The In Death Collection, Books 26-29

by J. D. Robb

  Getting under his skin now, Eve noted, just a little prick under the skin. She dug deeper. “Apparently not. I spoke with her former partner, her former lieutenant, and we’ve contacted her family. No one mentioned you, her lover of close to two years. That just makes me wonder. Were you really so intimate and amicable, or did you have something to hide?”

  Something hardened in his eyes. “We kept it low-key, for the very reasons you named. My familial connections would have been difficult for her professionally, so there was no reason to include them in our relationship—or to involve others. This was our personal life. Our personal business. I’d think you’d understand that very well.”

  Eve lifted her eyebrows.

  “The lieutenant and I were open about our relationship from its beginning,” Roarke pointed out.

  “Everyone makes their own choices.”

  “Your father wouldn’t have approved, any more than her superiors,” Roarke speculated as he studied Alex’s face. “No, he wouldn’t have liked his son and heir sleeping with the enemy, unless it was for the purpose of recruiting. That he would have approved of, quite well.”

  “If you’re looking to use our relationship to stain Ammy’s reputation, you’re—” He broke off, settled back, but the temper had whipped out, left the sting in the air. “We kept business out of our relationship. And there comes a time when a father’s approval isn’t the driving force in a man’s life.”

  “Did Max know?”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” Alex said coolly. “You know where to find him.”

  “Yeah.” Changing tack, Eve drew his attention back to her. “A concrete cage on Omega. Crappy place, isn’t it?”

  “Is this about my relationship with Amaryllis or with my father?”

  “Depends. When’s the last time you saw Detective Coltraine?”

  “The day before she was killed. I got in touch with her when I got into town. She came here. We had drinks, caught up with each other. She was here for a couple of hours.”

  “Alone? Just the two of you?”

  “Rod was here. Up in the office.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “How she liked New York, how she was settling in to her new home, her new job. What I’d done in Paris. I’d come in from there. She told me she was involved with someone. Seriously involved, and that he made her happy. It was easy to see that was true. She looked happy.”

  “And on the night she was murdered?”

  “I had dinner in. About eight, I think. Rod would know. Caught up with some work. He went to his room about ten, and I went out shortly after that.”

  “You went out? Where?”

  “I was restless. I thought I’d take a walk, as I don’t get to New York often. I like the city. I walked over to Broadway.”

  “You walked from Park to Broadway?”

  “That’s right.” The faint edge of annoyance crept in. “It was a nice night, a little on the cool side. I wanted the lights, the noise, the crowds, so I ended up wandering around Times Square.”

  “Alone.”

  “Yes. I hit a couple of video arcades. I like to play. I stopped in a bar. Crowded, noisy. They had the game on-screen. American baseball. I prefer football. Not what you people call football. Real football. But I had a beer and watched some of the game. Then I walked back here. I’m not sure of the time. Not very late. Before one, I’d say.”

  “What’s the name of the bar?”

  “I have no idea. I was walking around; I wanted a beer.”

  “Got a receipt?”

  “No. It was one bloody beer. I paid cash. If I’d known I’d need an alibi, I’d’ve done considerably better.”

  Temper, temper, Eve thought. “A man in your position, a businessman with international interests—and considering, again, your background—might find it necessary to own a licensed weapon.”

  “You know I do. You’d have checked already.”

  “You’re licensed for a civilian stunner, which is registered in your name. Maybe, since you’re being so cooperative, you’d allow me to take it with me, have it tested and examined. Since you were having a beer and watching the game when Detective Coltraine was killed.”

  Resentment lay cold on his face. “If my father was anyone else but Max Ricker?”

  “I’d still be asking for it. I can get a warrant, if you’d prefer.”

  He said nothing, only rose. He walked to a table, unlocked a drawer. It was smaller, sleeker, and less powerful a weapon than hers. One that stunned only. He offered it to her, along with its license.

  “Handy,” she said.

