by J. D. Robb
“It made me think about what’s going on inside Mavis, which creeps me out, sure, but … It hits cops, too, no matter how long you’ve been on the job, it hits when it’s a kid.”
She shook it off, had to shake it off. “I’ll bribe Dickhead to push on our analysis. It has to run through the chain, Roarke, to make sure it holds up in court when we have who did it.”
“Understood.”
“They’re not going to get away with it. I don’t care if it’s Singer’s hundred-and-whatever-year-old grandmother who built that wall, I’m tossing whoever put them behind it in a cage.”
He smiled a little. “She wouldn’t have been a hundred and whatever at the time.”
“Don’t know how old, exactly, she would have been until DeWinter does her work. But nothing in the background shows she knows any more about laying bricks than I do. Maybe sloppy work, but I’d think more rushed, nervous, had to do it at night, right?”
Hands in her pockets now, she wandered the room. “At night when nobody else is on the site. You can’t have a bunch of construction guys around when you’re walling up the body of a pregnant woman. Can’t have them around when you put bullets into her.”
Frowning, she circled around to the other side of her board. “It has to be at night, all of it, the kill, getting the good materials, using them. All the same night.
“Had to put the ceiling in, too, or someone would see her, someone would notice the three feet and a body. They had to have the—what, boards, beams?”
“Support beams—the steel. And joists.”
“Those, she falls between them. They hadn’t done the floor yet, hadn’t cleared all the rock because she fell on rocks. Get the wall up, cover at least that three feet of floor. Doing the form, you said. Forming it up, then pouring the concrete. A lot to do, a lot to do fast.”
She stuck her hands in her pockets again. “The floor of the main part—the restaurant part—that was concrete, like the wine cellar.”
“The plans were for an industrial look—an upscale industrial ambiance.”
“So how do you put that in, form it so you’re not just dumping the stuff so it goes down to the lower floor?”
“Supports—those joists—form it out, install the subflooring, the base. Layer the cement over the subfloor. Pour, level, smooth.”
“Got it. They didn’t have to worry about the rest as long as she was covered, all sides. They could use the other stuff for the rest. Wanted the higher grade for the fucking coffin they put her in.”
He walked over to her, slid his arms around her from behind. “And I’ve pulled your focus away from your priority.”
“It’s just something I can let simmer around. Plus, I can work it into my interviews tomorrow.”
“Let me know when you need the copter to go upstate.”
“Yeah, yeah. Now I’m going to write up what I got from Gray, and let all that simmer.”
11
Once she accepted she couldn’t do anything more until morning, and kept covering the same ground, Eve shut down.
She walked over to the adjoining door to Roarke’s office.
He sat at his own command center, hair tied back, jacket off, sleeves rolled to his elbows.
The cat, she noted, had deserted them both, and was unquestionably stretched out across their bed.
“I’m closing up shop,” she told him.
He didn’t glance up, certainly didn’t jolt as she had earlier, but finished whatever he had on his desk screen.
“Without me finding you asleep at your desk or nudging you to give it a rest?”
“You want me back in pissed mode?”
“Not at all. Just pleasantly surprised. I’m happy to close down as well, in just one minute.”
“What are you working on?”
“I had some business of my own, then I thought to turn to the fun of sliding into the financials of other people.”
“Like who?”
“I’ve the Singers going in one area, and so far I believe the family has very clever, very enterprising financial managers. Nothing you could deem illegal, just close to a shade of shady, but not over the line.
“So far,” he added, and finally looked at her.
“Yuri Bardov, that’s another matter. Very complex, very layered—also clever, but I’ll wind my way through. A smart, experienced man is Yuri. His wife’s nephew isn’t quite so smart.”
She heard the smug, very clearly. “You’ve got something on him.”
“He apparently thinks that by setting up some of his shell accounts in the Caymans and Russia as well as New York, he doesn’t need to bother with all the layers—and what those layers cost—as his uncle does. He also spends lavishly. I can’t say if his wife—who lives very well—and their children—who are receiving an excellent private school education—are aware he keeps women.”
“Side pieces? Plural?”
“Three, and kept women seems the right term in this case, as he pays for the lovely villa on Corfu for one—along with the minor female child, whose expenses he covers.”
“He’s got another kid.”
“That would be my conclusion, as he transfers funds, monthly, into an account for her education, her clothing, her ballet lessons, and so on.”
He leaned back, gestured to the screen, where Eve saw the ID shot of a woman in her early forties and a minor female, age fourteen. “It’s the same for the woman in Prague, and the two minors—male and female—whom he supports.”
The screen split, showing three more IDs. Adult female, middle thirties, two minors, ages eight and six.
“More recently he opened yet another account after purchasing a home in Vermont for a third woman. Going by medical records she’s about thirty weeks pregnant.”
Eve studied the next photo. “Busy guy.”
“He is, and one who apparently insists on spreading his seed. A man in his position and with his, let’s say resources, could easily pressure a woman to terminate a pregnancy—and one would think would use some standard caution to prevent same in the first place.”
