The In Death Collection, Books 26-29

by J. D. Robb

  “And you brought Summerset here.”

  “I did.”

  She sipped her wine. “Fathers make a difference, and they don’t have to be blood to do it. We both found fathers, or they found us, however it worked. It made a difference.”

  “And you’re thinking Alex Ricker lost his, the day he learned his father murdered his mother. And that made a difference.”

  “You read me pretty well.”

  “I do indeed. Let’s go home, get to work.”

  She waited while he paid the check, then rose with him. “Thanks for dinner.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Roarke?” On the sidewalk she stopped, studied his face, then shrugged. “What the hell, it’s New York.” And threw her arms around him, took his mouth in a long, shimmering kiss. “For reading me well,” she said when she released him.

  “I’m buying a bloody case of that wine.”

  She laughed all the way to the car.

  At home, she peeled off her jacket, tossed it on the sleep chair. In shirt-sleeves, she circled her murder board.

  “You said you were going to work from home, too. To Caro,” Eve reminded him.

  “So I am. But not before you tell me what you plan to do.”

  “I’m thinking about asking you to contact your new best friend before getting started on your own stuff.”

  “And why would I be doing that?”

  It had to be the wine, she thought, because sometimes when he talked—just the way that hint of Celtic music wove through the words—she wanted to drool. “Um.” She shook it off. “To tell him it’s important that both he and his PA stay in New York. And that I’d like to talk with each of them tomorrow.”

  “On a Saturday. When you’re hosting a party.”

  “I can do it in the morning. Peabody and Nadine are invading with God knows what stuff. I don’t have to do any of that. They said.”

  “Easy, darling. And I’d be telling my new best friend this because?”

  “Show of good faith. I’m inclined to believe him, blah, blah. I want to discuss some details tomorrow morning that may help me with a current line of investigation.”

  “And put the heat on Sandy. Could work. I’ll do that. I’ll be a couple hours, I expect, after. You do remember I’m off to Vegas tomorrow?”

  “I . . .” Now she did. “Yeah, yeah, male debauchery.”

  “I could probably juggle things and go with you in the morning, as Peabody’s occupied.”

  “No. No. You’ve juggled enough.” She could take it alone, but he’d get pissy about that. And he’d have a point, she admitted. “I’ll get Baxter.”

  “All right then.”

  Armed with coffee, Eve sat down to write up her notes. She ordered a secondary run on Rod Sandy, including his financials. The man had been in the Ricker stew since college, Eve thought. A long time.

  He’d know how to tuck money away here and there. Maybe money paid by the father to betray the son.

  She scanned the EDD reports on the data mined from the ’links and comps confiscated from the Ricker penthouse. Nothing to Omega, of course. It wouldn’t be that easy. Nothing to Coltraine but the single contact from Alex asking her over for a drink. Nothing to Coltraine’s precinct or any member of her squad.

  But a smart guy like Sandy? He wouldn’t leave that clear a trace—one, in fact, his pal Alex might stumble on and question.

  Second pocket ’link somewhere. Stashed, hidden, already ditched?

  She checked her wrist unit. Hours, she thought, still hours before Callendar docked, much less started digging. Eve told herself to consider it time to refine her theory, to check for wrong turns.

  She poured more coffee, had barely begun when Roarke stepped back in. “You reach Alex?”

  “Yes, that’s done and he’s expecting you about nine. Eve, Morris was at the gate. I had Summerset let him through.”

  “Morris?”

  “On foot.”

  “Oh, shit.” She pushed away from her desk, and started downstairs. “What condition is he in? Is he—”

  “I didn’t ask. I thought it best to get him here. Summerset sent a cart down to him.”

  “A cart?”

  “God, how long have you lived here? One of the autocarts. It’ll bring him straight here.”

  “How am I supposed to know we have autocarts? Do I ever use an autocart? What’s your take?” she demanded of Summerset as she came down the last flight of stairs. “His condition?”