  “As I said, I was expecting you. I’m not my father.” He clipped out the words as Eve put the weapon and paperwork in an evidence bag, labeled it, sealed it. “I don’t kill women.”

  “Just men?”

  “I cared about her, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Now we’re done.” He accepted the receipt Eve printed out of her PPC. “I expect the cop who put Max Ricker in that cage will catch the person who killed Amaryllis.”

  He walked back to the foyer, called the elevator.

  “You know the routine, don’t leave town, stay available, blah blah.” Eve stepped onto the elevator with Roarke.

  “Yes, I know the routine. I also know if our backgrounds made us who we are, we’d all be fucked.”

  He walked away as the doors closed.

  When they hit the sidewalk, Eve stopped, turned to speak. Roarke simply shook his head, then took her arm and led her to the car.

  “What?” she said, and repeated when they were inside, “What?”

  “Drive. If I were a man who’d been expecting a visit from a cop who’d be looking at me for killing another cop, I’d have myself a plant on the street, with eyes and ears. And then I’d know just what that cop thought about me and our conversation.”

  Eve frowned as she drove. “You actually have people who walk around listening to other people?”

  He patted her hand. “We’re not talking about me, are we?”

  “Privacy laws—”

  “There, there.” He patted her hand again. “He was in love with her, and still is. To some extent, still is.”

  “People often kill the ones they love.”

  “Well, if he did, he’s either amazingly stupid about it, or damned clever. Pathetic alibi like that. You’ll be getting a warrant for his building’s security discs, to verify his coming and going.”

  “First on the list. He’d have to know that, so he’ll have come and gone pretty much as stated. He’s wide open for the time in question. Wide. And he was nervous when we got there. He lost some of the nerves as we went along because he got mad. The stunner’s not going to play out. He gave it up too easily. He could have another, unregistered, unlicensed. Hell, he could have a freaking arsenal.”

  “Max did love the weapon’s trade. He’s smoother than his father,” Roarke commented. “And yet not so smooth. Odd, really. Max wouldn’t have shown those nerves, wouldn’t have felt them come to that. Yet the son has a polish the father lacked. He doesn’t seem the type to use the word cunt when referring to Amaryllis. It’s too vulgar.”

  “Maybe he hires vulgar underlings.”

  “Very possibly. Or it was a deliberate choice because it seems off. Because it seems more like his father.”

  “Maybe. He’s interested in us, has been interested in us. But—”

  “No more, it seems, than reasonable. Given the circumstances.”

  “It seems,” she agreed. “There’s either some tension between him and his father, or he wanted us to think there is. I wonder which. Anyway, are you going to midtown? To your office?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “I’ll dump you there.”

  “Shows me what I’m worth to you. Now I’m dumped.”

  “I mean drop you off there, take you. Whatever. But speaking of dumping. She breaks things off back in Atlanta. He’s pissy about it—amicable, my ass—but maybe it
’s like, sure, screw it, who needs you. Or maybe he keeps at her some, and that’s why she decides to transfer.”

  “The timing would indicate she wanted distance.”

  “What did he say? He doesn’t get to New York often. Then he comes here, contacts her. Here we go again, she thinks, and just when she’s gotten into this romance with Morris. When things are smoothed out. She goes to see him, tries to convince him it’s over and done. He could play that out. Like you said, he’s smooth, he’s polished. But it burns his guts. This bitch can’t dump me. She’s not going to get away with it. Works himself up. Really gets up the steam. Contacts her that night, demands she come meet him, or he’s going to make it sticky for her with Morris, with the department.”

  “She might argue with him, or try to reason,” Roarke continued her thought. “Or simply go along. But she’d take the precaution of strapping on her weapons.”

