“Ouch,” McNab commented with a sympathetic wince as he strolled in. “Heard you lost your ride, too.”
“Wasn’t much of a loss. Where’s Ewing?”
“Right behind me. Just had to make a pit stop. Okay if I pump some fuel? I’m empty.”
“There’s cobbler,” Peabody called out as he was already heading to the kitchen. “Apple-cranberry.”
“Cobbler?” Feeney repeated.
“Jeez. Go ahead.” Eve threw up her hands. “Eat, drink, be merry. Every multiple homicide investigation should have cobbler.”
“I’m going to get you something cold to drink,” Peabody decided. “You should probably be pushing fluids.”
With that Eve found herself alone in her office, wondering how she’d so easily lost the reins of her team.
Marital discord, she decided, was like some sort of low-grade fever that threw the whole system just slightly out of whack so you couldn’t manage to function at full capacity.
She wasn’t at the top of her game, that was for sure, and had no idea how to get back there again.
“You want food,” she snapped out the minute Reva came in, “get food. You want drink, get drink. But make it fast. This isn’t a damn twenty-four/seven.”
Reva merely angled her head. “I’m fine, thanks. But I’m betting you feel as bad as you look. Roarke and Tokimoto are going to be a few more minutes. They’re at a flash point.”
“They aren’t the only ones. We’re not going to wait for them. Or for anybody else!” she called out. “You’re going to want to sit down for this.”
“Because this is going to be a really long lecture or because you’re going to, metaphorically, give me a punch?”
“I’m hoping you can take a punch.”
Reva nodded and took the closest chair. “Don’t pull it. Whatever it is, I’d rather you go for the knockout instead of a lot of testing jabs. I’m tired. And with every hour that passes, I feel more of an idiot for not seeing what was in front of my face, day after day, for over two years.”
“What was in front of your face was a guy who behaved and portrayed himself as someone who loved you, and was brought into your life by someone else you trusted.”
“Goes a long way to measuring how well I judge people.”
“They were pros at what they did, and they worked hard to set you up, right along. Were you supposed to look at this guy and think: Hey, secret agent?”
“No.” Reva’s lips curved. “But you’d think I’d get some vibes about liar and cheat.”
“They screened you and they studied you. They knew everything there was to know about you before you met either of them. They knew what was public and private. You were laid up for months for shielding a president, for doing your job. Maybe they hoped you’d have some resentment about that, or that your work for the government would make you open to working with them.”
“Fat fucking chance.”
“And when they got that, they moved on you personally. He knew what you liked to eat, what flowers you preferred, your hobbies, your finances, who you slept with or cared about. You were nothing to them but a tool, and they knew how to use you.”
“The first night, at the art showing, he asked me if I’d have a drink with him. Great-looking guy, funny, sweet, hey, why not. We sat for hours, talking. I felt like I’d known him all my life. Like I’d been waiting for him all my life.”
She looked down at her hands. “I’d been involved before, pretty serious involvement before I was injured, then that fell apart. But nothing came close to what I felt for Blair. And it was all fabrication. It wasn’t perfect. He’d get sulky or irritated at the least slight or criticism, but I figured that was part of the deal, you know? Part of being married and figuring each other out, making each other happy. I wanted to make him happy. I wanted to make it work.”
“It’s never perfect,” Eve said half to herself. “Whenever you think it is, something sneaks up and bites you on the ass.”
“I’ll say. Anyway, I’m tired. Tired of feeling stupid, of feeling sorry for myself. So tell me why I’m sitting down. One punch.”
“Okay. It’s my belief that Blair Bissel orchestrated and committed the homicides at Felicity Kade’s apartment, killing her and his brother in order to fake his own death and implicate you.”
“That’s just crazy.” The words wheezed out as if the punch had landed hard on her throat. “He’s dead. Blair’s dead. I saw him.”
“You saw what you were meant to see, just as you saw what you were meant to see when he approached you two and a half years ago. And this time, you were in shock and almost immediately incapacitated.”
“But… it was verified.”
“I think he switched his identification records with his brother’s, in preparation. I believe he set an elaborate stage so that you, the police, and the clandestine organizations he’d been playing against each other would believe him dead. Nobody looks for the dead, Reva.”
“It’s insane. I’m telling you it’s insane, Dallas.” Reva got to her feet as the others came in from the kitchen. “Blair was a liar and a cheat. He used me. I’m doing everything I can to accept all that. I’ll live with that. But he wasn’t a killer, he wasn’t someone who could… could hack two people to death.”
“Who stood to gain from his death?”
“I-you mean financially?”
“In any way.”
“I did, I guess. There’s money, decent money. You know all that.”
“Decent money,” Eve repeated. “You’ve got decent money of your own. He’ll have hidden accounts, and once we find them-”
“Located, listed, and filed on your computer,” Roarke said as he walked in. “As requested, Lieutenant.”
“How much?”
“In excess of four million spread over five accounts.”
“Not enough.”
Roarke inclined his head. “Perhaps not, but it’s all there is. He was neither particularly frugal nor skilled in investment areas. All the accounts have slow, steady leaks over the six years they’ve been opened. He spends, and he speculates, and most usually loses his capital.”
“That plays.” She began to re-evaluate. “Okay, that plays. He goes through money, he needs more money. A big score.”
“So he kills Felicity and his brother to get it, implicates me? You’re painting a monster. I wasn’t married to a monster.”
“You were married to an illusion.”
Reva’s head jerked back as if the blow had landed. “You’re grabbing at air because you don’t have anything else. And because you don’t want to leave me with nothing. I loved him, whether or not he was an illusion. Do you understand the concept?”
“I’m familiar with it.”
“You want me to believe I loved someone capable of murder. Cold-blooded, cold-minded murder.”
It took all her will to keep her gaze from flicking, even for an instant, toward Roarke. And to keep her heart and mind from asking herself that same question.
“What you believe is your own business. How you handle this is up to you. If you can’t deal with the direction of my investigation, you’re no use to me.”
“You’re the cold-blooded one. The cold-minded one. And I’ve been used just about enough.”
When she strode out, Tokimoto eased away from the door and followed her.
“Gee, she took that well.” Now Eve allowed herself a slow scan of faces. “Would anyone like to complete this briefing, or should we break for comments about my need for sensitivity training?”
“It’s a hard knock, Dallas,” Feeney said. “No way for you to pretty it up for her. She’ll be back when she shakes it off.”
“We’ll work without her. Bissel has accounts in various locations, odds are he’s got a bolt-hole-a lavish one, maybe more than one. He’s still in the city, cleaning up after himself, so he must have one here. We find it.”