  “Lost. Not geographically. Sober. In pain.”

  Eve stood, dragging her hands through her hair. “Do some coffee thing,” she told Summerset. “Or . . . maybe we should let him get drunk. I don’t know. What should we do here? I don’t know what to do for him.”

  “Then figure it out.” Summerset moved to the door. Then he paused, turned back to her. “A drunk only clouds the pain for a time, so it comes back sharper. Coffee’s best when you listen to him as that’s what he’ll need. Someone who cares who’ll listen to him.”

  He opened the door. “Go on, go on. He’ll do better if you go to him.”

  “Don’t kick at me,” she muttered, but went out.

  The cart was nearly silent as he cruised sedately down the drive, made a graceful turn. It stopped at the base of the steps.

  “I’m sorry.” Morris rubbed his hands over his face like a man coming out of sleep. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I came. I shouldn’t have.” He got off the cart as she went down the stairs. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

  She held out a hand. “Come inside, Li.”

  He shuddered, as if fighting a terrible pain, and only shook his head. She knew pain, and the fight against it, so moved to him, and took his weight, some of the grief when his arms came around her.

  “There,” Summerset murmured. “She’s figured it out, hasn’t she?”

  Roarke put a hand on Summerset’s shoulder. “Coffee would be good, I think. And something . . . I doubt he’s eaten.”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  “Come inside,” Eve repeated.

  “I didn’t know where to go, what to do. I couldn’t go home after . . . Her brother took her. I went and I watched them . . . They loaded her on the transpo. In a box. She’s not there. Who knows that better? But I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t go home. I don’t even know how I got here.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Come on.” She kept an arm around him, walked him up the stairs where Roarke waited.

  15

  “I’M INTRUDING, INTERRUPTING.”

  “You’re not.” Eve steered him toward the parlor. “Let’s go sit down. We’re going to have some coffee.” His hands were cold, she thought, and his body felt fragile. There were always more victims than the dead.

  Who knew better?

  She led him to a chair by the fire, relieved she didn’t have to ask Roarke to light one. Anticipating her, he already was, so she pulled a chair around, angling it so she sat facing Morris.

  “It was easier, somehow,” Morris began, “when there were details to see to. Easier somehow to go through the steps. The memorial, it centered me. Somehow. Her brother—helping him—it was something that had to be done. Then she was gone. She’s gone. And it’s final, and there’s nothing for me to do.”

  “Tell me about her. Some small thing, something not important. Just something.”

  “She liked to walk in the city. She’d rather walk than take a cab, even when it was cold.”

  “She liked to see what was going on, be part of it,” Eve prompted.

  “Yes. She liked the night, walking at night. Finding some new place to have a drink or listen to music. She wanted me to teach her how to play the saxophone. She had no talent for it whatsoever. God.” A shudder ran through him. Racked him. “Oh, God.”

  “But you tried to teach her.”

  “She’d be so serious about it, but the noise—you’d never call it music—that came out would make her laugh. She’d push the
sax at me, and tell me to play something. She liked to stretch out on the couch and ask me to play.”

  “You can see her there?”

  “Yes. Candlelight on her face, that half smile of hers. She’d relax and watch me play.”

  “You can see her there,” Eve repeated. “She’s not gone.”

  He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.

  Panicked, Eve looked over at Roarke. And he nodded, centered her. So she kept talking.

  “I’ve never lost anyone who mattered,” Eve told Morris. “Not like this. For a long time, I didn’t have anyone who mattered. So I don’t know. Not all the way. But I feel, because of what I do. I feel. I don’t know how people get through it, Morris, I swear to Christ I don’t know how they put one foot in front of the other. I think they need something to hold on to. You can see her, and you can hold on to that.”

  Morris dropped his hands, stared down at them. Empty. “I can. Yes, I can. I’m grateful, to both of you. I keep leaning on you. And here, I’ve turned up on your doorstep, pushing this into your evening.”

