“This has taken me by surprise, I have to admit.” Her fingers fussed with her hair, red against red. “I don’t know how you can put a price on what I gave that child, or what it’s costing me to turn away from her now.”
“But you’ll manage to do so, I’m sure.”
It was temper he saw deepen the color in her cheeks, not embarrassment. He merely kept that mildly interested look on his face.
“I’d think a man in your position can afford to be generous with someone in mine. That girl would likely be in jail instead of putting people in one if it wasn’t for me. And she wouldn’t even speak to me when I went to see her yesterday.”
She looked away, blinking at tears he noted she could call up at will.
“I think we’re past that now.” He allowed a sliver of impatience to come into his voice. “What’s your price?”
“I think two million dollars wouldn’t be unreasonable.”
“And for two million dollars… that’s U.S. dollars?”
“Of course it is.” Faint irritation took the place of tears. “What would I want with foreign money?”
“For that, you and your Bobby will happily go back to where you came from and leave my wife alone.”
“She doesn’t want to see us?” She raised her hands as if in defeat. “We won’t be seen.”
“And if I find that measure of compensation a bit too dear?”
“For a man of your means, I can’t imagine, but… I’d be forced to mention the possibility of my—being upset by all this—discussing the situation with someone. Maybe a reporter.”
He swiveled lazily again. “And that would concern me, because…”
“Being a sentimental woman, I kept files on every one of the children I was in charge of. I have histories, details—and some of those might be difficult, even embarrassing for you and for Eve. Did you know, for instance, that she’d had sexual relations repeatedly, and all before she was nine years old?”
“And do you equate rape with sexual relations?” His tone was mild as milk, even as his blood boiled. “That’s quite unenlightened of you, Ms. Lombard.”
“Regardless of what you call it, I think some people might feel a woman with that kind of thing in her makeup isn’t the sort who should be a lieutenant of the police department. I’m not sure of that myself,” she added. “Maybe it’s my civic duty to talk to the media, maybe her superiors at the police station.”
“But two million—that’s USD—would outweigh your civic duty.”
“I just want what’s coming to me. Did you know she had blood on her when she was found? She… or someone else… washed most of it off, but they did tests.”
Her eyes were brighter now, as bold and as sharp as her long red nails. “And not all the blood was hers.
“She used to have nightmares,” Trudy continued. “And it seemed to me that she was stabbing somebody to death in those nightmares. I wonder what people would make of that, if I was upset and said something. I bet people’d pay good money for a story like that, considering who she is now. And who she’s married to.”
“They might,” Roarke agreed. “People often enjoy wallowing in another’s pain and misery.”
“So I don’t think the compensation I mentioned is too dear. I’ll just I take it and go back to Texas. Eve won’t have to think about me again, even after all I did for her.”
“You’ve misspoken. It was to her, not for her. Now then, what you don’t understand, Ms. Lombard, is I’m compensating you right now.”
“You’d better think before—”
“I’m compensating you,” he interrupted, “by not getting up, coming over there, and twisting your head off your neck with my bare hands.”
She gasped, theatrically. “You’re threatening me?”
“Indeed, I’m not,” he continued in the same easy tone. “I’m explaining to you how you’re being compensated for walking away from this. I’m telling you what’s not happening to you, and believe me, it’s costing me dearly not to put my hands on you for what you did to my wife when she was defenseless.”
He rose, slowly. There wasn’t a gasp this time, and no theatrics. She simply froze as all the blood drained out of her face. Finally, he decided, she saw what was under his own shell, under the sophistication, the style, the manners money had bought him. Even a viper hadn’t a prayer against it.
With his eyes on hers, he came around the desk, then leaned back against it. Close enough that he heard her breath shudder out.
“Do you know what could be done, what I could do like that?” He snapped his ringers. “I could kill you, here and now, without a flinch. I could have as many people as I deemed appropriate swear you’d left this office hale and hearty. I could have security discs altered to prove it. They’d never find your body—what was left of it when I was done with you. So consider your life—which I assume is worth a considerable amount to you—your compensation.”
“You must be crazy.” She shrank back in her chair. “You must be out of your mind.”
“Consider that if you ever think of bargaining with me again… If you consider lining your pockets by speaking of a child’s torture and nightmare for money… If you ever attempt to contact my wife again… Think of that, and be afraid. Be afraid,” he repeated, leaning toward her a bit, “because restraining myself from carving pieces of you away, slowly, one at a time, is irritating. I dislike being irritated.”
He took one step toward her, had her scrambling to her feet and backing toward the door. “Oh, and you may want to pass the message on to your son, should he feel inclined to try my patience.”
When she reached the door, fumbled behind her for it, he spoke softly. “There’s nowhere in or off this world you could hide from me if you do anything more to hurt my wife. Nowhere I wouldn’t go to settle with you for it.” He waited a beat, smiled, and said: “Run.”
She ran, and he heard a thin scream, like a wheezing breath as her footsteps pounded away. He dipped his hands in his pockets, closed one over Eve’s button again as he walked back to study the dank gloom of the December sky.
“Sir?”
He didn’t turn as his admin stepped into his office. “Yes, Caro.”
“Did you want Security to monitor Ms. Lombard’s exit?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“She seemed to be in a hurry.”
He watched the ghost of his reflection smile a little. “She had a sudden change of plans.” He turned now, glanced at his wrist unit. “Well, it’s time for lunch, isn’t it? I’ll go up, greet our guests. I have quite the appetite this afternoon.”
“I imagine,” Caro murmured.
“Oh, and Caro?” he said as he strolled toward his private elevator. “Would you notify Security that neither Ms. Lombard nor her son— I’ll see they have an ID print of him—should be given access to this building?”
“I’ll take care of it right away.”
“One more thing? They’re staying at the West Side Hotel, over on Tenth. I’d like to know when they check out.”
“I’ll see to that, sir.”
He glanced back as the elevator opened. “You’re a treasure, Caro.”
She thought, as the door closed behind him, that at moments like this she was pleased he thought so.
Chapter 4
TO KEEP HER MIND BUSY, EVE CONCENTRATED on paperwork and follow-ups. Dealing with the drone work had the added benefit of getting her desk reasonably clear before the holidays snuck up and bit her in the ass.
She was making considerable headway when Peabody came to her office door.
“Tubbs’s tox came back positive for traces of Zeus, and various others. Other vic was clean. The bodies, such as they are, will be released to next of kin tomorrow.”
“Good job.”
“Dallas?”
“Mmm. I’m sending the squad’s expense chits up. Most of them,” she said with a sneer. “Baxter and I are going to have a little chat.”
“Dallas.” Eve glanced up, saw Peabody’s face. “What?”
“I’ve got to go to court. Celina.”
Eve got to her feet. “We’ve already given our testimony.”