by J. D. Robb
He took her hand, felt hers tremble lightly as he shook it. He gestured to a chair, knowing his manner was smooth, practiced, cool. He couldn’t quite help it.
“I appreciate you making the time for me,” he began, “especially so late in the day.”
“It’s not a problem.”
He could see her taking in his office—the space of it, the style. The art, the furniture, the equipment, the things he was able to surround himself with.
Needed to surround himself with.
“I thought to come to Dochas, but it occurred to me that having a man around the shelter too often may make some of the women, the children, nervous.”
“It’s good for them to be around men. Men who treat them as people and wish them no harm.” She folded her hands in her lap, and though she met his eyes levelly, he could almost hear the quick beat of her heart. “Part of breaking the cycle of abuse is overcoming fear, and reestablishing self-esteem and normal relationships.”
“I wouldn’t argue that, but I wonder—if Siobahn Brody had had more fear, would she have survived? I don’t know precisely what to say to you,” he continued before she could speak. “Or precisely how to say it. I thought I did. First, I want to apologize for taking so long to meet with you again.”
“I’ve been waiting to be fired.” Like his, her voice carried Ireland in it, in wisps and whispers. “Is that why you brought me here today?”
“It’s not, no. I’m sorry, I should’ve realized you’d be concerned after the way I left things. I was angry and . . . distracted.” He gave a short laugh and had to stop himself from raking a hand through his hair. Nerves, he thought. Well, she wasn’t the only one dealing with them. “That’s one way to put it.”
“You were furious, and ready to boot me out on my ass.”
“I was. I told myself you were lying.” His eyes stayed on hers, level and serious. “Had to be. Had to be some angle in there for you telling me this girl you knew back in Dublin was my mother. It was counter to everything I’d known, believed, my whole life, you see.”
“Yes. I do see it.”
“There have been others, from time to time, who’ve wormed their way to me with some story of a relation. Uncle, brother, sister, what have you. Easily refuted, ignored, dealt with.”
“What I told you wasn’t a story, Roarke, but God’s truth.”
“Aye, well.” He looked down at his hands and knew in their shape—the width of palm, the length of fingers—they were his father’s hands. “I knew that, somewhere in the belly, I knew it. It made it worse. Almost unbearable really.”
He looked up again, met her eyes again. “You’ve a right to know I checked on you, deeply.”
“I expected you would.”
“And I checked on her. On myself. I’d never done so before, not carefully.”
“I don’t understand that. I wouldn’t have told you the way I did if I hadn’t thought you’d know some of it. A man like you would know whatever he needed to know.”
“It was a point of pride to me that it didn’t matter. Wouldn’t matter, particularly when I believed my mother was Meg Roarke and I was as glad to see the back of her as she was of me.”
Moira let out a long breath. “I said no to coffee before because my hands were shaking. I wonder if I might trouble you for some after all.”
“Of course.” He rose and walked over to open a panel in the wall. Inside was a fully equipped minikitchen. When she laughed, he turned in the act of programming coffee.
“I’ve never seen the like of this office. So posh. My feet nearly sank to the ankles in the carpet. You’re young to have so much.”
The smile he sent her was more grim than amused. “I started early.”
“So you did. My stomach’s still jumping.” She pressed a hand to it. “I was certain you were bringing me in to fire me, maybe to threaten legal action of some sort. I didn’t know how I was going to tell my family, or the guests at Dochas. I hated thinking I’d have to leave. I’ve gotten attached.”
“As I said, I checked on you. They’re lucky to have you at the shelter. How would you like your coffee?”
“Plenty of cream, if you don’t mind. Is this whole building yours, then?”
“It is.”
“It’s like a great black spear, powerful and elegant. Thanks.” She accepted the coffee and took the first sip. Her eyes widened, then narrowed as she sniffed the contents of the cup. “Is this real coffee?”
