Origin in Death (In Death #21)(47)

"She wasn't worried about the electronics. She wasn't sweating the security, the transmissions, data." Eve shook her head. "Either she's ice, or there's nothing there to point at her."

"I'm still leaning toward the adultery angle. If Avril's in it, she had to have a partner. You don't kill for someone unless you love them. or they've got you by the short hairs on something."

"Or you pay them."

"Yeah, that. But I was rolling it around. I know it's high yuck factor, but what if the father-in-law had been up her skirt? We're looking at him to have an interest in young women with that project. She was his ward. So he could've been using her sexually. Then passes her to the son so he could, um, keep her handy. Maybe they were tag teaming her."

"It's crossed my mind."

"Then how about this? She's been dominated and used by men. So she turns to a woman. Emotionally, maybe romantically. They hatch it up."

"Dolores."

"Yeah. Say they meet, become lovers." Peabody licked sugar of her fingers. "Between the two of them they figure out how to take out both Icoves, without implicating Avril. Dolores might have worked on Junior, hooked up, seduced him.

"He saw her picture after his father's murder. He didn't blink."

"Okay, that's cold. But it's not impossible. Or she might've looked different with him. Changed her hair, that kind of thing. We damn well know Dolores killed number one. The same method, same weapon used on number two. Probability is ninety-eight and change that she did both."

"Ninety-eight point seven. I ran it, too," Eve said. "Going by that .and adding my conviction that Avril's in this, they know each other. Or Avril hired her. It also means Dolores was in town after the first murder. And may still be. I want to find her."

The door between the offices opened, and Roarke stepped through. The charcoal suit that showed off that lithe body somehow deepened the already staggering blue of his eyes. His hair was swept back from :hat gorgeous face, and the slow easy smile did something almost obscene to a woman's belly.

"You're drooling again," Eve muttered to Peabody.

"So?"

"Ladies. Am I interrupting?"

"Running a few things," Eve told him. "We're going to head out shortly."

"Then my timing's good. How are you, Peabody?"

"Up, thanks. And I wanted to thank you for the invite to Thanksgiving. We're bummed we can't make it, but we're going to shuttle it to my parents' for a couple days."

"Well, it's about family, isn't it, and give them our best. We'll miss you. I like your necklace. What's the stone?"

It was somewhere between red and orange, and chunky. Eve's only thought on seeing it around her partner's neck was that in a chase it would probably swing up and put Peabody's eye out.

"Carnelian. My grandmother made it."

"Really?" He stepped forward, lifted the pendant. "Lovely work. Does she sell her jewelry?"

"Mostly through Free-Ager channels. Indie shops and fairs. It's kind of a hobby."

"Tick-tock," Eve grumbled, and had both of them glancing over at her, Peabody bemused, Roarke amused.

"It certainly suits you," he continued and let the pendant drop again "But I have to confess, I rather miss your uniform."

"Oh, well." She pinked up as Eve rolled her eyes behind Peabody's back.

"I'll be out of your way in a minute, but I have a thing or two that might interest you." Roarke glanced down at the cup Peabody had forgotten, in a hormonal haze, she held. "I could use some of that coffee

"Coffee?" Peabody all but sighed it, then snapped back. "Oh yeah sure. I'll get it. I'll get it."

Roarke smiled after her. "She is a treasure," he stated.

"You got her stirred up. You did it on purpose."

His expression was all innocence. "I haven't any idea what you mean. In any case, I'm glad you'd asked her and McNab for dinner and I'm sorry they won't make it. Meanwhile, I've done some poking around for you, after my morning meeting."

"You had a meeting? Already?"

"Holo-conference. Scotland. They're five hours ahead of us, and I accommodated them. I needed to speak with my aunt in Ireland as well."

Which explained, she thought, why he hadn't been in his usual spot in the sitting area of their room when she'd gotten up at six.

"You find me money?"

"In a sense." He paused, smiling over at Peabody again as she brought in a tray.

"I got fresh for you, Dallas."

"In the sense of what?" Eve demanded impatiently.

But Roarke took his time, personally pouring coffee all around. "Ir. the sense of large bequests and annuities channeled through various arms of Icove's holdings. On the surface, extremely generous and philanthropic. But added up, pushed through the surface and carefully examined, questionable."

"How?"

"Nearly two hundred million-so far-over the last thirty-five ears that I can't account for through his income. A man gives away that kind of green, it should put a bit of a dent here and there in his rockets. Not so." He drank coffee.