by Nora Roberts
She paused a moment, working out the wording. “I believe she was important to him, just not the most important. He took steps to keep his connection to her quiet, as much for himself, his reputation as for hers. Her death brought that connection to the surface. He knew it would. He expected cops at his door once he learned she’d been killed.”
“Why would he care if his connection to her became known, while they had their affair or after?”
“Pride and caution. It’s just not good business for a man in his position, with his interests, to have a cop as his lover. For him, business comes first, and his reputation is an essential element of that business. Her murder may have been an attempt to frame him, to cast suspicion on him, thereby damaging his reputation. His public businessman rep, and his underground rep.”
“Using her as a weapon against him.”
“Yes, sir. Because of who he is-maybe more because of who his father is-his prior affair with Coltraine puts him at the top of the suspect list on her murder. Bad for business,” Eve added.
“You’re leaning toward a competitor?”
“Possibly. She may have been killed because she was viewed as a weakness in him. She was, essentially, the only misstep he’s made professionally. Whether she was in his pocket or not-and I don’t think she was, given her profile and record, her background and personality. If she was, then he, in turn, was foolish to develop and maintain an intimate relationship with one of his tools.”
She hesitated a moment, then decided to speak frankly. “I’m aware there is speculation in some corners that I’m Roarke’s tool. Or vice versa. In point of fact, me being a cop is more problematic for him than not. And, well, vice versa. For Alex Ricker, living with a cop, maintaining an intimate relationship and a professional one? It’s asking for trouble, and he doesn’t.”
“So you’ve concluded Coltraine may have been killed because of Alex Ricker, but not by or for him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A competitor, an underling. That’s a wide field, Lieutenant.”
“I think it may be more narrow, Commander. According to the record, Alex Ricker visited his father on Omega only once in the last eight months. There have been no communications between them, or, in fact, between Max Ricker and anyone since he began his multiple life sentences.”
“No communications, whatsoever, to or from the penal colony?”
“According to the records, no, sir.”
Whitney’s smile was tight and hard. “How stupid does he think we are?”
“Max Ricker has nothing but disdain for cops, and in the last few years his ego far overshadowed his judgment. That’s one of the reasons he’s in a cage. Since we’re not stupid, I’ve asked Captain Feeney to send a couple of e-men to Omega to check the veracity of those records.”
“When do they leave?”
“Today, sir. I hope within the hour. We could speed the process by requesting the civilian consultant make transportation available to the department for this purpose.”
The faintest glint of humor lit Whitney’s eyes. “I’ll leave the arrangements to you, Lieutenant. I have some connections on Omega. I’ll use them to speed the process once they’re on colony.”
He sat back, humor gone, drummed his fingers. “Not a competitor. Not an underling. You believe Max Ricker ordered the hit on Detective Coltraine.”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“To strike at his son, or to protect him?”
“That’s a question I hope to answer when I get Alex Ricker in the box.”
While Eve reported to her commander, Roarke stepped out of the car, nodded to his driver. Alex Ricker did the same. The steel blue water lapped the sand of Coney Island as the men approached each other.
Neutral ground, Roarke mused, didn’t have to be somber, staid, and serious. Business of this nature didn’t require the ambience of dank back rooms or vacant lots. He enjoyed the idea of having this meeting on the grounds of the revitalized amusement center. The reconstructed Ferris wheel symbolized something to his mind.
Life was full of circles.
Though it was far too early in the day for that ride or any of the others to spin and play, people walked the beach, slurped flavored coffees or sugar drinks as they strolled the boardwalk.
At sea, both pleasure boats and busy ferries sailed.
The ocean breeze flipped at the hem of his lightweight overcoat while he lifted his arms and allowed Alex’s man to scan him for weapons and bugs. And his performed the same task on Alex.
“I want to thank you for agreeing to meet me,” Alex began when they were both cleared. “Even if it is a strange choice of location.”
“Do you think so? A spring morning, out of doors, sea breezes.”
Alex glanced around. “Carousels.”
“And more. A New York landmark, a tradition that fell into disuse and disrepair-and shut down. A pity that. After the Urbans there was a push to revitalize, renew, and this place benefited from that. It’s hopeful, isn’t it, that fun has a place in the world?”
“How much of it do you own?”
Roarke only smiled. “Well then, you could find that out for yourself, couldn’t you? What do you have to say to me, Alex?”
“Can we walk?”
“Of course.” Roarke gestured, and they began to walk over the wooden slats, with their drivers several paces behind.
“You were my nemesis when we were young,” Alex told him.
“Was I?”
“My father pushed you into my face, at least initially. This is what you need to be. Ruthless, cold, always thinking ahead of the others. Until he decided you weren’t ruthless enough, cold enough, and worried you thought too far ahead of him. Still, you were shoved at me. I’d have to do better than you, by his measure, or I’d be a failure.”
“That’s a pisser, isn’t it?”
“It was. When he came to fear and detest you, it was worse. He ordered three hits on you that I know of.”
Roarke continued to stroll. “There were five, actually.”
“Why didn’t you ever retaliate?”
