by J. D. Robb
She snagged a laser pointer. “This booth. DeWinter already had her drink on the table, so I sat with my back to the door. I thought about switching—it just bothers me—but figured she’d just make a thing. Ah, Mars was here, her back to me. Or more her side. Where was the third man?”
“Here. A two top—high top. That’s behind you.”
She closed her eyes, tried to bring it back. Walking in, doing that automatic, instinctive scan of the area. “You’ve got a lot of flowers and ferny things. And fancy bottles. A wall along the side of the booths with flowerpots on it. I couldn’t get a view of the room over it. Somebody … impression only. I can’t see him because he’s behind the damn flowers.”
Frustrated, she dragged a hand through her hair.
She’d been right there.
“He’s been in there before,” she continued. “He had to have been in there before to pick the perfect spot to watch her without drawing any attention, having the cover. That’s her favorite table. She sits there in that booth when she comes in. He had to know that. He copped one of the less desired tables, wouldn’t you say?”
“Quieter,” Roarke pointed out. “More private.”
“Most people want the action in a bar, the noise—unless they want privacy. So if it’s for privacy, it’s usually a table for two. But a solo … I don’t know. I’d say it would be an easier table to snag at that time of day. Right after work, people are blowing off steam. It’s a big crowd, it’s a happy vibe. But he wants the quieter spot, more secluded—and a high top. Better vantage point.”
She shoved up, paced. “But this is good. Narrowing it down. Maybe I didn’t see the son of a bitch even when he had to walk a few feet in back of me to get to the stairs, but it’s going to be this guy. And we know who waited on him.”
When she grabbed for her ’link, Roarke sighed.
“Eve, it’s past midnight. You can’t tag that poor girl now.”
“She’s young. She’s probably still awake.” But his quiet stare had her muttering a curse, stuffing her ’link back into her pocket. “In the morning.”
“As a reward for your consideration, I’ll fill you in on what I have—so far—on the financials.”
“It better be good.”
“I think you’ll like it. Under her own name, she has a healthy portfolio. Some conservative stocks, bonds, and annuities meticulously managed by a very solid firm. No surprises. She keeps enough fluid to cover expenses very much in line with her income. A bit indulgent, as one might expect, in certain areas. Salons, fashion, entertainment. Though she’s also careful to debit Channel Seventy-Five for travel, considerable wardrobe, and salon treatments, entertainment, and so on. All this is, again, meticulously listed for tax purposes.”
“Now give me the juice.”
“So far, and I haven’t been at it long, I’ve found two other accounts. She did a reasonably decent job covering them, and they’d likely slip by—obviously have done—any standard check. The first is under the name Lorilie Saturn.”
“That’s too damn silly to be clever.”
“That may be, but it worked for her. It’s out of Argentina—which is a fine haven for accounts people don’t want reported to the U.S. tax hounds. It holds just over three million at the moment. She uses its debit feature for purchases—which, from the listings, are exclusive to art and jewelry. During the past three years, more than ten million has come in and gone out.”
“That’s not chump change.”
“Well now, it’s all relative, isn’t it? The second is under Linda Venus, so it’s a theme we have going.”
“A damn solar system,” Eve muttered.
“This one is off-planet, another haven, and she uses it strictly for cash. In and out. She can go to any number of financial outlets in New York, or anywhere else for that matter, and as long as the in and the out is under ten thousand, it goes unreported.”
“Yeah, yeah, like the amounts she laid out to Bellami. Always under ten large.”
“Exactly. She would deposit, say, eight thousand, then have that funneled to her other hidden account, or leave it. She might withdraw five or six thousand in cash and skip away whistling a tune. There’s considerable more action in this account. Often daily deposits and withdrawals or transfers. At the moment, this account holds six million and change.
“From her legitimate account,” he went on, “she pays her rent and fees, her taxes, and the usual expenses one has, to live the sort of life her genuine income allows. However, there’s another monthly amount drawn out of the Venus account—the same amount at the end of each month. Fifty-two hundred dollars.”
