Strangers in Death (In Death #26)(68)

“Louise.” He drew her to him, kissed her damp cheeks, her lips. “It must be loving you so much, and being terrified you wouldn’t want all this, that’s had me screw up so badly.”

“I was going to be so sophisticated and cool when you broke things off. Then I was going to gather up any of your things at my apartment and set them on fire. I’d worked it out.”

“I was prepared to beg.”

She tipped her head back, laid her hands on his cheeks, and smiled beautifully. “I love you, Charles. You didn’t have to do this for me, or for us, but I love that you did. I love that you screwed it up. Oh! Show me the rest!” She spun away and into a circle. “Show me every inch so I can start planning how to drive you crazy with decorating ideas. I’ll nag you so relentlessly over window treatments and wall colors you’ll wonder why you ever wanted to cohab.”

“Cohab?” He shook his head. “For two smart people who’re desperately in love, we’re certainly having a hard time understanding each other.” He slipped a small velvet box out of his pocket, flipped the top. The diamond exploded with light and brilliance. “Marry me.”

“Oh.” She stared at the ring, stared into his eyes. “Oh my God.”

14

WITH THE BURGER DEVOURED, EVE PACED IN front of her wall screens. “What we have to do is divide these into categories, cross-reference. First, the people we know she had multiple contacts with. The more contact, the easier it is to establish a relationship. We put those into categories. Staff, volunteers, beneficiaries.”

“She may have met any number of these people off book,” Roarke pointed out. “Private meetings. The nature of that would make the relationship more personal, more intimate.”

“Yeah, can’t argue. So we divide those up, too. Peabody’s got a good start with the multiples, and with those we have individuals with criminals, and we have the LC angle. We need to press that.”

She turned back to him. “If you were going to have someone killed—”

“Some chores a man just wants to see to himself.”

She blew out a breath, scratched the back of her neck while he smiled serenely. “If,” she repeated. “And if you didn’t want to get your manicured hands dirty, would you exploit someone with some experience in criminal behavior, someone whose past deed or deeds could also give you a lever, if necessary, or would you go with the blank slate?”

“Interesting, as both have their advantages, and their pitfalls. And it would depend, too, on what the criminal behavior consisted of.”

“Yeah, we’re going to do a subset there on violent knocks.”

“Someone who’s killed before—or has a history of violence—would bring that experience or predilection to the table.” He continued to enjoy a glass of the cabernet he’d selected to go with the burgers. “Might be, one could assume, more open to bribe, pressure, or reward. However, that sort may not be as trustworthy or discreet as the clean slate. Whereas, the clean slate might balk at the idea of murder, or clutch in the execution of it and botch the job.”

“Maybe she did.”

“The heavy tranqing.” Roarke nodded as he was right there with her on that point. “It could indicate a delicacy of feeling, yes.”

“Yeah, it takes delicacy to wrap a rope around an unconscious guy’s neck so he chokes to death.”

“From a distance,” Roarke pointed out, “where she didn’t have to see it. So it happened after she was gone.”

“You’re leaning toward clean slate.”

“If, in my hypothetical murderous bent, I wanted to have someone eliminated—and didn’t go the tried and true route of hiring a hit—I’d certainly explore that clean slate. What could I get on her, where is the pressure point or the vulnerability? What could I offer in exchange?”

“A business deal?”

He tipped his glass toward her. “Isn’t it? Even blackmail is business.”

“Okay. Okay. We’ll divvy up this first batch. You take clean slates, I’ll take the ones with jackets. And we’ll divide the licensed companion connects between us.”

“Aren’t we the fun couple?”

“We’ll dig out the party hats later. Look for any significant change in income, or anything that looks like addictions—gambling, illegals, sex, alcohol. Any debts paid off, any major purchases. They’ve got kids, so look at tuitions to private schools, or medical procedures. Sick kid’s a big button to push. Any change in buying habits, income, routine in the last six months. She wouldn’t want to string this out too long.

“On the staff—”

“I know what to look for, Eve. It’s not my first ride on the hay cart.”

“Okay, fine. But this is going to be a long ride on a really big hay cart with a tiny little needle in it somewhere.”

“I walked into that one. And now,” he said as he strolled toward his office, “I’m walking away.”

Eve sat at her desk with coffee, with files. She spent a moment drumming her fingers and staring at her murder board. Then she shifted to begin the first of many detailed runs.

It was the kind of tedious, ass-in-the-chair work that put the knots and kinks back in no matter how thoroughly they’d been smoothed out. She felt them working up between her shoulder blades in hour one, only to lodge gleefully at the base of her neck by hour two.