  “Stop. Death’s a bastard,” Eve said. “When the bastard comes, the ones left need family. We’re family.”

  Summerset wheeled in a small table. Businesslike and efficient, he moved it between Eve and Morris. “Dr. Morris, you’ll have some soup now.”

  “I—”

  “It’s what you need. This is what you need.”

  “Would you see the blue suite on the third floor’s prepared.” Roarke moved forward now to sit on the arm of Eve’s chair. “Dr. Morris will be staying tonight.”

  Morris started to speak, then just closed his eyes, took a breath. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” When Summerset started out, Eve slid out of the chair and went after him. She caught him at the doorway, spoke quietly.

  “You didn’t tranq that soup, did you?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Okay, don’t get huffy.”

  “I am never huffy.”

  “Fine. Whatever.” She had more important things to do than wrangle with Summerset.

  “Lieutenant,” he said as she turned away. “It will likely be a very long while before I ever repeat this, if that day should ever come. But I’ll say now, at this precise moment, I’m proud of you.”

  Her jaw very nearly slammed into the toes of her boots. She goggled at his stiff, skinny back as he walked away. “Weird,” she muttered. “Very, very weird.”

  She went back inside, took her seat. It relieved her that Morris ate, that his voice was back to steady as he and Roarke talked. “Some part of my brain must have been functioning, because it brought me here.”

  “You’ll talk to Mira, when you’re ready?”

  Morris considered Roarke’s question. “I suppose I will. I know what she’ll offer. I know it’s right. We deal with it every day. As you said, Dallas, we feel.”

  “I don’t know what you think about this sort of thing,” Eve began. “But I know this priest.”

  A faintest ghost of a smile touched Morris’s mouth. “A priest.”

  “A Catholic guy, from this case I worked.”

  “Oh yes, Father Lopez, from Spanish Harlem. I spoke with him during that business.”

  “Sure. Right. Well, anyway . . . There’s something about him. Something solid, I guess. Maybe, if you wanted someone outside of the circle, outside of the job, you know, you could talk to him.”

  “I was raised Buddhist.”

  “Oh, well . . .”

  That ghost of a smile remained. “And as I grew up, I experimented and toyed with a variety of faiths. The organized sort, I found, didn’t stick with me. But it might be helpful to talk with this priest. Do you believe there’s more, after death?”

  “Yes,” Eve answered without hesitation. “No way we go through all this crap, then that’s it. If it is, I’m going to be seriously pissed off.”

  “Exactly. I feel them, and I’m sure you do, too. Sometimes when they come to me, it’s done. They’ve gone, and all I have is the shell of what they were. Others, there’s more. It lingers awhile. You know?”

  “Yeah.” It wasn’t something she easily expressed, or shared. But she knew. “It’s harder to take when it lingers.”

  “For me, it’s hopeful. She was gone when I saw her. I wanted, selfishly, to feel her. But she’d gone, wherever she needed to go. I needed to be reminded of that, I think. That she’s not gone, not from me, because I can see her. And that she’s somewhere she needs to be. Yes, Father Lopez may help me come to terms. But so can you.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Bring me in. Tell me what you know, all of it, everything. Not just what you think I should know, but everything. And give me something to do, some part of it. However mundane. Fact-checking or follow-ups, buying fucking doughnuts for the team. I need to be involved. I need to have some part in finding the person who did this.”

  She studied his face. Yes, the need was there. The intensity of it nearly burned a hole in her heart. “You have to tell me this, tell me straight. Respect her, respect me, and tell me the truth.”

  “I will.”

  “What do you want when we find him? What do you want done?”

  “You’re asking if I want to kill him, to take his life?”

  “That’s what I’m asking.”

  “I thought of it, even imagined it. There are so many ways, and in my position a lot of avenues to take. I did think of it. It would be for me, and not for her. It wouldn’t be what she wanted. I would . . . disappoint her. How could I do that? I want what she would want.”

  “What is that?”

