Strangers in Death (22 page)

She sighed, touched his cheek. “We’d better get out of here. We’re getting mush all over the pool.”

I
t was back to murder as she pulled on the comfort of her old NYPSD sweatshirt and a pair of worn-out (just the way she liked them) jeans. While they dressed, she relayed to Roarke the conversation she’d had with Mira.

“You’re worried now she’ll find a way to dispose of this subordinate—as you’re thinking of her, or him.”

“Gotta have a plan for it. I think she
thinks
this individual wouldn’t dare betray her, but she’ll have a plan. She’s got Brigit Plowder, who doesn’t strike me as a moron, completely wrapped. Pretty much ditto on Tribble’s wife. But Plowder…”

“Are you looking at her? At Brigit Plowder?”

“I look at everyone, but no, she doesn’t strike me as a subordinate or…what’s the word? What is it?
Supplicant.
Yeah, that’s what our Ava likes. She likes having her supplicants. She bought herself plenty of them with Anders’s money.”

She caught a glimpse of the two of them in the mirror, paused, took a closer look. He’d put on basically the same thing she had—jeans and in his case a dark blue sweater. But…

“How come you always look better than me?”

He glanced in the mirror as well, and smiling stepped behind her to wrap his arm around her from the back. “I can’t agree with that. Eye of the beholder.”

“You’re still tuning from water games.” She shook her head, studying them, he thought, as she might suspects in a lineup. “It’s just not right. Anyway, back off, ace, we’ve got a load of work ahead of us and—crap, I forgot. I need to tag Charles. I need to do a follow-up there.”

To amuse himself, and annoy her, he only tightened his hold.

“Hey.”

“Hey, back. It’ll be a working meal again, and would that make me your subordinate or your supplicant?”

“Ha-ha. You’re nobody’s subordinate, and you wouldn’t know how to supplicate. Is that a word?”

“I’ll look it up. Working meal, and you’re thinking…burgers.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What, have you gone all psychic on me?”

“Logic, and an intimate—as I’ve recently proven—knowledge of my wife. You missed lunch, discounting a limo cruller, and you’ve expended a great deal of energy in the pool, with various activities. You’re hungry, which leads you to red meat. A steak won’t do as you won’t want the trouble of cutting anything up. So it’s a burger you want.”

“What am I having for dessert?”

He cocked a brow at her reflection. “Well, there you have me.”

“Yeah, I got you.” She turned, bit his lip. “I brought home pie.”

“Really? What sort of pie?”

She only smiled, pulled out, and picked up her ’link to tag Charles.

N
ervous, distracted, Charles paused outside the brownstone in the West Village and checked the display on his signaling ’link. “It’s Dallas,” he told Louise.

Worried, uncertain, she watched him frown at the display. “Aren’t you going to answer?”

“Ah…no. No, I’ll get back to her.”

“It’ll be about the Anders case. Charles, if there’s something about it that you haven’t told her, something you’re holding back because of loyalty or discretion—”

“There isn’t.” He slid the ’link back in his pocket. “Let’s go in.”

“Actually, Charles, I’m not really in the mood to socialize, especially with new people.” She glanced toward the house. “I really think you and I need to talk.”

The nerves already buzzing in his belly kicked up to a dull roar. “We will.”

“Things haven’t been—”

“Don’t.” He took both her hands. “Just don’t. Let’s go inside first. I really need to take you inside.”

“All right.” Inside her belly, something sank. “All right.”

He led her through the iron gate, down the walk cutting through a small and lovely front garden, then up the short flight of stairs to the main level of the three-story home. But when he took out keys, she stared.

“What—”

“One minute. Just one minute.” He keyed a code on the security pad, unlocked the door.

Baffled, she stepped inside.

Floors gleamed, old, rich wood providing a lovely base for the foyer, for the sturdy stairs with their glossy rail, and on to a spacious room where a fire simmered in a hearth of lapis blue.

“It’s empty.”

“Yes, for now.”

Her footsteps echoed on the wood as she wandered into what she assumed was the living area, as she turned to look at the trio of tall windows with their carved trim.

“It’s a lovely space.”

“There’s a lot more,” he told her. “Let me show you through.”

