“She was a bit annoyed,” Roarke said with a wide, wide grin.
Eve said nothing, simply watched as Trudy was escorted down, and quickly made her way out of the building.
“Unharmed, as you see, and where she went from there, I couldn’t say.”
“She wasn’t afraid of her killer.” Eve’s gaze met his. “But she was afraid of you.”
He held up his hands, palms out. “Never laid a hand on her.”
“You don’t have to,” Eve replied. “But you’re clear. You had a record going inside your office. You would have.”
He lifted a shoulder. “And your point?”
“You didn’t offer that to Feeney, to the investigation.”
“It’s private.”
She took a careful breath. “And if it comes to a squeeze?”
“Then I’ll give it to you, and you can decide if it’s needed. I said nothing to her that I’m ashamed of, but it’s your privacy. It’s ours, and we’re bloody well entitled to it.”
“If it has weight in the investigation—”
“It doesn’t. Damn it, Eve, take my word and let it go. Do you think I had her done, for Christ’s sake?”
“No. But I know you could have. I know a part of you could want that.”
“You’re wrong.” He braced his hands on the desk, leaned forward until their eyes were level. And his were cold as arctic ice. “If I’d wanted her done, I’d have given myself the pleasure of seeing to it personally. That’s who you married, and I’ve never pretended otherwise. It’s for you to deal with.”
He straightened, turned, started for the door.
“Roarke.”
When he glanced back, she had her fingers pressed to her eyes. It tugged at his heart even as temper and pride burned at his throat.
“I know who I married.” She lowered her hands, and her eyes were dark, but they were clear. “And you’re right, you’d have done it yourself. The fact that you could and would do that, for me—the fact that you wouldn’t, didn’t do that, again for me, well, sometimes it’s a hell of a jolt.”
“I love you, beyond all reason. That’s a hell of a jolt for me as well.”
“She kept me afraid, the way I think a dog’s afraid of the boot that kicks him, again and again and again. It’s not even a human fear, it’s more primal, it’s more… sheer. I don’t know how to say it.”
“You have.”
“She played on that, she used that, kept me down in the fear until there was nothing but just getting through one day to the next. And she did it without the boot. She did it by twisting what was inside me until it was all there was. Until, I swear I’d have ended myself, just to get out.”
“But you ran instead. And got out, and did more than anyone could expect.”
“This, all this, makes me remember too well what it was like to be nothing but fear.” The fact that her breath shuddered out told her the memory was very close to the surface. “I have to see this through, Roarke. I have to end this the way I am now. I don’t think I can if you walk away from me.”
He came back, took her hand, gripped it. “I never walk very far.”
“Help me. Please? Will you help me?”
“What do you need?”
“I need to see the run from your office.” She tightened her hand on his. “It’s not mistrust of you. I need to get into her head. I need to know what she was thinking, feeling, when she left. It can’t have been many hours after that she got beat up. Where did she go, who did she go to? It might help me figure it out.”
“All right then, but it’s not going into the file. Your word on that first.”
“You’ve got it.”
He left her to go back into his office. When he returned, he handed her a fresh disc. “There’s audio as well.”
With a nod, she plugged it in. Looked and listened.
She knew him, the ins and outs of him, and still, his face, his tone even more than his words, made her belly jitter.
When the run ended, she took the disc out, gave it back to him. “It’s a wonder she didn’t piss herself and ruin your expensive chair and carpet.”
“Would’ve been worth it.”
Eve rose, paced around the room. “She had to be working with someone. But if it was Bobby… nothing I have on him clicks for this. It takes a certain type to punch out your own mother. I don’t like him for it. Someone else.”
“She was an attractive enough woman. A lover, perhaps.”
“Logical, and lovers are notorious for using fists and weapons. So, she’s scared, scared bad, maybe wants to drop the whole thing and head back to Texas, and this pisses him off. She had a job to do, a part to play, and she didn’t pull it off. He slaps her around to remind her what’s at stake. When he comes to see her later, she’s whiny, she’s half-drunk. I want to go home. I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to do this anymore. And he’s pissed again, and kills her.”
“Logical.”
Yeah, logical, she thought. But shook her head. “I don’t like it. She doesn’t give up that easy. Plus, while you scared her, he hurt her. Maybe she’s caught between the two—fear and pain. But she’s not running from either. And why kill her?” She lifted her hands. “Wait until she’s calmed down. With her dead, you’ve got nothing.”
“He lost control.”
She brought the murder scene, the body, back into her head. “But he didn’t. Three blows. Three deliberate blows. He loses control, he’s drunk or juiced or just plain murderous, he beats the shit out of her, he smashes her face. He whales on her, but he doesn’t. He just bashes the back of her head, and leaves her.”
She rolled her shoulders. “I’m going to set up a board. I have to start putting this in order.”
“Well then, let’s have a meal first.”
chapter 9
SHE ATE BECAUSE HE’D NAG HER OTHERWISE.
And the mechanical act of fueling the body gave her more time to think. She had a glass of wine, nursing it throughout the meal. Small sips, like medicine taken reluctantly.
She left the wall screen on, data scrolling over. More pieces of the players she knew, or knew of, thus far. Trudy herself, and Bobby, Zana, and Bobby’s partner, Densil K. Easton.
Finances looked solid, if not spectacular, all around. Easton had attended the same college as Bobby, graduated with him. He was married, one offspring.
A knuckle rap for disorderly conduct his last year in college. Otherwise, no criminal.
Still, a good candidate if Trudy had a partner, or a lover. Who’d know the ins and outs of personal and professional data better than the son’s business partner?
Easy enough to get from Texas to New York. Tell the wife you’ve got to make a quick trip out of town, wheel a deal.
The killer had to be good with details. Remembering to take Trudy’s ‘link, bringing the weapon, or using something handy, then taking it along with him.
Quick temper, though, bashing a woman’s brains out with a couple of hard blows. But not rage.
Purpose.
And what was the purpose?
“Why don’t you talk it through,” Roarke suggested, tipped his glass toward her. “It might help.”
“Just circling around it. I need to see the body again, need to talk to Bobby and his wife again, check out this business partner, Densil Easton, get a line on if the vic had any lovers or tight friends. Sweepers didn’t find much. Plenty of prints. Vic’s, son’s, daughter-in-law’s, the maid’s. A couple of others that checked out as previous guests, back home and alibied at the time in question. No prints on the escape platform or ladder. Got blood there, and some smeared pigeon shit.”
“Lovely.”
“Little bit of blood in the drain, and I’m betting it’s the vic’s.”
“Meaning the killer didn’t wash up at the scene, and either wiped whatever he touched, or sealed up. So you’d say prepared.”
“Maybe prepared, maybe somebody who knows how to seize opportunity.” She was silent a long moment. “I don’t feel.”
“Don’t feel what?”
“What I’m used to feeling. They’re worried I can’t be objective because I knew her, but that’s not the problem. I don’t feel… I guess it’s a connection. I always feel some kind of connection. I knew her, and I don’t feel anything at all. I helped scrape two men off the sidewalk a few days ago.”