“I can’t tell you how they worked things out as I wasn’t involved. But I never heard Bart express any sort of frustration on that score.”
“We’ll agree the victim was loyal and content with the status quo. That doesn’t mean Var, or any of the others were. Are.”
“There are considerably less messy ways of dissolving a partnership or changing the status quo.”
Her smile edged toward smirk. “Easier ways to get rid of a husband than cracking him open with a pipe wrench.”
“I believe I’m going to see that any tools we might have around the house are locked away. On to Benny. He’d be, to my mind, the most intellectual of the four. He enjoys spending his hours in research, sifting through details, theorizing about the underlying meaning of a game, and the reasons they’re played. He’ll research myths, real crimes, historical figures, wars and battles and strategies to add other layers to a game.”
“Good with details, strategy, and the art of combat.”
“You don’t seriously believe—”
“Just pointing out the facts.” She pulled out her PPC, added something to her notes. “When it comes down to it, they all had the means and the motive, and all could easily have arranged the opportunity. In fact, they all, or any two of them, might have planned it out together.”
“To what end, really?” Roarke asked. “U-Play will likely get a quick boost in sales from curiosity and the public’s thirst for scandal. But without Bart, they’re going to be set back on their heels, at least for a bit. He was, and this is from a business standpoint, essentially the glue that held those four parts together into a productive whole.”
Nodding, she keyed in more, spared Roarke an absent glance. “I agree with that. But that doesn’t account for ego, and again, that deep, passionate fury that only people who are intimate in some way can feel for one another. These four were intimate.”
“Family.”
“Yeah. And nobody kills more often than family.”
“In fact I believe I’ll have the tools taken out of the house altogether.” He swung over to grab a parking spot, and watched her frown.
“What’s this? I thought we were going home.”
“I see for once you were caught up enough in a game not to pay attention to your surroundings. I didn’t say home,” he reminded her. “I said dinner.”
“I haven’t updated my reports, or finished with the analysis of the runs. I have to run a full series of—”
As he stepped out and shut the door of the car, that was all he heard. He came around, opened her door. “Come on, Lieutenant, put it away for an hour. It’s a pretty night. Time for a little walk and a meal.”
“See?” She poked a finger in his chest when she got out. “This is why people in intimate relationships bash each other over the head.”
He took her hand, kissed it. “An hour shouldn’t kill either one of us.”
“I have to go through the game scenarios on the disc.”
“I’ve eliminated half of them. You’re looking for one that uses a sword. There’s only the two. Quest-1 and Usurper. The others involve more modern weaponry.”
“Still . . .” She trailed off, and he saw when her annoyance faded enough for her to make the neighborhood. Just as he saw her smile bloom with surprise, and with pleasure, when she stopped in front of the hole-in-the-wall pizza joint.
“Polumbi’s. It’s been a while since I’ve been here. It hasn’t really changed at all.”
“It’s nice isn’t it, when some things remain constant? You told me you came here when you first got to the city. You had your first slice of New York pizza, watched the people walking by. And you were happy. You were free.”
“I felt like my life could finally begin when I sat at the counter at the window. Nobody knew me or cared. I had no friends, no lovers. Nobody but me. And it was incredible.”
She looked at him, those gilded eyes warm, so for a moment it seemed no one else walked the sidewalk, no one else breathed the air. Only the two of them.
“Things are different now. It’s good they changed. It’s good this is the same.” This time she took his hand, linked fingers firmly. “Let’s go have some pizza.”
They didn’t take the counter, but grabbed a narrow two-top and sat on squat, stingily cushioned stools.
He could have chosen anywhere, Eve thought. Snapped his fingers and scored them a table for two at the most exclusive restaurant in the city. Somewhere with snooty waiters, a superior wine cellar, and a temperamental chef who created complex dishes with an artist’s skill.
But he’d given her a crowded, noisy joint where the tables crammed so close together the patrons’ elbows bumped, where the scents of spices and onions and cheap wine in squat carafes stung the air.