“She’s got another place. That’s rent or mortgage on another place.”
“I’d lean there. But as it’s taken out in cash, and so far I haven’t found where—or indeed if—it’s funneled elsewhere, we can’t be sure. And we can’t trace it.”
“Why would she want another place? Why another place?” Eve mumbled as she paced. “Hoarder. That’s what you said. She’s a bit of a hoarder. Maybe the other place is for the stuff. The stuff she doesn’t keep in her apartment where she entertains.”
She stopped pacing, fisted her hands on her hips as she studied Mars’s ID shot.
“Yeah, that could play. It’s one thing to have your closet packed with clothes, and a safe packed with cash and jewelry. Nobody sees that—or if somebody sees the clothes they just think: Wow, she’s got a lot of clothes. But if you’ve got the place jammed with furniture and art and other crap, they notice.
“They talk, wonder.”
She circled again. “She wouldn’t meet marks there. That’s stupid. You don’t want to meet them anywhere that’s tied to you. She’s got the swank digs, so she doesn’t need more swank digs. She needs someplace to keep secrets. Secrets, that’s her thing. She needs a place to keep her own, away from where she lets people in.
“We’ll find it.” Eve turned back to the board, staring at Larinda’s glossy, perfect ID shot again. “We’ll find it.”
“It’s unlikely her killer knew of it.” Roarke opted for a brandy. “Or why not find a way to kill her while she was there, where her body wouldn’t be discovered for days or longer?”
“If he knew about it, had any brains, he’d have found a way to get into it and find something there to leverage against her. But we find it, we might find something that leads to whoever killed her.” She rubbed her eyes. “And it’s too soon, even with the lean heavy, to absolutely conclude it’s rent or mortgage.”
“We can lean while I put all this on auto. We’ll likely have more data by morning. You need to set it down, get some sleep.”
Not set it down so much as let it cook, she thought.
6
It started to cook, at least simmer, as they started to the bedroom.
“Gossip wasn’t only the way she made her living, right? It was also what propelled her into celebrity circles. Arguably that’s what made her a kind of celebrity. But, from my really brief interaction with her, it seems to me digging it up—not just covering the shine, the glossy stuff—uncovering the dirt was her main deal. And not just professionally. She enjoyed mining for secrets.”
“And it paid her,” Roarke pointed out, “under and over the table.”
“Right.”
Eve got another little jolt walking into the bedroom—the reconfigured, remodeled, redecorated bedroom. With that big, elaborate bed.
She didn’t generally go for the elaborate, and couldn’t figure out why that bed, those massive turned posts, the fancy head- and footboards carved with Celtic symbols, so appealed to her.
But it did.
She took off her jacket, tossed it over a chair while her mind flipped back to Mars.
“She was good at it, personally and professionally, over and under the table. That takes contacts, ways in and under and through. A kind of network.”
“I’d agree with that.” Roarke sat to remove his shoes while she unhooked her weapon harness. �
�The sort you pay in cash or in favors—likely both. A good reason to have a nice stack of cash available—but not a cool million.”
“And contacts who were also marks. Find me some dirt, and I’ll keep yours under the bed.”
“Rug. Under the rug,” Roarke corrected with a smile, “but the same concept.”
“Lots of enemies, so was she stupid enough not to take standard precautions?” Eve unstrapped her clutch piece, stowed it with her primary weapon. “The old: If anything happens to me, the file I have on you—in a secure location—will be made public. But that line only holds until somebody cracks, can’t take the pressure anymore, can’t bear the expense, handle the guilt. A mark who cracked, high probability, but not the only probability,” she said as Roarke switched on the fire.
A low simmer of flames, a golden wave of warmth.
“Someone whose secret she exposed. A career, a reputation, a relationship damaged.”
“Yeah. I’m thinking of tapping Nadine there. She’d have a handle on that angle, or could get one. And I doubt they much liked each other.”
