by J. D. Robb
“No wonder you were ready to kick the first available ass,” Peabody commented.
“Well.” Baxter paused long enough to scratch his cheek. “I’d guess Whitney said what he had to say, even knowing it was flammable bullshit. Must suck being brass.”
The last of Eve’s temper simply dwindled away. “Must. Let’s dig down into this fucking morass and find some goddamn gold.”
They dug for hours. Natalie Copperfield’s data files were organized and efficient, and gave them nothing.
“McNab said there were deletions.” Eve pushed back. “I’ve got what could be interpreted as lost time, or deletions in files. Little holes, if you look at them that way. You got a serious worker bee here.”
“Makes me feel like a slacker,” Peabody agreed, then pokered up. “Which, of course, I’m not. Being a detective, and a dedicated member of the NYPSD trained by the best in the department.”
“Ass kisser,” Baxter said with a grin.
“I have three gold stars for ass kissing.”
“That’s all really fascinating,” Eve said dryly. “But my point is, Copperfield kept superior records of her work, of her time. And I’m seeing gaps. A pattern of gaps going back about five, six months.”
“I’ve got some of that,” Peabody agreed. “Could be just wedding planning. A little personal business leaked into the workplace. Happens to the best of us.”
“Maybe. And maybe it’s an account that was passed to her at that point. Those gaps start widening ten days before her death. About the time we believe she found something questionable.”
“If her killer deleted those client files altogether,” Baxter began, “he or she had access to her work unit, her data files. Doesn’t strike me that a client would be able to access.”
“Could hack in by remote, or pay someone with the necessary skills to do so,” Eve replied. “Or it could be someone on the inside. Could be both. What we’re not finding in her files is evidence there was something her killer didn’t want found there.”
“Her supervisor would know all her accounts,” Peabody put in.
“Yeah. I’m going to go by, have another talk with her before I take this home. Peabody, I need all this data secured. Baxter, if you want to do a little leg work, you can check with the vic’s sister. See if Copperfield mentioned getting a new account within the last six months. It should be a big one.”
“Got that.”
“Check on Trueheart and your actives. If you need to put in extra time, run it through me. I’ll clear it.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Peabody, if McNab has anything, I want a tag. Whenever, wherever. I’m in the field.”
The ferocity of the traffic reminded Eve of the time. The accounting firm would be closed for the day. She called up Cara Greene’s home address from her memo book, then tried her on the ’link. At the transfer to voice mail, she left a message to be contacted ASAP. On the off chance Greene was putting in some overtime, Eve tried the office ’link, and left the same message.
No point in going by to bang on the door of an empty apartment, she decided. She’d wait for the callback, or hunt Greene down in the morning.
Now she had to figure out the best approach with Roarke.
Keeping her mouth shut just wasn’t an option. Even if she wanted to play that game, he’d sense something. The guy had senses like a frigging hawk. And evading would lead, unquestionably, to lying. Lying would put her in the wrong.
Goddamn if she wanted to take the heat for this.
Straight out was probably the best way, she decided. Let him blow, let him spew, and seethe over the insult. He was entitled.
The problem was he was going to blow, spew, and seethe all over her. So she’d take the high road, she’d be the good wife and take the lumps. Then he’d have to apologize, maybe even grovel a little.
How bad could that be?
She was feeling fairly steady about the entire matter when she drove through the gates of home.
Considering various openings, she jogged through the bitter cold and into the warmth. The gilded light, the lightly spiced scent of the air were spoiled momentarily by the looming figure in black that was Summerset.
“I didn’t realize you were taking a few days off,” he began as the cat left its squat at his side to prance toward Eve.
“What are you talking about?”
“As you’ve returned home unbloodied, without any of your clothing torn, I assume you’ve spent the day in some leisurely pursuit.”
“Day’s not over yet.” She tossed her coat over the newel post. “I could end it pursuing your bony ass, but you’d be the one bloodied and torn.”
She picked up the pudgy cat and hauled him with her up the stairs. He purred like a jet copter as she idly scratched his ears, then dumping him on the sofa in the bedroom, she checked Roarke’s whereabouts on the house scanner.
“Where is Roarke?”
Roarke has not yet returned to the house this evening.
Bought some time, she decided, and stripped off her clothes to change into workout gear. The best way to clear her mind and tune up, she thought, was a good sweaty session in the gym.
To avoid Summerset, she took the elevator down, then programmed a hill climb on the cardio machine. She did a hard twenty minutes until her quads felt the burn, then switched to a flat-out sprint.
She was well into a series of upper-body reps on the weight machine when Roarke strolled in.
“Long day?” she managed, puffing out air.
“A bit.” He bent over, touched his lips to hers. “Getting started or finishing up?”
“Finishing. I’ve got enough in me for a spar if you’re looking for a workout.”
“I had mine this morning. I’m looking for a very large glass of wine and a meal.”
She studied his face. “Was a long day, then. Problems?”
“Irritations, mostly, and mostly eliminated. But now that I’m thinking of it, I wouldn’t mind a swim before that wine. If I had some company.”
