When they went inside, Summerset waited. “Together and unbloodied. A good day.”
“Not for everybody,” Eve said as the cat padded over to ribbon between her legs. “I want to check in with the sweepers,” she added and headed for the stairs.
“Attempted murder of Captain Greenleaf’s son at his father’s wake.” Roarke watched his wife and the cat trot up the stairs. “It weighs on her.”
“Yes, I can see that. Bruising’s fading nicely, but the jaw’s still a bit swollen. She could use another pass with the wand.”
Roarke nodded. “At least no one punched her in the face, so as you said, a good day. Aren’t you and Ivanna off to the ballet then?”
“We are. In about an hour.” “Enjoy.”
“We will. There’s some very nice sea bass, crusted with caramelized honey. You’d enjoy it.”
“Then we will.”
Upstairs, he found Eve not at her command center, but her board. She spoke on her ’link as she updated it.
The sweepers, he thought, and crossed over to choose a wine. Thinking of the sea bass, he uncorked a Vermentino.
“I’m going with coffee,” Eve told him. “Not ready for wine.”
“I am. I’ll take this to my office. I’m on the widow. Why don’t we say we’ll have dinner in an hour?”
“Sure, whatever.”
He walked to her, tapped the shallow dent on her chin. Another wanding, yes, he thought, but didn’t mention it. “The son’s been dead for near a
decade. You’ll find what you’ll find in an hour.” “If Noy’s daughter or widow get back to me—” “We’ll adjust, won’t we? An hour for now.”
At her command center, she programmed coffee.
Brice Noy, she thought. He’d have been twenty-eight if he’d lived. Same age as Elva Arnez. Coincidence?
Bollocks.
Something there.
He’d been a good student, she concluded as she began to dig. Acing his way through his private school right from the start. The private school his father paid for through graft and extortion.
Did the son know? Maybe. Maybe. But the daughter claimed she hadn’t
—and she’d come off believable.
Not the athlete his sister had been, but a joiner.
Honor society, debate club, student council, class president. She flipped through school photos.
Good-looking kid, even through the awkward years when to her eye kids seemed to be all teeth.
She found no disciplinary actions in his school files. He’d been valedictorian at his high school graduation. And the photo of him in cap and gown looked like Hollywood casting.
All-American boy, going places.
A short employment history. Mostly volunteer work, summer work.
Homeless shelters, soup kitchens.
Paid intern at his father’s precinct, civilian liaison, the summer after graduation.
No criminal—not surprising, considering his father would’ve taken care of that, if necessary. No indication of problems or treatments for illegals or alcohol abuse.
The perfect son?
She set that aside, began on Elva Arnez through the same period.
Public school. Decent student. No athletics, no clubs. A couple flags for truancy. Signed up for the school/work program as soon as she was eligible, and maintained those decent grades.
Even improved them some.
No more truancy flags—a disqualifier for the program.
And nothing that showed how or where her path would have crossed with Brice Noy—or his sister, mother, father.
Not yet.
Graduated about dead middle of her class, and got into NYU’s business school. Remote option. So some classes at NYU while Brice Noy attended, but no other common area.
And the fact remained the size of the campus, their fields of study put them in different worlds. Gould Plaza for her, Washington Square South for him.
He, the joiner, joined. A fraternity, another debate club, the university’s honor society, a student mentoring program—and completed his freshman year in the top five percent of his class.
Yeah, she thought. By the data, a young man with a bright future ahead.
Arnez joined nothing, stuck primarily with remote classes and worked close to full-time. And excelled in her business classes.
Both lived at home. She couldn’t have afforded dorm life. He could have, but why? Nice house, happy family—according to the sister. Easy trip to classes, college activities, and a nice home-cooked dinner every night.
She saw their lives now, as they’d been.
He, the good, shining son of what looked like, on the surface, a good, shining family. Smart, social, working toward following in his father’s footsteps. Already with a place reserved for him at the Academy. And no doubt, in Eve’s mind, a place waiting in his father’s division.
And she, the hardworking, ambitious daughter of a single parent who’d wanted more. No clubs, no joining, not when she wanted that more.
Eve flipped through her school photos as well.
A beauty, and one who’d learned how to make the most of it as she hit her teens.
On impulse, she brought both their high school senior year photos on split screen.
“A remarkably attractive young couple,” Roarke commented as he walked in.
“Yeah. Too bad I haven’t found much of anything that links them. Lived about a fifteen-minute walk from each other, but in different social and economic strata. Different schools, different interests. NYU brings them
together, but doesn’t. She’s mostly remote and, if and when she attended in person, her building’s nowhere near his.”
