"When was that?"
"Over a dozen years ago."
"And when was the last time you saw or spoke with Brennen?''
"I couldn't say precisely, but at least a dozen years ago."
"Yet you were in the Luxury Towers only days ago, the day of Brennen's murder."
"Coincidence," Summerset stated with a quick and belligerent lift of his shoulder. "I had no knowledge that he resided there."
"What were you doing there?"
"I've already told you that."
"Tell me again. For the record."
He hissed out a breath, poured water from pitcher to glass with a steady hand. In flat tones he repeated everything he'd told Eve the night before.
"Will Ms. Morrell verify your appointment with her?"
"I have no reason to believe otherwise."
"Maybe you can explain to me why the security cameras caught you in the lobby, walking to the elevators, getting in, and yet there is no visual record of you exiting the building by that route at the time you claim to have left. Or, for that matter, any other time that day."
"I can't explain it." He folded his perfectly manicured hands again and stared her down. "Perhaps you didn't look carefully enough."
Eve had reviewed the tape six times through the night. Now, she pulled up a chair and sat. "How often have you visited the Luxury Towers?"
"It was my first visit there."
"Your first," she said with a nod. "You've had no occasion to visit Brennen there before?"
"I had no occasion to visit Brennen there at any time, as I was unaware he lived there."
He answered well, she thought, carefully, like a man who'd skimmed his way through Interview before. She spared a glance at Roarke, who sat silently. Summerset's official record would be clear as a baby's, she imagined. Roarke would have seen to it.
"Why would you leave by an unsecured exit on the day of his death?"
"I did not leave by an unsecured exit. I left the way I came in."
"The record shows otherwise. It clearly shows you coming in. There is no record of you exiting the elevator on the level where you claim Ms. Morrell lives."
Summerset waved one of his thin hands. "That's ridiculous."
"Peabody, please engage and display evidence disc one-BH, section twelve for subject's examination."
"Yes, sir." Peabody slipped the disc into a Play slot. The monitor in the wall flickered on.
"Note the time display at the bottom right of the recording," Eve continued as she watched Summerset walk in and through the attractive lobby of the Luxury Tower. "Stop disc," she ordered when the elevator doors shut behind him. "Continue play, section twenty-two. Note time display," she repeated, "and the security label that identifies this area as the twelfth floor of the Luxury Towers. That is the floor in question?"
"Yes." Summerset's brows drew together as he watched the recording. The elevator doors did not open, he did not walk out. A cool line of sweat dribbled down his spine as time passed. "You've doctored the disc. You tampered with it to implicate me."
Insulting son of a bitch. "Oh, sure. Peabody'll tell you I spend half my time on a case screwing with the evidence to suit myself." Temper just beginning to brew, Eve rose again, leaned on the table. "Trouble with that theory, pal, is this is the original, straight out of the security room. I worked with a copy. I've never had my hands on the original. Peabody collected the security discs."
"She's a cop." Summerset sneered it. "She'd do what you ordered her to do."
"So now it's a conspiracy. Peabody, hear that? You and I tampered with the evidence just to make Summerset's life tough for him."
"You'd like nothing better than to put me in a cage."
"At this particular moment, you couldn't be more right." She turned away then, until she was certain her rapidly rising temper wouldn't rule her head. "Peabody, disengage disc. You knew Thomas Brennen in Dublin. What was your relationship?"
"He was simply one of many young men and women I knew."
"And Shawn Conroy?"
"Again, he was one of many young people I knew in Dublin."
"When was the last time you were in the Green Shamrock?"
"I have never, to my knowledge, patronized that establishment."
"And I suppose you weren't aware that Shawn Conroy worked there."
"I was not. I wasn't aware that Shawn had left Ireland."
She hooked her thumbs in her pockets, waited a beat. "And naturally, you haven't seen or spoken to Shawn Conroy in a dozen years."
"That's correct, Lieutenant."
"You knew both victims, you were on the site of the first murder on the day of Brennen's death, you have, thus far, offered no alibi that can be substantiated for the time of either murder, yet you want me to believe there is no connection?''
His eyes locked coldly on hers. "I don't expect you to believe anything but what you choose to believe."
"You're not helping yourself." Furious, she snagged the token she'd found on Shawn Conroy's nightstand from her pocket, tossed it on the table. "What's the significance of this?"
"I have no idea."
"Are you Catholic?"
"What? No." Pure bafflement replaced the chill in his eyes. "Unitarian. Mildly."
"How much do you know about electronics?"
"I beg your pardon?''
No choice was all she could think, and refused to look at Roarke. "What are your duties for your employer?"
"They're varied."
"And in these various duties, do you have occasion to send and receive transmissions?"
"Naturally."
"And you're aware that your employer has very sophisticated communication equipment."
"The finest communication equipment on- or off-planet." There was a lilt of pride in his voice.
"And you're very familiar with it."
"I am."
"Familiar enough, knowledgeable enough, to cloak or jam in- or outgoing transmissions?"
"Of course I -" He caught himself, set his teeth. "However, I would have no reason to do so."
"Do you like riddles, Summerset?"
"On occasion."
"And would you consider yourself a patient man?"
He lifted his eyebrows. "I would."
She nodded and, as her stomach fisted, turned away. Here was the thought, the worry, the grief that had kept her wakeful most of the night. "Your daughter was murdered when she was a teenager."
She heard no sound behind her now, not even breath. But if pain had weight, the air grew heavy with it. "Your current employer was indirectly responsible for her death."
"He was -" Summerset cleared his throat. Beneath the table his hands had fisted on his knees. "He was not responsible."
"She was tortured, she was raped, she was murdered to teach Roarke a lesson, to hurt him. She was no more than a tool, is that correct?"
He couldn't speak for a moment, simply couldn't squeeze the words past the grief that had so suddenly dug claws into his throat. "She was murdered by monsters who preyed on innocence." He took one breath, long and deep. "You, Lieutenant, should understand such things."
When she turned back her eyes were blank. But she was cold, horribly cold, because she did understand such things all too well. "Are you patient enough, Summerset, are you clever enough and patient enough to have waited all these years? To have established the relationship, the trust, with your employer, to have gained unconditional access to his personal and professional dealings, and then, using that relationship, that trust, that access, attempt to connect him to murder?''
Summerset's chair dug into the aged linoleum as he shoved back from the table and sprang to his feet. "You dare speak to me of using. You dare? When you'd use an innocent young girl in this filthy business? And you would stand there and point your finger at the man whose ring you wear and say that he was responsible for the horrors she endured? They were children. Children. I'd gladly spend the rest of my life in a cage if it makes him see you for what you are."
"Summerset." Roarke stayed seated, but laid a hand on Summerset's arm. His eyes were flat and cool as they met Eve's. "He needs a moment."