“Sure.” She picked up a towel, scrubbed it over her face. Get it over or put it off until he mellowed out? Tough to know, she thought, but it seemed wrong to let him mellow then hit him with a sucker punch.
“Ah, there’s this thing.” To give herself another moment, she walked over, got a bottle of water from the minifriggie. “The double murder I’m investigating. The accounting firm element.”
“You got your warrant?”
“Yeah. That’s part of the thing.”
“The thing being?”
She braced inside, as she might before diving into a very cold pool. “There’s a concern at some levels regarding the sensitivity of the data on the files now in the possession of the NYPSD, and the primary—being me, who’s married to you.”
“There’s a question, on some levels, about your ability to handle sensitive data?” His voice was perfectly pleasant, even amiable. And had her antennae quivering.
“There’s a question, on some levels, about the ethics, I guess, of you having some close proximity to private financial information belonging to current or future business competitors. I want you to know that I—”
“So the assumption,” he interrupted smoothly, “is that I would use my wife, and her investigations into a double torture murder, to not only learn the financial situation of competitors—current or future—but would then use that information to my own gain? Do I have that right?”
“Nutshelling. Listen, Roarke—”
“I haven’t finished.” He whipped the words out, one quick lash. “Did it occur to any of these levels that I don’t need to use my wife or her investigation to beat bloody hell out of a competitor, in a business sense, should I choose to do so. And that I somehow managed to compete and succeed on my own before I met the primary on this case?”
She hated when he used my wife in that tone. Like she was one of his fancy wrist units. Temper bubbled into her throat and was a very hard swallow down. “I can’t speak to wh
at occurs or occurred there, but—”
“Goddamn it, Eve. Do you think I’d use you for fucking money?”
“Not for a single second. Look at me. Not for one single second.”
“Crawl over the bloody bodies, risk your reputation and my own, come to that, for an edge in some shagging deal?”
“I just said I didn’t—”
“I heard what you said,” he snapped back and his eyes were lethal. “But I see for some it’s ‘once a thief.’ I’ve worked side-by-side with the NYPSD, given it considerable time, taken considerable physical risks, and now they question my integrity over this? Over this? Well, fuck them. If they can’t and won’t trust you after all you’ve given them, or me, fuck them to hell and back. I want you to pass the case.”
“You want—whoa, wait.”
“I want you to pass it,” he repeated. “I’ll not have one byte of that bloody sensitive data in my home, or in my wife’s head, or anywhere I can be suspected of using it. Damned, goddamned if I’ll be accused somewhere down the line of using something like this over some deal I close over someone else. I bloody well won’t have it.”
“Okay, let’s just calm down a minute.” She had to take a breath, then another, before her head stopped whirling. “You can’t ask me to hand over the investigation.”
“That’s precisely what I’m asking. And if memory serves, I’ve asked for very little when it comes to your work. You aren’t the only qualified investigator. Pass it,” he demanded. “And do it now. I won’t be insulted this way. And bugger me if I’m going to tolerate having my wife be the one who has to bring the insult to me because your superiors don’t have the balls to do it themselves.”
She stood stunned and speechless as he turned on his heel and strode out.
8
HIS ANGER HAD TEETH AND WAS GNAWING AT his own throat as he stormed up to his office, closed the doors. And he knew if he hadn’t walked away that anger would have taken more than a bite of Eve.
Her goddamn job, he thought. Bloody, buggering cops. Why in hell had he ever deluded himself into believing they could accept who and what he was?
He was no innocent and never claimed to be one.
Had he stolen? Frequently. Had he cheated? Most certainly. Had he used wit, wiles, and whatever came to hand to fight and claw his way out of the alley to where he was now? Goddamn bloody well right he had, and would do it all again, without remorse or regret.
He didn’t ask to be considered pure and saintly. He’d been a Dublin street rat with certain skills and specific ambitions, and had used one to achieve the other. And why not?
He’d come from a man who’d murdered in cold blood, and yes, he’d done some of the same.
But he’d made himself into more, into better. Into other, in any case. And when he’d fallen in love with a cop, with a woman he’d respected on every possible level, he’d given up a great deal. Every one of his businesses was legitimate now. He could be considered a shark in the business world, but he was a bloody law-abiding one.
More, he’d actually worked with the cops, the very element that had once been the enemy. He’d offered his resources to the department countless times. The fact that doing so amused, intrigued, and satisfied him didn’t change the principle of the thing.
Infuriating, insulting, unacceptable.
With his hands jammed in his pockets, he stood at the window, glowering out at the sparkling lights of the city he’d made his home.
He’d made himself, he thought again. He’d carved out this life, and he loved this woman above everything else. To have anyone, anyone suspect he would use her—that she would allow herself to be used—was enraging.
Well, they could have someone else work themselves to the bone, labor into exhaustion to find their bloody murderer. And if they thought somewhere down the road they could tap him again to play expert consultant, civilian, they could shag a monkey.
He heard the door open between his office and Eve’s, but didn’t turn.
“I said all I have to say on this,” he told her. “It’s done.”
“Fine, you can just listen then. I don’t blame you for being upset.”
“Upset?”
“I don’t blame you for being murderously pissed off. I felt the same way.”