Hands in her pockets now, Eve rocked back and forth on her heels. All three women, she noted, were dark-eyed brunettes.
So he had a type.
“All of this paid for out of hidden accounts?”
“Hidden, and not very well, and not legal.”
“I need to—”
“You’ll have it all.” Roarke rose as he spoke. “All tidy and clearly drawn in the morning so you can use it as a hammer when you get him in the box.”
“It’s a really big hammer. No, it’s a bunch of hammers. Hidden accounts? Wife doesn’t know. Maybe she knows he cats around, but I’m betting she doesn’t know her kid has a bunch of half sibs or her husband’s shelling out all that money, every month.”
“And a very tidy sum it is.” Roarke took her hand as they walked, brought it to his lips. “I have to thank you for giving me such an enjoyable task to end a long day.”
“I wonder if his uncle knows.”
“Now there’s a thought. I imagine Bardov might think boys will be boys about the catting about, although one hears he doesn’t do the same himself. Never has.”
“Is that what one hears?”
“It is. Regardless, those particular accounts aren’t set up through the business, or through the financial firm that Bardov uses, and that Tovinski uses for all the rest.”
“Where does he get the money for those accounts? All that extra dough?”
At the doorway of their bedroom, Roarke turned her into him. “Aren’t you the clever one? And now I wonder if all the funds come from Bardov-sanctioned jobs and tasks.”
“Huh.” She circled her arms around him. “That makes you a clever one, too. He could be moonlighting so he can pay all that out without his wife, his uncle knowing.”
“I’ll scratch through more in the morning. Now, why don’t we find something enjoyable to end our long day?”
“Yeah.” Because s
he needed it, needed him, she rested her head on his shoulder. “I could use some enjoyable.”
In something close to a dance, he circled her to the bed.
Fatigue? Yes, she felt it, knew her energy hit low ebb. But she needed to be held, to be touched, to be loved. She needed to give him the same.
When they reached the bed, he released her weapon harness. She lifted her head from his shoulder as he slid it off.
“How come your shoes didn’t get bunged up like my boots, since you went down there?”
“Once a cat burglar.”
He toed off his shoes, then eased her back on the bed.
The cat rolled over in visible disgust, then leaped off the bed.
When they lay together, she drew the tie out of his hair so she could comb her fingers through it. “You need to go back to your own stuff tomorrow.”
“Is that an order?”
“Like anybody gives you orders. But who’s going to buy Lithuania?”
“Lithuania?” He lowered his head to brush his mouth over hers.
“That’s a place. Somewhere.” Rolling, she reversed their positions, then just turned her cheek to his chest. She could hear his heartbeat, feel it.
It soothed and calmed and helped her believe everything could be all right. At least here. At least now.
Her communicator signaled in her pocket. “Crap. Sorry.”
She shifted, dragged it out. “It’s good. Uniform Carmichael. They have Alva’s books, the medical reports. They’re heading back.”
She set it aside on the bedside table, added her ’link.
“Now, where were we?”
He sat up, pulled her to him, and took her mouth.
Not calming and soothing, just the here and now.
She let the day, the work, the worries, the rest of the world evaporate with the kiss. And locked herself around him as she answered it with all she had.
He brought her home. Every day, no matter what she faced, he brought her home.
His hands slid up her back, down again. No, not soothing. Possessive. Those long, skilled fingers knew how to take what they wanted, and how to give her what she needed.
She could all but hear him think: Mine. And that, only that, brought a quick thrill that banished fatigue.
Wanting him to share that thrill, she unbuttoned his shirt. Her fingers, quick and determined, shoved the material aside, spread over the hard planes of his chest.
She wanted to touch him; wanted him to feel her touch. Wanted to know his heartbeat quickened with it.
And when he tugged her shirt aside, she pressed against him, skin to skin, so those heartbeats merged.
So right, he thought, the shape of her against him. Long and lean, angular and agile, the tough muscle under soft skin. He yearned for her, endlessly, and here in the dark with the world and all its sorrows shut away, she was only his.
Hands rushed now, yanking at belts. Wanting more.
He thought the more they craved from each other, always the more, would never be fully filled. Her body, so familiar to him, remained a source of wonder, and would always be, he knew, if they loved a thousand lifetimes.
He pleased himself, letting his hands roam and possess, his lips taste and feed. And felt her pleasure in that freedom with the rapid kick of her pulse, heard it in her quickened breath.
He drove her up, slowly, steadily, barely clinging to his own control as he sought to shatter hers. When she broke, quaking under him, the thrill of her release spilled from her into him.
Greedy, still greedy, she rolled—cat-quick—to straddle him. Still shuddering, still riding, she took him in. Her body bowed, her head fell back as, swamped in her own needs, she dragged him with her to that edge.
Held him there, held them both in that impossible rush of sensations. So the here and now spun out, spun out, spun out to saturate them both in the desperate rush of joining.
Then with a cry of triumph, when pleasure shook and shattered, she whipped them both over.
