Festive in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “All but begging on the street.”

  “Comparatively.” Shifting, she hooked an arm around Roarke’s neck, studied the numbers. “He gets credit for earning it, a mil at a time, but it’s going to sting, isn’t it, to have his whole shot be what his wife would think of as pocket change?”

  “Does it?”

  This time she rested her head against his. “Not as long as you keep the coffee coming. But for him? He strikes me as a showboater, just the way he came across today.”

  “He has a taste for the finer things, I can’t quibble with that. Wardrobe, vehicles—though the wife appears to be reasonably generous there. His expense account at the firm is consistently at the max. He travels very well, professionally and personally.”

  “This is all on the up-and-up?”

  “This part, yes. He does, however, have two other accounts, both set up offshore—since the marriage—and both under very thin fronts. He went to some trouble to hide them, and they’d likely stay tucked away from any surface search his spouse or her money people might engage. Unless it got serious.”

  “Or it got serious in a murder investigation with an exceptional civilian consultant poking into it.”

  “Or that.”

  He switched screens manually. “Twelve million here, eight there.”

  “Where’d he get it?”

  “Those were some of the ends I was tying up. I’ll want to dig a bit deeper, but again on the surface, from skimming. Personal and business expenses, carefully and craftily—and the personal would be from his wife.”

  “He’s stealing from his wife.”

  “A bit at a time, and those bits, I’ve found, go back to the early days of their marriage. Not particularly greedy in it, but consistent. Some of it’s earned right enough, just separated out into these other areas—out of the family coffers you might say. Solo investments, some tax wrangling—all close to the line but not really over it.”

  “What’s that one? The monthly direct pay deal. Six thousand, the first of every month.”

  “Ah, you’ve a sharp eye. That would be the management fee, which includes thrice-weekly cleaning, all maintenance and so forth on a condo. Upper East Side. Bought with one of his shells about six months back. As there’s no coordinating income from the property, I wouldn’t call it an investment.”

  “A place of his own—opposite end of the city from the family house.” Eve shifted again, angling her head as she followed the numbers. “Smells like a love nest to me.”

  “It has that cachet. You’ll also see some outlay—hotels, restaurants, boutiques. Go back about four months, there’s considerable to design vendors, furniture.”

  “Feathering the nest. What does that mean? Do birds use feathers to make their nest? Why would they? How would they? I don’t get it.”

  “I couldn’t say, but I agree with the idiom. He bought it, furnished it, and as some of the outlets he paid out of these accounts are ladies’ boutiques, I’d say he also outfitted the bird he’s nesting with.”

  “He’s got a side piece.”

  When she started to rise, Roarke simply wrapped his arms around her. “I’m not done. Keep looking.”

  She’d have looked better if she could get up, move, but she settled back. After all, he’d done the work.

  “Cash withdrawals, three weeks running—back six weeks—for five thousand each. Paying somebody off? Has to be the vic. Wait, wait—it doubles at that three-week mark. Weekly again, but for ten thousand each. That’s not walking-around money.”

  “Perhaps he walks in very rarified areas.”

  “I’m calling bullshit there. That’s payoff, and it jibes with the accounting McNab pulled off Ziegler’s comp.”

  “Why didn’t I know about this?” Roarke complained.

  “Lost in the details, sorry. I just went over it before I came in. McNab pulled a kind of ledger from the vic’s home comp. Amounts, initials, he had them listed as legit services. Training, consults, massages—but that’s your bollocks.”

  “Not mine.”

  “Anybody’s. He also rated some—which have to be the sex scales—with a star system. He gave Kira Robbins two and a half out of three.”

  “Your victim truly was more than a bit of a pig.”

  “Yeah, but my pig. I’ve got these amounts corresponding to the initials JJ—listed as private training sessions. Didn’t figure they were. Can’t prove they weren’t. But seeing he withdrew the amounts, in cash, from hidden accounts? That says payoff loud and clear. It says, to me, Ziegler found out about the side piece, Copley paid him to keep it shut, then Ziegler got greedy. Doubled the payoff. Could start to piss you off. Maybe he wanted more yet.

