They ate cold spaghetti, and since she’d proven herself quite healthy enough, Roarke poured her a glass of wine to go with it.
“Tell me about Alex Ricker, the search and so on. I’m interested.”
“I think he’s got as many clothes and shoes as you.”
“Well now, that’s not right. I’ll have to make a note to add to my wardrobe straightaway.”
“The thing is . . .” She wagged her fork at him, “I know you’re not joking.”
“Why would I?”
“Anyway.” She twirled pasta. “He was expecting us, and prepared. Trio of lawyers on-site to make sure we were good little cops. Full cooperation and all that. Place is perfect and pretty much what you’d expect. But there were off notes. Especially the guest room that had so obviously never been used, with a couple of pieces of furniture in it that looked like they’d just been plucked from the showroom floor. Not a crime to buy new furniture or have an unused room, and palm plate and voice security.”
“Ah, his private office. He probably had the unregistered equipment in it removed before we spoke to him this morning.”
“That’d be my take. Feeney’s on board with that, too. I’ve got the building’s security discs, but even if we see him personally carrying out boxes, or hauling in a dresser, he’s clear. Fully within his rights. I’ve got nothing on him but suspicion, and knowing he’s wrong.” She scowled, loaded her fork again. “He’s just wrong.”
“Wrong enough to have killed her, or had her killed?”
“I don’t know. Yet. PA Sandy covers his big fat lie of this morning by saying he assumed Alex was home all evening. Bullshit.”
“I tend to agree, but because?”
“Because they live in the same space, because they know each other and have since college. Because that little prick knows exactly what goes on when, where, and how.”
“Why lie when Alex was going to tell he’d gone out?”
“Good question. Could be he’d advised Alex to say he’d been home, told him he’d corroborate, then Alex changed his mind. Anyway, we’re checking on the alibi, but haven’t hit either way there. He’s smart,” Eve muttered. “Alex is smart and fairly cool-headed. So why would he pull something so ham-handed and useless as wrecking my ride?”
“You could’ve been much more seriously hurt. Yes, you could’ve been,” Roarke said before she could protest. “If you’d taken a full broadside, I’d be eating cold pasta beside your hospital bed this evening. Those police-issues are like bloody tin cans.”
“They’re reinforced,” she began, then shrugged at his steely stare. “Okay, they’re crap. But I kinda liked that one, damn it. It had some moves, and wasn’t completely ugly. I was used to it. And now I’m going to spend a couple of headachy hours on paperwork. Sucks sideways.”
“That may be your answer. You’re injured—minor or serious—your vehicle is wrecked, and you’re required to spend time on routine paperwork rather than the investigation.”
“A lot of risk, small benny. You have to steal two vehicles, tag mine, hire people willing to ram into another vehicle in broad daylight on a busy street. I don’t know why it would be worth it to him.”
“You’re responsible for his father’s imprisonment, and you’re mine. Anything he could do to hurt you may be worth it to him.”
“Maybe. Maybe. Could’ve been the little prick’s idea, and execution. He doesn’t like me.”
“And I’ll bet you were so friendly and polite in your dealings with him.”
“Nah, I liked pinching at his tight ass. Either way, I mean if it was either of them that set up that stupid ambush, it’ll trip them up. And Alex will be taking up residence in a cage next to his old man’s. I’m working with Mira. In some ways he fits her profile, in others, it’s not quite the right fit. I have to keep looking at her. There’s a connection between Coltraine and her killer, and looking at her may be how to find him. Find him, wrap him up, put him down.”
“Do you want it to be Alex because of his father?”
She took time to drink a little wine, consider it. “I hope not, but I can’t discount that element. I know—who’d know better?—that who and what we come from go a long way to forming who we are. Would I be a cop if it wasn’t for what was done to me? What he did to me? Would you be who you are without what was done to you?”
“It comes down to fate for me, I think. There are choices made, of course, along each step, but part of fate is what we make.”
She frowned. “That only makes sense if you’re Irish.”
“Could be. You chose, Eve, the law, the order of it. You could’ve chosen to hide inside the victim instead of standing for others.”
“I couldn’t be the victim. It wasn’t a choice. I couldn’t be what they’d tried to make me, and live that way. Neither could you. You couldn’t be the kind of man your father was, one who took orders from others, who beat young boys, who killed the innocent.”
“And enjoyed it.”