“Did you think she would change what she was in Atlanta, or now?”
“Yes. Yes, I did. Or that she’d just ignore my business dealings. They had nothing to do with her, or with us. But she couldn’t resolve it. And after a while, couldn’t live with it. Or me.”
“Did it never occur to you to adjust your business dealings?”
“No. It’s what I do. If I have my father in me, it’s that. I hope to God that’s all of him I have. I’ve never killed, or ordered a kill. It’s not . . . practical.”
“The men who hit your antique store in Atlanta died very badly, I’m told.”
“They did. I didn’t order it.”
“Max did?”
“They insulted him—by his way of thinking—by making a fool out of me. Out of his blood. So he dealt with it, his way. And his way put me and my interests under a great deal more scrutiny than necessary. I don’t kill, it’s simply not good business.”
He shrugged that off as a man might when discussing his preference for mutual funds over individual stocks as an investor. “I’d be impractical, and the hell with good business, if I knew who killed Ammy. Because I loved her once, and because I never had the goddamn balls to kill my father for what he did to my mother.”
When Alex went silent, when he turned back to the water, Roarke stepped to the rail beside him. “What are you looking for, from me?”
“I want—I need to know who killed her, and why. You have resources beyond mine. I don’t know how many you might be using in your connection with the police, or what I can offer you to use more for this. For her. But you’ve only to name your price.”
“You don’t know my wife. You know of her, but you don’t know her. You’d do well to put your trust in her to find those answers. Added to that? You don’t have to pay for my resources, Alex, when my wife has only to ask for them.”
Alex studied Roarke’s face, then nodded and looked back out over the water. “All right. I promise you if I learn anything, anything at all that could help, I’ll tell you.”
“I’ll take your promise, but I can’t give you the same. That would be up to the lieutenant. But I’ll give you this: When she finds who did this—and she will—should that person meet with a bad end, I’ll keep your part in that to myself.”
Alex let out a half laugh. “That’s something.” He turned, offered Roarke his hand. “Thank you.”
They were close to the same age, Roarke mused, and both started their lives with men who enjoyed spilling blood. Alex as the prince, and himself as the pauper.
Despite some of the basic similarities, and for all of Alex’s polish and his background of privilege, Roarke sensed the naive.
“Something your father wouldn’t have told you,” he began. “Taking blood, it leaves a mark on you. No matter how it’s done, or how it’s justified, it leaves a mark that goes in deep. Be sure you’re willing to wear that mark before you take the blood.”
Back in the car, Roarke deactivated the recorder built into his cuff link. He considered removing the microstunner inside his boot, then left it where it was. You just never knew.
Both were prototypes currently in development, made of materials undetectable by even the most sensitive scanners currently available. He knew, as his company was also developing the scanner that would detect them.
Always cover both ends of the game, he thought.
Part of him regretted he couldn’t tell Alex that he wasn’t Eve’s prime suspect. Or even a suspect in her mind at this point. But that, too, was up to the lieutenant. But he could regret. He’d had a mother, too. A mother who’d loved him, and who his father had killed. Outlived her usefulness, hadn’t she? Become an annoyance. Yes, he could feel for Alex there.
He could feel even as he wondered at the man’s lack of awareness. A man who’d let love walk away rather than give ground, or try at least to find the middle of it. And now, Roarke mused, couldn’t see what was staring him square in the face.
His ’link signaled. His lips curved when he read Darling Eve on the display. “Hello, Lieutenant.”
“Hey. I’ve got a favor. Can—where are you?”
“I’m in transit at the moment. I had a meeting.”
“Is that . . . you had a meeting on Coney Island?”
“I did. A pity it was so early in the day and I couldn’t treat myself to the roller coaster. We’ll have to come back, you and I, and make up for it.”
“Sure, when I’ve lost my mind and want to rush screaming through the air in a little car. Never mind. Favor. I need to—”
“Answer a question first, and I promise to grant whatever the favor might be.”
Suspicion narrowed her eyes. He loved that look.
“What kind of question?”
“A yes or no for now. Question, Lieutenant. Is Max Ricker behind Detective Coltraine’s murder?”
“What, do you have me wired? Have Whitney’s office bugged?”
Roarke glanced at his cuff link. “Not at the moment. I take that as a yes.”
“It’s not yes or no. I suspect, strongly, that Max Ricker is behind it.”
“That’s good enough for me. What’s the favor?”
“I need your fastest off-planet transpo. New York to Omega Colony.”
“We’re going to Omega?”
“No, Callendar and another e-detective will be. I think Ricker’s pulling some strings up there, believe his communication and visitation records have been wiped or doctored. I want to know who he’s been talking to. It can take twenty-six hours or more to get to Omega by regular means.”
“I can cut that by more than a third. I’ll arrange it, and get back to you with the details.”
“Okay. I owe you.”
“A roller-coaster ride, at least.”
“No, I don’t owe you that much.”
He laughed when she clicked off. After arranging the flight, passing the information back, Roarke settled down and thought of Max Ricker.
Time had to stop, Eve thought, as she changed into dress blues. The dead deserved their moment, she supposed that was true enough. But in her mind, memorials were for the living left behind. So time had to stop, for Morris. She might do Coltraine a hell of a lot more good in the field, or working her way to getting alex ricker in the box. But there were other duties.
She pulled on the hard black shoes, stood and squared her uniform cap on her head.
She walked out of the locker room to take the glides down to the bereavement center.
She thought of Callendar and some bulky e-geek named Sisto, preparing to be flung like a couple of stones from a slingshot toward the cold rock of Omega. Callendar, Eve recalled, had appeared seriously juiced at the prospect of her first off-planet assignment.
It took all kinds.
This time tomorrow they’d be there, be digging in. They’d mine those logs and find what she needed. They’d damn well better find what she needed. Because every inch of her gut said Max Ricker had ordered the hit. She’d get to the why; she’d get to the how. But the e-team had to get her Ricker and his contact.
Max Ricker wouldn’t pay for killing a cop. What more could be done to a man who would live the rest of his miserable life in a cage? But others could and would pay, and that would have to be enough.
She hoped it would be enough.
The doors of the room Morris had chosen stood open so the music flowed through them. The bluesy sort he and the woman he’d loved had enjoyed. She caught the scent of flowers—the roses—before she stepped into the room crowded with cops.
Red roses, Eve noted, and photographs of the dead. Casual, candid shots of Coltraine smiling mixed with formal ones. Coltraine in uniform looking polished and serious, in a summer dress on some beach laughing. Small white candles burned a soft, soothing light.