Salvation in death

18

SHE NEEDED THINKING TIME. CLOSED IN WITH the case time where she could put the pieces of everything she knew, didn’t know, everything that had been said, left unsaid together with people, events, evidence, and speculation, and see what kinds of pictures formed.

She needed to take a good hard look at the victims in the two bombings, and their families, their co

She didn’t buy murder for blackmail in Lino’s case, but she couldn’t discount it as possible. Or co

How had Lino collected the money? she wondered as she drove home. Where had he kept the funds, or had he just pissed it away as it came in? Expensive hotel rooms and lavish meals, gaudy jewelry for his bed partner.

Not enough, she thought. A few thousand here and there? What was the point in risking exposure for a fancy suite and a bottle of champagne?

Showing off to the old girlfriend? Stuben said Pe

Or as simple as needing the rush, of knowing you were pulling a fast one. Reminding yourself who you were while you were pretending to be another. Like a hobby.

Something else to think about.

She drove through the gates, then slowed down. There were flowers where she was damn sure there hadn’t been flowers that morning. Tulips-she was pretty sure-and daffodils. She liked daffodils because they were so bright and silly. Now there were rivers of both where there hadn’t been so much as a drop ten hours earlier.

How did that happen?

In any case it was… well, it was pretty, and added a splash to the hazy green of the trees.

She continued on, stopped and parked. And there were three enormous red pots literally engorged with petunias. White petunias-her wedding flower. Sentimental slob, she thought even as she went gooey herself. Simple pleasure warred against the ugly tension she’d been fighting to ignore since her interview with Pe

She walked in to see Galahad perched like a pudgy gargoyle on the newel post-new spot for him-and Summerset hovering, as usual, in the foyer.

“I assume the city has been cleared of all crime as you’re only an hour late and appear to be unbloodied.”

“Yeah, we’re renaming it Utopia.” She gave Galahad a quick rub as she started upstairs. “Next stage is to get rid of all the assholes. You should get a head start and pack your bags.” She paused briefly. “Did Roarke talk to Sinead?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She went directly to the bedroom. Roake was probably home, she thought-Summerset would’ve said if her wasn’t. And he was probably in his office, so ahe should’ve gone there, co

But she wasn’t ready, just not ready for the co

She laid back, closed her eyes. When she felt the thump beside her, Eve reached out, let her arm curl around the cat.

Stupid, she thought, it was stupid to feel sick, to have to fight against being sick. To feel anything but suspicion and disgust for a woman like Pe

She didn’t realize Roarke had come into the room until his hand brushed her cheek. He moved so quietly, she thought, barely stirred the air if he didn’t choose. No wonder he’d been such a successful thief.

“What hurts?” he asked her.

“Nothing. Nothing really.” But she turned to him, turned into him when he lay beside her. And pressed her face into his shoulder. “I needed to be home. I needed to be home first. I was right about that. But I thought I needed to be alone, just be alone until I got level. I was wrong. Can we just stay here awhile?”

“My favorite place.”

“Tell me stuff. Stuff you did today. I don’t care if I don’t understand it.”

“I had a ’link conference here shortly after you left this morning regarding some R amp;D at Euroco, one of my arms in Europe that deals primarily with transportation. We have a very interesting sea-road-air personal sports vehicle coming out early next year. I had meetings in midtown, but Sinead called from Ireland before I left. It was nice to hear from her. They’ve acquired a new puppy and named it Mac, who she claims is more trouble than triplet toddlers. She sounds madly in love with him.”

She listened to his voice, more than the words. Something about a meeting with team leaders on a project called Optimum, and a holoconference dealing with his Olympus Resort, a lunch session with key members of one of his interests in Bejing. A merger, an acquisition, conceptual drawings.

How did he keep it all straight?

“You did all that, and still had time to get petunias?”

His hand trailed up and down her back, up and down. “Did you like them?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I liked them.”

“It’s been nearly two years since we were married.” He kissed the top of her head, then turned his to rest his cheek there. “And with Louise and Charles about to have their wedding here, it made me think of the petunias. How the simple-a flower, a few minutes to talk to a relation-makes the complicated worthwhile.”

“Is that why we have tulips and daffodils? They are tulips, right?”

“They are. It’s good to be reminded that things come around again, fresh and new. And some things remain, steady and solid. The call from Sinead brought both back to me. Are you ready to tell me what’s the matter?”

“Sometimes things come around again that are old and hard.” She sat up, shoved at her hair. “I brought Pe

He took her chin, tracing his thumb in its dent as he turned her face right and left. “You don’t appear to be popped.”

“The assault was mostly technical. She was Lino’s main lay when they were teenagers. Works in the bodega right next to the church, the bodega he frequented, pretty much daily.”

“So they reco

“She was the one who knew him,” she said, remembering Roarke’s words from the morning. “The one he needed to tell. Yeah, they reco

“She claims he blackmailed some of the people who came in to confess. Plays, but I can’t quite figure it all.”

“Hobby. More,” Roarke continued, “habit. The masquerade didn’t change who and what he was under it, and what was under it would need the hit. The buzz.”

“Yeah, I circled around that. It doesn’t feel like motive. I know, tried and true,” she said before he could disagree, “I’ll get to why I don’t think it’s going to weigh in, or not much.”

First she wanted to get the rest out, get it off her chest. “The thing is… Once I get Soto in the box, putting some pressure on, pissing her off, it comes out of her that her father…”

“Ah.” He didn’t need the rest, didn’t need it for his stomach to tighten.

“She’s snapping and snarling it at me, how her old man started on her when she was about twelve, how her useless mother was a junkie, how he beat her and molested her for two years before she joined the Soldados. They were her way out, the escape hatch. And there’s a part of me that gets it, that feels for her, that’s trying not to look at her and see me. To see…”