Secrets in Death (In Death #45)(15)

“Then she turned and smiled at the waiter. I couldn’t even hear what they said to each other. My head was full of noise. I wanted to reach across the table and snap her neck. Just break it like a twig. She leaned toward me, still smiling, and said nobody had to know. She was good at keeping secrets—for friends.”

He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “Sorry, I need some water.”

“Why don’t I get that for you?” Roarke rose. “The kitchen?” He gestured toward the back of the house, got a nod.

“How much did she want?”

He sat back, eyes closed. “She said friends do favors for each other. She’d do this one for me, and I’d pay her back. I didn’t raise my voice. I was screaming inside, but I didn’t raise my voice. I said I hadn’t done this. She’d set me up. She sat there, smiling, sipping her drink. Said the video would prove I did, and who’d believe she’d set me up, someone with my history? It would be eight thousand this month. I was stunned at how little, then she explained. Next month six thousand, the following seven, and we’d vary the payments. Didn’t I want to write this down? I just sat there. She…”

He trailed off when Roarke came back with a tall glass of water, iced. “Thanks. Thanks. God.” He drank, breathed, drank. “She said if I fed her other secrets, good information, that would lower the payment for that particular month. It would be my choice: cash or information. And no one would ever see the vid, no one would ever know. My wife would be blissfully ignorant of my deception, we’d have our sweet little babies and go on as we were. As long as I paid.

“I know there was more. Arguing, carefully arguing. I can’t remember it all. It’s like being in a play, and forgetting your lines. I said she’d have her blood money, but I’d never give her information, never put anyone else through what she was putting me through. She said I’d be surprised how that attitude evolves over time. For now I could meet her in two days, same time, same place, with cash. That’s when she got up, said she was going to freshen up before she left, and I could pay the check. She walked away.

“I didn’t kill her. I wanted to hurt her, but … what would it do to DeAnna? It would all come out, and I’d throw us both into a scandal. She needs to be happy, to be calm. The babies. We’re having triplets. My girls are inside my wife. I wouldn’t risk them, even for the satisfaction of hurting that bitch.”

“Where’s your brachial artery?” Eve tossed out.

His eyebrows drew together. “I don’t know what that is.”

“Do you know much about anatomy?”

“I know where everything is, more or less. I know a hell of a lot more about the female reproductive system than I’d like to, frankly. Artery? Like the heart?”

“Not exactly. I won’t speak to your wife, and I’ll do whatever I can do to keep this out of the media.”

Tears swam into his eyes. “Thank you. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

“I need the name and contact number of your friend—the one who went to the club with you. I need any and all communications you’ve had with Mars. It’s likely I’ll need to speak to you again, and I’ll expect your cooperation.”

“You’ll have it.”

“If you’ve lied to me, I’ll find out.”

“I haven’t. I wouldn’t risk my wife, our daughters.”

“It happens I believe you on that.”

*

When they walked back outside, Roarke slipped an arm around Eve. “You felt for him, and so did I.”

“I believe he loves his wife, and I think Mars targeted him—rich, former womanizer with a lot to lose—managed to have someone slip something into his drink. Which means she’d stalked him, watched him, picked her time. Wife’s gone for a couple of days—the threesome looks even worse in the marriage bed.”

“You don’t believe he killed her.”

“My hard lean is he was blindsided. He still has some doubts about his worth, especially after waking up from a blackout, and she counted on all that. He didn’t walk into that bar with a plan to kill, and I lean—fairly heavily—that her killer did. I also believe if she’d continued to bleed Bellami—threaten his wife, his family, his life—he would have eventually done her harm.

“But he didn’t do her harm tonight.”

“But someone else she’s bled—as, obviously, this is her business plan—did harm her tonight.”

Eve nodded. “Think about it. You bleed me, I bleed you, bitch. It’s downright poetic. Why the hell don’t people come to the cops?”

“Oh, let me count the ways.” He tugged her back when she pulled away. “I see your side of it, Lieutenant, but it’s a difficult leap for someone to come to a cop and confess they’ve embezzled, cheated, covered up some crime or misadventure. Blackmailers, as you very well know, depend on just that behavior. You just pay me, and I keep your secret.”

“And they never stop. You never stop the bleeding.”

“You’re absolutely right, but those in the middle of it have the hope it will, somehow. Those who can afford to pay? It’s just money compared to what else they might lose.”

“Or information,” she added. “I’m betting she bled plenty of that. Lowers the cash flow for the weasel, makes it easier to keep weaseling. It’s just gossip.”