“A concert,” Roarke suggested, “a sports event, a club.”
“Yeah, possible. Trouble is she’s working, and in retail, and in retail, your high school or college student—”
“Gets the weekends, and often the evenings,” Roarke finished.
“Yeah. He’s a serious student, one who makes a point of making connections, contacts. She’s looking to boost her status—career-wise, at least. Likes nice clothes, looks good in nice clothes, works to get them. He’s straight line, she’s lateral moves. They both have a goal. His is to be a cop like his father—either like him,” she qualified, “or the kind of cop he perceives his father to be. Which is a lie.
“She’s advancement in her chosen area. Wants to manage, and wants to manage a fancy shop. Maybe wants her own shop, but I don’t think so.”
“No?”
“You own, you’re on the hook. Something goes wrong, you’re on the hook. You manage? You’re in charge, but not on the hook. Do your job well, and I bet she does, you have some power, but then you go home with a paycheck. And you look at Robards, he’s the same there. Do the job, get your pay.”
“As billions do.”
“Yeah, as billions do. Anything on the widow?”
“My take is she’s a lovely woman who after dealing with a very hard blow—two very hard blows—did everything she could to raise her daughter and build a life. Have some wine now, and I’ll tell you why over dinner.”
“Maybe Peabody or McNab hit something.”
“And if and when, you’d be the first contact, wouldn’t you?” He set the wine beside her, walked into the kitchen.
She swiveled around, stared at the cat, who stared back at her from his sprawl on her sleep chair.
“Why the hell hasn’t Taylor Noy checked her damn v-mail?”
“It may be because she’s in Vegas, celebrating her sister’s wedding.” “I was asking the cat,” Eve muttered.
“As he’s a bright cat, no doubt he’d give you the same answer.”
She picked up her wine, circled her board once, then walked over to stand in the open terrace doors.
The air felt good, she decided. Heavy, but good.
“I don’t see a connect, not a strong one—and it has to be strong— between Arnez and the daughter, either. That age gap is big when you’re kids, teens. And the daughter focused on sports. No common ground.”
When she turned back, he’d put two plates on the table, a basket of bread, the wine.
“Sea bass,” he told her, “honey crusted on a salad of grilled pineapple, habanero, and some sliced avocado. A nice summer meal—Summerset recommended.”
“Okay.”
It looked … colorful, she thought. And didn’t include spinach, so who was she to complain?
“So the widow,” Roarke began when he sat across from her. “Ella Noy, solid upper-middle-class upbringing, native New Yorker. Brooklyn. Parents are still married—to each other. First and only for both. One sibling, older brother, golf pro, in South Carolina, where the parents winter.”
He lifted his wine. “Do you want to know about her childhood, early school years, and so on?”
“Not unless it applies.”
“I don’t see why it would. Normal is the word I’d use. She majored in sociology, went on to social work, moved to Manhattan. Lower West. In her mid-twenties she was engaged to a law student, about to take the bar. Before he could, he was killed, stabbed multiple times in a robbery at a liquor store where he’d stopped to buy a bottle of wine to take to her parents’ for dinner.”
“Noy responded.”
“Detective Noy took primary,” Roarke confirmed. “He apprehended the fiancé’s killer, who’s still inside—he was eighteen at the time he put those multiple holes in another human being. And a couple in the clerk as well, who survived.
“Three years later, she and Noy married. She became a professional parent on the birth of their son, and remained so until Noy’s death.”
Eve ate some fish, surprised it wasn’t good. It was damn good. “So she gave up her career.”
“Chose another career,” Roarke said. “She focused on motherhood and volunteer work. Homeless shelters, child advocacy, fund-raising for the
school her children attended once they did. She increased the volunteer work when both children hit school age. From all appearances, Eve, all data, she’s led a fairly blameless life, a productive one, and one where she attempted to give back.”
“All right. Who came up with grilling pineapple and putting honey on fish?”
“I couldn’t say. Brilliant, isn’t it?” “It’s pretty damn good.”
“There’s nothing to indicate,” he continued, “that either she or Noy strayed re their marriage vows. Then again, he was a liar, a cheat, and may have covered his tracks well there. There’s also nothing to indicate she participated in Noy’s corruption and, in fact, a rather thorough investigation after his suicide found nothing. He kept a separate account, laundering the money he took in. And still, she lost her home and, months later, her son.”
“I get she took some hard hits. I’m looking for connections.”