“Why?” She turned back to him. “Why are we in a beautiful and empty house in the West Village with you offering to show me through?”

“I bought it.” He hadn’t meant to tell her exactly that way, but she was standing there, framed by those windows, looking at him with such serious, such somber gray eyes.

“You…you bought this house?”

“Yes. Two weeks ago.”

“Two…I see.” She smiled. “Well, congratulations. I didn’t realize you were even thinking of relocating, much less buying a home. No wonder you’ve been so distracted lately. So, show me the rest. These floors, Charles, they’re just gorgeous. Are they all the way through? And all this space!”

She started to hurry by, but he caught her arm. “You’re upset.”

“No, no, just surprised. It’s such a big step. Enormous.”

“I’ve taken a couple more. I didn’t tell you.”

“No, you didn’t tell me.” Though her eyes stayed on his face, she eased back from him. “You haven’t told me much of anything for weeks. So, let me be grown up and civilized about this, will you? Let me try. Is there a dining room? I bet there’s a wonderful dining room, perfect for dinner parties.”

“I’ve retired.”

Though she’d pulled away to move on, that stopped her again. “What?”

“I turned in my license, the end of last week.”

“Last week? I don’t understand this, don’t understand you. You’ve turned in your license, bought a house. What is this, Charles?”

“I wanted—needed to have it, to have everything in place before I told you. I applied for, and have been granted a license in psychology, specializing in sex therapy. Dr. Mira helped me there, and agreed that it was a good lateral move.”

Louise stared at him with something like grief in her eyes. “You spoke with Mira, but not with me. Asked for her help, but not for mine.”

“I wanted to be sure I could pull it off, Louise. She agreed to help me with the applications, the testing, the screening process. And well, talking to her throughout all this helped me be sure it was something I really wanted to do, really could do.”

“As talking to me wouldn’t have helped?”

“No. Yes. She’s neutral, objective. And while she was helping me through it, I was dealing with buying this place. The lower level here is a good space for the office and therapy rooms. And there’s…I’m not doing this right.”

He stopped, pushed at his hair again. For a man who’d made his living, and a damn good one, he thought, on being smooth, he was bumbling this like a first-nighter. “I haven’t been able to figure out how to do this. Every time I tried to work it out, I hit a wall. Louise—”

“Then let me make it easy for you. You want to change your life. A new home, a new profession. A new start then.” Tears burned, but she’d be damned if she’d end this weeping and sniveling. “New relationships I’m not part of. Fine, show your gorgeous new house to her, you bastard.”

“Who? No!” He had to move fast to grab her before she reached the door. “Not part of it. For Christ’s sake, Louise, you’re the center of it. You’re the reason for it.”

“How? How am I any part of any of this when you do it all without even
telling
me?”

“What would you have said to me if I told you I was going to retire because of you?”

“That’s ridiculous. I’ve never had a problem with your work. It’s your
work.
And it was your work when I met you, when I fell in love with you, damn it, Charles.”

“Exactly. It never bothered you. Never made a difference in how you felt about me. But it began to bother me. It began to bother me when I just couldn’t give my clients my…best. Because, Louise, I don’t want to be with anyone but you. I don’t want to touch anyone but you. I needed—for myself—I needed to lay the foundation for the new, to believe I could do this. And offer this, to you.”

“Offer…” Her eyes widened. “
This?
This house?”

“It’s closer to your clinic than either of our apartments. It’s a nice neighborhood, and it’s…it’s a home, Louise. Not a place to sleep or hang clothes. It’s a place to live, together, to build something together.”

“I need a second.” She put a hand on his chest, eased him back. “You did all this, changed your life, for me?”

“For us. I hope. If you don’t like the house, we’ll find another. Mira said it would probably be better to wait on the house, to consult you there. But…I didn’t.” At a loss, he lifted his hands, let them fall. “It was probably a mistake to buy it without you. But I wanted to give you something. Something solid, I guess, symbolic, and a little spectacular.”

“I thought you were tired of me, that you didn’t love me anymore and didn’t know how to tell me.” She managed a watery laugh. “You’ve been breaking my heart, Charles, for weeks.”

“Louise.” He drew her to him, kissed her damp cheeks, her lips. “It must be loving you so much, and being terrified you wouldn’t want all this, that’s had me screw up so badly.”

