“He should have done to me what he’d done to the bitch who bore me. That’s how he put it to me.” On the rail, Alex’s knuckles went white. “He should have gotten rid of me the way he had her. Watched me fall, watched my brains splatter on the street.”
Alex took a minute, just breathed in the sea air. “I asked him why he would have done it. He said she’d passed her usefulness, and she annoyed him. I should be careful not to do the same. Later he recanted. He’d only said it because I’d made him angry, because I’d disrespected him. But I knew he’d told me the absolute truth. So, you can believe me when I say I wish him a long, long life as much as you.”
“I’m very sorry. You can believe that as well.”
“I do. One of the reasons he hated you, hates you, is because you have a code. A moral code of your own that he couldn’t shake.”
He turned from the sea now to face Roarke. “You’ve no reason to believe I have one of my own, but I’m telling you, I didn’t kill Amaryllis. I didn’t order her killed. I’d never hurt her, or wish her harm. I loved her once. I cared about her still, very much. Whoever did it is using me as a shield. A diversion. And that infuriates me.”
“Why tell me?”
“Who else?” Alex demanded with some heat. “Your cop? In my place, would you strip out your guts to a cop? A cop who has every reason to suspect you of killing one?”
“I wouldn’t, no. Are you looking at me for putting in a good word for you?”
“Your sense of fair play disgusted my father. I suppose I’m counting on it. I don’t know who killed her, or even why. I’ve tried every resource I can think of to find out, and I’ve got nothing.”
The sea spread at Alex’s back, and the sun poured over him. In its strong light, Roarke saw pain, and the struggle to suppress it.
“I’m going to tell you that I came to New York hoping to convince her to come back to me. Because no one else in my life has ever made a difference. And I could see in a moment it would never happen. She was happy, and she was in love. And we were still who we were in Atlanta, still who we were when we went our separate ways. She could never accept me, what I am, what I do, and be happy. She’d faced that, and walked away. After seeing her again, I faced it.”
“Did you think she would change what she was in Atlanta, or now?”
“Yes. Yes, I did. Or that she’d just ignore my business dealings. They had nothing to do with her, or with us. But she couldn’t resolve it. And after a while, couldn’t live with it. Or me.”
“Did it never occur to you to adjust your business dealings?”
“No. It’s what I do. If I have my father in me, it’s that. I hope to God that’s all of him I have. I’ve never killed, or ordered a kill. It’s not . . . practical.”
“The men who hit your antique store in Atlanta died very badly, I’m told.”
“They did. I didn’t order it.”
“Max did?”
“They insulted him—by his way of thinking—by making a fool out of me. Out of his blood. So he dealt with it, his way. And his way put me and my interests under a great deal more scrutiny than necessary. I don’t kill, it’s simply not good business.”
He shrugged that off as a man might when discussing his preference for mutual funds over individual stocks as an investor. “I’d be impractical, and the hell with good business, if I knew who killed Ammy. Because I loved her once, and because I never had the goddamn balls to kill my father for what he did to my mother.”
When Alex went silent, when he turned back to the water, Roarke stepped to the rail beside him. “What are you looking for, from me?”
“I want—I need to know who killed her, and why. You have resources beyond mine. I don’t know how many you might be using in your connection with the police, or what I can offer you to use more for this. For her. But you’ve only to name your price.”
“You don’t know my wife. You know of her, but you don’t know her. You’d do well to put your trust in her to find those answers. Added to that? You don’t have to pay for my resources, Alex, when my wife has only to ask for them.”
Alex studied Roarke’s face, then nodded and looked back out over the water. “All right. I promise you if I learn anything, anything at all that could help, I’ll tell you.”
“I’ll take your promise, but I can’t give you the same. That would be up to the lieutenant. But I’ll give you this: When she finds who did this—and she will—should that person meet with a bad end, I’ll keep your part in that to myself.”
Alex let out a half laugh. “That’s something.” He turned, offered Roarke his hand. “Thank you.”
They were close to the same age, Roarke mused, and both started their lives with men who enjoyed spilling blood. Alex as the prince, and himself as the pauper.
Despite some of the basic similarities, and for all of Alex’s polish and his background of privilege, Roarke sensed the naive.
“Something your father wouldn’t have told you,” he began. “Taking blood, it leaves a mark on you. No matter how it’s done, or how it’s justified, it leaves a mark that goes in deep. Be sure you’re willing to wear that mark before you take the blood.”
Back in the car, Roarke deactivated the recorder built into his cuff link. He considered removing the microstunner inside his boot, then left it where it was. You just never knew.