She slid down to him like water, once again rested her cheek on his heart. Its wild beat made her lips curve.
“Even better than pie,” she murmured, and made him laugh as he shifted her so she could curl against him.
She felt the cat leap back onto the bed, then settle himself against the small of her back.
Sated, sleepy, satisfied, she dropped straight into sleep.
“That’s right, a ghrá.” He brought her hand to his lips to press a kiss to her palm. “Rest that busy brain.”
* * *
The moon was up, a bright white ball in a starless sky. It spread ghost light over the construction rubble, glinted off the dull metal of the security fence.
Alva, her face bruised, her eyes blackened, swollen, walked beside Eve.
“I liked it here,” Alva said. “You can see so far. I wish they hadn’t made a fence so nobody could sleep in the apartments, but I still liked it here. I thought I was safe here.”
“I’m sorry you weren’t.”
“Some people are mean.” Alva brushed her fingers—crooked, broken—over her bruised face. “Some people are mean. They like to hurt you. Even when you try to be good and do what you’re supposed to do, they like to hurt you.”
“I know.”
“He was supposed to love me.” Alva let out a sigh as she looked out at the city, at the lights. “He made a promise to love and cherish me when we got married. He broke his promise. He broke it lots of times. And it broke me.”
“You got away from him.”
“I don’t remember too well because everything hurt, and I was scared, and I couldn’t go home because he’d do terrible things to my brother and sister. I’m the oldest. I have to protect them.”
“You did.” Even in the dream, in the dream she knew was a dream, Eve’s heart hurt. “You protected them.”
“Nobody protected you, so you know it’s important. I ran away, but I had to protect them. Then I was safe, and I learned how to fold paper and make it pretty and sweet.”
She offered Eve an origami cat.
“Thanks. It’s great.”
“I liked giving people presents because they’d mostly smile when I did. He found me again, so I had to run again, and I couldn’t stop being scared. I had to forget, you know, like you did. I had to forget what came before so I wouldn’t be scared all the time. You know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Do you think she was scared?”
Eve looked down and saw they stood at the other site, the other scene. That same moonlight washed over the remains below.
“I don’t know. I’m going to find out.”
“She was going to have a baby, and somebody was mean to her. I’d write it in my book and tell the police, but somebody was mean to me, too.”
Eve looked over, saw the blood sliding down over Alva’s face.
“I’ll find them.”
“They’ve been alone a long time. They should have something.” Alva held out cupped hands full of paper flowers.
As she let them fall, they drifted down like little birds. In that strange moonlight, Eve saw those tiny bones move and shift, heard a kind of mewling echo up.
“Baby’s crying,” Alva said.
With that sound still echoing in her ears, she shot awake.
Roarke sat on the side of the bed, one hand gripping hers while the cat bumped his head against her shoulder.
“I’m okay. I’m okay. Not a nightmare.” Still, she couldn’t quite catch her breath. “Just a really weird dream.”
With her free hand, she stroked Galahad to reassure him. “A little creepy toward the end, I guess. I’m okay.”
When Roarke leaned over to press his lips to her brow, like a test, she sat up. “You’re already dressed. King-of-the-business-world suit. What time is it?”
“It’s half six. I had an early ’link conference.”
“Lithuania.”
His lips curved, but his eyes stayed watchful on her face.
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“Not this time, but I’ll be sure to look into it, as you seem to want it. Take a minute, and I’ll get us both coffee. You can tell me about this weird, ending-on-creepy dream.”
He rose to walk over, open the door to the AutoChef.
“It was one of those deals where you know you’re dreaming. You’re asleep, but your mind’s spinning.”
She told him while he again sat on the side of the bed, and she let the coffee jolt her fully awake.
“What does it tell you?”
“Nothing I didn’t know. I don’t need Alva’s books from back then to know what Wicker did, and to follow her from what Allysa Gray told me. I’m working with those elements. And I know—knew—I relate to her on some level because of Richard Troy.
“I think or want to think, or find it’s just the most logical conclusion, that she blocked her past out. Maybe deliberately, maybe not. Doesn’t apply to her murder anyway.”
“And the others?”
“I’m not giving them what they need. Just—well, figuratively—leaving them in a hole in the dark.”
“Not at all true.” He cupped her chin in his hand for a moment. “Not approaching true. You’re prioritizing Alva, which is entirely right, but you’re already laying the groundwork for the second investigation. Tell me, would you have passed the second case on if it hadn’t been on my property?”
“No. There’s no need, at least not at this point. Even though we have a pretty good time line for when she went into that hole, because she fell or was pushed in there, as the trauma to certain bones tell that tale, the science has to catch up.”
He was right, she assured herself. But the echo of that tiny, mewling cry haunted her.
“We need confirmation on a date of death,” she continued, “her age and anything else DeWinter can pull out of the bones. With luck we get a sketch and a holo simulation of her, and I ID her, go from there. It’s in DeWinter’s area first.”
“Exactly, and still you’re talking to and will talk to people who cross both sites. And may have crossed both victims.”
