The In Death Collection, Books 1-5 Page 12

  There was a pause, during which time Eve began to shiver in the cold.

  “Please step out of the cab, Lieutenant Dallas, and up to the scanner for further identification.”

  “Tough joint,” the cabbie muttered, but Eve merely shrugged and complied.

  “Identification verified. Dismiss your transport, Lieutenant Dallas. You will be met at the gate.”

  “Heard the daughter got whacked up in New York,” the cabbie said as Eve paid the fare. “Guess they’re not taking any chances. Want I should pull back a ways and wait for you?”

  “No, thanks. But I’ll ask for your number when I’m ready to go.”

  With a half salute, the cabbie backed up, swung away. Eve’s nose was beginning to numb when she saw the little electric cart slide through the gate. The curved iron opened.

  “Please go inside, step into the cart,” the computer invited. “You will be taken to the house. Ms. Barrister will see you.”

  “Terrific.” Eve climbed into the cart and let it take her noiselessly to the front steps of the brick house. Even as she started up them, the door opened.

  Either the servants were required to wear boring black suits, or the house was still in mourning. Eve was shown politely into a room off the entrance hall.

  Where Roarke’s home had simply whispered money, this one said old money. The carpets were thick, the walls papered in silk. The wide windows offered a stunning view of rolling hills and falling snow. And solitude, Eve thought. The architect must have understood that those who lived here preferred to consider themselves alone.

  “Lieutenant Dallas.” Elizabeth rose. There was nervousness in the deliberate movement, in the rigid stance and, Eve saw, in the shadowed eyes that held grief.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Ms. Barrister.”

  “My husband’s in a meeting. I can interrupt him if necessary.”

  “I don’t think it will be.”

  “You’ve come about Sharon.”

  “Yes.”

  “Please sit down.” Elizabeth gestured toward a chair upholstered in ivory. “Can I offer you anything?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll try not to keep you very long. I don’t know how much of my report you’ve seen—”

  “All of it,” Elizabeth interrupted. “I believe. It seems quite thorough. As an attorney, I have every confidence that when you find the person who killed my daughter, you’ll have built a strong case.”

  “That’s the plan.” Running on nerves, Eve decided, watching the way Elizabeth’s long, graceful fingers clenched, unclenched. “This is a difficult time for you.”

  “She was my only child,” Elizabeth said simply. “My husband and I were—are—proponents of the population adjustment theory. Two parents,” she said with a thin smile. “One offspring. Do you have any further information to give me?”

  “Not at this time. Your daughter’s profession, Ms. Barrister. Did this cause friction in the family?”

  In another of her slow, deliberate gestures, Elizabeth smoothed down the ankle-skimming skirt of her suit. “It was not a profession I dreamed of my daughter embracing. Naturally, it was her choice.”

  “Your father-in-law would have been opposed. Certainly politically opposed.”

  “The senator’s views on sexual legislation are well known. As a leader of the Conservative Party, he is, of course, working to change many of the current laws regarding what is popularly called the Morality Issue.”

  “Do you share his views?”

  “No, I don’t, though I fail to see how that applies.”

  Eve cocked her head. Oh, there was friction there, all right. Eve wondered if the streamlined attorney agreed with her outspoken father-in-law on anything. “Your daughter was killed—possibly by a client, possibly by a personal friend. If you and your daughter were at odds over her lifestyle, it would be unlikely she would have confided in you about professional or personal acquaintances.”

  “I see.” Elizabeth folded her hands and forced herself to think like a lawyer. “You’re assuming that, as her mother, as a woman who might have shared some of the same viewpoints, Sharon would talk to me, perhaps share with me some of the more intimate details of her life.” Despite her efforts, Elizabeth’s eyes clouded. “I’m sorry, lieutenant, that’s not the case. Sharon rarely shared anything with me. Certainly not about her business. She was . . . aloof, from both her father and me. Really, from her entire family.”

  “You wouldn’t know if she had a particular lover—someone she was more personally involved with? One who might have been jealous?”

  “No. I can tell you I don’t believe she did. Sharon had . . .” Elizabeth took a steadying breath. “A disdain for men. An attraction to them, yes, but an underlying disdain. She knew she could attract them. From a very early age, she knew. And she found them foolish.”

  “Professional companions are rigidly screened. A dislike—or disdain, as you put it—is a usual reason for denial of licensing.”

