Promises in Death (In Death #28)(67)

“No. Not exactly,” he amended. “Lingerie. A nightgown, or as she delicately put it, an ensemble.”

Eve straightened. “I’m supposed to buy Louise f**kwear?”

“Which is how to indelicately put it.”

“I can’t do that. It’s . . . Even if I wanted to, which—who would—I don’t know her size or anything.”

“I do. I just hacked into her account and have all her sizes. Now, I’m afraid you’re going to have to go into an actual store as you’ve left this too late to purchase anything appropriate online.”

“Oh God. Just kill me.”

“Don’t worry. I know just the place.”

“Of course you do. I wanted to pick up Alex Ricker, sweat him in the box for a while.”

“I thought you weren’t looking at him for Coltraine’s murder.”

“I’m not. But I can’t tell what he knows until I know. He may not know what he knows until I pry it out of him. If Max Ricker ordered the hit, his son’s the reason. One way or the other. He’s running the businesses now. He’s got to know something.”

“I don’t think so. Which is what I wanted to speak to you about before we drifted off to lingerie.”

She grimaced as she glanced at her open door. “Don’t keep saying lingerie in here. It’s a cop shop.”

“I met Alex this morning. In fact, had just finished the meeting when you contacted me about transportation to Omega.”

“You—Jesus. You can’t just—on Coney Island.”

“My choice, the venue.” Roarke made himself as comfortable as possible in her saggy visitor’s chair. “He asked for a meeting.”

“It could’ve been a trap. It could’ve—”

“It wasn’t. And as I said, my choice of venue. Believe me, I was well secured.”

She held up her hands. It was a waste of time to argue, since it was already done. And a waste of energy not to believe he’d been, as he claimed, well secured. “What did he want?”

Roarke handed her a disc. “You can listen to it while I drive. You’ll be working, you see, and we’ll visit this charming shop I know. They gift wrap.”

Eve frowned at the disc. “You got a recorder past him?”

Roarke only smiled.

14

EVE LISTENED TO THE RECORDING STRAIGHT through, let it stew in her mind, then replayed it. She sat back, considered—and noticed vaguely that Roarke was having a fine time weaving through uptown traffic like a snake through high grass.

“You believe him? You believe he’s telling it straight about his feelings and loyalty—or lack thereof—to his father?”

Roarke cut east, went vertical over a double-parked delivery truck, then waited sedately at the light. “I do, yes. I should have tried out the video element, then you’d have a better sense. It was in his eyes. I recognize that in-the-bone hate, as I have it myself for my own.”

“For the same reason,” Eve pointed out. “Maybe he knows. Maybe he played that card because he knows you’d relate.”

“It’s not impossible, but it would be smart work on his part as I only found out myself last year. Do you think he’s lying about his mother?”

“When I read the file, my first thought was Ricker did her. First thoughts aren’t always the right ones. But my second thought, and my third thought came back to that. No, I don’t think he’s lying about Ricker tossing his mother out the window. I’m working on whether it matters to him.”

“You’re trying out the mirror again, to see if it reflects. He and I—both with violent fathers—murderous bastards both. If mine didn’t beat the hell out of me by sundown, well now, that was a lost day for him. His, or so he claims, embraced him one moment and cuffed him the next. If true, he had the worst deal to my thinking. At least I always expected the boot.”

“He had a mother—he indicates—loved him for the first years of his life.”

“And I didn’t. I think he got the short end there as well. I never knew what I missed. He says he grew up trying to please his father. I never gave a damn about pleasing mine, except to avoid that boot. I hated him from my first memory, so it becomes just the way of it. I’d think coming to that hate later in life boils it hotter, so to speak.

“You’ll want to run it by Mira, I expect,” Roarke added as he cruised up Madison. “But he wasn’t lying.”

“Okay.” If she couldn’t take Roarke’s word on that, Eve thought, then whose? “Okay, it fits. One visit from him to Omega, then nothing. No contact. And if you angle it toward his relationship with Coltraine, the timing . . .”

“You take Max down, and some of that splashes on Alex. He spins, restructures, reevaluates. And his lady realizes he’s not going to take this chance to step away, to become fully legitimate. He’s never going to do that.”

“She makes her decision, breaks it off. He makes his. He gives her up rather than give up the shady. He’s not a mirror of you,” Eve stated.

Roarke glanced at her. “And he got the short end of the deal again, didn’t he? For here I am with my wife, about to shop for lingerie. And he has no one.”

“He came here hoping to change that. That’s the trigger. That’s why Ricker pushed the button. To give his son the boot.”