And that weight at the base of his skull vanished with a quick, appreciative laugh. Gone, at last. “It is, yes. I’ll send you some. The first time I met my wife, I gave her coffee and she had a similar reaction. I sent her some as well. Might be why she married me.”
“I doubt that very much.” She kept her gaze steady on his now. “Your mother is dead, and he killed her, didn’t he? Patrick Roarke murdered her, as I always believed.”
“Yes. I went to Dublin and verified it.”
“Will you tell me how?”
Beat her to death, he thought. Beat her bloody and dead, with hands so much like my own. Then threw her away in the river. Threw away the poor dead girl who’d loved him enough to give him a son.
“No, I won’t. Only that I tracked down a man who’d been with him in those days, and who knew of it. Knew her and what happened.”
“If only I’d had more experience and less arrogance . . .” Moira began.
“It wouldn’t have mattered. If she’d stayed in the shelter in Dublin, or gone back to her family in Clare, or run. As long as she’d taken me, it wouldn’t have mattered. For whatever reason, pride, meanness, bloody-mindedness, he wanted me.”
The knowledge of that would haunt him for all of his days. Maybe it was meant to. “And he’d have found her.”
“That’s the kindest thing you could say to me,” she murmured.
“It’s just truth.” And he needed to get past it as best he could. “I went to Clare. I saw her family. My family.”
“Did you?” She reached out, laid a hand on his arm. “Oh, I’m so glad. I’m so glad for that.”
“They were . . . extraordinary. My mother’s twin, Sinead, she opened her home to me. Just like that.”
“Well, West County folks, they’re known for their hospitality, aren’t they?”
“I’m still baffled, and grateful. I’m grateful to you, Ms. O’Bannion, for telling me. I wanted you to know that.”
“She’d have been pleased, don’t you think? Not only that you know, but that you’ve taken these steps. I think she’d be very pleased.” She set her coffee aside, opened her purse. “You didn’t take this when you were in my office before. Will you have it now?”
He took the photograph of a young woman with red hair and pretty green eyes holding the dark-haired little boy. “Thank you. I’d very much like to have it.”
A guy in a white suit sang about love being quiet and tricky. Eve sipped champagne and had to agree. At least about the tricky part. Why else was she struggling to take her mind off murder and pretending to do something more than taking up space in a Philadelphia ballroom?
God knew love—and she would kick Roarke’s ass later for deserting her—was the only reason she was standing here while some woman in lavender silk rambled on and on and on about fashion designers.
Yes, yes, yes, she knew Leonardo personally. Jesus, he was married to her oldest friend. And she could’ve used a good dose of Mavis at the moment. Yes, for God’s sake, he’d designed the dress she was wearing.
So the fuck what? It was clothes. You put them on and you weren’t naked or cold.
Love obliged her to edit her thoughts so her part of the conversation—when she could shove a word through the wall of noise the woman built around her—went something like: Yes.
“Ah, there’s the most striking woman in the room. Excuse us, won’t you?” Charles Monroe, smooth and handsome, beamed a smile at Eve’s tormentor. “I simply have to steal her.”
“Kill me,” Eve mutt
ered as Charles drew her clear. “Take my weapon out of my bag, press it to the pulse in my throat, and fire. End my torment.”
He only laughed and swung her to the dance floor. “When I spotted you I thought you might be on the point of drawing that weapon and blasting the woman between the eyes.”
“I imagined ramming it into her mouth. It was never shut anyway.” She gave a quick shudder. “Anyway, thanks for the rescue. I didn’t know you were here.”
“Running a bit late, only just arrived.”
“Working?” Charles was a top-level LC.
“I’m with Louise.”
“Oh.” And because he was a man who made his living selling himself, Eve couldn’t quite figure how he and the dedicated Dr. Louise Dimatto developed, and maintained, a relationship.
Took all kinds, she reminded herself.
“I was going to get in touch with you,” he continued. “About Jacie Wooton.”
The cop shifted back to the forefront. “You knew her?”
“I used to. Not well, really. I don’t think anyone knew Jacie well. But we ran in similar circles, so we’d bump into each other now and then. Or did, before she got busted.”