  “Justice. There are a lot of colors there, though, a lot of degrees and levels. We know that, too.” His gaze skimmed to Roarke. “All of us know that. I want his pain, and I want his pain to last a very long time. Death ends—at least this part of us. I don’t want his death, and I’ll promise you on hers that I’ll do nothing to end him. I want him in a cage, years, decades in a cage. Then I want him in whatever hell might exist when death ends that. I want a part of making that happen.”

  He reached across the table now, gripped her hand. “Eve. I won’t betray her, or you. I swear to you.”

  “Okay. You’re in.” She picked up her coffee. “I’m going to start by telling you she was clean. There’s no evidence that she was on the take or in anybody’s pocket. All evidence is to the contrary. She ended her relationship with Alex Ricker in Atlanta. Her only connection to him was friendship.”

  “Did he kill her?”

  “It’s not tipping that way. It’s reading like she was killed because of him, but not by him, and not with his knowledge, not through his orders, his wishes. I think Max Ricker ordered it done to punish the son, to screw with him.”

  “He killed her to . . . Yes, I can see that.” When he picked up his coffee, Morris’s hand remained steady. “I can easily see that now.”

  “To do it, he’d need someone close to Alex, and someone close to Col—to Ammy,” she corrected. “I have two e-detectives on their way to Omega now. I think Ricker’s got someone up there covering his visitor and communication log. I think he’s been in touch, and he’s been orchestrating this—maybe more than this. I’m going to see Alex in the morning—but more, I’m going to see his personal assistant. That’s the guy I’m looking at. Nobody’s closer to Alex than this guy, this Rod Sandy. On the other part, I’m looking at her squad.”

  “One of her squad?” Morris set his cup down again. “Jesus. Jesus.”

  “It was an inside hit—inside her world, inside Alex Ricker’s. I know it.”

  For a long moment, he stared at the fire. Stared in silence.

  “I didn’t think you were so close. I didn’t believe you’d gotten this far. I should’ve known better. What can I do?”

  “You can spend some time tonight thinking about anything she told you about the people she worked with. Little things: comments, observations, complaints, jokes. Anythin
g you remember. Anything you observed personally when you went to see her at work, when you joined her for a drink, for a meal with anyone in her squad. Note it down.”

  “I will. I can do that.”

  “And try to sleep. You’re no good to me if your brain’s fuzzed up with exhaustion. Think, note, sleep. I’m heading out in the morning to interview Alex and his PA. Send anything to my unit here, and I’ll review. I can talk to you more about it when I get back.”

  His eyes held hers, and they were sharp again—the dullness honed away by purpose. “All right. I’ll start right away.”

  “Why don’t I take you up?” Roarke rose.

  “I was just coming to do so.” Summerset walked in. “Let me show you your room, Dr. Morris, and you can tell me if there’s anything else you need.”

  “Thank you.” Morris looked back at Eve. “I have what I need.”

  As Morris left with Summerset, Roarke skimmed a hand over Eve’s hair. “You’re no good to me if your brain’s fuzzed up with exhaustion. I don’t know how you could choke those words out without them burning off your tongue. Nicely done, though. He’ll will himself to sleep because of it.”

  “That’s the plan. I need to finish up, and stow the murder board. I won’t have him wander into my office and see that.” She smiled at him as she rose. “It was nice what you did, seeing that he stayed here tonight.”

  Roarke took her hand. “We’re family.”

  Somewhere in the dim hours of the morning, Eve felt herself being lifted. She managed to focus about the time Roarke carried her into the elevator from her office.

  “Damn it, I conked. What time is it?”

  “Around two, fuzzy-brain.”

  “Sorry. Sorry.”

  “It happens I got caught up myself, and the work took longer than I’d anticipated. I just surfaced myself.”

  “Oh.” She yawned. “Maybe I should be carrying you.”

  “Easy to say now that I’m hauling you into the bedroom.” Crossing it, he dumped her unceremoniously on the bed. “And I doubt either of us have the energy for a sexy new nightgown.”