  “Yeah, but he’s waiting for her. Already in. Could be he managed to get her key card when she came to visit, or his pal Sandy did—clone it, get it back without her realizing it. Takes her out on the stairs, carries her down, brings her back so he can tell her no woman tells him it’s over. Maybe he lets her plead with him, promise him, tell him she loves him—whatever she thinks will save her life. But he knows she’s lying, and that just makes it worse, so zap. Lights out.”

  She shook her head. “And it just doesn’t ring all the bells for me.”

  “He’d have hurt her more. That’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Wouldn’t you? Bitch dumped you, now she’s spreading them for some other man. Gotta pay.”

  “He loved her. Maybe enough to kill her, and too much to hurt her.”

  Since she understood exactly what he meant, she shook her head. “People are so screwy. It wasn’t impulse, that’s the other thing. It wasn’t like: I’m going over there and deal with that bitch. It was too organized for that. So, you take it back, figure he’d planned it awhile. Before he even got to New York. He’d have known about Morris. He could have had her shadowed, and then he’d have known about Morris. Plays nearly the same way then, except he invites her over, makes nice. So good to see you again, glad you’re happy. Aren’t we mature adults? Then he calls her, tells her he needs to see her, or he’s in trouble, needs her help, whatever it takes. And she goes.”

  She shoved her way across town. “Or, and here’s one I don’t like because it could work. They were still screwing around. She was in his pocket. Things went south, and he did her or had her done. I hate that it’s the one that works the best.”

  “It only works best with the current data,” Roarke pointed out. “Is there anything I can do to help with Morris?”

  “No, there’s really not. I called, straight to his voice mail this morning. I didn’t want to . . . you know. Just said I wanted him to know we’re working on it, and he could tag me whenever he needed. I’ve got to ask him if he knew she’d been tangled up with Alex Ricker. I have to ask, and I don’t think he did. He’d have told me yesterday. However much shock he was in, he’d have told me that, given me the lead. So I’m going to be the one to kick him in the gut again.”

  Harder for her, Roarke knew, than facing down an armed psychopath. “I can reschedule some things, go with you. We can go see him now.”

  The offer made her throat burn. He would do that. He would always do that. She had that. “I can’t. I have to get back, get all this down in the book, get the stunner to the lab. I need to fill Peabody in. And other stuff. I’m hoping I’ll have something more solid when I talk to Morris.”

  She got as close to the big black tower that housed Roarke Industries as the madness of New York allowed. “Thanks.”

  “Actions speak louder.” He cupped her neck, and leaning to her took her mouth in a kiss that made her swear she could see little red hearts dancing over her head. “Take care of my cop.”

  “I try to make a habit of it.”

  “If only you did.” He stepped out, shot her a last look with those blue laser eyes, then strode down the sidewalk to the black spire he’d created.

  She went by the lab first, hand-delivered the stunner. On her way to Homicide, she made a mental list of what had to be done. Get the Alex Ricker interview into the file, along with her impressions. Check, for her own curiosity, how often father and son communicated. Run probabilities on all the scenarios she’d run through with Roarke. Meet with Mira to get a solid profile on both vic and killer. Update Peabody, study EDD results.

  Then, because it couldn’t be put off, she’d deal with the “other stuff” she hadn’t explained to Roarke.

  She’d contact Don Webster in IAB.

  Because, goddamn it, if anybody’d had a whiff of Coltraine and Max Ricker’s son, it would’ve been IAB. If they’d known, the info on that relationship would’ve been passed along from Atlanta to New York.

  Webster would know.

  The idea of having to wheedle information out of Internal Affairs—and out of a former one-night stand—just burned her ass. Stewing about it, she strode into the bullpen, annoyed.

  “Dallas! Hey! Wait!”

  Scowling, she waved off Peabody’s shout. “I need five.”

  “But—”

  “Five!” Eve shouted back, and stomped into her office.

  Morris sat in her visitor’s chair.

  “Oh, hey.” The next time Peabody told her to wait, Eve promised herself, she’d wait.