“Fine. We’re in tune.”
“I don’t guess we are. Roarke—”
“If you think this is a tantrum or something I can be sweetened out of, you’re wrong. It’s a line. We’ve reached my line in this, Eve. I expect you to respect my stand on this matter.” He turned now. “I expect you to put me first, and that’s all.”
“You get both of those. But you’ve got to hear me out. Line or no line, you can’t just go around flinging orders at me.”
“It was a statement.”
“Screw this, Roarke. Just screw this.” Her own anger was rising, but there was a layer of sick fear over it. “I’m pissed, you’re pissed, and if this keeps up, we’re going to be seriously pissed at each other, maybe enough to cross some other line we can’t come back over easily, when we’re the ones getting slapped by outside parties.”
“When has the department been an outside party to you?”
“I have to prove something to you now?” And there was hurt, churning through the anger, and the sick fear. “To you? What needs to be proven here? My loyalty? The pecking order of that loyalty?”
“Maybe it does.” He angled his head, spoke coolly. “I wonder where I’ll come in that order.”
“Yeah, seriously pissed.” But she took a deep breath before she lost what was left of her temper. Or worse, lost the fight to hold back the tears that were stinging the back of her eyes. “I’ve got things to say, goddamn it, and I’m saying them. If when I’m done, you want me to pass the investigation, it’s passed.”
Something inside him clenched and released, but he only shrugged. “Have your say, then.”
“You don’t believe me,” she said slowly. “I can see it. You think, or wonder at least, if I’m just snowing you so I win on this. And that’s insulting, and I’ve had enough insults for the day, damn it. So you listen. When someone kicks at you, they kick at me. That’s the way it is. And not just because I’m your wife, because I’m not some stupid bimbo who takes orders from her husband.”
“I don’t believe the word bimbo came out of my mouth.”
“It sounds like bimbo, occasionally, when you say ‘wife.’”
“Oh, bollocks to that.”
“And right back at you, ace. They slap at you, they slap at me because we’re a unit. Because I may not get all this being married crap right, but I’ve damn well got that one nailed. So, believe me when I tell you the department knows just how I feel about this business.”
“Fine, then—”
“I’m not finished,” she spat out. “Sweeten you up, what a crock. But you want some oil on the water? When I spewed this business out on Feeney, then out on Baxter and Peabody, they had the same take. That it was insulting bullshit. And I’m damned, Roarke, if I want to put my tail between my legs and pass this ball. Not just for the victims—and they matter, they matter a hell of a lot to me now. But for my own pride, and for yours. Screw that, for ours. I’m not going to back off because the mayor or the chief or the commander—whoever—needs to cover their chicken-shit asses because some jerks are whining because you’re just better and smarter and slicker then they are in the first damn place.
“And I’m pissed!” She kicked his desk. “Pissed, pissed, pissed about being disrespected. Like I’m some idiot female who’d compromise an investigation for her man’s gain. Or that my man is some callous cheat who can’t bury his competitors without breaking a sweat. They’re not getting away with it. We’re not going to let them shove us back from this. We’re not going to let them put two innocent people who died because they were trying to do something right, however stupidly, in the backseat over fucking politics.”
She kicked his desk again, and felt calmer
for it. “You’ve done more than stand by me on the job. And you deserve better from the department. So I’ll do more than stand by you, and if stepping back from this is what you need, that’s what I’ll do.”
She caught her breath. “That’s what I’ll do, because if you don’t know you come first, you’re just stupid. But it’s not the way to stick it to the ones who deserve to have it stuck to them. Staying on it is, putting you on in an official capacity as consultant is. Finding the person or persons who killed those two people is. I want to close this case, and I want you with me when I do. But on this one, you get to decide.”
She tunneled her fingers through her hair and realized she was exhausted. “Your call.”
He said nothing for a long, humming moment. “You’d do this, pass this case, because I asked you?”
“No. I’d do this, pass this case, because in these circumstances I figure you’ve got the right to ask me. I don’t lift off when you say jump, ace, any more than you do for me. But when it matters, it matters. Is that what you want me to do?”
“It was, before you came in here.” He crossed to her now, and took her face in his hands. “It was, I’m forced to admit, when I was near certain you’d refuse, and given me a handy outlet where I could blame you for the whole mess of it. Then I could have worked off some of this mad with a good, bloody row with you.” He kissed her brow, her nose, her lips. “You didn’t, so I guess that good, bloody row is out of the question.”
“I’m always up for one.”
Now he smiled. “Hard to work up the energy for one when I’m also forced to admit you’re right. Actually, thinking about it, that’s a considerable irritation. Everything you just said bull’s-eyed the entire ugly situation. The victims deserve you, and I’m damned if the department gets the satisfaction of having you toss this one back because of me. And damned again if I’ll have fingers pointed at me as a cheat who’d use his wife. I’ve done plenty in my time to deserve finger-pointing, but not this.”
“Are we square?”
He gave her shoulders a light rub before he stepped back. “It seems we are. But the term wife is not synonymous with bimbo. I love my wife very much. I’ve only slept with bimbos—occasionally. In the past.”