«So?»
«Ladies. Am I interrupting?»
«Running a few things,» Eve told him. «We're going to head out shortly.»
«Then my timing's good. How are you, Peabody?»
«Up, thanks. And I wanted to thank you for the invite to Thanksgiving. We're bummed we can't make it, but we're going to shuttle it to my parents' for a couple days.»
«Well, it's about family, isn't it, and give them our best. We'll miss you. I like your necklace. What's the stone?»
It was somewhere between red and orange, and chunky. Eve's only thought on seeing it around her partner's neck was that in a chase it would probably swing up and put Peabody's eye out.
«Carnelian. My grandmother made it.»
«Really?» He stepped forward, lifted the pendant. «Lovely work. Does she sell her jewelry?»
«Mostly through Free-Ager channels. Indie shops and fairs. It's kind of a hobby.»
«Tick-tock,» Eve grumbled, and had both of them glancing over at her, Peabody bemused, Roarke amused.
«It certainly suits you,» he continued and let the pendant drop again «But I have to confess, I rather miss your uniform.»
«Oh, well.» She pinked up as Eve rolled her eyes behind Peabody's back.
«I'll be out of your way in a minute, but I have a thing or two that might interest you.» Roarke glanced down at the cup Peabody had forgotten, in a hormonal haze, she held. «I could use some of that coffee.»
«Coffee?» Peabody all but sighed it, then snapped back. «Oh yeah sure. I'll get it. I'll get it.»
Roarke smiled after her. «She is a treasure,» he stated.
«You got her stirred up. You did it on purpose.»
His expression was all innocence. «I haven't any idea what you mean. In any case, I'm glad you'd asked her and McNab for dinner and I'm sorry they won't make it. Meanwhile, I've done some poking around for you, after my morning meeting.»
«You had a meeting? Already?»
«Holo-conference. Scotland. They're five hours ahead of us, and I accommodated them. I needed to speak with my aunt in Ireland as well.»
Which explained, she thought, why he hadn't been in his usual spot in the sitting area of their room when she'd gotten up at six.
«You find me money?»
«In a sense.» He paused, smiling over at Peabody again as she brought in a tray.
«I got fresh for you, Dallas.»
«In the sense of what?» Eve demanded impatiently.
But Roarke took his time, personally pouring coffee all around. «In the sense of large bequests and annuities channeled through various arms of Icove's holdings. On the surface, extremely generous and philanthropic. But added up, pushed through the surface and carefully examined, questionable.»
«How?»
«Nearly two hundred million—so far—over the last thirty-five years that I can't account for through his income. A man gives away that kind of green, it should put a bit of a dent here and there in his rockets. Not so.» He drank coffee.
«Indicating another source of income. A hidden source.»
«It would seem. I suspect there's more. I've only just started on this line. Interesting, isn't it, that a man with a questionable income would choose to donate it—quietly, even anonymously—to worthy causes. Most would buy themselves a nice little country.»
«Anonymously.»
«He's gone to considerable trouble to distance himself from the donations. A lot of layers between. Trusts, nonprofits, foundations, all crisscrossing, padded between with corporations and organizations.» He shrugged. «I don't imagine you need or want a lesson in tax shelters or the like, Lieutenant. Let's just say he has excellent financial advice, and had elected to dump these funds without taking credit for them. Or the considerable write-off on his income. Then again, he isn't reporting the income.»
«Tax evasion.»
«In a sense. Difficult though, even for the Internal Revenue to squeeze anything out, since the money was shifted to charities. But surely there's an infraction.»
«So we need to find the source of the income.» Eve took her coffee, circled the office. «There's always a trail.»
Roarke's lips curved, slyly. «There isn't, no. Not always.»
She shot him a narrowed look. «Somebody who knows how to erase trails ought to be able to find one.»
«Somebody should.»
«Maybe start at the back end,» Peabody suggested. «Places that got the money.»
«Give me, say, the five biggest beneficiaries,» Eve said to Roarke. «You can shoot it to my office at Central.»
«I'll do that. The biggest, by far, is a small private school.»
«Brookhollow?» Eve felt the sizzle.
«Gold star for you, Lieutenant. Brookhollow Academy, and its higher-education companion, Brookhollow College.»
«Pop.» Eve turned back to her wall screen with a thin, satisfied grin «Guess who got her entire education at those institutions.»
«It rings,» Peabody agreed. «But it could be argued he sent his ware there because he believed in the school and put his money in it. Or h; put his money in it because his ward went there.»
«Check it out now. When was it established, by whom? Lists of faculty, directors, whatever the hell. Find me a list of the current students . And the names of female students who took the tour with Avril Hannson.»
«Yes, sir.» Peabody hurried to Eve's desk unit and set to work.
«This feels hot,» Eve said, then looked over at Roarke. «It's good lead.»
«My pleasure.» He tipped her chin up with his finger, touched his lips to hers before she could object. «On a personal front, would you like me to contact Mavis about Thanksgiving? We're getting close to the mark, and it appears your plate's more full than mine at the moment.»
«That'd be good.»
«Anyone else?»
«I don't know.» She shifted, uncomfortable. «I guess Nadine, maybe Feeney'll probably be doing a family deal, but I'll run it by him.»
«What about Louise and Charles?»
«Sure. Fine. Are we really doing this?»
«Too late to turn back.» He kissed her again. «Keep in touch, will you? I'm caught up now.» He strolled back into his office, shut the door.
«I love McNab.»
Even as she turned toward Peabody, Eve could feel the muscle under her right eye vibrating toward a twitch. «Oh man. Do you have to do this?»
«Yeah. I love McNab,» Peabody repeated. «It took me a while to realize it, or get there, however it works. But he's the one. If you were to drop down dead, and Roarke decided I could comfort him with wild sex I probably wouldn't do it. Probably. But even if I did, I'd still love McNab.»
«At least I'm dead in your sexual fantasy.»
«It's only fair. I wouldn't cheat on my partner. So I probably wouldn't have sex with Roarke, should the opportunity arise, unless both you and McNab were killed in a freak accident.»
«Thanks, Peabody. I feel a lot better now.»
«And we'd probably wait a decent interval. Like two weeks. If we could control ourselves.»
«It just gets better and better,» Eve remarked.
«In a way, we'd really be celebrating your lives, and our love for you both.»
«Maybe you're the ones who die in a freak accident,» Eve tossed back. «Then me and McNab… No, Jesus. No.» She visibly shuddered. «I don't love you that much.»
«Aw, that's not very nice. Too bad for you, because McNab's an airjack in the sack.»
«Shut up now. Save yourself.»
«Brookhollow Academy,» Peabody said in dignified tones. «Established 2022.»
«Just a couple years before Avril was born? Who's the founder? Put the data on-screen.»
«On screen one.»
«Private educational institution,» Eve read, scanning. «For girls. Just girls. Founded by Jonah Delecourt Wilson—secondary run on him, Peabody.»
«On that.»
«Grades one through twelve, full boarding. Accredited by the International Association of Independent Schools. Ranked third in U.S., fifteenth worldwide. An eighty-acre campus. That's a lot of ground. Six-to-one student-to-instructor ratio.»