Promises in Death (In Death #28)(54)

“You were already giving it up.”

He turned his attention from the scrolling codes and figures on-screen to Eve. “Giving what up?”

“The allegedly criminal activities. When we met, you were already shedding. I just sped up the process.”

“Considerably.” He sat back with his coffee. “And with finality. Otherwise, I’d have, most likely, kept my finger tipped into a few tasty pies. Habits are hard to break, especially fun ones.”

“You knew we’d never have this otherwise. We’ll always slip and slide some on that line that shifts for us, but that? That would’ve been a wall, and we’d never have had this with a wall between us. You wanted this, wanted me more.”

“Than anything ever before or since.”

She walked over, and as she had with Morris the night before, sat on the table to face him. Galahad flopped over on Roarke’s lap to lay a paw on her knee. An oddly sweet gesture.

There were all kinds of families, Eve supposed.

“I didn’t want this, because I didn’t know what this was. But I wanted you more than anything before or since. I couldn’t have looked the other way, but I couldn’t have wanted you more than anything if you’d asked me to. I might’ve tried, but it wouldn’t have held between us.”

“No.”

“The habit, the . . . hobbies—that’s exactly what they’d become for you. They weren’t the driving force, not the way they’d been when you started. Not survival, not your identity. Success, positions, wealth, power, security, yeah, all that’s essential. But you don’t have to cheat to get them or keep them. Besides me, your own pride played a part. Sure, it’s fun to cheat, but after, it’s just not as satisfying as doing it the hard way.”

“Sometimes cheating’s the hard way.”

She smiled. “Maybe so. Here’s the thing. He—Alex Ricker—he didn’t give it up for her. He expected her to look the other way, and she did, for close to two years. But it couldn’t hold. He didn’t or wouldn’t give it up because he didn’t want her more than anything. She was secondary to him, just as the job was secondary to her. Maybe they had the heat, and maybe they loved each other.”

“But it wasn’t enough.”

“I wondered if we were connected to her murder. I don’t know that yet, but we’re connected to her. We took Max Ricker down, and when we did, the dynamics shifted. The son climbs up a few rungs on the power chain, doesn’t he? Or is free to—”

“Shed the shady,” Roarke finished. “And he didn’t. He didn’t choose that.”

“She had to know, at that crossroads, he never would. She made her choice, because of that. Or it had to play out. The timing just fits too well for the other.”

“He didn’t choose her, she couldn’t choose him.”

“Yeah.” She thought of Coltraine sitting on the slab in the morgue—her badge in her hand, and tears in her eyes. “He didn’t kill her. If she was secondary, what’s the point? He made a choice, she made hers. If he was that miffed about it—because it couldn’t have been about pride and ego—you get crime of passion. Why wait a year, then fuss around with it?”

“Maybe he changed his mind.”

“Yeah, I think he might’ve. At least changed it enough to come here to see her, to gauge the ground. He’d’ve known she was in another relationship. Maybe pride again, with vanity tossed it. He’s got plenty of both. He sees she’s happy, that she’s moved on. That had to sting some, but enough to take her out?”

She shook her head again. It just didn’t play through for her. “He let her go in the first place. And under it, he still doesn’t want her more than he does the life he leads. He’s a businessman—a crooked businessman, but enough of one to know when a deal’s not on the table. There just isn’t enough love there for murder, not cold, premeditated murder.”

“Not for love, or for passion then.” Since she hadn’t gotten any for herself, Roarke offered her his coffee. “If she had something on him, was working for him? Or had been?”

“If she had anything, she kept it to herself during their breakup, after it, and for a year.”

“Why hit her now?” he said as she drank his coffee, passed him back the empty mug.

“I kept pushing there because I was thinking like me, I mean, seeing her as a cop. Not as a woman who’d been in love. If she’d wanted to punish him, she’d have gone after him when her info was hot, when she was hurt or pissed. She was never dirty. She gave back the jewelry.”

“So you said before, but you went back to that possibility.”

“Yeah, because I missed a step, and I guess that’s what nagged at me. It’s not just that she gave back the jewelry, but that she kept the badge. It was just a job, but it was her job. And she kept it. That’s what I missed.”

She pushed up now to think on her feet, to think on the move. “If she wasn’t dirty, wasn’t out for him—and goddamn it, her type would’ve had that documentation we can’t find—and he let her go, all we’ve got between the two of them is a couple of people who decided it didn’t work out, and cut their losses. Not everybody kills over a broken affair.”