by J. D. Robb
“How come she didn’t contact Bobby’s pal and partner to tell him Bobby was hurt?”
“She might very well have done so, on her personal ’link.”
“Yeah, we’ll check that. I’m betting she didn’t. Didn’t get in touch because she didn’t want him heading out here, or keeping her tied up talking out the details, buzzing her back for updates. She wanted a little alone time with her fucking pie.”
Mira laughed out loud before she could cough it away, and earned a scowl. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not funny, it was just such an image. You want a profile, I’ll give you one.”
She got back in the car, strapped in. “The subject is a young, inexperienced woman, who appears used to—and amenable to—being told what she should do. She looks to her husband to make decisions, while she deals with the more domestic areas. This is her comfort zone. She enjoys attention while having a tendency to be skittish and shy. She has an orderly, tidy, and, I would say, submissive nature.”
“Or she’s slipped that persona on like a skin-suit.”
“Yes, or, if you’re right, Eve, this is a very clever, very calculating woman. One who would be willing to subvert her own nature for a considerable length of time in order to reach her goal. She’s been married to this man for several months, which brings them into a very intimate relationship every day. She knew and worked for him before that, was courted by him. Maintaining a pose contrary to her nature would be a very impressive feat.”
“I’m prepared to be impressed. I’m not pushing aside other possibilities, other suspects,” she added. “I’m just adding her in.”
And keeping her at the top of my list, Eve thought.
18
BOBBY WAS SITTING UP IN BED WHEN EVE stepped into his room. His eyes were closed, and the entertainment unit was set, she assumed, for a book on disc. In any case, there were voices spilling out of it in what seemed to be an intense and passionate argument.
If he was sleeping, he didn’t need to hear it. If he wasn’t, she needed his attention. So she stepped closer to the unit. “Pause program,” she ordered.
In the sudden silence Bobby stirred, opened his eyes.
“Zana? Oh, Eve. I must’ve nodded off. Sort of listening to a book. Crappy book,” he added with an attempt at a smile. “The nurse told me Zana was coming in soon.”
“I just left her a little while ago. I’m having a couple of uniforms drive her to and from. It’s nasty outside.”
“Yeah.” He looked out the window, his expression brooding.
“So. How’re you feeling?”
“I don’t know. Clumsy, stupid, annoyed to be here. Sorry for myself.”
“You’re entitled.”
“Yeah, that’s what myself’s telling me. The flowers, the tree. It’s nice.”
He gestured toward the little fake pine decorated with miniature Santas. To Eve’s mind, it looked like the jolly old elf had been hanged, multiple times, in effigy.
“Zana told me you helped pick them out.”
“Not really. I was just there.”
“She thinks of stuff like that. Little things like that. This is a really, really shitty Christmas for her.”
“For you, too. It sucks out loud, Bobby, and I’m going to add to it by asking you if you’ve thought of anything else, remembered anything. About what happened to your mother, about what happened to you.”
“Nothing. Sorry. And I’ve had a lot of time to think, lying here like an idiot who can’t cross the damn street.” He let out a sigh, lifted the hand of his good arm, then let it fall. “A lot of time to think, about what you said, about what you said my mother did. Wanted to do. She really asked for money?”
Eve moved closer to the bed so she could stand at its side and watch his face. “How much shit can you take?”
He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, she hoped what she saw in them was strength. “I might as well get it all dumped on me. I’ve got nothing better to do.”
“Your mother had several numbered accounts, which were fed by funds she extorted from women she’d fostered as children.”
“Oh, God. Oh, my God. There has to be a mistake, some kind of mix-up, misunderstanding.”
“I have statements from two of these women that verify that your mother contacted them, threatened to expose their juvenile records unless they paid the amounts she demanded.”
She watched the blows land on his already battered face, until he was staring at her, not with disbelief or shock, but with the focused concentration of a man fighting pain.
“Statements,” he repeated. “Two of them.”
