Connections in Death (In Death #48)(61)

“Pearls.”

“And quite nice ones,” he recalled. “I took Summerset to see the property, told him what I wanted to do. He took a loan out for the rest. And in eight months, we opened the Green, a small, elegant hotel we marketed to tourists looking for personal service.”

“How old were you?”

“About sixteen, more or less. I had enough from it in a couple years to pay him back the loan, but he wouldn’t have it. So we own it together.”

“Still?”

In the glow of the lights, his eyes hit a stunning blue as he glanced over at her. “Whatever I’ve bought and sold, there’s only one first. When I walked through it the first time, when it was mine, with its damp walls and broken windows, it was a revelation. Something belonged to me, and I could tend to it. I could . . . change it into something more.”

“You still stole the pearls.”

“And put them to very good use. Ah, there it is. Our hole in the ground.”

She saw the hole, a sort of oval, about twenty feet around, and the muscular digger parked nearby. Crossing to it with him, she looked down. Ten feet deep, maybe.

“You could bury a lot of bodies here.”

“Let’s try water lilies instead.” He slid an arm around her. “I think we’ll enjoy this, when there’s time for a walk.”

“What did they do with all the dirt?”

“Hauled it off for some other projects. Which reminds me, the Nebraska project’s nearly finished. I’ll have to show you the current pictures.”

He turned her, kissed her. “And I didn’t steal any pearls for this one.”

“But you’re still buying rat holes.”

“That’s the fun of it.” He kissed her again. As she lifted her arms to wrap around him, her ’link signaled.

She pushed back, pulled it out. “Reo. Did you get it?”

She got her warrant, Roarke thought while she paced and stalked confirming with Reo.

He listened with half an ear, imagining the pond as it would be in years to come while she switched from ’link to comm to snap orders at the uniform sitting on Cohen.

Water lilies, and some sort of flowering weeper with its branches trailing toward the water. A bench for sitting. Turning, he studied the house, rising up in the night sky. He remembered how the boy of sixteen had felt walking through a sad, battered old building, knowing it belonged to him.

And how the man had felt when he’d first walked through the house he’d made in New York, knowing it belonged to him.

It was nothing, he thought, compared to the now, looking at it now that he shared that house with his cop, this life with her. Knowing she belonged to him, and he to her.

“They’re picking him up.”

He looked at her then, and into those steady cop’s eyes. “There wasn’t a cop who could lay a finger on me, on that boy who stole the pearls, and so much before and after. Fists and boots, but they couldn’t put me in a cage. And I wonder, if you and I had crossed our paths in the before, well, who would’ve won that one?”

“Justice, ace. I’d’ve dogged you for it.”

No question she would have dogged him to the end. How could he not adore her?

“I’d have fallen in love with you regardless, and you with me.” He moved to her, enfolded her. “It was meant.”

“Feels like it. So . . . I’d have brought you a cake and a smile.”

Laughing, he kissed her hair again. “Well, this was a nice walk, and it’s a fine hole in the ground. Now it’s back to work, is it?”

“I need to update Peabody. I want to start on Cohen in the morning. And I want confirmation from the uniforms when he’s in custody.”

“As I said.” He took her hand, strolling back to the house. “It’s to work.”

*

She woke early and alone. Well, not alone, she thought groggily, as the cat curled his tubbiness at the small of her back. As she waited for her brain to wake up she considered the fact that the bed approached the size of Utah, and she routinely ended up sandwiched between Roarke and the cat.

Oddly enough, she was okay with that.

Because her brain was, mostly, awake, she opted to roll out of bed. She hit coffee first, downing it as she dragged on shorts, a tank, and running shoes.

She wanted to break a good sweat before she pulled Cohen into the box, so took the elevator straight down to the gym.

She programmed tropical for her run, but chose a hilly terrain rather than the flat beach. Her quads woke up and whined in the first half mile, so she kept the pace steady until they stopped complaining.

The sweat broke in mile two as she pushed herself up a hill into some sort of rain forest. In the thick, damp air, vegetation dripped green and madly colorful flowers rioted alongside her track.

Since, to her mind, it felt just a little creepy, she picked up her pace. Topping mile three she came to the base of a waterfall spewing down from a cliff and beating itself into a rushing blue river. A white bird with a wingspan wide as a maxibus swooped down, skimmed the water. And came up with a flapping fish in its long, sharp bill.

As she judged the look in its eye definitely homicidal, she ran on. And with as much relief as satisfaction, saw that curving white beach and the rolling breakers below.

She aimed for it, leaving the drumming water behind, kept a steady pace as birds as bright as the flowers zipped overhead. Then ran flat out for the last half mile to reach the beach dripping like the vegetation in the hills.