Naked in Death (In Death #1)(78)

“I feel good around you.” It surprised her to say it aloud, to give him — or anyone — even so slight an advantage.

He understood that such an admission, for her, was tantamount to a shouted declaration of devotion from other women.

“I’m glad.” He traced a fingertip down her cheek, dipped it into the faint dent in her chin. “I like the idea of staying around you.”

She turned away at that, crossed over to watch the number sequences fly by on the console screen. “Why did you tell me about being a kid in Dublin, about your father, the things you did?”

“You won’t stay with someone you don’t know.” He studied her back as he tucked his shirt into his trousers. “You’d told me a little, so I told you a little. And I think, eventually, you’ll tell me who hurt you when you were a child.”

“I told you I don’t remember.” She hated even the whisper of panic in her voice. “I don’t need to.”

“Don’t tighten up.” He murmured to her as he walked over to massage her shoulders. “I won’t press you. I know exactly what it is to remake yourself, Eve. To distance yourself from what was.”

What good would it do to tell her that no matter how far, how fast you ran, the past always stayed two paces behind you?

Instead, he wrapped his arms around her waist, satisfied when she closed her hands over his. He knew she was studying the screens across the room. Knew the instant she saw it.

“Son of a bitch, look at the numbers: income, outgo. They’re too damn close. They’re practically exact.”

“They are exact,” Roarke corrected, and released the woman, knowing the cop would want to stand clear. “To the penny.”

“But that’s impossible.” She struggled to do the math in her head. “Nobody spends exactly what they make — not on record. Everyone carries at least a little cash — for the occasional vendor on the sidewalk, the Pepsi machine, the kid who brings the pizza. -Sure, it’s mostly plastic or electronic, but you’ve got to have some cash floating around.”

She paused, turned around. “You’d already seen it. Why the hell didn’t you say something?”

“I thought it would be more interesting to wait until we found his cache.” He glanced down as the-blinking yellow light for searching switched to green. “And it appears we have. Ah, a traditional man, our Simpson. As I suspected, he relies on the well respected and discreet Swiss. Display data on screen five.”

“Jesus f**king Christ.” Eve gaped at the bank listings.

“That’s in Swiss francs,” Roarke explained. “Translate to USD, screen six. About triple his tax portfolio here, wouldn’t you say, lieutenant?”

Her blood was up. “I knew he was taking. Goddamn it, I knew it. And look at the withdrawals, Roarke, in the last year. Twenty-five thousand a quarter, every quarter. A hundred thousand.” She turned back to Roarke, and her smile was thin. “That matches the figure on Sharon’s list. Simpson — one hundred K. She was bleeding him.”

“You may be able to prove it.”

“I damn well will prove it.” She began to pace. “She had something on him. Maybe it was sex, maybe it was graft. Probably a combination of a lot of ugly little sins. So he paid her to keep her quiet.”

Eve thrust her hands into her pockets, pulled them out again. “Maybe she upped the ante. Maybe he was just sick and tired of shelling out a hundred a year for insurance. So he offs her. Somebody keeps trying to scuttle the investigation. Somebody with the power and the information to complicate things. It points right at him.”

“What about the two other victims?”

She was working on it. Goddamn it, she was working on it. “He used one prostitute. He could have used others. Sharon and the third victim knew each other — or of each other. One of them might have known Lola, mentioned her, even suggested her as a change of pace. Hell, she could have been a random choice. He got caught up in the thrill of the first murder. It scared him, but it was also a high for him.”

She stopped prowling the room long enough to flick a glance at Roarke. He’d taken out a cigarette, lighted it, watching her.

“DeBlass is one of his backers,” she continued. “And Simpson’s come out strongly in favor of DeBlass’s upcoming Morals Bill. They’re just prostitutes, he’s thinking. Just legal whores, and one of them was threatening him. How much more of a danger to him would she have been once he put in his bid for governor?”

She stopped pacing again, turned back. “And that’s just shit.”

“I thought it sounded quite reasonable.”

“Not when you look at the man.” Slowly, she rubbed her fingers between her brows. “He doesn’t have the brains for it. Yeah, I think he could kill, Christ knows he’s into control, but to pull off a series of murders this slick? He’s a desk man — an administrator, an image, not a cop. He can’t even remember a penal code without an aide prompting him. Graft’s easy, it’s just business. And to kill out of panic or passion or fury, yes. But to plan, to execute the plan step by step? No. He isn’t even smart enough to juggle his public records well.”

“So he had help.”

“Possible. Maybe if I could put pressure on him, I’d find out.”