“I couldn’t find one. The obvious connection to Greenleaf, of course, but in fact, he stood up for her. The woman picked herself up, went back to work—after twenty years out of the workforce.”
“Couldn’t have been easy,” Eve admitted.
“It couldn’t have, no. Her parents helped her financially until she got on her feet. In her lifetime, she lost three people she loved to violence—two self-inflicted.
“She volunteers with a suicide hotline,” Roarke added. “It appears she met her current husband at a fund-raiser—she a raiser, he a donor. She’s now able to focus on her volunteer work again, which she does.”
“Okay, who loved her, Noy, the son, the daughter enough to plot to kill Greenleaf to mirror Noy’s suicide, and attempt to do the same with Ben Greenleaf?”
“Is it love then?”
“Love, obsession, loyalty, obligation.” She gestured with her wine. “We start with love. Maybe Noy did have a side piece, maybe long-term. Or somebody who pined for the wife. Then she gets married to somebody else
—could be the trigger. I’ll show you who loves you. I’ll kill for you.” She set down the wine, ate more fish.
“Or someone in love or obsessed with the son. Brice Noy, perfect in pretty much every way.”
“Was he?”
“Ace student, valedictorian, class president. Also volunteered at homeless shelters, and real good to look at. I’m going to try for some of his old teachers, classmates tomorrow. Maybe somebody worshipped him the way he did his father.
“I didn’t push the sister there, not the first round. Now I will. Whenever she answers her goddamn ’link.”
She shoved away from the table. “I’m going to try her again.”
“Do that. Then why don’t we deal with these dishes before the cat disgraces himself? We’ll take a walk.”
“A walk?”
“It’s cooled a bit. We’ll have a walk, then refocus.”
“Still v-mail. Ms. Noy, Lieutenant Dallas. Please contact me as soon as you receive this message. I have some important follow-up questions.”
“Dishes,” Roarke said when she stuffed the ’link back in her pocket. “And a summer evening walk.”
“Then refocus. Okay. All right.”
A walk never hurt—it was kind of like pacing, but in a direction.
“I doubt you’ll need your weapon on a walk to the pond,” Roarke pointed out once they’d dealt with the dishes.
“Right.”
She’d already ditched her jacket—as he had—so now unhooked her weapon harness.
“Come now.” He reached for her hand. “We’ll clear the minds, at least a bit. Then see what comes into them after. You’ve got your ’link with you if Taylor Noy gets back to you.”
“The wedding’s got to be over by now,” she said as they started down. “Even if they hired a marching band, it’s got to be over.”
“A marching band, is it now?”
“Or opera singers, or those people who do backflips.” “Acrobats?”
“Those.”
“And I expect, after the drums and trumpets, the backflips and the fat lady singing, they’d have a celebration. Dinner, toasts, and, as it’s Vegas, some gambling, maybe a show. You’d prefer to talk to them face-to-face, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d prefer to talk to them, but yeah, face-to-face is first choice.”
“And that’s unlikely to happen until tomorrow—at least. I can get you to Vegas easily enough if need be.”
“Well, crap.”
She stepped outside, breathed in the air.
“Yeah, maybe. Then Peabody would be all: ‘Oooh, Vegas!’ Then find a way to get around me and lose some of her hard-earned pay in one of those stupid machines that gobbles up hard-earned pay like Galahad does those cat treats. And that’s after she spots half a dozen things in shops that’ll somehow be just perfect for her craft room or home office.”
Roarke slung an arm around her shoulders. “You’re beautiful when you’re cranky.”
“Kids are cranky. I’m pissed.” But she tipped her head toward his shoulder. “It’s the mud.”
“The mud?”
“The mud my wheels keep getting stuck in. And I know, I fucking know most of it’s because I’m hung up on Arnez and Robards. And nothing connects. Whoever did this had an investment, a strong, personal investment, in Noy, either him or the whole family. Possibly to one of the cops who went down with him, but then why mirror Noy’s death, his son’s? It is possible. But so far, nothing there, either.”
He guided her through the garden with its drifting summer scents.
“All right then. Why are you hung up on Arnez and Robards?
Specifically?”
“Specifically? The unlocked bedroom window. She was there, opportunity in her lap. They not only live in the building, but developed a relationship, so they knew the Greenleafs’ routines, habits, basic timetables. The window’s a big sticking point.”
“Stuck-in-the-mud point. It’s a strong one,” Roarke allowed.
“But,” she said, “it might have been unlocked days before, weeks before. Might have been opened that night from outside. All but the last risks one of them noticing and relocking it. Much lower risk of that if you unlock it an hour or so before TOD.”