“I don’t need the blood of my competitors. Or even my enemies. He was, for some years, nothing to me. But he should never have touched my wife. I’d have done him for that, if you’re interested. For putting a mark on her.”
“You didn’t, and he lives.”
“Because doing so would’ve put another mark on her, as that’s who she is.”
“You let him live to protect your wife?”
Roarke paused, looked Alex in the face. “If you think the lieutenant needs protection, mine or anyone’s, you’ve severely misjudged her. I let him live out of respect to her. And I became convinced living, as he is condemned to live now, was worse than death.”
“It is, for him. He’ll never admit it, not even to himself. A part of him will always believe, needs to believe, he’ll fight his way back. Not just off Omega, but back to the top of his game. He’ll live for that, and live a long time, I think, dreaming of your blood. And your cop’s.”
“I sincerely hope you’re right.” In the smile he sent Alex, Eve would have seen the dangerous man who lived inside the polish. “I do wish him a very long life.”
“I hate him more than you ever could.”
Yes, Roarke thought. He’d heard the hate in every word, and between each one as well. “Why is that?”
“He killed my mother.” Alex stopped now, turned to the rail, looked out to sea. “All of my life I believed she’d fallen. That it had been a terrible accident. While part of me wondered if she’d given up, and jumped. But neither of those were true.”
Roarke said nothing, simply waited.
“He’d been losing control bit by bit over the last years. Becoming more and more unstable. He’d always been violent, quick to violence, easily enraged. I never knew what to make of him as a child. One minute I’d be treated like a prince, his most treasured son. The next I’d be picking myself up off the floor with a split
lip or bloodied nose. So I grew up fearing and worshipping him, and desperate to please him.”
“Many, if not most, who worked for him felt the same.”
“Not you. In any case, over the last dozen years, we’ll say, some of his demands, his decisions were dangerous. Unnecessary and dangerous. We argued. We started arguing about the time I went to university. We’d gotten to a point where I wouldn’t tolerate being knocked down, so he didn’t have that weapon to use. So, when he realized he couldn’t knock me down physically, he used another means.
“He should have done to me what he’d done to the bitch who bore me. That’s how he put it to me.” On the rail, Alex’s knuckles went white. “He should have gotten rid of me the way he had her. Watched me fall, watched my brains splatter on the street.”
Alex took a minute, just breathed in the sea air. “I asked him why he would have done it. He said she’d passed her usefulness, and she annoyed him. I should be careful not to do the same. Later he recanted. He’d only said it because I’d made him angry, because I’d disrespected him. But I knew he’d told me the absolute truth. So, you can believe me when I say I wish him a long, long life as much as you.”
“I’m very sorry. You can believe that as well.”
“I do. One of the reasons he hated you, hates you, is because you have a code. A moral code of your own that he couldn’t shake.”
He turned from the sea now to face Roarke. “You’ve no reason to believe I have one of my own, but I’m telling you, I didn’t kill Amaryllis. I didn’t order her killed. I’d never hurt her, or wish her harm. I loved her once. I cared about her still, very much. Whoever did it is using me as a shield. A diversion. And that infuriates me.”
“Why tell me?”
“Who else?” Alex demanded with some heat. “Your cop? In my place, would you strip out your guts to a cop? A cop who has every reason to suspect you of killing one?”
“I wouldn’t, no. Are you looking at me for putting in a good word for you?”
“Your sense of fair play disgusted my father. I suppose I’m counting on it. I don’t know who killed her, or even why. I’ve tried every resource I can think of to find out, and I’ve got nothing.”
The sea spread at Alex’s back, and the sun poured over him. In its strong light, Roarke saw pain, and the struggle to suppress it.
“I’m going to tell you that I came to New York hoping to convince her to come back to me. Because no one else in my life has ever made a difference. And I could see in a moment it would never happen. She was happy, and she was in love. And we were still who we were in Atlanta, still who we were when we went our separate ways. She could never accept me, what I am, what I do, and be happy. She’d faced that, and walked away. After seeing her again, I faced it.”
“Did you think she would change what she was in Atlanta, or now?”
“Yes. Yes, I did. Or that she’d just ignore my business dealings. They had nothing to do with her, or with us. But she couldn’t resolve it. And after a while, couldn’t live with it. Or me.”
“Did it never occur to you to adjust your business dealings?”
“No. It’s what I do. If I have my father in me, it’s that. I hope to God that’s all of him I have. I’ve never killed, or ordered a kill. It’s not… practical.”
“The men who hit your antique store in Atlanta died very badly, I’m told.”
“They did. I didn’t order it.”
“Max did?”
“They insulted him-by his way of thinking-by making a fool out of me. Out of his blood. So he dealt with it, his way. And his way put me and my interests under a great deal more scrutiny than necessary. I don’t kill, it’s simply not good business.”
He shrugged that off as a man might when discussing his preference for mutual funds over individual stocks as an investor. “I’d be impractical, and the hell with good business, if I knew who killed Ammy. Because I loved her once, and because I never had the goddamn balls to kill my father for what he did to my mother.”
