by J. D. Robb
She’d take a hard look at Kohli’s financials that evening.
She caught Peabody in her cubicle in the bullpen dealing with the follow-up paperwork.
“Leave the rest of that until tomorrow. Go home.”
“Yeah?” Peabody’s face lit up as she glanced at her wrist unit. “Almost on time, too. I’ve got an eight o’clock dinner with Charles. Now I’ll have just enough time to go snazz myself up.”
When Eve’s response was a grunt, Peabody grinned. “You know the problem with juggling two guys?”
“Do you consider McNab a guy?”
“On a good day, he’s a nice contrast to Charles. Anyway, you know the problem with seeing both of them?”
“No, Peabody, what’s the problem with seeing both of them?”
“There isn’t one.”
With a hoot of laughter, Peabody grabbed her bag and shot out of her cubicle. “See you tomorrow.”
Eve shook her head. One guy, she decided, was plenty problem enough for her taste. And if she got the hell out of Central, she might even beat him home for a change.
In a kind of test, she tried to click her mind off her case files. Traffic was ugly enough to keep her mind occupied, and the current blast of the billboards were hyping everything from spring fashions to the latest hot sports car.
When she caught a familiar face burst across one of the animated screens, she nearly sideswiped a glide-cart.
Mavis Freestone, her hair a riot of flame-colored spikes, whirled over the street at Thirty-fourth. She jiggled, spun, in a few sassy and amusingly placed scraps of electric blue. With each revolution, her hair changed from red to gold to blinding green.
It was, Eve thought with a foolish grin on her face, just like her.
“Jesus, Mavis. Would you just look at that? What a kick in the ass.”
A long way. Her oldest friend had come a long way from the street grifter Eve had once busted, to performance artist in third-rate clubs, and now to bona fide musical star.
Musical, Eve thought, in the broadest sense of the word.
She reached for her car-link, intending to call Mavis and tell her what she was looking at, when her personal palm-link beeped.
“Yeah.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the billboard, even when several impatient drivers honked rudely. “Dallas.”
“Hey, Dallas.”
“Webster.” Instantly, Eve’s shoulders tensed. She might have known Don Webster on a personal level, but no cop liked receiving a transmission from Internal Affairs. “Why are you calling on my personal ’link? IAB’s required to use official channels.”
“I was hoping to talk to you. Got a few minutes?”
“You are talking to me.”
“Face-to-face.”
“Why?”
“Come on, Dallas. Ten minutes.”
“I’m on my way home. Tag me tomorrow.”
“Ten minutes,” he repeated. “I’ll meet you at the park right across from your place.”
“Is this Internal Affairs business?”
“Let’s talk.” He gave her a winning smile that only increased her level of suspicion. “I’ll meet you there. I’m right behind you.”
She narrowed her eyes, checked her rearview, and saw he meant it literally. Saying nothing, she broke transmission.
She didn’t stop across from the gates of her home but drove another block and a half, on principle—then made certain she found the only convenient parking spot before she pulled in.
It didn’t surprise her when Webster simply double-parked and, ignoring the snooty glares from an elegant couple and their three equally stylish Afghan hounds, flipped on his On Duty light and joined her on the curb.
His smile had always been a handy weapon, and he used it now, keeping his light blue eyes friendly. His face was thin, sharp-angled, and would probably be termed scholarly as he aged. His dark brown hair waved a little and was cut to flatter.
“You’ve come up in the world, Dallas. This is some neighborhood.”
“Yeah, we have monthly block parties and get crazy. What do you want, Webster?”
“How’s it going?” He said it casually and started strolling toward the lush green and the trees still tender with spring.
Sucking in temper, she jammed her hands in her pockets and matched her steps with his. “It’s going fine. How about you?”
“Can’t complain. Nice evening. You gotta love spring in New York.”
“And how about those Yankees? Now, that should conclude our period of small talk. What do you want?”
“You never were much on chat.” He remembered very well the one and only time he’d managed to get her into bed; they hadn’t done any talking. “Why don’t we find a bench? Like I said, it’s a nice evening.”
“I don’t want to find a bench. I don’t want a soy dog, and I don’t want to talk about the weather. I want to go home. So if you don’t have anything interesting to say, that’s what I’m going to do.”
She turned, took three steps.
“You pulled the Kohli homicide.”
“That’s right.” She turned back, and her inner alarm system flashed to red light. “What does that have to do with IAB?”
“I didn’t say it had anything to do with IAB, other than the usual run we do when a cop goes down.”
“The usual run doesn’t mean a private meet, off duty, with the primary.”
“We go back a ways.” He lifted a hand. “Hell, all the way back to the Academy. It seemed friendlier this way.”
She kept her eyes on his as she walked to him, stood toe to toe. “Don’t insult me, Webster. Where does IAB come into my investigation?”
“Look, I’ve seen the prelim. This is a rough one. Rough on the department, his squad, his family.”
Something started clicking in her brain. “Did you know Kohli?”
