I have to let go of that, and everything it means to me. I’m not sure prison’s any worse.”
“You don’t have to believe anything, or accept anything. That’s your choice. But unless you want to find out if prison’s any worse, you’ll cooperate. You’ll submit to Truth Testing, level three, tomorrow at oh eight hundred. You’ll agree to full psychiatric eval by the departmental psychiatrist, and you’ll instruct your attorneys to clear all of your records. All of them, and those of your husband. If there are any sealed records-either yours or his-you will authorize us to break them.”
“I don’t have any sealeds,” Reva replied softly.
“You were Secret Service. You’ll have sealeds.”
She turned back, and her eyes were dazed like a woman living in a dream. “You’re right. Sorry. I’ll authorize.”
“And yours,” Eve said to Caro.
“Why hers?” The earlier resentment was forgotten as she leaped to her mother’s defense. “She’s not part of this.”
“She’s connected to you, to the victim, and to the project.”
“If you think she might be in danger, she should have protection.”
“I’ve seen to it, Reva,” Roarke stated, and earned a quick, surprised look from Caro.
“You might have mentioned it,” she mumbled, then sighed. “But I won’t argue. And I’ll take care of the authorization immediately.”
“Good. Meanwhile, both of you think, go back over any conversations you might have had with either victim, or anyone else for that matter, about work. Particularly this Code Red. I’ll be in touch.”
Eve started for the door, but Roarke lingered another moment. “Get some rest, both of you. Take tomorrow if you need it, but I expect you both back to work the following day.” He glanced over at Eve. “Any problem with that, Lieutenant?”
“Not for me. That’s your deal.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Detective”-Caro opened the door-”I hope you get some rest yourselves.”
“We’ll get to it.”
Eve waited until they were in the elevator and heading down before she spoke to Peabody. “That was a good hunch about Caro running Bissel. How’d you come to it?”
“She strikes me as a thorough woman and a thorough mom. She didn’t much like Bissel.”
“I got that part.”
“So, she doesn’t much like him, but she loves her daughter and wants her daughter to have what she wants. Still, she’d want to be sure he was what he said he was. She had to look.”
“And she looked deep enough that you’d figure he was straight.” Eve nodded. “Good catch, even if you did lead up to it with cookies.”
“Hey, they were really good cookies.”
“It earned you the rest of the day. Go home, get some sleep.”
“Seriously?”
“And report to my home office at seven hundred. Sharp.”
“With bells on.”
She looked down at Peabody’s colorful airsneaks. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“I can put in a couple more hours if you want to keep pushing.”
“Neither of us is going to do the investigation much good if we’re asleep on our feet. Let’s hit it fresh in the morning.”
“Take my car,” Roarke offered and Peabody’s eyes all but popped out of her head and onto her shoes.
“Really? What is this, be nice to Peabody day?”
“If it’s not it should be. You’ll save me from having to have it picked up, as I’d like to ride with the lieutenant.”
“Well, any little thing I can do.”
He gave her the code, and watched with amusement as she sauntered off. Then indulged herself with a little boogie dance around the hot red sportster.
“You know she’s not going to drive back to her place, not right away.” Watching Peabody’s happy dance, Eve fisted her hands on her hips. “She’s going to take it out on the freeway or the turnpike, open up that ridiculous engine, and end up somewhere in New Jersey, explaining to some traffic droid that she’s a cop, and on some bogus assignment. Then she’ll carom back to the city, get pulled over again, and give them the same story.”
“Carom?”
“That’s the sound that toy of yours makes. Carom. Then when McNab gets off shift, he’ll talk her into letting him take it out, and they’ll get pulled over again, have to flash their badges. And if any of the traffic droids interface, you’re going to get tagged and have to explain why a vehicle registered to you is being used by a couple of idiotic city detectives.”