“Let’s find a corner somewhere.”
“I don’t know that this is the time—”
“Works for me.” Taking charge, she pulled him from the dance floor, scanning the little packs of people, the tables, and decided to take it outside.
There was a terrace festooned with flowers, scattered with more tables, more people. But it was quieter.
“Tell me what you know.”
“Next to nothing.” He wandered to the edge of the terrace, looked out over the lights of the city. “She was well-established before I got into the life. She liked everything top drawer. The best clothes, the best venues, the best clients.”
“The best dealer, then?”
“I don’t know about her dealer. I don’t,” he insisted. “I’m not going to claim I don’t know anything about that end of the business, but I stay clean. Spotless now that I’m dating a doctor,” he added with a smile. “Jacie’s busts took everybody by surprise. If she was an addict, she hid it well. If I knew anything, Dallas, I’d tell you. No hesitation, no bullshit. As far as I know she didn’t have friends. Not real friends. Or enemies. She was the job.”
“Okay.” She started to slip her hands into her pockets, remembered the little copper-colored number didn’t have any. “If something occurs to you, however small or remote, I want to hear about it.”
“That’s a promise. It’s shaken me, the way it happened, the rumors I’m hearing. Louise is worried.” He glanced back toward the terrace doors. “She hasn’t said anything, specifically, but she’s worried. When you love someone you can tell when they’re carrying stress.”
“Yeah, I guess so. You’re going to want to be careful, Charles. You don’t fit the vic profile on this, but you’re going to want to be careful.”
“Always,” he replied.
She didn’t say anything to Roarke about the conversation on the shuttle ride home. But she turned it over in her mind, replayed it, considered it.
When they were back in their bedroom and she was shimmying out of the tiny dress, she ran it by him.
“Doesn’t sound like he’ll be much of a source on this,” Roarke commented.
“No, but that’s not what I’m thinking about. After we went back in, I watched him and Louise together. They’re practically like turtledoves or something. You know they’re going to roll around naked tonight.”
“Naked turtledoves. No, not an attractive visual. Let me think of another.”
“Ha-ha. What I’m saying is how can she roll naked with him tonight knowing he’s going to be doing the same deal with however many clients are on his book tomorrow?”
“Because it’s not the same.” He flipped down the bedspread. “One’s personal, one’s professional. It’s his job.”
“Oh, that’s just bullshit. That’s just a bullshit rationalization. And if it’s not, can you stand there and tell me if I was a sex pro, you’d be perfectly fine, just iced with me riding some other guy’s stick?”
“You have such a way with words.” He looked at her, standing with the glittery dress in one hand. She wore nothing but a matching triangle over her crotch, too small to be called panties, a triple chain of multicolored stones she’d yet to remove, and high, backless heels.
And an annoyed scowl.
“No, I wouldn’t be fine with it, or iced, or anything remotely like it. But then I don’t share. Christ, you look sexy. Why don’t you come over here and we’ll roll around, naked as turtledoves?”
“We’re having a conversation.”
“You are,” he corrected, as he stepped off the bed platform and toward her.
“And speaking of conversations . . .” She evaded, nipping neatly behind the sofa. “I still have to beat you brainless for leaving me with that woman, the one who looked like a skinny purple tree.”
“I was unavoidably detained.”
“My ass.”
“Oh, darling Eve, I’m thinking very fondly of your ass.” He feinted, she countered. And they circled the sofa. “Better run,” he said softly.
And with a quick whoop, she did. When they were both breathless, she let him catch her.
She had nothing. No breaks, no fresh leads, no old ones that looked promising. She juggled her list of suspects and possibles, looked for openings. She recanvassed the area around the crime scene, studied lab reports.
She ran the elements through IRCCA, searching for similar crimes, and found one in London more than a year before that could fit. Still open. It wasn’t exact, she mused. Messier, sloppier.
Practice session?