“There’re going to be more, Bobby, when it’s done. She also informed my husband that she had copies of my files and would sell them to interested media sources unless he paid her. She’s been blackmailing former charges for a number of years.”
“They were just kids,” he said under his breath. “We were all just kids.”
“It’s possible she used one of her former fosters to aid her in her attempt to blackmail me, through Roarke, and was killed by this individual.”
“I would never have let her do without. Whenever she wanted something I did what I could to get it for her. Why would she do this? I know what you’re thinking,” he said, and looked beyond her, toward the window again. “I understand what you’re thinking. You think she used and mistreated you when you were in her care, when you were a kid. So why not use and mistreat you now?”
“Am I wrong, Bobby? Is something wrong with my memory?”
His breath shuddered out softly. “No. She used to say, used to tell me that you—the kids she took in—were lucky to have someone offer them a decent home. Care enough to take them, to teach them manners and discipline and respect. That’s what she said it was when she locked you up. Consequences for unacceptable behavior. Things would be a lot worse if you were on the streets.”
“Did you buy that, Bobby?”
“I don’t know. Maybe some. She never hurt me.” He turned his head now, met Eve’s eyes. “She never treated me that way. She said it was because I did what I was told. But I didn’t, not always. If she caught me, she’d usually laugh and say, ‘Boys will be boys.’ It was the girls she . . . I don’t know why. Something inside her. She hated her mother. Used to tell me we were lucky to be rid of the old bitch. Maybe—I don’t know—maybe her mother did those things to her. It’s a cycle, right? Isn’t that what they say about abuse? It’s a cycle.”
“Yeah, it often is.” Maybe that comforted him, she thought. “What about you, Bobby? Did you cycle around, take care of your mother? She must’ve been a hardship on you. New wife, new business, and here’s this demanding woman, prying into your life. A demanding woman with a big pile of money stashed away.”
His eyes filmed over for a moment. Tears he blinked away. “I don’t blame you for saying it, thinking it. And you can put on record that I’ll take a Truth Test. I’ll take one voluntarily, as soon as you can arrange it. I want you to find who hurt her.”
He took a long breath. “I loved my mother, Eve. I don’t know if you can understand, but even knowing what she was, what she did, I loved her. If I’d known what she was doing, I’d have found a way to make it stop. To make her give the money back, and stop. That’s what I want to do. Give the money back. You have to help me get the money back to the people she took it from. Maybe it won’t make it right, but I don’t know what else to do.”
“Yeah, I can help you with that. How would you have made her stop, Bobby?”
“I don’t know. She’d listen to me. If she knew I was really upset, she’d listen to me.” Now he sighed a little. “Or pretend to. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know how to tell Zana all this. I don’t know how to tell her this is true. She’s already been through so much.”
“She was tight with your mother.”
“They got along. Zana gets along with everyone. She made a real effort with my mother—it takes one.” He tried another smile.
“Not possible.” He tried to sit up straighter, as if to emphasize his point, and cursed the restriction of his broken arm. “Zana’s . . . she’s scrupulous. I don’t know anyone as intrinsically honest. She might not have argued with my mother about it, but she’d have been horrified, and she’d have told me. We don’t have secrets.”
People said that, Eve knew. But how did they know the other party didn’t have secrets? How did they know there’d been full disclosure?
“Zana the type to keep her word?”
His face was full of love. “Probably cut off a finger before she’d break it.”
“Then she’d be in a tough spot if she’d given your mother her word not to tell you, or anyone.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and Eve could see him wrestling with this new possibility. “I don’t know how she’d have dealt with it. But she’d have told me, at least after my mother was killed. She’d never have kept that to herself. I wonder where she is.” His fingers began to tug at the sheet. “I thought she’d be here by now.”
“I’ll check in a minute, make sure she’s on her way. They say when they’re springing you?”
