Divided in Death (In Death #18)(17)

"His marriage was over." Chloe turned her head away, stared at the wall. "It was just a matter of time until it was legally ended, and we'd be together in the sunlight, instead of in shadows."

"How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-one, but age means nothing." She closed her hand over a heart-shaped pendant around her throat. "I'm as old as time now, as old as grief,"

"When's the last time you saw Blair?"

"Yesterday morning. We met here." She brushed her free hand over her brow while she stroked the little gold heart. "To say a sweet goodbye before he had to go on his trip."

"That would be his trip uptown where he snuggled in with Felicity Kade for a couple days?"

"That isn't true." Her puffy eyes took on a mutinous expression. "I don't know what happened, what that horrible woman made it appear, but Blair certainly wasn't involved that way with Ms. Kade. She was a client, and no more."

"Uh-huh" was the kindest response Eve could think of. "How long have you worked here?"

"Eight months. The most vital eight months of my life. I only started to live when-"

"Did his wife come here?"

"Rarely." Chloe pressed her lips together. "She pretended an interest in his work, in public. But in private she was critical, and was draining his energies. Of course, she had no problem spending the money he made from the sweat of his soul."

"Is that so? He tell you that?"

"He told me everything." She beat her breast, her hand fisted around the locket. Heart tapped against heart. "There were no secrets between us."

"So you have the passcode into his studio."

She opened her mouth, firmed it again before speaking. "No. An artist such as Blair needs his privacy. I would never intrude. Naturally, he would open the door when he wanted to share something with me."

"Right. So you wouldn't know if he ever had visitors in there."

"He worked alone. It was necessary for his creativity."

Dupe, Eve thought. Foolish, gullible, and probably no more than a casual toy for Bissel. She started to turn as the elevator opened again, and Chloe flung her arms around Eve's legs.

"Please, please! You must let me see him. You must let me say goodbye to my heart. Let me go to him. Let me touch his face one last time! You must. You must give me that much."

Eve saw Roarke quirk a brow in a kind of amused horror. Bending, Eve peeled Chloe off her shins.

"Peabody, deal with this."

"Sure. Come on, Chloe." Putting her back into it, Peabody hefted the weeping girl. "Let's go splash some water on your face. Blair would want you to be strong. I've got some questions I need to ask you. He'd want you to help us, so we can see justice is done."

"I will! I will be strong, for Blair. No matter how hard it is."

"I know you will," Peabody replied and led Chloe through an archway.

"Second, much younger side dish," Eve said before Roarke could ask.

"Ah."

"Yeah. Ah. I don't think she knows anything, but Peabody'll coax it out of her if she does."

"I wonder if it'll be easier on Reva, knowing what a complete bastard the man was. Her lawyer got her out on bail. She has to wear a bracelet, but she's out. She'll stay with Caro until this is cleared up."

He studied the wide double doorway taking up most of a wall, and strolling over gave it a light tap. "Steel, reinforced, I'd wager. Odd to go to all that for a space such as this."

"So I'm thinking."

"Hmm." He wandered to the security panel. "Feeney contacted me shortly before you did. In fact, I was on the point of heading down to Central when you gave me this interesting assignment."

Taking a case of slim tools from his pocket, Roarke selected one, removed the plate. "He appears to have had a very fine time with his family in Bimini."

"He has a tan. He smiles all the time. I'm not entirely sure they didn't replace him with a droid."

Roarke made not entirely sympathetic mouth noises before taking a small electronic unit out of another pocket.

"What's that?"

"Oh, just a little something I've been toying with. A good time to try it out, in the field so to speak." He interfaced it with the pad, waited through a series of beeps, and brushed Eve gently back when she tried to stare at it over his shoulder.

"Don't crowd me, Lieutenant."

"What's it doing?"

"All manner of things you wouldn't understand, and you'd just get testy if I tried to explain. Simplest to say it's mating-as machines do. And seducing Bissel's unit into revealing all sorts of secrets. And isn't this interesting?"

"What? Damn it. Can you get in or not?"

"I don't know why I tolerate the insults." He glanced over his shoulder, directly into her annoyed eyes. "Maybe it's the sex. How lowering that would be. Then again, I'm as weak and vulnerable as the next man."

"Are you trying to piss me off?"

"Darling, it's no effort at all. Now what I've learned here, through my delightful new toy, is exactly when this passcode was changed. And I think you'll find it as interesting as I do that it was done at nearly the same time someone was jamming a kitchen knife in Blair Bissel's ribs."