  “I need the side piece. I need to talk to her.”

  “That I can’t get you.”

  “Yeah, you can—have. You got hotels, restaurants, boutiques, the love nest. Somebody at those places knows her. I can find her. I will find her, and Copley will have told her something. Who can he bitch to about Ziegler hosing him, or his wife? His sex buddy.”

  She circled around. “His wife claims they were mending things, that he suggested they take a trip. Maybe he’s broken it off with the side piece. That would piss her off, wouldn’t it? Nest just got feathered, and now he’s doing what a cheating husband usually does, runs back to his wife. His rich wife. Too much pressure from Ziegler,” she speculated. “And he caved.”

  “You’re putting another suspect on your board. The mistress.”

  “Mistress is too nice a word for a woman who lets some cheating bastard buy her shoes. I prefer lazy, greedy bitch.”

  “Harsh, without knowing circumstances. Perhaps she loves the cheating bastard.”

  “Nobody loves a cheating bastard. He has hidden accounts, he has a separate address, a side piece, and very likely he’s been paying his personal trainer blackmail. He definitely tops the list, with the wife and the greedy, lazy bitch right up there.

  “Maybe she knew.”

  “I’m going to assume you mean the wife.”

  “Yeah.” Eve nodded, lining it up in her head. “She knows he’s got something going on the side. They mostly know even if they don’t know exactly. It causes tension in the marriage. Separate bedrooms.”

  “Separate bedrooms is more than tension,” Roarke commented. “It’s a fracture in the foundation.”

  “Yeah, Feeney said the same. So you’ve got your crater, or your fractured foundation,” she continued. “But Copley’s happy screwing the side piece so he’s fine not having to screw his wife. Except now he’s getting pressure. From the wife who retaliates by having sex with their mutual trainer, and is maybe thinking fuck this marriage. Maybe from the side piece who wants him to leave the wife, and he doesn’t want that because, lots and lots of money, and the prestige of the Quigley name and social status. He wouldn’t want to give that up. Then there’s Ziegler adding more pressure. Doubled the amount . . .”

  “Copley ends it, or tries to, with the side piece,” Roarke suggested, “and that ups the ante. It’s more important now that little interlude be kept quiet.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “All in all, a sordid bit of business. I’m surprised the morgue’s not littered with bodies of the participants.”

  “It’s not over yet. I still need to talk with Robbins. She fits fairly neatly. But Copley, he’s just tailor-made.”

  Considering, Eve shifted, slid an arm around Roarke’s neck again, toyed with his hair. “I need two hours.”

  “I have all the time in the world,” he assured her as his fingers danced up her thigh.

  “Not for that. Jeez, sit on a guy’s lap and he goes straight into sex mode.”

  “We’re weak and predictable creatures.”

  “I need two hours tomorrow, first thing in the morning, to see if I can get a line on the sid
e piece, talk to the blogger. If I find the side piece, I may need a little more time to work on Copley, but I could maybe do it in two.”

  “You’re telling me this, while tacitly alluding to sex, because . . . ?”

  “Just a couple hours.” She gave him a light, teasing kiss. “I can be back by ten. Noon latest. And I’ll dive right into party prep and all that. Total focus on it.”

  “I’ve no problem with that. But,” he added when she smiled and leaned in for another kiss, “you didn’t make the deal with me. You made it with Summerset.”

  “It’s our party, right? You could talk to him.”

  “It’s your deal. You talk to him.”

  “Damn it.”

  “Meanwhile . . .” He scooped her up, stood, started out of the room with her.

  “I’m not finished yet.”

  “You’ve enough to chew on until morning. And you did sit in my lap.”

  “Maybe I don’t want sex.”