“Our Nadine,” Roarke said as he stripped off his shirt, “is a reporter with standards and ethics. Ambition and pursuit of a story are key elements, but so are those standards and ethics. Mars, I would say even without what we’ve learned, was the polar opposite.”
“It also helps they work at the same station. Nadine will know who to talk to, and who I need to talk to. That’s on my list for tomorrow. But there are other probabilities for the pool of potential killers.”
“Which is already deep.”
Eve let out a sound of cynical amusement. “It ain’t no wading pool, pal. Marks that refused to be marks. She couldn’t have hit the target every time. Nobody’s that good, nobody’s that lucky. She had to miss a certain percentage of the time—and even a miss makes an enemy. She misses, keeps digging, and the mark says enough of that shit, sister.”
“Well then.” He watched her grab a sleep shirt, thought it a shame to cover that long, lean body. “If that’s a line of thinking, I should tell you she shot and missed with me.”
He continued to watch as the material floated down. Then abruptly, she yanked and her head popped out.
“What? What? She tried to shake you down? When? Christ.”
“About three years ago, shortly before our wedding.”
She just gaped at him. “And you’re just telling me?”
“Darling Eve, if I told you about everyone who tried, in various ways, to shake me down, milk me, exploit some dubious connection, or issue threats—veiled or overt—we’d talk of little else.”
He sent her an easy smile. “Do you tell me about everyone who threatens to make you pay, in one way or the other, for doing your job?”
She started to claim that was different, but realized it really wasn’t.
Still.
“She’s dead, murdered. I’m primary. And you’ve been consulting on this almost from the jump. Now you tell me she targeted you?”
“Well, her aim was poor so she missed entirely, and it was years ago. I honestly didn’t think anything of it until you widened that pool.”
“I need the details.” She dropped down to sit on the side of the bed. “I need to see if this compromises anything.”
“I don’t see how it would, but…” He sat next to her. “She’d been wrangling for an interview, had pushed for one a few times before, but ran into Caro. I can tell you I wasn’t even aware of the wrangling or pushing, as Caro wouldn’t bother me with that sort of thing.”
Eve thought of his sharp and efficient admin. “No, she wouldn’t. I may have to verify that, just to cover the bases.”
“I expect Caro has a file on it, somewhere. In any case, Mars finally got around Caro and approached me directly when we both attended … Christ if I remember, some event or other. You weren’t with me, but I needed to put in an appearance. Ah, the library,” he remembered. “The New York City Library, a fund-raiser.”
“Okay, that’s the when and the where. I need the what.”
“I’m pulling it back—I haven’t thought of it since, after all. As I recall, she came up to me, very charming, asked if she could have a word. She said she needed an exclusive on our wedding, pitched it as the event of the year or some such thing, how her viewers counted on her to give them a window into glamour. She nattered on quite a bit as I recall about her various plans, a couples interview, individual ones, a tease of your dress, and so on— Honestly, Eve, I don’t remember all of it, as I had no intention of giving her what she wanted, and said just that.”
“Okay, I get that. But give me what you can.”
“Well, she dropped the charm when I said no, changed tactics, and that I remember clearly enough. She said she could make it the event of the year, all glamour and swoon—or she could make things uncomfortable.”
He picked up Eve’s hand, ran a thumb around her wedding ring. “She didn’t worry me, but I heard her out, on her certainty that a man in my position would have a lot he’d rather those viewers of hers weren’t privy to, and that my bride-to-be’s reputation and standing with the NYPSD could be damaged with the wrong word in the right ear. I should understand her power to sway public opinion.”
“Nothing specific?” Eve prodded.
“Not at all. She had nothing, and I know a bluff when I hear one. And that’s well beside the fact that I don’t leave traces or footprints for some gossipmonger to follow. She didn’t worry me. She did annoy the bloody hell out of me. And while I didn’t care for her intimating she’d try to muck things up for you, I had no concerns there, either. You know how to handle a git.”
