Strangers in Death (In Death #26)(59)

“She wouldn’t be the first to hook herself to wealthy then grow weary of the price,” Roarke commented. “Or the first to kill over it. But the method in this case seems particularly vindictive.”

“Had to be. Terrible accident, but more, one brought on by his own weakness, his own disloyalty to her. The worse he looks, the brighter her halo. And, I think, once she saw a way out, that suit got tighter and tighter until it was cutting off her blood supply. Whose fault is that ?”

“Why his, of course.”

“Oh yeah. He had to pay for that, for all the years she wore it, all the years she played the game.” As she sat in the fragrant air of the limo, Eve could all but feel Ava’s rage. “She hated him at the end. Whatever she felt at the start, or during, at the end she hated him.”

“And the killing itself was so intimate, and so ugly,” Roarke said, “because of the hate behind it.”

“Bull’s-eye.”

“If it played out the way you think, she still has an obstacle. There’s Ben.”

“I bet she’s got plans for Ben. She can bide her time. Unless he gets in a serious relationship, starts thinking marriage. She’d have to move faster then. Or she might consider setting it up soon. An overdose would be best. Pills, too many pills. He couldn’t take the grief, couldn’t take the pressure of stepping into his uncle’s shoes. Opts out. There’s a risk there, but if I close this case with her in the clear, as she expects, she might take it.”

“Do you intend to warn him?”

“He’s clear for now. Case is open, and she needs more time.” Calculating it, Eve tapped her fingers on her thighs. “She needs time to lean on him, to turn to him. To present the image that he’s her support now, all she has left of Tommy now. She plans, and she considers contingencies. She needs public displays of their mutual grief and dependence to establish the foundation.”

“I can’t say I knew Thomas Anders well, but I would have said he was a good judge of character.”

“Love clouds things.”

“It does, yes.” Roarke danced his fingers over the ends of her hair.

She shifted to face him. “You never asked yourself, not even once, if I made a play for you because of the money?”

“You didn’t make a play for me. I made the play.”

“ Thatcould’ve been my play.” She smiled at him. “And you fell heedlessly into my wiles.”

“Where I landed very comfortably. The only suits you wear, darling Eve, are the ones in your closet. And then they’re worn reluctantly.” He laid his hand, palm down, between her br**sts. “I know your heart, a ghrá. ” And drew the chain she wore under her shirt. On it winked a diamond and the metal of a saint, gifts from him. “Do you remember when I gave you this?”

He swung the chain lightly so the diamond flashed and burned.

“Sure.”

“You weren’t just horrified and confused, you were terrified. Fearless Lieutenant Eve Dallas, terrified by a piece of compressed carbon and what it represented.”

“Love wasn’t supposed to happen. Not in my what-if. Not then.”

“Yet, when you finally came to me, you wore it.” The diamond sparked between them. “And you wear it still. Hidden most of the time to preserve your odd cop sensibilities, but worn just there, against your heart.” He slid it under her shirt again. “It was you, Lieutenant, who fell into my guile, after I gave you a bloody good shove.”

“I guess we both took a fall.” She glanced out the window as the limo drew to a curb behind other limos—the somber glamour of death. “Too bad Anders didn’t have a better landing with his.”

Photographs of Anders stood throughout the elegant double parlor. He swung a golf club or a bat, hiked a football or returned a tennis volley among the meadow of flowers on display. Sunflowers, with their deep velvet brown eyes, dominated.

“His favorite,” Ben told them. “Uncle Tommy used to say if he ever retired he’d buy a little farm somewhere and grow nothing but sunflowers.”

“Did he have plans for that?” Eve asked. “For retiring?”

“Not really. But he did make some noises about finding a place outside the city, taking long weekends. As long as there was a golf course handy. He was sort of toying with the idea of building a farmhouse by the sports camp upstate. A real country home, where he and Ava would eventually retire. He’d have his sunflowers, get out of the city a little more until then, and have full use of the camp facilities. Said he’d have to put in a spa for Ava, to get her to go along with it.”

He smiled with grief raw in his eyes. “Anyway, he loved sunflowers. He was loved, too. We’re having simultaneous memorials, all over the world. Right now, all over the world people are…Sorry, excuse me a minute.”

He turned toward the door. Eve wondered if he’d make it out before breaking down. And she saw Leopold cross the room quickly, and laying a hand on Ben’s shoulder, walk out with him.

Love, Eve thought, in sorrow and selflessness.

Then she turned to study the widow who sat pale of cheek, damp of eye in a blue velvet chair surrounded by flowers and people eager to console her. Once again, her hair was coiled at the back of her neck to show off fine bones, sharply defined features. Her widow’s weeds were unrelieved black, perfectly cut to showcase her statuesque build. She wore diamonds, exquisitely, at her ears, her wrists.