Promises in Death (In Death #28)(51)

He kept his eyes steady. “I knew she’d had a serious relationship. She never lied to me about it, or tried to play it down.”

“Okay. She occasionally traveled with Ricker. Vacation type stuff. He bought her some jewelry. That’s all they had. They never assembled any evidence that it was anything but a personal, a romantic relationship.”

“And, of course, never just asked her.”

“Not according to my source.”

“Which would be Webster, Dallas, I’m not a fool. Have they had her under watch here?”

“Initially. The relationship with Ricker ended, appeared to end, a couple of months before she requested the transfer. Their contact was minimal after the breakup, and dribbled down to none. But the New York bureau was notified, and took a look at her. Webster said they bumped her down—just nothing there—and they weren’t on her when Ricker contacted her, when he got to New York.”

“He’s your prime suspect.”

“He’s a suspect. Prime’s pushing it with what I have. I know he’s crooked. She would have known that, too. Webster’s going to do some digging, and keep a lid on it. He’ll be careful with her, Morris.”

“IAB, now—it’s—” He broke off, shook his head.

“I’m sorry. She may have been a source for Alex back in Atlanta. Morris, you know I have to consider that. If she was involved with him, in love with him, she might’ve stepped over the line for him. I have to look there as long as I’m looking at him. And I have to think, either way it was, maybe she took a good hard look at things. After she’d come here, after she had that distance, and you. Maybe she’d started to put things down, thought about putting down details and flipping on him.”

Both the anger and the fatigue had cleared from his face as he heard her out. “If that’s true, and he found out—”

“If and if. But there’s nothing on her units. Nothing. She spent a lot of time here. A lot of time with you. Maybe time here when you weren’t.”

“Yes, depending on our shifts, or if either of us got called in. You think she might have used my comps, tucked something in, because it felt safer. More secure.”

“I’d like to have my expert consultant here take a look. And, I know it’s weird, but if I could do a search. In case she hid discs or any kind of documentation.”

“Yes. Please.” He got to his feet. “I’ll make coffee.”

Morris helped with the search, and Eve thought he seemed more himself—precise, focused—for the doing. She took the kitchen, the living area, leaving him to the bedroom while Roarke concentrated on the office.

She dug through containers and clear jars, in drawers and behind them. Under tables, cushions, behind art, and through Morris’s extensive music disc collection. She examined every stair tread before going up.

In the bedroom Morris stood in front of the closet, a filmy white robe in his hands.

“It smells of her,” he said quietly. “It smells of her.” And hung it up again. “I can’t find anything.”

“Maybe Roarke’ll have better luck. Can you think of anywhere else she might put something? Hide something?”

“I can’t. She was friendly but distant with her neighbors. You know how it is. She was closest with her squad. But if she’d given one of them anything, they’d have come to you, or certainly to their lieutenant, with it by now.”

“Yeah.”

She blew out a breath. “Maybe there’s nothing here because there’s nothing anywhere.”

“It feels as though it’s the first thing I’ve done of any consequence, the first I’ve done to help her. Even if it was to find nothing. You believe she crossed the line.”

“IAB couldn’t prove it.”

“That’s evasion. You think it.”

“Truth, Morris? I don’t know.”

“What did she do with the jewelry he bought her?”

“She gave it back when they split.”

He smiled, really smiled, for the first time since she’d come to his door the day before. “That’s who she was, Dallas.”

She brooded about it on the drive home. “Waste of three hours. Nothing. Nothing there. If we couldn’t find anything between us, there’s nothing there. Wasted time.”

“It wasn’t, and far from it. He looked alive again when we left. In pain, in sorrow, but alive.” Roarke reached out to cover her hand. “Not wasted time.”

11

BACK IN HER HOME OFFICE, SHE RAN THE SECUrity discs. She watched Rod Sandy, carrying a briefcase, exit the elevator, cross the lobby, exit the building at eleven-twenty-six the morning after Coltraine’s murder.

He looked grim.

“Favor,” she said to Roarke, “do a search on the time the first media reports of Coltraine’s murder hit.”

While Roarke obliged, she continued the run, watched people come and go. None exited—according to the elevator readout—on the penthouse levels until Sandy returned at twelve-oh-eight.

“The first bulletin hit at ten-fifty-three on ANN,” Roarke said, referring to All News Network. “Broad sweep reports followed on every major station by eleven.”

“Quick work,” Eve muttered. “That’s quick work if Sandy carried discs and anything incriminating or questionable out with him—which he damn well did—to another location.”