“And? I can hear it. You’re not saying it, but I know my cop and can hear it.”
“And.” She hissed out a breath. “I know how it sounds, but there was a look. When Arnez and Elizabeth Greenleaf got back to the apartment on the night of the murder. When Webster opened the door, Arnez had a look.”
“What sort of look?”
“Excitement. Just for an instant when the door opened. Just a…” Eve snapped her fingers. “But it was there, in her eyes. I saw it. Then came confusion, then calculation. Boom, boom, boom,” she said, snapping her fingers again. “I saw it, and I thought: She’s in this.”
“I didn’t see it, but I was looking more at the wife. Why weren’t you?”
“She wasn’t going to be in it. Webster. He’s not stupid, not naive. Everything he said about her, about their marriage, the family. She wasn’t going to be in it. But she’s got somebody with her. Who the hell is this? And why is she excited?”
“If you saw it, it was there.”
“Excitement, confusion, calculation. All there and gone in the time it takes to breathe in and out again. And.”
They reached the pond with its white floating lilies, its young weeping tree, its skirting flowers. But she didn’t sit on the bench. She paced.
“And, and, and. When we talked to them the next morning, everything was so damn pat. He’s all about how she had a terrible night, was so upset. He’s a little nervous, but covers it well.”
He knew his cop, so played to that.
“People are often nervous after the murder of someone they knew, and with cops at the door. It’s more than that.”
“Yeah, more. She comes out, and her eyes are wet, but they’re not red, not swollen. She doesn’t strike me as somebody who’s in emotional upheaval—but she plays it that way. He’s protective, solicitous. It’s all about her for him.
“All about her for him,” Eve repeated. “No family photos. None. People are always putting pictures around—family, friends. Okay, her father’s gone, she’s not close with her mother. But he’s close to his. And he has sisters. He helped pay for their education, for the married sister’s wedding. He helps support his mother financially. He’s stuck with the same job since he started working. There’s innate loyalty there. But no photos. Because she doesn’t want them.”
“And why is that?”
“Because it’s all about her. Not even them as a couple, but her. I’m your family now. I’m number one. And he’s the type who goes along. Raised by a single mother, two sisters. It’s his job to protect the women in his life. She’s the planner; he’s the shield. He killed Greenleaf for her.”
She jammed fisted hands in her pockets. “I fucking know it. He came through the window she’d unlocked. Killed Greenleaf, dropped the weapon, and wrote the note just the way she told him to. Then he went out again, probably texted her—something innocuous, but an all clear. Then she sat with the woman whose husband she’d just had killed, whose life she’d just shattered, and drank wine, laughed. She’s got it in her, Roarke. I can see it.”
“That’s a great deal of mud.”
“It could’ve worked, but for a couple of glitches. Webster. That’s a big glitch. Cops already on scene means she can’t get into the bedroom, relock that window. Without Webster, she comes in with the wife, maybe steers her toward the kitchen. Maybe the wife calls out to Greenleaf, but he’s in his office, no worries. How about some coffee? Love some, just gotta pee first. Or anything along those lines. Zip into the bedroom, use a cloth if you’re smart, relock the window, and done.”
“You said a couple glitches.”
“Sweepers, Morris, me. Greenleaf’s prints on the weapon don’t jibe with suicide. The stunner wounds don’t jibe. Now you. The note doesn’t jibe. It leaves out love, leaves out family. Just like she does.”
“Hardly a wonder you’re hung up on them.”
“They did this. Murder and attempted murder. I know it.”
“No doubt you’ve the right of it.” When she frowned at him, he took her hands.
“I won’t say your instincts are infallible, but bloody close. You’ve fairly terrifying observational skills. You saw what you saw, felt what you felt. Even so, you’ve pursued every angle, covered all the ground possible. Now you’ve concluded what you’ve concluded. So no doubt you’ve the right of it.”
And just that dissolved the rock pile of tension in her shoulders.
“I know they did this. But I don’t know why. I can’t find the why.
Where’s the deeply personal connection? Because it has to be there.” “You’ll find it. We’ll find it. You’ve bloody well convinced me.” “I’ve dug down to the whatever it is where you’ve hit bottom.”
“Bedrock?”
“That’s good enough. I need to talk to the Noys. Maybe another consult with Mira.”
“Which never hurts. Tomorrow,” he said, anticipating her. “Do you think they’ll try to kill again, someone else?”
“No reason to think they will, every reason to believe they won’t. It’s specific payback, a mirror. Plus, they missed with Ben Greenleaf. They may not know that yet, but somebody will tell them. If anything, they’d try for him again. Not now,” she qualified. “Later.”
