Chapter Eighteen
She stirred when Roarke lifted her out of the chair.
“Shit, I dropped out.”
“As well you should.”
He carried her to the elevator as she tried to work her way out of the sleep fog.
“Different kind of double cross. I’ve got a couple of what-ifs.”
“Good for you. Sleep on them. I’ve made some headway on the sources. Not quite pinned—someone knows what they’re doing, and well. More than Magdelana. She’s good at it, but not this good. So I’ll sleep on that while the search continues on auto.”
“Magdelana. Is she good at working both ends?”
“Excels there. What’s the other end?”
“Not sure.”
“Here now.” He set her on the bed, where the cat had already made himself comfortable. He took off her shoes, then fetched her a nightshirt while she pulled off her sweater.
After dropping the shirt over her head, he began to undress.
“A favor? I’d like it if we’ve given her enough time and attention until tomorrow.”
“No problem with that.” She finished undressing, slid into bed.
Tired, she thought, in her mind, in her body. But the need was stronger than the fatigue. And because she knew him—she did know him—she understood he’d have that same need.
So when he lay beside her, holding her as he always did for sleep, she tipped her face up to find his mouth.
“Be with me,” she murmured. “I need you to be with me.”
“Always.”
Tender, so tender, each touch, each taste.
The cat gave a kind of sigh before he jumped off the bed.
Soothing each other, she thought, this quiet, gentle mating that brought warmth instead of heat, and comfort more than passion.
She gave herself to it as she gave to him. Love, just love, with no questions, no doubts. He murmured to her as his hands skimmed and glided. In Irish, words she knew now, others she didn’t. But all from his heart.
The sound of them, soft in the dark, made her feel cherished.
She gave them back, the words she knew, and added her own.
And the sound of them, soft in the dark, made him feel cherished.
His fingers skimmed over that faint bruise on her back as if to erase it, and for a moment, he held her tighter as the thought of losing her destroyed him.
“Don’t think about it,” she whispered—because she knew him. “Don’t think about it now. I’m here. Be with me here. I love you. Roarke. I love you.”
And took his mouth again so he could taste the words.
Be with me, she thought again and drew him into her.
They moved together, slow, drawing out each moment, living in the shimmering pleasure love offered.
My love, my heart, my all, he told her with his words, with his body. He felt her long, slow release, heard it in her throaty sigh. As she melted under him, he took his own.
When she woke in the morning, she saw him on the sofa with the cat. He wore a black sweater and pants and worked on a portable. On the wall screen it looked like maps, various routes highlighted, and bunches of numbers.
“Did I sleep through to Saturday again?”
“You didn’t, no. I’ve cleared my schedule for the day.”
“Countries may crumble. You don’t have to do that.”
“They won’t, and I do. You’ll want coffee to wake up that busy brain.”
“You’ve got something.”
“Very nearly. Wake yourself up, Lieutenant. I’m more than ready for breakfast.”
She got coffee, a quick shower to unmuddle her brain. When she came out, he had plates under domes, had the cat busy with his own breakfast as he stood at the window.
“It’s back on auto. Just a few more layers.”
“On which source?”
“I’ve focused more, for obvious reasons, on the source for Timothy Kruger’s payment, I’ll get you the other, but that’s my priority.”
“I don’t have a problem with that. I’m going to get dressed while it’s running. It’s going to source at Magdelana or connect to Joy Barrister.”
He turned. “The sister?”
“It’s what works. It’s not the wife. She benefits most financially, but she loved her husband, and it’s not about money.”
“Then what?”
She went into the closet. “Ego, power, anger, insult, greed. Pick one, maybe all. Would Magdelana work with someone in the house, the family?”
He came to the closet door. “Absolutely.”
“I can’t figure out how they linked up for this, but it’s a strong possibility. Hell, pick something.” She gestured to the clothes. “I don’t care. I just want to get started.”
“Will you confront her today, if she’s the source?”
“I’m going to find a way to confront whoever the source is.”
With a nod, he chose black trousers, a black leather jacket that would skim to her hips and had buttons of dull gold. A black vest with metallic gold pinstripes.
That worried her.
“Those stripes are shiny.”
“You said you didn’t care. Trust me.”
He chose a crisp white shirt, a black belt with a buckle in that same dull gold. Sturdy black boots with a side buckle.
Then, because he knew the cat, Roarke stepped out again to guard breakfast.
“The double-cross theory makes you think of the sister.”
