Chapter Eleven #3
“I’m saying, if I were like them. If someone threatened all I’d amassed and built and held. The question, Eve, isn’t what would I do to stop them. It’s what wouldn’t I do, and the answer’s nothing. To protect what I have and the more I intend to have? I’d stop at nothing.
“So, yes, I believe they could do this. I wouldn’t have wound my way there, but I see why you have. Equally important, isn’t it then, it’s what Steven Redman would believe.”
“Exactly.”
“If someone aimed for me and took you?”
“Look, flip that because I’ve gone there.
Really can’t help it. Maybe I’d lose my mind, because what else would I have left, so might as well toss that out.
But I’d have to trust the process, and so would you.
It’s never going to happen because we’re too smart, but in the alternate universe where we’re not? Trust the process.”
“The process failed Steven Redman.”
“Not yet. And I’m going to make sure it doesn’t. But it can’t and won’t fail the two victims, either. They’ll all have to pay. I’m sorry for him. I hate what was done to him. I hate knowing I have to add to the cost for him. But I will because I don’t just trust the process, I believe in it.”
Though she’d barely touched it, Roarke added another dollop to her wineglass. “It’s hard to see when a case hurts your heart. Hard when I so clearly see your heart and your duty pull you in opposite directions.”
“I feel for him. I killed once, in fury and desperation.”
“To save your own life. A child, a brutalized child.”
“Richard Troy would’ve killed me that night. I know it now, I feared it then. Redman’s life isn’t on the line because it’s already gone. But the part of me that understands what he’s doing, why he’s doing it can’t and won’t get in the way of my duty to stop him.”
“And I know that. How can I help?”
The question, the simplicity, the enormity of it, made her eyes fill.
“Ah now,” he said, and started to rise.
“No. It’s okay, just need a second. I needed to be home.” She breathed away the tears. “I needed to see you. I just needed to see you, hear your voice. I needed to sit here, just like this, to tell you all I’ve told you. And I didn’t know, until right now, just how much I needed you to say that.”
“You’re never alone in this, Eve.”
“You had your long, illustrious career. I had my long, mostly alone work. I guess we both needed that to get here. And now we have something better.”
Steady again, she picked up the wine, topped off his glass as he had hers.
“Demolitions expert,” she continued. “Money’s not a problem. Someone in New York or who can travel here fast. They wouldn’t have risked much time. And someone who wouldn’t quibble about blowing up a building where people slept.”
“I’d wager they have one on the payroll.”
She frowned. “Do you?”
“I don’t, no, but could bring one in quickly if needed.
I don’t believe any I’d bring in, known to me, would commit mass murder for money.
And it may be they brought in someone from the outside.
They’d have some on staff, as they often take down a building or structure in order to build something else.
They might essentially raze a village in order to build one in their style. ”
“Which is?”
“Modern, on the simple side, and without troubling themselves with local architecture or culture. But safe, secure, and solid. A trade-off, if you will. Or a trademark, as there’s a kind of sameness that identifies it as a Banner-Wyst company town.”
“Got it. Well, maybe you could find me a couple demolitions experts who’d kill for profit.”
“I’ll have a look.”
“I should tell you.” She went back to her chips. “Wyst filed a complaint against me.”
Roarke smiled. “Pushed him a bit, did you?”
“Hardly a nudge, but he didn’t like it. Had security escort Peabody and me out, and contacted Tibble to bitch. Accused me of harassment—naturally—and of trying to undermine his company to enhance the business of my husband.”
His smile vanished.
“Bugger that. What fecking bollocks. Desperate fecking bollocks at that. A bloody insult to us both. And I’m not about insulting you, as I know you can handle yourself, but I’m more than willing to tell Tibble and anyone else, come to that, I’ve no bleeding interest or need to have my wife, a decorated police lieutenant, undermine Banner-fucking-Wyst on my behalf. ”
Eve nodded soberly, finished her fish. “It’s a good thing we’re having fish and chips and the weird, somehow tasty peas. Because that rant was really Irish.”
She picked up one of her last chips. “I think you’ll be pleased to know that Tibble and Whitney trust and respect both of us—as apparently does the mayor. They recognize desperate fecking bollocks when they hear it.
“Jacob Wyst is scared.” She leaned in a little. “And he’s scared of both of us.”
“Well now, that goes down as brilliantly as this meal. I’ll do the clearing, then I’ll find you some demolitions experts with no morals.”
“That’d be good. I should tell you—outside of work and insults—Peabody’s family got in this evening.”
“She must be thrilled. It’ll be lovely to see Sam and Phoebe again, and Zeke as well. We’ll enjoy meeting the rest of them.”
“There are a lot more of them. I lost count because I tuned out, but her sister, other brother, their families, grandparents, and blah blah. And I think McNab’s group’s coming right behind them.”
“And so you’ll take a bit of time for a party that means much to your oldest friend, to your partner and friend.”
Really, what choice did she have? “Everyone’s juiced up over it. And Peabody started on the food today, like what they’re having. She said they’re cooking it all.”
“I knew that, as Summerset’s going over early to help them.” Roarke smiled again as he lifted his wine. “He’s juiced up himself.”
She shuddered. “I really don’t ever need to see a juiced-up Summerset. I’ve got a list to run.”
She rose. “Do you know a Melody Donahue?”
“Not offhand, no. Is she in this?”
“She’s the PI who Redman’s family hired.
I talked to her today, and she gave me her files on it.
She was on the job a few years, went private.
She knows her stuff. It’s an all-female operation.
Sort of interesting. Anyway, your biotech engineer, Redman’s sister, gave us a list of his friends.
I interviewed a few of them on the way uptown, and I’ll talk to the rest.”
“As he might’ve gone to a friend after he left the health center.”
“He’d need money. He’d need to trust someone, and he’d need enough money at least to buy food.
And a duffel,” she added. “He walked out of the facility with a laundry bag, then hitched a ride on a long-haul, carrying a duffel. Maybe he had an account that didn’t show up.
One his family didn’t know about, one that didn’t pop in the MP or for the PI. ”
“I’ll have a look there.”
“That’d be good.”
She walked to her board first, studied the faces on it.
She’d just needed to be home, to settle, to see him, to tell him. To know he was with her.
And now, she’d do her duty.