“Not really.” Webster gave a thin smile, just a little bitter at the edges. “Most detectives don’t care to socialize with Internal Affairs. Funny how we all frown over a dirty cop, but nobody wants to rub elbows with the ones digging them out.”
“Are you saying Kohli was dirty?”
“I’m not saying that at all. I wouldn’t be at liberty to discuss an internal investigation with you, if there was an internal investigation.”
“Bullshit, Webster. Just bullshit. I have a dead cop. If he was mixed up in something off, I need to know.”
“I can’t discuss IAB business with you. It came to my attention that you’ve opened his financials.”
She paused a minute as her temper threatened to spike. “I can’t discuss a homicide investigation with you. And why would part of the procedure of that investigation come to the attention of the Rat Squad?”
“Now you’re trying to piss me off.” He kept his composure, gave a little shrug. “I thought I would give you a heads-up, unofficially and in a friendly manner, that the department, as a whole, will be better off if this investigation is closed quickly and quietly.”
“Was Kohli in bed with Ricker?”
This time a muscle jumped in Webster’s cheek, but his voice stayed smooth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Digging into Detective Kohli’s financials is a dead end, Dallas, and will upset his family. The man was killed off duty.”
“A man was beaten to death. A cop. A woman’s been widowed. Two children lost their father. And it’s supposed to matter less that it happened when he was off duty?”
“No.” He had the grace or the wit to look uncomfortable. And then to look away. “That’s just the way it went down. That’s all there is to it.”
“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Webster. Don’t ever tell me how to conduct a homicide investigation. You gave up cop work. I didn’t.”
“Dallas.” He caught up with her before she reached the curb again. He gripped her arm and braced himself for the storm when she whirled on him.
Instead, she met his eyes, her own cold, flat, empty. “Move your hand. Now.”
> He complied, slipping his into his pocket. “I’m just trying to tell you IAB wants this closed quiet.”
“What makes you think I give one good fuck about what IAB wants? You have something to say to me regarding my investigation into the death of Detective Taj Kohli, you do it in an official capacity. Don’t tail me again, Webster. Not ever.”
She climbed into her car, waited for a break in the mild traffic, and swung into a U-turn.
He watched her cover the distance, then turn into the high gates of the world she lived in now. He took three deep breaths, and when that didn’t work, kicked viciously at his own rear tire.
He hated what he’d done. And more, he hated knowing he’d never really gotten over her.
chapter three
She was steaming when she barreled down the drive to the great stone house Roarke had made his home. And hers.
So much, she thought, for checking your work at the door. What the hell were you supposed to do when it followed you to the damn threshold? Webster was up to something, which meant there was an agenda here, and the agenda was IAB’s.
Now she had to calm herself down so she could filter out her annoyance at being waylaid by him. It was more important to puzzle out what he’d been trying to tell her. And more important yet, to calculate what he’d been so damn careful not to tell her.
She left the car at the end of the drive because she liked it there and because it annoyed Roarke’s majordomo, the consistently irritating Summerset.
She grabbed her bag that held the files and was halfway up the steps when she stopped. Deliberately, she blew out a long, cleansing breath, turned, and simply sat down.
It was time to try something new, she decided. Time to sit and enjoy the pleasant spring evening, enjoy the gorgeous simplicity of the flowering trees and shrubs that spread over the lawn, speared into the sky. She’d lived here for more than a year now and rarely, very rarely took time to see. Time to appreciate what Roarke had built or the style with which he’d built it.
The house itself with its sweeps and turrets and dazzling expanses of glass was a monument to taste, wealth, and elegant comfort. There were too many rooms to count filled with art, antiques, and every pleasure and convenience a man could make for himself.
But the grounds, she thought, were another level. This was a man who needed room, who demanded it. And commanded it. At the same time, he was a man who could appreciate the simple appeal of a flower that would bloom and fade with its season.
He’d decorated his grounds with those flowers, with trees that would outlive both of them, with shrubs that spread and fountained. And closed it all away with the high stone walls, the iron gates, and the rigid security that kept the city outside.
But it was still there, the city, sniffing around the edges like a hungry, restless dog.
That was part of it. Part of the duality of Roarke. And, she supposed, of her.
He’d grown up in the alleys and tenements of Dublin and had done whatever was necessary to survive. She’d lost her childhood, and the flickers of memory, the images of what had been, of what she’d done to escape, haunted the woman she’d become.
His buffer against yesterday was money, power, control. Hers was a badge. There was little either of them wouldn’t do, hadn’t done, to keep that buffer in place. But somehow, together, they were . . . normal, she decided. They’d made a marriage and a home.
That was why she could sit on the steps of that home, with the ugliness of her day smearing her heart, look at blossoms dancing in the breeze. And wait for him.
She watched the long, black car slide quietly toward the house. Waited while Roarke climbed out the back, had a word with his driver. As the car drove off, he walked to her in that way he had, with his eyes on her face. She’d never had anyone look at her as he did. As if nothing else and no one else existed.
No matter how many times he did so, just that long, focused look made her heart flutter.