  “You should’ve thought of that before you tried to use it to wiggle out of your deal.”

  “I didn’t make the deal with you.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Damn it.” Eve plotted how she could get out and back before Summerset knew the difference.

  Then with the bed under her, her man on top of her, she decided to worry about it in the morning.

  • • •

  Somewhere in the dark, the dream formed. She didn’t fight it, didn’t try to struggle out of its grip, but gave over to it.

  Through the dark came the bright, bright lights, the pounding music. She saw them on the treads, on the mats, on the other machines, decked in colorful gymwear, as their faces, their bodies, gleamed with sweat.

  Trey Ziegler stood in the center, atop a kind of dais that slowly revolved to give him a three-sixty perspective of the space. He wore black—snug black to show off every cut and ripple.

  He looked, she realized, like the trophy that had killed him.

  “They have to do what I tell them,” he told Eve. “I’m the trainer.”

  “At least one of them didn’t.” She gestured at the knife hilt protruding from his chest, and the note with its large red letters and its single line of blood.

  “I’m the trainer,” he insisted. “I’m the best. I have trophies to prove it. Why shouldn’t they pay more, plenty more, for the best? You think they’d look like that if it wasn’t for me? Shit. Desk jockeys, socialites, rich bitches, and lazy bastards.”

  “In other words,” Eve said, “clients.”

  “That’s right. They’ve got good bodies because of me. They’d pay some sculptor to carve the fat off for twice what I get. I keep ’em honest, so I deserve more.”

  “You didn’t settle for that, Ziegler. You didn’t settle for what you deserved.”

  “Why settle? All that gets you is a dump of an apartment, crappy shoes, and some dumb-ass bimbo whining for more. No pain, no gain.” Smirking, he tapped his chest, either side of the knife, with his thumbs. “I got gain.”

  “You’re a rapist.”

  “Hell no! You!” He shouted over the music, jabbed a finger in the air at Martella. “Bump up those weights! Squeeze those biceps. Let me see some sweat! I never raped anybody in my life,” he said to Eve.

  “You drugged them.”

  “All natural product,” he insisted. “Just to help them relax, ease those inhibitions. Some women, they tell themselves they don’t want it, but they do. I just gave them a little help relaxing. And every one of them got off.” He grinned, cupped his cock. “I’m the trainer.”

  “You’re an asshole. You raped them. And those women who were willing, though God knows why, you sold yourself to. Illegally.”

  “It’s not selling to take a nice tip for exceptional service. They got off, didn’t they? So what if they gave me a few bucks?”

  “Others you blackmailed.”

  “So you say. Somebody offers me a few bucks to keep my mouth shut, why shouldn’t I take it? I’m better than this place. I’m going to have my own place. You take money for what you do,” he pointed out. “You’re no different from me. Jesus, JJ, I want real push-ups, not those wussy girl excuses for push-ups. Burn it up a little.

  “They keep coming back,” Ziegler told Eve, “because I’m the best.”

  They kept coming back, she thought. Copley, Quigley, the Schuberts, Robbins, Sima, Alla Coburn. All of them lifting, running in place, lunging, sweating.

  And all of them watching Ziegler with hate in their eyes.

  “They come back, but they hate you.”

  “I ain’t in it for love.”

  “For money, for sex, for what you see as power? It got you killed.”

  “That’s not my fault. You’re supposed to fix it, so fix it.” He reached out, grabbed her arm, squeezed. “You need to build more muscle. I can help you with that. I can help you with a lot of things.”

  “Keep your hands off me.” She yanked away, but he only grinned. Grinned as the blood from the shattered skull began to drip.

  “What’re you going to do about it?” He grabbed her again. “Are you going to try to stop me like you stopped your old man?”

  Her hand closed over the hilt of the knife. She felt the warm, wet blood in her hand, remembered, remembered how it sprayed and poured when she’d hacked and hacked.

  He grinned at her while the blood slid between her fingers.

