Drawn in Blood (Burbank and Parker 2)

In a sea of unlabeled file cabinets, they knew just where to go and how to get what they needed, fast, trashing the place afterward as a cover-up.

And that meant someone who was familiar with Matthew’s filing system, or someone who at least knew where he kept all the paperwork relating to Dead or Alive.

At the top of that list of suspects were the four most logical choices: Ben Martino, Wallace Johnson, Leo Fox, and Phil Leary.

Sloane had actually winced when Derek said their names aloud, although she’d known it was coming. She’d argued vehemently, emphasizing her father’s long-term friendship, partnership, and trust with these men. To that, she added the ammo that if Matthew had been connected in any way, either to the art crime or to Xiao Long’s operation, all four of his partners’ butts would be on the line as well. So implicating Matthew in anything illegal would mean their own downfall.

But even as Sloane argued her case, she knew she was fighting with herself, not Derek. The fundamental basis for her reasoning was totally subjective. Friends turned on friends every day. And her argument was flimsy. If one of Matthew’s partners had cooperated in a scheme like this, he would have done so only under coercion—out of fear of retaliation from a man they knew to be a killer. And that was enough motivation for anyone, close friend or not.

The truth was Ben, Leo, Phil, and Wallace were the most likely suspects to have aided Xiao Long with the break-in. In the guilty party’s mind, it would just have involved providing Xiao with the necessary information. No one was supposed to get hurt. And no one could have anticipated that Rosalyn would interrupt the Dragon kids and wind up in the hospital.

Sloane had wrestled with this all night, wishing the pieces didn’t fit.

She tried not to remember how nervous the four men had been on the night of the poker game. She tried to forget how reluctant Phil had been to leave her alone with her father at the end of the evening. She tried to forget how overly generous Leo had been about redecorating her cottage, and how hard he’d pressed her to get started. She tried to forget the untouched bottles of O’Doul’s on the table, and how Ben had practically been vibrating with tension, talking a mile a minute. She tried to forget how sore Wallace had seemed when he stood up, how stiffly he’d moved, and how, with no signs of chills, he’d worn a heavy, perspiration-drenched turtleneck sweater on a warm autumn night—none of which added up to the onset of the flu.

She’d tried.

And she’d failed.

Derek had left for the office earlier than usual this morning. Sloane didn’t ask why. She didn’t need to. He wanted to get started running background checks on her father’s friends. She could have asked to take part in the investigation. Derek would have welcomed it, since Sloane could provide personal info on each of the men that wouldn’t be listed in anything official that Derek could scrounge up. At some point, she might have to volunteer her services for that. But not yet. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it—not until she’d explored her less likely but infinitely more tenable theories.

She’d explored little and accomplished nothing.

Her parents hadn’t been available to talk to. They, and their FBI bodyguards, had been out for the day. Her mother, once again undeterred by her broken arm, was at a digital publishing seminar, and her father was meeting with the owner of an art gallery to hammer out the final details of a purchase. Not only did Sloane need the two of them to help compile her list of everyone who had access to their apartment but she also had to get their okay to interrogate all those on the list.

They weren’t going to like this.

But they’d like the avenue Derek was pursuing even less—if she told them about it. For now, she had no intentions of doing that. It would only cause a lot of emotional pain, hopefully for no good reason.

Meanwhile, even after she got her parents’ permission, Sloane would have to tread very carefully when digging around their neighbors and apartment staff. These folks had all been interviewed by the NYPD right after the robbery and asked if they’d seen any suspicious-looking strangers hanging around the Burbanks’ apartment.

Sloane’s questions wouldn’t be so benign. No matter how subtly she phrased them, the implication would be that she suspected one of the interviewees of being a potential accomplice to the burglary. And the reception to that would be a far cry from the one given to the police, when they were being approached as good Samaritans.

Given her parents’ unavailability, Sloane had spent the day making phone calls, finding and speaking with the architect who’d designed the building and the builder who’d constr

ucted it, along with the real estate agent who’d sold the individual apartments. She’d also called the Manhattan Office of Land Records to determine which real estate documents, floor plans, and so on were public and which were not.

In short, she’d blown an entire day and learned nothing in the process.

Derek hadn’t called.

That could mean he was swamped with work. It could mean he had nothing to report.

Or it could mean he wanted to deliver whatever unwelcome news he’d dug up in person, so he could be there to soften the blow.

Sloane wasn’t sure she wanted to know which of those options was correct.

WESTHAMPTON

LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

During the summer months, the Hamptons were hopping.

Specialty boutiques and cafés were filled with patrons. Yachts sailed the waters, polo matches and wine-tasting events were daily occurrences, and the beaches were jammed with sunbathers. At night, the clubs stayed open until the wee hours, and the wealthy and elite populated their summer cottages, which were, in fact, multimillion-dollar vacation homes.

When autumn arrived, everything changed.

The summer residents and vacationers returned to their regular lives and homes, and the Hamptons became less populated and more low-key. The trendy Westhampton shops, one of the summer’s major draws, became the destinations of year-round residents, many of whom were affluent enough to keep the shop owners well compensated, off-season or not.