Forgotten in Death(57)

He gestured with his own slice of toast. “Intimate. To, if it helps your cause, give Yuri Bardov a reason to take a look himself. Or to simply make Tovinski sweat harder.”

The united front, she realized, already had some cracks along the fault line.

Damn it.

“You weren’t authorized to do all that.”

“Oh dear.” Taking a bite of toast, Roarke looked at Galahad. “She’s going to scold me now.”

“Hacking into a competitor’s books to pull up invoices—”

“Do you see Bardov Construction as my competitor?” He sighed a long, exaggerated sigh. “Well now, that stings a bit.”

“Screw that.” Part of her wanted to punch him for tantalizing her with data she had no business knowing. “The information’s tainted, as it was accessed illegally.”

“Technically illegal,” he agreed.

Now she wanted to punch him and pull her own hair out. “Bullshit on your ‘technically.’”

“It’s as innate for you, Lieutenant, to hold that legal line as it is for me to slip a toe over it. Then again, one could argue, if one must, I … stumbled upon some of the information while conducting an authorized search.”

“Stumble, my ass. When it comes to cyber shit, you wouldn’t stumble if somebody shoved you over a trip wire.”

“That’s sweet of you. We’ll say one thing led to another.”

She started to snap back, but he held up a hand for peace.

“What I would have told you, through those authorized means, is Tovinski’s outlay and expenses far exceed his recorded and legitimate income. Being a clever woman and an experienced investigator, you would wonder where that additional—and considerable—income comes from. I expect you would see about that court order and a forensic accountant.”

She ate in silence for a moment because that’s exactly what she’d have done. Would do. “You could have kept it at that. Damn it, Roarke, you could’ve stopped at that. Should have.”

“You have me on the could. The should? It’s more problematic for me.” He looked at her then with eyes calm and clear. “I see a woman who’d escaped from years of beatings and abuse. Who overcame it. And died, brutally, because she never lost her need to do the right thing, to follow the rules.”

He rubbed his hand over Eve’s. “So, more problematic for me, darling Eve.”

Because you see me, Eve thought. And hadn’t she seen herself in Alva? How could she blame him for doing the same?

“It’s not the same. We both know it’s not the same, what happened to her, what happened to me.”

“And we both know there are disturbing echoes.”

There would always be a few cracks along their line, she decided. It didn’t undermine the foundation. Love had pushed him over the line—this time—as much as his own insatiable curiosity.

She couldn’t punch him for loving her. Even if part of her still wanted to.

“Forty-five large a month?”

“As I said, he started out with a few thousand here, a few there, and increased it. Last month, he skimmed just over forty-eight thousand.”

“Got greedy, got sloppy.”

“In this area, he was always sloppy.”

“Bardov doesn’t know about the women and kids, not all of them anyway, or he’d know about the additional income to cover those expenses. Tovinski keeps banging babies into these women, keeps setting them up with houses and all that. He needs more money.

“It takes balls or stupidity to cheat a man like Bardov.”

“He may believe the family connection keeps him safe.” Roarke continued to eat. “It won’t. I’d have a care letting too much slip to Bardov until you have the nephew sewn up. Otherwise, you’re unlikely to find what’s left of the body.”

“Being a trained investigator, I already figured that.”

“And so trained, you’ll use that to help push the truth about Alva Quirk and Carmine Delgato out of Tovinski. Being alive in a cage is far better than ending up in pieces and dumped in the Atlantic.

“The sharks took the rest. Classic line,” he told her, “from a classic vid.”

“I can work with this. But next time—” She cut herself off. “Forget it. Beating my head against the wall of you just gives me a headache.” She rose. “I’ll contact Reo on my way in, and work it.”

Knowing the cat, Roarke covered the breakfast plates so Galahad couldn’t lick them clean. “I’ll do that.”

“Do what?”

“Get your clothes for the day. Your head’s already working out what to tell Reo.”

“I can think and get clothes.”

But he beat her into the closet. “We may get some rain, so you’ll want the topper, I’d say. Considering that.”

He pulled out stone-gray pants, slim ones, with a strip of leather down the sides. Then a crisp, businessy, mannish white shirt—no frills.

“As you’ll have a Russian gangster in your box if all goes your way, we’ll go for the vest.” Stone gray like the pants, with the back in leather.

“I could’ve done that.”

“Mmm-hmm. Stick with the monotone for the boots and belt—the white shirt keeps it fresh. You’ll look efficient, and with your weapon harness, intimidating.”