He sat beside her, set his briefcase aside, leaned back as she was.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi. Lovely evening.”
“Yeah. The flowers look good.”
“They do, yes. The renewal of spring. A cliché, but true enough, as most clichés are.” He ran a hand over her hair. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Exactly. That’s out of character for you, darling Eve.”
“It’s an experiment.” She crossed her scarred boots at the ankles. “I’m seeing if I can leave work at Central.”
“And how are you doing?”
“I’ve pretty much failed.” Still with her head back, she closed her eyes and tried to recapture some of it. “I was doing okay with it on the drive home. I saw Mavis’s billboard.”
“Ah yes. Fairly spectacular.”
“You didn’t tell me about it.”
“It just went up today. I figured you’d see it on your way home and thought it would be a nice surprise.”
“It was.” And remembering brought her smile back. “I nearly clipped a glide-cart, and I was sitting there, grinning at it, about to call her, but I had a transmission come through.”
“So work intruded.”
“More or less. It was Webster.” Because the smile was gone again, and she was scowling at the trees, she didn’t notice the slight tension in Roarke’s body. “Don Webster from Internal Affairs.”
“Yes, I remember who he is. What did he want?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. He called on my personal and asked for a private meet.”
“Did he?” Roarke murmured, his voice deceptively mild.
“He went out of his way for it, tailed me from Central. I met up with him just down the block from here, and after he got finished trying to make nice, he started a song and dance on the Kohli case.”
Just thinking about it again got her blood boiling. “Tells me how IAB wants it put away quiet, doesn’t like the idea that I’m going to look into Kohli’s financials. But he won’t confirm or deny anything. Claims it’s just a friendly, unofficial heads-up.”
“And do you believe him?”
“No, but I don’t know what he’s feeding me. And I don’t like IAB’s sticky fingers poking into my case files.”
“The man has a personal interest in you.”
“Webster?” She looked over now, surprised. “No, he doesn’t. We blew off some steam one night years back. That’s the beginning and end of it.”
For you, perhaps, Roarke thought, but let it go.
“Anyway, I can’t figure if the meet was really about Kohli or if it’s more about the Ricker connection.”
“Max Ricker?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes sharpened. “You know him. I should’ve figured that.”
“We’ve met. What’s the connection?”
“Kohli worked on the task force that busted Ricker about six months back. He wasn’t a key player, and Ricker slithered through, but it had to cost him a lot of time and money. Could be Ricker put out contracts and is getting some of his own back by whacking cops.”
“What I saw in Purgatory today didn’t seem like Ricker’s style.”
“I don’t figure he’d want his fingerprints on it.”
“There’s that.” Roarke was silent for a moment. “You want to know if I ever did business with him.”
“I’m not asking you that.”
“Yes, you are.” He took her hand, kissed it lightly, then got to his feet. “Let’s have a walk.”
“I brought work home with me.” She let him pull her up, smiled. “So much for the experiment. I should get to it.”
“You’ll work better if we clear this up.” He kept her hand in his, started across the lawn.
The breeze had shaken some of the petals from the trees so they lay like pink and white snowdrops on the green. Flowers, banks of them she couldn’t name, flowed out of beds in soft, blurry blues and shimmering whites. The light was beginning to go, softening the air. She caught drifts
of fragile perfumes, country sweet.
He bent, snapped off a tulip, its cup as perfect as something sculpted from white wax, handed it to her.
“I haven’t seen or dealt with Max Ricker in a number of years. But there was a time we had business of sorts.”
She held the tulip and heard the city sniffing at the gates. “What kind of business?”
He stopped, tipped her head back so their eyes met. Then saw, with regret, that hers were troubled. “First, let me say that even one with my . . . let’s call it eclectic palate . . . hasn’t the taste for certain activities. Murder for hire being one of those. I never killed for him, Eve, nor for that matter, for anyone but myself.”
She nodded again. “Let’s not go there, not now.”
“All right.”
But they’d come too far to shy away now. She walked with him. “Illegals?”
“There was a time in the beginning of my career, I couldn’t . . . No,” he corrected, knowing that honesty was vital. “When I wasn’t particularly selective in the products I handled. Yes, I dealt in illegals from time to time, and some of those dealings involved Ricker and his organization. The last time we associated was . . . Christ, more than ten years back. I didn’t care for his business practices, and I’d reached a point where I wasn’t obliged to negotiate with those who didn’t appeal to me.”
“Okay.”
“Eve.” He kept his hand on her face, his eyes on hers. “When I met you, most of my business was legitimate. I made that choice long ago because it suited me. After you, I dispensed with or reconstructed those interests left that were questionable. I did that because I knew it would suit you.”
“You don’t have to tell me what I already know.”
“I think I do, just now. There’s little I wouldn’t do for you. But I can’t, and I wouldn’t, change my past, or what brought me here.”
She looked down at the tulip, perfect and pure. Then back up at him. Not pure, God knew, but for her, perfect. “I wouldn’t want you to change anything.” She put her hands on his shoulders. “We’re okay.”