“Not before tomorrow, but I’m pushing for that. I want to salvage something of Christmas. It’s our first, probably told you that. At least I bought a couple of things here, so Zana will have something to open. Man, this—how did you put it? Oh, yeah, this sucks out loud.”
Reaching into the pocket of her coat, Eve brought out a little bag. “Thought you might like these. Cookies,” she said as she put the bag in his good hand. “I figure they might not run to Christmas cookies around here.”
“Appreciate it.” He peeked inside, nearly smiled again. “Really. The food’s fairly crappy around here.”
He’d brought her food once, and now she’d returned the favor. She thought that made them even, or wanted to think it.
Eve checked with her uniforms, assured Bobby his wife would be there shortly.
Then she let it all shuffle around in her mind during the long, ugly drive uptown.
Her pocket ’link signalled, causing her to fumble a moment as she interfaced it with the unfamiliar system on the all-terrain so her hands stayed free to fight the fight. “Dallas, and this better be good because I’m stuck in lousy traffic.”
“I’m not!” Peabody’s voice shot out thrills and excitement completely in contrast with the icy rain. On the dash screen, her face glowed like a damn candle. “I’m in Scotland, and it’s snowing. It’s snowing in big, fat, mag flakes.”
“Yippee.”
“Aw, don’t be that way. I just had to tell you we’re here, and it’s so beyond frosty. The McNabs have this amazing house, kinda like a really big cottage, and there’s a river and mountains. McNab’s dad has a burr.”
“Well, why doesn’t he pull it out?”
“No, no, the accent. It’s total. And they like me, Dallas. I mean, they just slathered, like, all over me.”
“Again, I repeat: Yippee.”
“I don’t know why I was so nervous and freaky. It’s just piles of fun on top of more. The shuttle ride was so uptown, and then, wow, the scenery is so completely mag. It’s like a vid or something, and—”
“Peabody, I’m glad you’re having a good time. Seriously. But I’m trying to get home here, so I can grab a little Christmas cheer myself.”
“Sorry, sorry. Wait, first, did you get the presents I left on your desk?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Oh.” Peabody’s face went through several expressions, ending on a pout. “You’re welcome.”
“We didn’t open them yet.”
“Oh! Oh, okay.” The pout turned into a nervous grin. “You want to wait until tomorrow. I just wondered. So, well . . . Anything I should know on the case?”
“Nothing that can’t wait until you get back. Go eat some—what is it—haggis.”
“I might. I’ve already had a really big whiskey, and it’s dancing in my head. But I don’t care! It’s Christmas. And last year you and I were mad at each other, and now we’re not. I love you, Dallas, and Roarke, and every bony inch of McNab. And his cousin Sheila. Merry Christmas, Dallas.”
“Yeah, you bet.” She cut off before Peabody could get started again. But she was smiling as she rolled through the gates toward home.
The house was lit as if it were night, and an icy mist rolled over the ground, sparkled just a little in the lights. She could see trees shimmering, candles glowing, and heard the patter of that cold, hard rain on the roof of her vehicle.
She stopped, just stopped in the middle of the drive. Just to look, and to think, and remember. Inside was warmth, fires burning with the crackle of real wood. Everything in her life had somehow navigated her here. Whatever the horrors had been, the pain and blood, whatever dogged her dreams like a hound, had brought her here. She believed that.
She had this because she’d survived the other. She had this because he’d been waiting on the other side of the road. Navigating his own trenches.
She had home, where the candles were lit and the fires were burning. It was good, she thought, to take a moment to remember that, and to know, whatever else she faced, this was here.
And if she couldn’t just enjoy it for twenty-four hours, what was the point?
She dashed into the house, shook rain from her hair. For once, Summerset wasn’t lurking in the foyer, but even as she tugged off her coat, Roarke strolled out of the parlor.
“And there you are.”
“Later than I thought, sorry.”
“I only got in a few minutes ago myself. Summerset and I are having a drink by the fire. Come, sit down.”