There was no note on elegant stationery, just the mutilated body of a young LC. Not the same type as Wooton, Eve acknowledged, and wondered if she was grasping at straws.
There were plenty of slice-and-dice, a number of LCs, especially on street level, who’d been assaulted, even killed, by clients or would-be clients. But nothing that matched the barbaric elegance of Jack.
She spoke with neighbors, coworkers, associates of those on her possible list, keeping the interviews informal and discreet. Pushing, poking for that crack. But nothing broke.
She faced her Sunday off with annoyance and irritability. Hardly a picnic of a mood. Her only hope of getting through it, Eve decided, was to get Mira in some quiet spot and pick her brain.
“Maybe you should give her brain, and your own, a day off.”
She frowned over at Roarke as they crossed the sidewalk to Mira’s pretty house, set in her pretty neighborhood. “What?”
“You’re muttering out loud.” He patted her shoulder supportively. “I don’t know as talking to yourself when knocking on the door of a shrink is the best of behaviors.”
“We’re only staying a couple of hours. Remember? We agreed on that.”
“Mmm.” With this noncommittal sound, he pressed his lips to her forehead. And the door opened.
“Hello. You must be Eve and Roarke. I’m Gillian, Charlotte and Dennis’s daughter.”
It took her a beat as she rarely thought of Mira by her given name. But Mira was stamped, clearly, on her daughter’s face.
Though her hair was longer, well past her shoulders and curling, it was the same rich sable. Her eyes were the same mild and patient blue, but they were homed in on Eve’s, looking deep. Her frame was longer, lankier like her father’s, and she’d draped it in some loose, airy top and pants that stopped inches short of her ankles.
One of those ankles carried a tattoo, a trio of connecting chevrons. Bracelets jangled on her wrists, rings jingled on her fingers. Her feet were bare with the toes painted a pale pink.
She was Wiccan, Eve recalled, and responsible for a couple of Mira’s grandchildren.
“It’s lovely to meet you.” Roarke was already taking Gillian’s hand, and smoothly stepping between two women who were obviously taking ea
ch other’s measure. “You favor your mother, who I’ve always considered one of the world’s loveliest of women.”
“Thanks. Mom said you were very charming. Please come in. We’re spread out”—she glanced back to where a baby’s strong wails poured down the stairs—“as you can hear, but most of us are in the back. We’ll fix you a drink, so you’ll be braced for the onslaught of a day at the Miras.”
There were a considerable number of them there already, gathered in the kitchen/activity room that was as big as a barn, and nearly as noisy. Through the two-story glass wall of the back, others could be seen on a wide patio decked with chairs and tables and some sort of large, outdoor cooking device that was already smoking.
She could see Dennis, Mira’s delightful and absent-minded husband, manning it with a long fork of some kind. He had a Mets cap over his explosion of gray hair, and baggy shorts nearly down to a pair of knobby knees Eve found secretly adorable.
Another man was with him, his son maybe, and they seemed to be holding an intense and spirited debate with a lot of laughter and beer-swilling from bottles.
There were kids of various ages milling or running around. And a girl of about ten who sat on a stool at the big work counter, sulking.
Food was spread out all over, and urged on them while introductions were made. Someone pushed a margarita in her hand.
When he opted for beer, Roarke was told he’d find them outside in a cooler. A young boy—Eve was already losing the names as they came at her like grapeshot—was given the task of escorting Roarke out and introducing him to the rest.
With the boy’s hand clasped on his, Roarke looked over his shoulder, shot a wicked grin at Eve, and strolled outside.
“It looks chaotic now, but . . . it’ll get worse.” With a laugh, Mira took a bowl of yet more food out of an enormous refrigerator. “I’m so glad you came. Lana, stop pouting and run upstairs. See if your aunt Callie needs any help with the baby.”
“I don’t see why I have to do everything.” But the kid scooted down and away.
“She’s irritable because she broke the rules and can’t have screen or comp privileges for a week,” Gillian commented.
“Oh.”