Vendetta in Death (In Death #49)(68)

“Of. And I admire, very much, her work. You’ve seen some of her vids.”

He’d know better than she would, so Eve said, “Probably.”

“I can promise we’ve watched a few together. But in any case the legendary Eloise backed her granddaughter financially. Darla had studied programming and AI engineering in college, worked for advanced degrees. Then married Pettigrew. Reading between the lines of the data I unearthed, she played lawyer’s wife to the exclusion of her own ambitions for several years, but along the way something sparked her idea to start her own company with a focus on creating, programming, and manufacturing personalized domestic droids. Small scale, and with the eye toward quality and affordability.”

“Hers then. He didn’t have the programming chops, right?”

“None at all, but he handled the legalities—and there he set himself up nicely. And,” Roarke added, “craftily. The company had some success—enough for her to repay her grandmother, and build a reputation for reliability and customer service. A solid little company, as I said before.”

“Yours now.”

“It is, yes. A couple of years ago, Pettigrew’s financial manager contacted our acquisitions department. Memos and reports from the time state the company would be on the block due to a divorce.”

“Would be?”

“Yes, we got a bit of a heads-up, an invitation to make an offer. My people did the due diligence, I cleared the offer, and after a quick and easy negotiation, we finalized within a couple of weeks. Simple and standard, no muss or fuss.”

“She didn’t have a choice,” Eve replied.

“So it seems. It appeared, as I said, simple and standard on paper. She’d signed off, and he’d held the majority share.”

Eve rose, wandered to the board. “Because he’d set it up that way, and she assumed he set it up fairly.”

“I’d agree with that. As I said, it was craftily done.”

“I bet. Plus, she was, most probably, focused on the work, the hiring, the getting it off the ground, and left the legal crap to him. Married a lawyer, after all.”

Roarke watched her circle, study. “Hard to see it otherwise.”

“Impossible to, from where I’m standing. And it was hers, the idea—her education—her grandmother’s backing, the work.”

She glanced back at him. “And pride. She’d have been proud of it—proud she’d paid back her grandmother’s investment, proud she’d built something.”

“Quite a nice something,” Roarke confirmed. “A solid little company with potential to grow. She had reason to be proud of it, yes.”

“And he cheated her out of it. Cheated on her sexually.” Eve jabbed a finger at Darla’s ID shot. “I’m telling you that’s the motive. It’s not all of it, because this is one sick bitch, but that’s the springboard, the break, the push.”

Roarke got up, went to the board, studied the photo. “So you’re convinced she’s involved?”

“Not ready for convinced, but man, I’m leaning there, and hard.” She began to pace. “Not Geena McEnroy. She’s got two kids, and by every account—even people who actively disliked him—he was a good father. You heard the tutor—did she come off straight to you?”

“She did, yes. And like you, I believe she’d have known or would have had some inkling if the wife had a part in this.”

“Agreed. Horowitz. Young, a little stupid if you ask me, living the good life and happy there. If she’d found out about the LCs, I figure her to cry and rage and demand he stop—or run home to her mother. But help plan out two torture murders? No. Plus, with him dead, she’s out. Not a spouse or a legal cohab. Just lived with him. She gets nothing.”

“All right.” Because he knew Eve, Roarke nodded. “And what else?”

“Neither of them, not as far as evidence shows, had a direct connection with the support group. The killer’s been in those meetings, been part of them, heard the stories. Darla.”

“You’re convincing me.”

“It’s not going to convince the PA or a judge to issue a search warrant for Eloise Callahan’s residence.”

“You don’t believe the grandmother’s complicit, surely?”

“She’s an actor, right? Legendary, everybody says. She didn’t give me any buzz when we talked to her—”

“You talked to her.” Roarke held up a hand. “You talked with Eloise Callahan?”

“Yeah, because, you know, murder investigation.” She had to smirk. “Fanboy.”

“Being an admirer of her craft doesn’t make me a fanboy. Maybe a bit,” he admitted with an easy smile. “And I think this calls for a meal over which you can give me all the details.” He cupped her chin in his hand, his thumb grazing lightly over the shallow dent in it. “I think steak. You look tired, Lieutenant. You haven’t had much sleep in the last couple nights.”

“I could eat steak.”

He drew her in first, held her. “When there’s time, I think we’ll watch Eloise in Only Once.”

“Do things blow up?”

Smiling, he kissed her temple. “Not this time. It’s a beautiful film. Staggeringly, sumptuously romantic. I think she’d have been in her twenties still. Gorgeous creature. Luminous.”