When Alex went silent, when he turned back to the water, Roarke stepped to the rail beside him. “What are you looking for, from me?”
“I want-I need to know who killed her, and why. You have resources beyond mine. I don’t know how many you might be using in your connection with the police, or what I can offer you to use more for this. For her. But you’ve only to name your price.”
“You don’t know my wife. You know of her, but you don’t know her. You’d do well to put your trust in her to find those answers. Added to that? You don’t have to pay for my resources, Alex, when my wife has only to ask for them.”
Alex studied Roarke’s face, then nodded and looked back out over the water. “All right. I promise you if I learn anything, anything at all that could help, I’ll tell you.”
“I’ll take your promise, but I can’t give you the same. That would be up to the lieutenant. But I’ll give you this: When she finds who did this-and she will-should that person meet with a bad end, I’ll keep your part in that to myself.”
Alex let out a half laugh. “That’s something.” He turned, offered Roarke his hand. “Thank you.”
They were close to the same age, Roarke mused, and both started their lives with men who enjoyed spilling blood. Alex as the prince, and himself as the pauper.
Despite some of the basic similarities, and for all of Alex’s polish and his background of privilege, Roarke sensed the naive.
“Something your father wouldn’t have told you,” he began. “Taking blood, it leaves a mark on you. No matter how it’s done, or how it’s justified, it leaves a mark that goes in deep. Be sure you’re willing to wear that mark before you take the blood.”
Back in the car, Roarke deactivated the recorder built into his cuff link. He considered removing the microstunner inside his boot, then left it where it was. You just never knew.
Both were prototypes currently in development, made of materials undetectable by even the most sensitive scanners currently available. He knew, as his company was also developing the scanner that would detect them.
Always cover both ends of the game, he thought.
Part of him regretted he couldn’t tell Alex that he wasn’t Eve’s prime suspect. Or even a suspect in her mind at this point. But that, too, was up to the lieutenant. But he could regret. He’d had a mother, too. A mother who’d loved him, and who his father had killed. Outlived her usefulness, hadn’t she? Become an annoyance. Yes, he could feel for Alex there.
He could feel even as he wondered at the man’s lack of awareness. A man who’d let love walk away rather than give ground, or try at least to find the middle of it. And now, Roarke mused, couldn’t see what was staring him square in the face.
His ’link signaled. His lips curved when he read Darling Eve on the display. “Hello, Lieutenant.”
“Hey. I’ve got a favor. Can-where are you?”
“I’m in transit at the moment. I had a meeting.”
“Is that… you had a meeting on Coney Island?”
“I did. A pity it was so early in the day and I couldn’t treat myself to the roller coaster. We’ll have to come back, you and I, and make up for it.”
“Sure, when I’ve lost my mind and want to rush screaming through the air in a little car. Never mind. Favor. I need to-”
“Answer a question first, and I promise to grant whatever the favor might be.”
Suspicion narrowed her eyes. He loved that look.
“What kind of question?”
“A yes or no for now. Question, Lieutenant. Is Max Ricker behind Detective Coltraine’s murder?”
“What, do you have me wired? Have Whitney’s office bugged?”
Roarke glanced at his cuff link. “Not at the moment. I take that as a yes.”
“It’s not yes or no. I suspect, strongly, that Max Ricker is behind it.”
“That’s good enough for me. What’s the favor?”
“I need your fastest off-planet transpo. New York
to Omega Colony.”
“We’re going to Omega?”
“No, Callendar and another e-detective will be. I think Ricker’s pulling some strings up there, believe his communication and visitation records have been wiped or doctored. I want to know who he’s been talking to. It can take twenty-six hours or more to get to Omega by regular means.”
“I can cut that by more than a third. I’ll arrange it, and get back to you with the details.”
“Okay. I owe you.”
“A roller-coaster ride, at least.”
“No, I don’t owe you that much.”
He laughed when she clicked off. After arranging the flight, passing the information back, Roarke settled down and thought of Max Ricker.
Time had to stop, Eve thought, as she changed into dress blues. The dead deserved their moment, she supposed that was true enough. But in her mind, memorials were for the living left behind. So time had to stop, for Morris. She might do Coltraine a hell of a lot more good in the field, or working her way to getting Alex Ricker in the box. But there were other duties.
She pulled on the hard black shoes, stood and squared her uniform cap on her head.
She walked out of the locker room to take the glides down to the bereavement center.
She thought of Callendar and some bulky e-geek named Sisto, preparing to be flung like a couple of stones from a slingshot toward the cold rock of Omega. Callendar, Eve recalled, had appeared seriously juiced at the prospect of her first off-planet assignment.
It took all kinds.
This time tomorrow they’d be there, be digging in. They’d mine those logs and find what she needed. They’d damn well better find what she needed. Because every inch of her gut said Max Ricker had ordered the hit. She’d get to the why; she’d get to the how. But the e-team had to get her Ricker and his contact.
Max Ricker wouldn’t pay for killing a cop. What more could be done to a man who would live the rest of his miserable life in a cage? But others could and would pay, and that would have to be enough.
She hoped it would be enough.