  “If you had a chance to kill him now, you’d do it. You’d cut him to pieces if you had a chance to do it all over again.”

  “No.” And God, dear God, that was a relief. “No, I wouldn’t. I’m not helpless now, not afraid for my life now. I’m a fucking cop.”

  She shoved him back.

  “I’m a cop,” she repeated. “And I’ll do my best by you.”

  “I’m the best!” he shouted as she stepped down, walked toward the doors.

  “You’re nothing. You’re worse than nothing. But you’re mine.”

  She walked out, into the night. She looked down at her hands, found them clean.

  She woke in the soft gray light of morning in the warmth of her own bed.

  “It’s all right,” Roarke murmured, drawing her closer. “You’re all right.”

  “I’m all right,” she repeated. “My hands are clean.” She held one up, turned it in the quiet light. “My hands are clean.”

  On a half laugh, she shifted, found his eyes open and on hers. “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here.”

  “That’s right. Me, too. But what are you doing here when the sun’s up? Why aren’t you conferencing with Zurich or buying a solar system?”

  “I’m sleeping with my wife on a Saturday morning.”

  “The day of the week doesn’t mean squat in your endless quest for world domination. Could be you’re slipping, pal. Then where will I get my coffee?”

  “I can always buy a solar system this afternoon if it makes you feel more confident in my ability to supply coffee.”

  “Shake my confidence there, I could go hunt for another supplier. He might not be as pretty, but I have my priorities.”

  “Feeling playful this morning, are you then?”

  “Maybe. My hands are clean.”

  “So you keep saying.”

  “It’s important. And since they are . . .” She ran a hand down his chest, and down, then closed her fingers around him. “Look what I found.”

  “And now that you have?”

  “I can probably think of something constructive to do with it.”

  But first she simply rolled on top of him, her face buried in the curve of his throat, her heart beating lightly on his.

  Warm, she thought, everything so warm and smooth and easy.

  “We lose too many Saturday mornings.”

 
He ran a hand up and down her back. “The day of the week doesn’t mean squat.”

  She laughed, pressed her lips to that curve, then lifted her head. “You’re right.” She kissed him, light as their heartbeats. “But since solar systems are for later . . .”

  She touched her lips to his again, then took hers sliding down the line of his throat, over his chest. Whatever the day, it was lovely to have the time to just be with him, to feel as she felt now. Warm and smooth and easy.

  As she rose up to straddle him, bells rang and there was an unmistakable sound of irritation just before the thump of the cat deserting the bed for the floor.

  “We’ve annoyed the cat,” Roarke commented.

  “Well, three’s a crowd anyway. Except it’s really not. One too many people in a given circumstances doesn’t make a crowd. Why are sayings so stupid?”

  “Like the solar system, perhaps we can consider that later.”

  “Good idea.”

  She leaned down, and this time the kiss was long, slow, deep. Stirring them both so the hands sliding down her back fisted in the thin material of the shirt she wore.

  Not too many people here, she thought, just the exact right amount. Just him. Just her. She felt his need for her, wakened so quickly, the strength of it, the depth of it. It was always a wonder to her. She hoped it always would be as the wonder added a layer of beauty over desire.

  His heart beat a little quicker against hers. She swore she felt the vibration of it as she rose up again.

  Those eyes, still watching her, madly blue and beautiful, as she crossed her arms, drew her shirt up and off. As she shifted. As she lowered. As she took him in.

  The morning light bathed her in silver, the long torso, the lean sculpted arms. And in the morning hush there was no sound but her breath and his, and the soft slide of the sheets as she moved over him. Slowly, almost gently rocking to bring the pleasure in long, quiet waves.

  The heat of her trapped him, gloriously, brought him light as surely as the sun slipping through the sky window overhead.

  She gave them the morning, a reminder of what they were together no matter what the day might bring.

  As her rhythm quickened, so did his heart, his blood, his need.