"Naturally."
"And this was… not a problem?"
"A problem? Do you mean, Lieutenant, did I, after nearly twelve years of divorce, harbor homicidal jealousy for my ex-wife? And did I slice the throat of the mother of my children and leave her dead on the street?"
"In words to that effect, Mr. Angelini."
He said something in Italian under his breath. Something, Eve suspected, uncomplimentary. "No, I did not kill Cicely."
"Can you tell me your whereabouts on the night of her death?"
She could see his jaw tense and noticed the control it took for him to relax it again, but his eyes never flickered. She imagined he could stare a hole through steel.
"I was at home in my townhouse from eight o'clock on."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Did you see or speak with anyone who can verify that?"
"No. I have two domestics, and both were out on their night off, which was why I was home. I wanted quiet and privacy for an evening."
"You made no calls, received none during the evening?"
"I received a call at about three A. M. from Commander Whitney informing me of my wife's death. I was in bed, alone, when the call came in."
"Mr. Angelini, your ex-wife was in a West End dive at one o'clock in the morning. Why?"
"I haven't any idea. No idea at all."
Later, when Eve stepped into the glass tube to descend, she beeped Feeney. "I want to know if Marco Angelini was in any kind of financial squeeze, and how much that squeeze would have loosened at his ex-wife's sudden death."
"You smell something, Dallas?"
"Something," she muttered. "I just don't know what."
CHAPTER FIVE
Eve stumbled into her apartment at nearly one A. M. Her head was ringing. Mavis's idea of dinner on her night off had been to take in a rival club. Already aware she would pay for the evening's entertainment in the morning, Eve stripped on the way to the bedroom.
At least the evening out with Mavis had pushed the Towers case out of her mind. Eve might have worried she had no mind left, but she was too exhausted to think about it.
She fell naked and facedown on the bed and was asleep in seconds.
Eve woke, violently aroused.
It was Roarke's hands on her. She knew their texture, their rhythm. Her heart tripped against her ribs, then bounded into her throat as his mouth covered hers. His was greedy, hot, giving her no choice, really no choice at all but to respond in kind. Even as she fumbled for him, those long, clever fingers pierced her, diving into her so that she bowed up into the frenzy of orgasm.
His mouth on her breast, sucking, teeth scraping. His elegant hands relentless so that her cries came out in whimpers of shock and gratitude. Another staggering climax to layer thick over the first.
Her hands sought purchase in the tangled sheets, but nothing could anchor her. As she flew up again, she gripped him, nails scraping down his back, up to grab handfuls of his hair.
"God!" It was the single coherent word she managed as he plunged into her, so hard, so deep she was amazed she didn't die from the pleasure of it. Her body bucked helplessly, frantically, continued to shudder even after he'd collapsed on her.
He let out a long, satisfied sigh and lazily nuzzled her ear. "Sorry to wake you."
"Roarke? Oh, was that you?"
He bit her.
She smiled quietly in the dark. "I didn't think you'd be back until tomorrow."
"I got lucky. Then I followed your trail into the bedroom."
"I was out with Mavis. We went to a place called Armageddon. My hearing's starting to come back." She stroked his back, yawned hugely. "It's not morning, is it?"
"No." Recognizing the weariness in her voice, he shifted, gathered her close against him, and kissed her temple. "Go to sleep, Eve."
"Okay." She obliged him in less than ten seconds.
He woke at first light and left her curled in the middle of the bed. In the kitchen, he programmed the AutoChef for coffee and a toasted bagel. The bagel was stale, but that was to be expected. Making himself at home, he sat by the kitchen monitor and skimmed through the paper to the financial section.
He couldn't concentrate.
He was trying not to resent the fact that she'd chosen her bed over their bed. Or what he wanted her to think of as their bed. He didn't begrudge her the need for personal space; he understood well the need for privacy. But his house was large enough that she could have appropriated an entire wing for herself if she wanted it.
Pushing away from the monitor, he paced to the window. He wasn't used to this struggle, this war to balance his needs with someone else's. He'd grown up thinking of himself first and last. He'd had to, in order to survive and then to succeed. One was every bit as important to him as the other.
The habit was difficult to break – or had been, until Eve.
It was humiliating to admit, even to himself, that every time he went away to see to business, a seed of fear rooted in his heart that she would have shaken herself loose of him by the time he returned.
The simple fact was, he needed the one thing she had refused him. A commitment.
Turning from the window, he went back to the monitor and forced himself to read.
"Good morning," Eve said from the doorway. Her smile was quick and bright, as much from the pleasure of seeing him as from the fact that her trip to Armageddon didn't have the consequences she'd feared. She felt terrific.
"Your bagels are stale."
"Mmm." She tested by trying a bite of the one on the table. "You're right." Coffee was always a better bet. "Anything in the news I should worry about?"
"Are you concerned with the Treegro takeover?"
Eve knuckled one eye as she sipped her first cup of coffee. "What's Treegro and who's taking it over?"
"Treegro's a reforestry company, hence the overly adorable name. I'm taking it over."
She grunted. "Figures. I was thinking more of the Towers case."
"Cicely's memorial service is scheduled for tomorrow. She was important enough, and Catholic enough, to warrant St. Patrick's Cathedral."
"Will you go?"
"If I can reschedule a few appointments. Will you?"
"Yeah." Thinking, Eve leaned back on the counter. "Maybe her killer will be there."
She studied him as he scanned the monitor. He should have looked out of place in her kitchen, she mused, in his expensive, meticulously tailored linen shirt and with the luxurious mane of hair swept back from that remarkable face.
She kept waiting for him to look out of place there, with her.
"Problem?" he murmured, well aware that she was staring at him.
"No. Things on my mind. How well do you know Angelini?"
"Marco?" Roarke frowned over something he saw on the monitor, took out his notebook, entered a memo. "Our paths cross often enough. Normally a careful businessman, always a devoted father. Prefers spending his time in Italy, but his power base is here in New York. Contributes generously to the Catholic Church."
"He stands to gain financially from Towers's death. Maybe it's just a drop in the bucket, but Feeney's checking it out."
"You could have asked me," Roarke murmured. "I would have told you Marco's in trouble. Not desperate trouble," he amended when Eve's eyes sharpened. "He's made some ill-advised acquisitions over the past year or so."
"You said he was careful."
"I said he was normally careful. He bought several religious artifacts without having them thoroughly authenticated. His zeal got in the way of his business sense. They were forgeries, and he's taken a hard loss."
"How hard?"
"In excess of three million. I can get you exact figures, if necessary. He'll recover," Roarke added with a shrug for three million dollars Eve knew she would never get used to. "He needs to focus and downsize a bit here and there. I'd say his pride was hurt more than his portfolio."
"How much was Towers's share of Mercury worth?"