Promises in Death (In Death #28)(50)

“Death is your business,” Roarke said before Eve could comment. “Eve often says the same. I’m on the outside, of course, but I’ve never seen it that way. The truth is your business. Seeking it for those who can’t seek it for themselves is what you’ve made into your profession. She worries for you.”

“Roarke.”

“Quiet,” he said to Eve, mildly. “Hurts for you. You mean a great deal to her. To both of us. We’ll do whatever it takes to help find the truth for Amaryllis.”

“I saw her today.” Morris stepped away, sat—weariness in every movement. “Clip had done all he could. The people in my house, all they could. How many times have I stood there while someone looked on dead love? How many hundreds and hundreds of times? It doesn’t prepare you for when it’s yours. They’ll release her soon. I’ve, ah, cleared it to have her memorial tomorrow, in one of Central’s bereavement suites. At two. Her family will have one next week in Atlanta. I’ll go. And still, it doesn’t seem real.”

Eve sat on the table in front of him, to face him. “Have you spoken with a grief counselor?”

“Not yet. I’m not ready for that yet. I should offer you a drink.” When Eve started to shake her head, he continued. “I could use one. I’ve been careful not to, not to use that to block it out. But I think I could use a drink. There’s brandy on the sideboard.”

“I’ll get it,” Roarke told him.

“If not a counselor, would you speak with Mira? A friend?”

He waited until Roarke came back with a snifter. “Thanks. I don’t know,” he said to Eve. “I don’t know yet. I’ve been thinking of dead love.”

He drank some brandy, met her eyes. “But here you are,” he murmured. “Did you know I had a brother?”

“No.”

“I lost him when I was a boy. He was twelve, and I was ten. We were very close. There was an accident while we were on holiday one summer. He drowned. He wanted to go out, into the ocean early in the morning. We were forbidden, of course. Not without our parents, but we were just boys. He was a strong swimmer, and a daredevil. I worshipped him, as boys do.”

He sat back, sipped his brandy. “I promised I wouldn’t tell, swore an oath to him. So he let me go with him, and I was so excited and terrified.” The memory brought a ghost of a smile to his lips, to his eyes. “There was little I liked more than when he’d let me in on an adventure. Our father would skin us if he found out, which made it only more thrilling. In we went—warm water, warm waves, with the sun barely up, and the gulls screaming.”

He closed his eyes, and even that hint of smile vanished. “I wasn’t as strong a swimmer, and couldn’t keep up. He was laughing and teasing me as I thrashed my way back toward shore.

“Out of breath, eyes stinging from the salt, the sun starting to burn over the water. I remember all that. I can still feel all that. I turned in the shallows, panting, to yell at him to come on, to come back before we got caught.”

He opened his eyes, looked into Eve’s again. She saw old pain in them.

“And he was gone. I couldn’t swim back, couldn’t save him. Couldn’t see him. I suppose if I’d tried, if it had occurred to me to do anything but run for my father, I’d have drowned, too.”

He let out a breath. “So. They said he may have gotten a cramp, or been swamped by a wave, simply tired out, or been caught in an undertow. I wanted to know how and why my brother was dead. I wanted the truth. But they couldn’t tell me.”

“So you look for it now,” Roarke said.

“So I look for it now.” He looked at Roarke. “You’re right. The business of truth. I never found it with my brother. I’m not sure I can bear losing someone I love a second time and not know why. Not know the truth.”

“What was his name?”

Morris looked up from the brandy, into Eve’s face. For a moment his eyes swam with memories, tears, and gratitude. “Jin. His name was Jin.” He sat forward, gripped Eve’s hand. “I’m glad you came. I’m glad you’re here. You . . . you’ve hurt your head,” he said abruptly.

“It’s nothing. Just banged it.”

“You’re not clumsy.”

Truth, she remembered, and told him.

“You’re not considering this may be someone who simply wants to kill or hurt cops?”

“It doesn’t play that way. Neither incident was random.”

“No.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes. “You’re right. You didn’t come here to tell me about this. Why did you?”

“EDD’s been combing her electronics. Nothing pops, Morris. The investigations she was working on just don’t fit in with murder. There’s nothing in her files, her notes, her personals to give any indication she was in trouble, felt uneasy, had been threatened. There’s only one notation about Ricker—and that’s a memo in her date book that she was meeting AR, at the time and the date he confirms. There’s nothing to indicate she knew she was or had been under the watch of IAB. And she had been.”

“IAB had investigated her.”

“They got a tip about her relationship with Ricker, when they were in Atlanta. They had eyes on her, eyes and ears when they could manage it. They lived together, essentially, for well over a year.”