Divided in Death (In Death #18)(96)

"Who stood to gain from his death?"

"I-you mean financially?"

"In any way."

"I did, I guess. There's money, decent money. You know all that."

"Decent money," Eve repeated. "You've got decent money of your own. He'll have hidden accounts, and once we find them-"

"Located, listed, and filed on your computer," Roarke said as he walked in. "As requested, Lieutenant."

"How much?"

"In excess of four million spread over five accounts."

"Not enough."

Roarke inclined his head. "Perhaps not, but it's all there is. He was neither particularly frugal nor skilled in investment areas. All the accounts have slow, steady leaks over the six years they've been opened. He spends, and he speculates, and most usually loses his capital."

"That plays." She began to re-evaluate. "Okay, that plays. He goes through money, he needs more money. A big score."

"So he kills Felicity and his brother to get it, implicates me? You're painting a monster. I wasn't married to a monster."

"You were married to an illusion."

Reva's head jerked back as if the blow had landed. "You're grabbing at air because you don't have anything else. And because you don't want to leave me with nothing. I loved him, whether or not he was an illusion. Do you understand the concept?"

"I'm familiar with it."

"You want me to believe I loved someone capable of murder. Coldblooded, cold-minded murder."

It took all her will to keep her gaze from flicking, even for an instant, toward Roarke. And to keep her heart and mind from asking herself that same question.

"What you believe is your own business. How you handle this is up to you. If you can't deal with the direction of my investigation, you're no use to me."

"You're the cold-blooded one. The cold-minded one. And I've been used just about enough."

When she strode out, Tokimoto eased away from the door and followed her.

"Gee, she took that well." Now Eve allowed herself a slow scan of faces. "Would anyone like to complete this briefing, or should we break for comments about my need for sensitivity training?"

"It's a hard knock, Dallas," Feeney said. "No way for you to pretty it up for her. She'll be back when she shakes it off."

"We'll work without her. Bissel has accounts in various locations, odds are he's got a bolt-hole-a lavish one, maybe more than one. He's still in the city, cleaning up after himself, so he must have one here. We find it."

"I found two properties," Roarke put in. "One in the Canary Islands, the other in Singapore. Neither were very well cloaked, meaning if I found them so easily, others would."

"So they're probably blinds. He's not completely stupid. Let's look in his brother's name, or Kade's, Ewing's. He might have set himself up, using them as cover, then if... No, no. Shit! McCoy. Chloe McCoy. He had to have more use for her than the occasional bang. Check it out. See if he tucked away funds and/or property in her name somehow. He killed her for a reason, and my take is this guy kills for money and self-preservation."

"I'll take that," McNab volunteered. "Working on a cobbler rush."

"Get started. I'm going to check on Sparrow, see if he's coherent and I can dig anything out of him. Feeney, I'm leaving you and Roarke on the machines. If Reva's backed out and Tokimoto's busy patting her head, you're going to be short-handed."

"Another tanker of coffee ought to keep us in the game."

"You may want an update before you rush off, Lieutenant. We're retrieving data from Kade's unit. It's encrypted, but we'll get through that."

"Great, good. Let me know when-"

"I'm not finished. Each of Kade's units was corrupted, but not through a networking worm. They were burned individually."

"So what? Look, this is EDD territory. All I need is the bottom line. I need the data."

"You don't give electronics enough respect," Feeney stated.

"And neither, I'd venture, does Bissel." As Eve hadn't touched the glass of chilled juice Peabody had brought her, Roarke picked it up and helped himself. "The potential worm's import is its theoretic ability to corrupt an entire networking system, however small or large, however simple or complex, with one stroke, to corrupt and shut down, irretrievably. That's not what we're dealing with. It's a shade of that, an early version perhaps, but not nearly as powerful as we've been led to believe. It's been relatively easy to clean and retrieve from the units we've got."

"Relatively." Feeney rolled his aching eyes. "It's nasty business, but it's not global security shit. What it is, is smoke."

"Which means he doesn't have what he thought he had-what he was going to parlay into a nice retirement fund. But maybe someone else does, or maybe... Son of a bitch. He wasn't trying to take me out." She tapped her fingers absently over her bruised eye. "He hit his target. Aim was a little off, but he hit."

Roarke inclined his head as his thoughts marched with hers. "Sparrow."

"It'd help to have somebody on the inside, somebody with some juice who could adjust or create data in-house. And provide protection. Sparrow. He's the organized thinker. The planner. Look at Bissel. He's not brave, he's not very smart, he hasn't been able to work himself up in the organization. Just a delivery boy. And here's a big opportunity, handed to him from one of the brass. The big score. Little scores all along. The corporate espionage. Could be, just could be, some of that was outside Homeland, a little personal partnership. Bissel though, he can't capitalize. Just a screwup with money. I bet his partner's done better. A hell of a lot better."