“The data we have on Delaney has no mention of violence. Ever. She comes off smooth, and all the things you said before. Careful, professional in her questionable profession. She’s just collected the last payment on fifty million. Why’s she upset when she checks out of the hotel?”
He followed. “Because she’s heard the media reports. A murder at Barrister House.”
“And who’s going to be prime suspect? The thief. Now, she could’ve been upset because she killed a guy, but why does she stay after that final payment? Why does she get some sleep in New York instead of poofing?”
Oh yes, he followed very well.
“Because when she went to bed to get that sleep, she didn’t know there’d been a murder.”
Eve came out for her weapon harness. “That’s how I see it. And I looked back over the notes. There was a quick bump on the security. Like it flicks off, then on again. So my what-if? She does the job, out the window, and gone, unjams the security.”
“And someone else jams it again.” It played like music. “There was that quick, almost indecipherable blip on the system.”
“Right.” She sat, lifted a dome, and saw he’d gone with the all-American style. Bacon, eggs, toast, butter and jam, berries.
“You gave me a basic time frame for the job. But if you take out the time to open the vault—because she had the combo—that would put her back out a solid twenty minutes, and maybe more because, by all accounts, Delaney’s good.
She’d be quick and clean. The glitch or bump came about thirteen minutes before TOD. ”
“The sister.” Roarke sat beside her. “For the house, the business?”
“She doesn’t get the house, or more of the business.
And that’s the thing. I’m wondering if it sticks in her craw that the son got the house, everything in it, a bigger share of the business.
She’s the oldest, but he’s got the penis.
Sure, she got plenty, but you look at the big picture. He got more. Was valued more.”
She shrugged as she ate. “Maybe she wanted to keep the stuff in the vault, got overruled. Maybe she didn’t. But all that, and the time they took to try to figure how to get it back? Gives her plenty of room to plan this out. Or to hook up with someone who can pull it off, leave her in the clear.”
“They keep the money, which she doesn’t need, it lets her remove her brother and stand as head of the company—more shares or not. It takes a slap at her father, exposes what he did, and puts her and the rest in the light of trying to make it right.”
“It plays a tune for me. Financially, yeah, the wife, the daughters, but in every other way, the sister benefits most.”
“What a mind you have.”
Scooping up eggs, Eve corrected him. “It’s her mind. She has to lure him downstairs. It only helps that he wasn’t feeling well, but she had a way around that. Tells him he had to come down, no, don’t wake Aileen. He goes down, sees the vault open, sees the emeralds gone.
“Shock, worry. Move to contact the police. He hears his wife, probably, and before he can answer, bash. Aileen walks in. All she sees is him. Joy just has to ease out, wait a couple minutes, then rush in, take over.”
Eve crunched into bacon. “It’s a pretty solid plan. You’ve got to go with the bungled burglary because it’s all laid out nice and neat.”
“I’ll wager that bothered you all along. The nice and neat.”
“Some, but you have to go with the evidence. As we got more, it bothered me more. And there’s the timing of the hire for the hit on me.
Morning, after I went to Barrister House and got the Fancy Blonde information, arranged for Yancy, and before the media conference.
Still, if Joy Barrister arranged for the hit, she got the hit man’s name from somewhere. And fast.”
“Magdelana.”
“She’d know people in low places.”
“She would, yes.”
“And somebody hungry enough to take on a cop, and basically right away. So that’s how I see it right now. That could change, depending.”
“I don’t think it will,” he considered as he topped off her coffee. “As I sit here with my very clever cop, it all fits very well. How will you handle it?”
“We need the auction location, the time. If we take Barrister before that, they’ll delay.
Go under and delay. If I’m right and Joy Barrister and Magdelana started turning this wheel, she knew Barrister was going to take out her brother.
Maybe the broker knew, maybe not. But that doesn’t let him off the hook.
The thief, either, or anyone else connected.
It’s murder during the commission of a crime, and they’re all in the soup. ”
Nodding at the screen, she drank more coffee. “How much longer, do you think?”
“It’s painstaking, but I’d say under an hour now. Well under.”
“If she’s working with Barrister, Magdelana knows we’ve ID’d her. She’d like that. She wants us to know it’s her because she thinks she can get clear.”
“She would, yes.”
“She’ll be sorry for it. I need to get going. I need to run this by Whitney, update Peabody, Feeney. I’m going to brief my detectives and officers to prepare for an op. We’ll get that location, and we need to be ready to go.”