“Of course. Well, we’ll have a shower and you can fill me in.”
He listened, saying little as she ran it through for him. “So,” he said, as she pulled on loose flannel pants and a sweatshirt. “You were right about the girl.”
“That’s no girl, but yeah, I was right. The diary’s going to be one of the nails. I could have it cut open-the box, it’s in-”
“I can promise that’s not necessary.”
“Let’s take it in my office.” She hauled up a field bag. “I want it all on record. So maybe you could fumble just a little with the lock.”
“I certainly will not.”
“Okay, okay.”
“I’d like to explain what Magdelana was doing here.”
She slanted him a look. “Other than trying to lock lips with you?”
“More specifically,” he said carefully as they started out of the bedroom, “why I allowed her in our home.”
“I already got that. You needed to deal with it, with her. Needed to spell it out for her, give her the get lost, and put some of the fear of Roarke in her.”
“How fortunate I am, under the circumstances, to have a woman who understands me. Fear of Roarke?” he repeated.
“You can do the fear of God thing, but see, you can’t see Him, and most people feel He’s not going to really-what is it-smite them. You, however, are flesh and blood, and would do a lot worse than a smite. You’re a lot scarier than God.”
“I don’t know quite how to take that,” he said after a moment. “But meanwhile, do you want to know how this was handled?”
“Yeah, actually, I would.”
He told her while they made their way to her office, while she set down her bag, took out the diary. While she simply stood, staring at him.
“See? See? Holy crap. God wouldn’t have made her insides quiver like that, and you can bet your fine Irish ass they quivered like jelly. Can you really ban her from all your stuff? That’s like eighty percent of the known universe.”
“You exaggerate, it wouldn’t be more than fifty, and, oh, aye.” His grin was fast and fierce. “I bloody well can.”
“And you’ve got data on her that would interest the international authorities?”
“What do you take me for? Of course I do.” He waited a moment, reading her face perfectly. “I’m not giving it to you, Eve. Two reasons.”
“They’d better be good ones.”
“First, it’s not your concern, and don’t even think about raising that fist to me. This is my doing, her coming here, her causing trouble. Second, it’ll keep her up at night, for some time to come, wondering what I have, and what I might do with it. She’ll be looking over her shoulder a long time.”
“I think your first reason’s crap, but the second is really mean, really insidious. I like it a lot, so we’ll call it a wash.”
“Good. Well, I’ll open that for you, shall I, and we’ll have our Valentine’s dinner while we see what’s inside.”
“Um…”
“It’s pizza. It was to be pizza and champagne actually.”
“Seriously?”
“I know my wife as she knows me.” He tapped a finger on her nose. “So it’ll be pepperoni pizza and coffee-with the champagne for another time.”
“You know, you really are my Valentine.”
22
BEFORE BREAKING THE SEAL ON THE EVIDENCE bag containing Rayleen’s diary, Eve turned on her recorder, logged in the necessary data. She took the metal box-embossed with some sort of wide-petaled flowers-out of the evidence bag, set it on her desk.
“ Peabody found it in the kitchen recycler.”
“Clever Peabody,” Roarke replied as he chose a tool.
“If things hadn’t moved as fast as they did-au pair coming back and so on-if Peabody hadn’t been basically on the scene with the direct purpose of finding this, it might’ve been garbage by morning. Takes more than one cycle for something of this size, material, and density to break down. All she managed was to bang the box up.”
“A pity, too. It’s a lovely box. Sturdy, well made, which is why it held up as well as it did. The girl should have taken the book out of it. That might have broken down before it was found.”
“Some, but she doesn’t know everything. There’s a lot we can put back together in the lab. And…Okay, nice work,” she added, as he had the crushed and passcoded lock open in under ten seconds.
“Well, it’s not a titanium vault, after all.”
Hands already sealed, Eve lifted out the bright pink book inside. It was leather-bound, and again had Rayleen’s name across it in glittery silver letters. It also had a lock, and this one appeared to use an old-fashioned key.
“Comp would be faster than handwritten pages,” she commented.
“And I’ll wager, however indulgent her parents, they wouldn’t allow her to passcode anything on a comp. This…” He tapped a finger on the book. “This seems harmless, very traditional, something a young girl might enjoy.”
She stepped back and let Roarke finesse the lock.
“I’m going to want copies of everything inside there,” she told him.
“Before you read it?”
“No. I want to put the last few pages on record first, then make the copies. But even more, I want to know.”
She flipped through the pink-tipped pages, found the last entry. With her recorder trained on the tidy handwriting on pale pink pages with shiny gold edges, she read out loud.
“This morning I wore my pink-and-black plaid skirt and pink knee boots, and my white sweater with flowers on the hem and cuffs. I looked very pretty. I had fruit and yogurt and seven-grain toast for breakfast, and asked Cora to make real orange juice. That’s what she gets paid for. I had Brain Teasers. It’s getting a little boring, so I might find a way to quit. But still, I like knowing I’m smarter than any of the other students. Just like I’m better than anyone in my dance class. I could, if I wanted, be a prima ballerina one day.
“After BT, Cora and I took a cab to the Met. I don’t see why we couldn’t use a car service. I’m going to ask Daddy about that. I like the art, but mostly everyone who painted anything is dead anyway. I could be a famous artist if I wanted, and have my paintings in the Met. People would pay a lot of money just to look at my paintings. But I think I’d sell mine to collectors. I don’t want people who don’t knowanything and don’t deserve it to just stand there and stare at my work.”
“Interesting ego,” Roarke remarked.
Eve glanced up. “She had to have written this after her mother called them back home. And still, it’s full of I, I, I. Mira’s going to have a field day with this one.”
She looked back at the book, continued to read.
“I wassupposed to meet my mother for lunch at Zoology. It’s my favorite place for lunch, and we had to bookthree weeks in advance for the reservation. One day, when I’m famous, I won’t need a stupid reservation to go anywhere. People will be grateful if I bother to eat in their restaurant.
“After, I was going to the salon for a hair styling and a pedicure. I’d already decided on the Carnival polish, with glitter. Then Cora’s ’link beeped and it was my mother calling us home. We hadplans! We had reservations, but I had to come home, and the whole day was spoiled. My mother wasn’t even dressed when we got there. She’s so selfish.
“But it’s really all that nosy Lieutenant Dallas’s fault. I thought, at first, she was interesting, but she’s not. She’s just mean and pushy and stupid. Now I’ve had to fix everything. Again. It’s just as well, really. My mother’s so weak and silly, and my daddy’s been paying more attention to her lately than to me. So, I’ve taken care of it. It was easy. The easiest one so far.
“She hid pills in her lingerie drawer. As if I wouldn’t find them! All I had to do was make her some tea, and put the pills in it. Like I did with smelly old Mrs. Versy at the Kinley House last year. I had to use more with Mommy because Mrs. Versy was old and half-dead anyway.”