Naked In Death

"Not specifically. Catherine was there for a fund-raiser and made a point to see and try to speak with Sharon." Elizabeth pressed her lips together. "I asked her to. You see, when I tried to open communications again, Sharon wasn't interested. I'd lost her," Elizabeth said quietly, "and moved too late to get her back, I didn't know how to get her back. I'd hoped that Catherine could help, being family, but not Sharon 's mother."

She looked over at Eve again. "You're thinking that I should have gone again myself. It was my place to go."

"Ms. Barrister – "

But Elizabeth shook her head. "You're right, of course. But she refused to confide in me. I thought I should respect her privacy, as I always had. I was never one of those mothers who peeked into her daughter's diary."

"Diary?" Eve's ante

"She always kept a diary, even as a child. She changed the password in it regularly."

"And as an adult?"

"Yes. She'd refer to it now and again – joke about the secrets she had and the people she knew who would be appalled at what she'd written about them."

There'd been no personal diary in the inventory, Eve remembered. Such things could be as small as a woman's thumb. If the sweepers missed it the first time…

"Do you have any of them?"

"No." Abruptly alert, Elizabeth looked up. "She kept them in a deposit box, I think. She kept them all."

"Did she use a bank here in Virginia?"

"Not that I'm aware of. I'll check and see what I can find out for you. I can go through the things she left here."

"I'd appreciate that. If you think of anything – anything at all – a name, a comment, no matter how casual, please contact me."

"I will. She never spoke of friends, lieutenant. I worried about that, even as I used it to hope that the lack of them would draw her back home. Out of the life she'd chosen. I even used one of my own, my own friends, thinking he would be more persuasive than I."

"Who was that?"

"Roarke." Elizabeth teared up again, fought them back. "Only days before she was murdered, I called him. We've known each other for years. I asked him if he would arrange for her to be invited to a certain party I knew he'd be attending. If he'd seek her out. He was reluctant. Roarke isn't one to meddle in family business. But I used our friendship. If he would just find a way to befriend her, to show her that an attractive woman doesn't have to use her looks to feel worthwhile. He did that for me, and for my husband."

"You asked him to develop a relationship with her?" Eve said carefully.

"I asked him to be her friend," Elizabeth corrected. "To be there for her. I asked him because there's no one I trust more. She'd cut herself off from all of us, and I needed someone I could trust. He would never hurt her, you see. He would never hurt anyone I loved."

"Because he loves you?"

"Cares." Richard DeBlass spoke from the doorway. "Roarke cares very much for Beth and for me, and a few select others. But loves? I'm not sure he'd let himself risk quite that unstable an emotion."

"Richard." Elizabeth 's control wobbled as she got to her feet. "I wasn't expecting you quite yet."

"We finished early." He came to her, closed his hands over hers. "You should have called me, Beth."

"I didn't – " She broke off, looked at him helplessly. "I'd hoped to handle it alone."

"You don't have to handle anything alone." He kept his hand closed over his wife's as he turned to Eve. "You'd be Lieutenant Dallas?"

"Yes, Mr. DeBlass. I had a few questions and hoped it would be easier if I asked them in person."

"My wife and I are willing to cooperate in any way we can." He remained standing, a position Eve judged as one of power and of distance.

There was none of Elizabeth 's nerves or fragility in the man who stood beside her. He was taking charge, Eve decided, protecting his wife and guarding his own emotions with equal care.

"You were asking about Roarke," he continued. "May I ask why?"

"I told the lieutenant that I'd asked Roarke to see Sharon. To try to… "

"Oh, Beth." In a gesture that was both weary and resigned, he shook his head. "What could he do? Why would you bring him into it?"

She stepped away from him, her face so filled with despair, Eve's heart broke. "I know you told me to let it alone, that we had to let her go. But I had to try again. She might have co

"All right," Richard murmured, and laid a hand on her arm. "All right."

She controlled herself again, drew back, drew in. "What can I do now, lieutenant, but pray for justice?"

"I'll get you justice, Ms. Barrister."

She closed her eyes and clung to that. "I think you will. I wasn't sure of that, even after Roarke called me about you."

"He called you – to discuss the case?"

"He called to see how we were – and to tell me he thought you'd be coming to see me personally before long." She nearly smiled. "He's rarely wrong. He told me I'd find you competent, organized, and involved. You are. I'm grateful I've had the opportunity to see that for myself and to know that you're in charge of my daughter's murder investigation."

"Ms. Barrister," Eve hesitated only a moment before deciding to take the risk. "What if I told you Roarke is a suspect?"

Elizabeth 's eyes went wide, then calmed again almost immediately. "I'd say you were taking an extraordinarily big wrong step."

"Because Roarke is incapable of murder?"

"No, I wouldn't say that." It was a relief to think of it, if only for a moment, in objective terms. "Incapable of a senseless act, yes. He might kill cold-bloodedly, but never the defenseless. He might kill, I wouldn't be surprised if he had. But would he do to anyone what was done to Sharon – before, during, after? No. Not Roarke."

"No," Richard echoed, and his hand searched for his wife's again. "Not Roarke."

Not Roarke, Eve thought again when she was back in her cab and headed for the underground. Why the hell hadn't he told her he'd met Sharon DeBlass as a favor to her mother? What else hadn't he told her?

Blackmail. Somehow she didn't see him as a victim of blackmail. He wouldn't give a damn what was said or broadcast about him. But the diary changed things and made blackmail a new and intriguing motive.

Just what had Sharon recorded about whom, and where were the goddamn diaries?

CHAPTER NINE

"No problem reversing the tail," Feeney said as he shoveled in what passed for breakfast at the eatery at Cop Central. "I see him cue in on me. He's looking around for you, but there's plenty of bodies. So I get on the frigging plane."

Feeney washed down irradiated eggs with black bean coffee without a wince. "He gets on, too, but he sits up in First Class. When we get off, he's waiting, and that's when he knows you're not there." He jabbed at Eve with his fork. "He was pissed, makes a quick call. So I get behind him, trail him to the Regent Hotel. They don't like to tell you anything at the Regent. Flash your badge and they get all offended."

"And you explained, tactfully, about civic duty."

"Right." Feeney pushed his empty plate into the recycler slot, crushed his empty cup with his hand, and sent it to follow. "He made a couple of calls – one to East Washington, one to Virginia. Then he makes a local – to the chief."

"Shit."

"Yeah. Chief Simpson's pushing buttons for DeBlass, no question. Makes you wonder what buttons."

Before Eve could comment, her communicator beeped. She pulled it out and answered the call from her commander.