“Oh, well.” Summerset. They’d have to be civil to each other. It was like a holiday law. “I have to take care of something first.” She concealed a small bag behind her back. “Need a few minutes.”
“Secrets.” He wandered over to kiss her. And to peek over her shoulder. She shifted, poked a finger in his belly.
“Cut it out. I’ll be down in a minute.”
He watched her go up, then walked back into the parlor to sit by the fire with Summerset and enjoy his Irish coffee. “She’s smuggling in some last-minute gift.”
“Ah. I’ll garage the vehicle she no doubt left out in this weather, in a moment.”
“Of course. And as much as I believe the two of you enjoy your mutual sniping, we might try a moratorium on that until Boxing Day.”
Summerset lifted a shoulder. “You look relaxed.”
“And so I am.”
“There was a time, not that long ago, when you’d have been out hounding some deal right up until the last moment. At which time, you’d have been off with the woman of the moment. Christmas in Saint Moritz or Fiji. Wherever your whim took you. But not here.”
“No, not here.” Roarke picked up one of the little frosted cookies Summerset had arranged on a glossy red dish. “Because, I realize now, here would have made it impossible for me not to understand I was alone. Lonely. Despite all the women, the deals, the people, the parties, what have you. I was alone because there was no one who mattered enough to keep me here.”
He sipped his coffee, watched the flames. “You gave me my life. You did,” he insisted when Summerset made a protesting sound. “And I worked—in my fashion—to build this place. I asked you to tend it for me. You’ve never let me down. But I needed her. The one thing, the only thing that could make this place home.”
“She’s not what I’d have chosen for you.”
“Oh.” With a half-laugh, Roarke bit into the cookie. “That I know.”
“But she’s right for you. The one for you.” His smile was slow. “Despite, or maybe due to, her many flaws.”
“I imagine she thinks somewhat the same about you.”
When he heard
her coming, Roarke glanced back. She’d taken off her weapon, changed her boots for skids. She took a package to the tree, placed it there with the others.
He saw the expression on her face as she scanned the piles he’d stacked. Consternation, bafflement, and a kind of resignation that amused him.
“Why do you do this?” She demanded with a wave at the gifts.
“It’s a sickness.”
“I’ll say.”
“We’re having Irish in our coffee.”
“If that means whiskey, I’ll pass. I don’t know why you want to muck up perfectly good coffee that way.”
“Just another sickness. I’ll pour you some wine.”
“I’ll get it myself. Peabody tagged me on the way home. She’s not only safe and sound in Scotland, she was half-piss-faced and insane with delight. She loves you, by the way, and me, and McNab’s bony ass—and even his cousin Sheila.” She gave Summerset a small smile. “She didn’t mention you, but I’m sure it was an oversight.”
She sat down, stretched out her legs. “That’s one present that hit the mark, big time. You clear everything you needed to clear?”
“I did,” Roarke told her. “You?”
“No, but screw it. I tried to get the lab and got a recording of ‘Jingle Bell Rock.’ Why don’t songs like that ever die? Now it’s stuck in my head.”
The cat deserted Summerset to jump into her lap, complain loudly, and knead his claws into her thighs.
“He’s trying you.” Roarke gestured with his cup. “He wants the cookies, and got nowhere with me or Summerset in that area.”
“Well, you can forget it, Fatso.” She lifted him, went nose-to-nose. “But I’ve got something for you.” She dumped him, then went to the tree, pawed around, and came up with a gift bag.
She dug out a pair of feline-sized antlers, and a toy mouse.
“He’s much too dignified to wear those, or bat about some ridiculous toy,” Summerset protested.
Eve just snorted.
“Catnip.” She held the mouse up by the tail in front of Galahad’s face. “Yeah, that’s right,” she said as Galahad reared up on his hind legs and grabbed the mouse with his front claws. “Zeus for cats.”