  “I know better.” He got to his feet. She could see the long, sleepless night on him—the shadowed eyes, the pallor. “Better than to get in your way, better than to ask questions, to push at you when you push yourself harder than anyone could. I know better. But it doesn’t matter.”

  “It’s okay.” She shut the door. “It’s okay.”

  “I’m going to see her. I needed to come here first, needed you to tell me whatever you could before I went to see her.”

  Eve’s ’link beeped, and she ignored it. “A little milk in your coffee, right?”

  “Yes, a little. Thanks.”

  She programmed coffee, using the time to organize her thoughts. “I spoke with her family.”

  “I know. So have I now.”

  She gave him the coffee, took her own seat, swiveling it to face him. “And I spoke with her lieutenant here and in Atlanta. With her partner there, with her squad here. She was very well liked.”

  He nodded. “You’re trying to comfort me, and I’m grateful. I need more. I need facts. Theories if that’s all you have. I need to know what you think happened. And why. I need you to promise you’ll tell me the truth. If you give me your word, you won’t break it. Will you promise me the truth?”

  “Okay.” She nodded. “The truth. I give you my word. I need the same from you. I have to ask you something, and I need the truth.”

  “Lies won’t help her.”

  “No, they won’t. Morris, did you know that Detective—that Amaryllis had had an intimate relationship with Max Ricker’s son, with Alex Ricker, before she transferred to New York?”

  8

  SHE KNEW THE ANSWER INSTANTLY. HIS EYES widened; his lips trembled open. He said nothing for a moment or two while she watched him drink coffee and compose himself. He sat, not in one of his sharp, stylish suits, but in a lightweight black sweater and jeans, with his hair pulled back in a simple tail with none of the usual ornamentation.

  As he sat, in silence, she knew just as she’d told Roarke, she’d kicked a friend in the gut a second time.

  “Morris—”

  He held up a hand asking for another minute. “You’ve confirmed this?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew there had been someone, that she’d been involved with someone before she left Atlanta.” He lifted a hand to rub at his temple. “They’d broken it off, and it left her upset, at loose ends. It was one of the reasons she decided to transfer. Just a fresh start, a clean slate—some distance between what had been and what could be. That’s how she put it. I should’ve to
ld you yesterday. I didn’t think of it. I couldn’t think—”

  “It’s okay.”

  “She mentioned it, the way you do when you’re getting to know someone. She said . . . What did she say? I’m trying to remember. Just that they couldn’t make it work, couldn’t be what each other needed them to be. She never mentioned his name. I never asked. Why would I?”

  “Can you tell me, did you get a sense she was worried about him, about how they’d ended it?”

  “No. I only remember thinking what kind of fool had let her get away. She didn’t bring it up again, and neither did I. It was the past. We were both focused on now, on where we were going. On what could be, I suppose. Did he do this?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a lead, and I’ll follow it. But I don’t know, Morris. I’ll tell you what I know, if you trust me to handle it.”

  “There’s no one I trust more. That’s the truth.”

  “Alex Ricker is in New York.”

  The color that came into his face was rage, barely controlled. “Hear me out,” she demanded. “He contacted her, and she went to see him the day before she died. He volunteered this information to me this morning when I went to see him.”

  Morris set his coffee aside and, rising, walked to Eve’s skinny window. “They weren’t still involved. I would have known.”

  “He said they weren’t, and that they broke off their relationship amicably. They met as friends. They had a drink and a catch-up conversation during which she told him she’d met someone, was involved. He stated that she looked happy.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  Hell, she thought, how did she dance around her suspicions and keep her word? “I believe he might have been telling the truth, or part of the truth. If she’d felt threatened or worried, would she have told you?”

  “I want to think so. I want to think even if she hadn’t I would have seen it, felt it. She didn’t tell me she was meeting him, and now I can’t ask her why she didn’t. What it means that she didn’t.”

  She didn’t have to see his face to know there was pain. “It could be it meant so little to her she didn’t feel it was worth mentioning.”