  “She was also clever. There was nothing in her life she wanted she didn’t find a way to have. Except happiness. She was not a happy woman,” Elizabeth went on, and swallowed the lump that always seemed to hover in her throat. “I spoiled her, it’s true. I have no one to blame but myself for it. I wanted more children.” She pressed a hand to her mouth until she thought her lips had stopped trembling. “I was philosophically opposed to having more, and my husband was very clear in his position. But that didn’t stop the emotion of wanting children to love. I loved Sharon, too much. The senator will tell you I smothered her, babied her, indulged her. And he would be right.”

  “I would say that mothering was your privilege, not his.”

  This brought a ghost of a smile to Elizabeth’s eyes. “So were the mistakes, and I made them. Richard, too, though he loved her no less than I. When Sharon moved to New York, we fought with her over it. Richard pleaded with her. I threatened her. And I pushed her away, lieutenant. She told me I didn’t understand her—never had, never would—and that I saw only what I wanted to see, unless it was in court; but what went on in my own home was invisible.”

  “What did she mean?”

  “That I was a better lawyer than a mother, I suppose. After she left, I was hurt, angry. I pulled back, quite certain she would come to me. She didn’t, of course.”

  She stopped speaking for a moment, hoarding her regrets. “Richard went to see her once or twice, but that didn’t work, and only upset him. We let it alone, let her alone. Until recently, when I felt we had to make a new attempt.”

  “Why recently?”

  “The years pass,” Elizabeth murmured. “I’d hoped she would be growing tired of the lifestyle, perhaps have begun to regret the rift with family. I went to see her myself about a year ago. But she only became angry, defensive, then insulting when I tried to persuade her to come home. Richard, though he’d resigned himself, offered to go up and talk to her. But she refused to see him. Even Catherine tried,” she murmured and rubbed absently at a pain between her eyes. “She went to see Sharon only a few weeks ago.”

  “Congresswoman DeBlass went to New York to see Sharon?”

  “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 antenna vibrated. “Did she keep
one?”

  “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 connected with him, Richard. He has a way.” She began to speak quickly now, her words tumbling out, tripping over each other. “He might have helped her if I’d asked him sooner. With enough time, there’s very little he can’t do. But he didn’t have enough time. Neither did my child.”

  “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.

  “Dallas, be in Testing. Twenty minutes.”

  “Sir, I’m meeting a snitch on the Colby matter at oh nine hundred.”

  “Reschedule.” His voice was flat. “Twenty minutes.”

  Slowly, Dallas replaced her communicator. “I guess we know one of the buttons.”

  “Seems like DeBlass is taking a personal interest in you.” Feeney studied her face. There wasn’t a cop on the force who didn’t despise Testing. “You going to handle it okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. This is going to tie me up most of the day, Feeney. Do me a favor. Do a run on the banks in Manhattan. I need to know if Sharon DeBlass kept a safe deposit box. If you don’t find anything there, spread out to the other boroughs.”

  “You got it
.”

  The Testing section was riddled with long corridors, some glassed, some done in pale green walls that were supposed to be calming. Doctors and technicians wore white. The color of innocence and, of course, power. When she entered the first set of reinforced glass doors, the computer politely ordered her to surrender her weapon. Eve took it out of her holster, set it on the tray, and watched it slide away.

  It made her feel naked even before she was directed into Testing Room 1-C and told to strip.

  She laid her clothes on the bench provided and tried not to think about the techs watching her on their monitors or the machines with the nastily silent glide and their impersonal blinking lights.

  The physical exam was easy. All she had to do was stand on the center mark in the tubelike room and watch the lights blip and flash as her internal organs and bones were checked for flaws.

  Then she was permitted to don a blue jumpsuit and sit while a machine angled over to examine her eyes and ears. Another, snicking out from one of the wall slots, did a standard reflex test. For the personal touch, a technician entered to take a blood sample.

  Please exit door marked Testing 2-C. Phase one is complete, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve.

  In the adjoining room, Eve was instructed to lie on a padded table for the brain scan. Wouldn’t want any cops out there with a brain tumor urging them to blast civilians, she thought wearily.

  Eve watched the techs through the glass wall as the helmet was lowered onto her head.

  Then the games began.

  The bench adjusted to a sitting position and she was treated to virtual reality. The VR put her in a vehicle during a high-speed chase. Sounds exploded in her ears: the scream of sirens, the shouts of conflicting orders from the communicator on the dash. She could see that it was a standard police unit, fully charged. The control of the vehicle was hers, and she had to swerve and maneuver to avoid flattening a variety of pedestrians the VR hurled in her path.

  In one part of her brain she was aware her vitals were being monitored: blood pressure, pulse, even the amount of sweat that crawled on her skin, the saliva that pooled and dried in her mouth. It was hot, almost unbearably hot. She narrowly missed a food transport that lumbered into her path.