Eve relaxed. “You went Scary Roarke on her.”
He tapped Eve lightly between the eyes. “I was remarkably pleasant.”
“Scary Roarke,” Eve repeated.
“I asked if she enjoyed her work, to which she—rather smugly—assured me she did, adding that she was very good at it. So I simply outlined a hypothetical. What did she think might happen to her own career if I were to have a whim and buy Channel Seventy-Five?”
Eve let out a half laugh. “Perfect.”
“It’d be an interesting acquisition. How easy it would be, should I be interested enough to do so, to break her current contract and plant seeds that would root in such a way that she’d be fortunate to find a job as a gofer in broadcasting at some third-rate station in Bumfuck?”
“You said ‘Bumfuck’?”
“To the best of my recollection. I explained my interest would definitely pique if the right person—and I knew so many people—whispered in my ear that she was scratching about in my business or my bride-to-be’s.”
She could hear him say it all, in the brutally cold and pleasant tone he could whip out like a deadly weapon.
“Did she piss herself?”
“I couldn’t say, but she did leave rather abruptly. I kept a few ears out for a space of time, and she opted not to scratch about. So that was the end of it. A single and brief conversation nearly three years ago.”
“Okay, good. I’ll need to give Whitney a condensed version of that, but I don’t see any compromise or conflict of interest. She didn’t make a specific threat or ask for payment?”
“No.”
“Then it would be hard to stretch that pool wide and deep enough for you to even dip a toe in.” Still, she punched him lightly in the chest. “You should’ve told me—if not back then, now.”
“I just did,” he pointed out. “And I didn’t think of it even when the blackmail became a motive, as I never thought of it as blackmail. More as rudeness, and a pathetic attempt to intimidate.”
“Nobody intimidates Scary Roarke.” She swung a leg over, straddling him.
Pleased with the light in her eyes, he slid his hands up her legs, under the thin shirt. “Would you like to try?”
“You can be Scary Roarke. I’ll be Bitch Cop.”
“We are what we are,” he said and, gripping the back of her
head, pulled her in for a long, possessive kiss.
“You don’t scare me,” she murmured. And added teeth.
“You haven’t read me my rights.”
Since he’d stripped down to his boxers already, it was easy to find him, to free him, to lift her hips and, lowering them again, take him in.
All the way in.
“No rights for you, ace.” His fingers dug into her shoulders as her hips moved, slow, a teasing rock. “Just hard labor.”
“And when I make you tremble?”
Still moving, still rocking, she dared him. “Try it.”
Eyes on hers, he slid a hand down to where they joined, pressing and playing his fingers, and shooting her system to a gasping peak.
She bowed back, helpless, not trembling but quaking until she tumbled down again, her head dropping to his shoulder.
“Tricky,” she managed.
“I know how to handle my cop.”
Her lips curved against his throat. “I know how to handle my criminal.”
“Never convicted.”
Laughing, she trailed her lips up his throat, over his jaw, to tease his lips, those wonderfully, perfectly shaped lips. All the while her hips moved, slow to languorous, arousing to torturous.
His hands glided up her sides—slim and strong—and over her breasts—soft and firm. Her heart beating under his palms; her nipples peaking under the brush of his thumbs.
When she bowed back again, he captured the soft and firm in his mouth, felt that heart pulse inside him. All but tasted it. And still she moved, moved, moved until the blood pounded under his skin.
Until his world whittled down to the taste of her, the feel, the heat, the all of her.
She flowed up to him again, smooth as water, cupped his face, near to destroyed him with a kiss before she eased back, stared into his eyes.
“Come with me.”
Quickening now, quickening.
“I’m with you, a ghrá.”
Her eyes, the deep gold pools of them. Her hips in tireless, glorious motion.
“Let go first.” Her breath tore; her eyes never wavered. “Let go first.”
Control, already tenuous, slipped away from him, a frayed rope that gave way to fling him off a cliff.