“I was going to be so sophisticated and cool when you broke things off. Then I was going to gather up any of your things at my apartment and set them on fire. I’d worked it out.”

“I was prepared to beg.”

She tipped her head back, laid her hands on his cheeks, and smiled beautifully. “I love you, Charles. You didn’t have to do this for me, or for us, but I love that you did. I love that you screwed it up. Oh! Show me the rest!” She spun away and into a circle. “Show me every inch so I can start planning how to drive you crazy with decorating ideas. I’ll nag you so relentlessly over window treatments and wall colors you’ll wonder why you ever wanted to cohab.”

“Cohab?” He shook his head. “For two smart people who’re desperately in love, we’re certainly having a hard time understanding each other.” He slipped a small velvet box out of his pocket, flipped the top. The diamond exploded with light and brilliance. “Marry me.”

“Oh.” She stared at the ring, stared into his eyes. “Oh my God.”

14

WITH THE BURGER DEVOURED, EVE PACED IN front of her wall screens. “What we have to do is divide these into categories, cross-reference. First, the people we know she had multiple contacts with. The more contact, the easier it is to establish a relationship. We put those into categories. Staff, volunteers, beneficiaries.”

“She may have met any number of these people off book,” Roarke pointed out. “Private meetings. The nature of that would make the relationship more personal, more intimate.”

“Yeah, can’t argue. So we divide those up, too. Peabody’s got a good start with the multiples, and with those we have individuals with criminals, and we have the LC angle. We need to press that.”

She turned back to him. “If you were going to have someone killed—”

“Some chores a man just wants to see to himself.”

She blew out a breath, scratched the back of her neck while he smiled serenely.
“If,”
she repeated. “And if you didn’t want to get your manicured hands dirty, would you exploit someone with some experience in criminal behavior, someone whose past deed or deeds could also give you a lever, if necessary, or would you go with the blank slate?”

“Interesting, as both have their advantages, and their pitfalls. And it would depend, too, on what the criminal behavior consisted of.”

“Yeah, we’re going to do a subset there on violent knocks.”

“Someone who’s killed before—or has a history of violence—would bring that experience or predilection to the table.” He continued to enjoy a glass of the cabernet he’d selected to go with the burgers. “Might be, one could assume, more open to bribe, pressure, or reward. However, that sort may not be as trustworthy or discreet as the clean slate. Whereas, the clean slate might balk at the idea of murder, or clutch in the execution of it and botch the job.”

“Maybe she did.”

“The heavy tranqing.” Roarke nodded as he was right there with her on that point. “It could indicate a delicacy of feeling, yes.”

“Yeah, it takes delicacy to wrap a rope around an unconscious guy’s neck so he chokes to death.”

“From a distance,” Roarke pointed out, “where she didn’t have to see it. So it happened after she was gone.”

“You’re leaning toward clean slate.”

“If, in my hypothetical murderous bent, I wanted to have someone eliminated—and didn’t go the tried and true route of hiring a hit—I’d certainly explore that clean slate. What could I get on her, where is the pressure point or the vulnerability? What could I offer in exchange?”

“A business deal?”

He tipped his glass toward her. “Isn’t it? Even blackmail is business.”

“Okay. Okay. We’ll divvy up this first batch. You take clean slates, I’ll take the ones with jackets. And we’ll divide the licensed companion connects between us.”

“Aren’t we the fun couple?”

“We’ll dig out the party hats later. Look for any significant change in income, or anything that looks like addictions—gambling, illegals, sex, alcohol. Any debts paid off, any major purchases. They’ve got kids, so look at tuitions to private schools, or medical procedures. Sick kid’s a big button to push.
Any
change in buying habits, income, routine in the last six months. She wouldn’t want to string this out too long.

“On the staff—”

“I know what to look for, Eve. It’s not my first ride on the hay cart.”

“Okay, fine. But this is going to be a long ride on a really big hay cart with a tiny little needle in it somewhere.”

“I walked into that one. And now,” he said as he strolled toward his office, “I’m walking away.”

Eve sat at her desk with coffee, with files. She spent a moment drumming her fingers and staring at her murder board. Then she shifted to begin the first of many detailed runs.