Promises in Death (In Death #28)(81)

“I don’t need much. Anyway, Morris has it covered.”

“Maybe you want to go to Vegas,” she snapped at Morris, then instantly winced. “Shit, I—”

“It’s almost tempting,” he said easily. “That’s how confident I am in you. But no, not this time.”

She sat at her desk again and began to pick her way through Sandy’s people. Parents, divorced, remarried—twice each. One sibling, one half sibling. According to Alex, Sandy wasn’t close to any of his family. Still, family was the usual well, wasn’t it, when you had to dip in for cash. She started the tedious process of contacting, questioning, intimidating, eliminating.

She barely glanced up when Trueheart came in, but noted Baxter’s fresh, young apprentice had obviously dressed for the upcoming festivities. Pressed pants, casual shirt, good skids.

She tried not to think just how Baxter might corrupt sweet and hunky Troy Trueheart in Vegas.

She worked her way through family, current women, and out the other side of exes. She scowled when Summerset wheeled in a large table.

“What?”

“Lunch.”

“Boy, I could eat.” Baxter sat back, skimmed his fingers through his hair. “Got nada, Dallas. And my eyes are starting to bleed.”

“I’ll be using your kitchen,” Summerset informed her, “to order up what I’ve prepared.”

She continued to scowl as Summerset walked by her desk, the cat hopefully at his heels.

“When you find nothing,” Morris said, “it means you’re eliminating what surrounds the something.”

“Is that a Zen thing?” Eve questioned.

“If not, it should be.”

Eve got to her feet as Roarke, Feeney, and McNab came in. From the opposite end of the room, Summerset pushed in a double-shelved cart she didn’t know she possessed.

“I’ll give you a hand.” McNab made a beeline.

“I have it, Detective. But there’s a second cart in the kitchen. If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Anything I can do that leads to food.” McNab all but danced his way on his knee-high purple airboots into the kitchen.

Feeney circled his head on his neck, rolled his shoulders. Eve heard the pops from across the room. “Getting creaky.”

“I’ve arranged for a pair of masseuses on board,” Roarke told him.

“You are the man.” Baxter slapped his hands together.

“Twins.”

“Oh, my aching heart.”

“Could use a rub. Strictly therapeutic,” Feeney added when he caught Eve’s beady eye. “We found the account. He buried it good. He’s no dope. Got himself twelve mil and change. Went traditional and used Zurich. Hasn’t touched it,” he said before Eve could ask. “But we did a little finagle or two. He checked on it—or somebody did—via ’link. The ’link trans came from New York, and the time of the check stamps at sixteen-fifty-five, EST.”

“Before he talked to the driver,” Eve said, and rose to update her time line. “Starting to cover his bases. Worried.”

“None of his accounts have been touched,” Roarke put in. “He has bank boxes in four locations.” He lifted his brows when Eve turned. “We finagled. He hasn’t signed in for any.”

“Friends,” Feeney offered. “Family.”

Eve shook her head “It’s not panning out.”

Feeney glanced over at Morris, puffed out his cheeks. “We may have something that does, on Detective Coltraine. The ’link used to check the Zurich account. We dug in there and ID’d it. It’s registered to Varied Interests.”

“Alex Ricker’s company.”

“Yeah, company ’link—and we nailed it, and dumped the transes. We got them going to another ’link. Toss-away, can’t trace it for ownership, but we got the ID and frequencies. There are transmissions between the ’links, from New York to New York, the day before the murder, the day of, the day after.”

“Can you pin it down any closer?”

“Cheap toss-away, that’s how it reads. No bells, no whistles. It’s damn near impossible to get a read at all on those bastards. It’s got a filter on it. Had to be an add-on.” Feeney scratched the back of his neck. “But we’ve got its print. Same as a fingerprint. Good as DNA.”

“And if Callendar gets that print, coming into Omega?”

“We can match it.”

“She’ll get it if it’s there.” McNab watched Summerset arrange trays of deli meats, bread, cheeses, fruit, vegetables, salads, with the same intense devotion as the cat. “She’s an arrow on that kind of thing. When she does, we may be able to put what she’s got and what we’ve got together and make more.”

“It’s all there is to get with what we have,” Roarke told her. “We’re running an auto. If any of his accounts are opened—even for a check—or any of his bank boxes are called for, we’ll know.”

“Okay. It’s good.”

“So we eat.” McNab made the first dive.

Cops, Eve thought, swarming like ants at a picnic. She started to go over to Morris, but saw Roarke move to him. It gave her heart a squeeze—a good one—to see him talking Morris over to the table.