“Will they run?”
“Why? As far as they’re concerned, they got away with it. She’s covered, her alibi for Greenleaf’s as tight as a skin suit. Robards isn’t the connection, Arnez is. It’s all about her. And the connection’s either down deep or it’s tenuous—to everyone but her. Or both,” she murmured. “Tenuous, barely there, right? To everyone but her.
“I need to get her in the box.”
“Ah, there now. The walk did you good. You’re figuring a way to drill down into the bedrock.”
“Maybe. The walk did work—and talking it all the way through didn’t hurt. You’ve got to follow the evidence, not just a…” Another snap of her fingers. “Look in somebody’s eyes. But put it all together? I’ve got to get myself a drill.”
She smiled at him. “Tomorrow. It got dark,” she added. “It will do that at night.”
“Yeah, yeah. The lights look nice. They set the trees and the flowers off
—and the house. All of it. Summer ought to last longer.”
“We should take advantage of it while it’s here.” He drew her in.
She answered the kiss, let her body relax into it, into the warmth, the quiet. Then his nimble hands unhooked her belt.
“Come on!” With a laugh, she nudged him. “Here?”
“I like it here.” He skimmed his hands up, over her. “A lovely summer evening, even a bit of a moon. The scent of roses and lilies, and you. Put my cop away for now, my darling Eve.”
“Your darling Eve doesn’t usually roll around naked on the grass with you.”
“She doesn’t, no. But then again, it wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”
She judged the distance from the house, and calculated that unless Summerset had field glasses, they were private enough.
She reached for his belt. “You wouldn’t want grass stains on your suit pants.”
“Let’s risk it.”
He took her to the ground.
The grass, soft, springy, cushioned her, and felt somehow erotic against her skin when he tugged off her shirt.
And another long, hard day melted away under him, under his body, his hands, his mouth. So she wrapped around him, wanting to give him that same gift.
A summer night, dark sprinkled with light, the scent of flowers and green. And him.
Lightly, he pressed a kiss to her bruised breast.
“It’s better,” she told him. “Enough I mostly forgot about it.”
“I didn’t.” A wanding to come, he thought. But for now, gently. Gently, every part of her so precious to him, and he could show her.
Soft kisses along her jawline with lazy strokes of his hands designed to relax more than arouse. A slow, deep meeting of lips and tongues, then drawing it out and out so the pleasure whispered between them.
Sweet. There were times his strong warrior needed the sweet. As did he.
With a sigh, she slipped his shirt away, ran her hands over the muscles of his back, his shoulders. In the pretty sparkle of lights, their eyes met. She was with him, he thought, as he needed her to be.
Her heartbeat, matching his; her breath merging with his. And in her eyes, a reflection of all he felt. A love both quiet and fierce.
He touched his lips to her brow, her cheeks, his hands slow and sure as he undressed her.
Tending her, she thought. No one had ever tended her before him. It swelled inside her, the knowledge she could love like this, be loved like this.
She took him in, wanted that union as much as her next breath. More. The belonging, the merging, the quick slice of glory as he brought her to peak. And the soothing balm of release.
“Once more,” he murmured. “Once more, under the moon.”
Once more, they took the slice, the soothing, and the sweet together.
She lay, naked, on the grass, under the moon—and under him—by a pond with air thick with flowers and late summer heat.
It amazed her. She supposed it always would.
“You suggested I take off my weapon so it wouldn’t end up on the ground.”
“I may have anticipated.”
“Now we’re all sweaty, and it’s a sure bet I’ve got grass stains on my ass.” She pressed her lips to his shoulder. “Worth it.”
“More than. Let’s have a swim.” “I am not swimming in that pond.”
“Isn’t it convenient we have a pool? Let’s have a swim there, then we can see about drilling that bedrock for an hour or two.”
“We could do that.” A couple of laps to wake her back up, then the drilling.
When he rolled away, she found her shirt, started to put it on. “What’re you doing?”
“Getting dressed.”
“You’ll just have to undress again to swim.” He plucked the shirt away, began to gather up scattered clothes.
“I’m not walking naked to the house and down to the pool.” “Whyever not? It’s perfectly private.”
“Summerset.”
“Is at the ballet with Ivanna.” “He’s not in the house?”
“He’s not. He and Ivanna are enjoying The Firebird. They’ll have a late supper after.”
“The house is Summerset-free? Why didn’t you say so?” With a hoot of delight, she scrambled up and ran naked toward the house.
