Golden in Death (In Death 50)

“It was a bet, and I lost the bet. Why do I get the money?”

“It’s your punishment.”

She rolled her eyes, rose, started to clear the plates, since he’d put the meal together. “I have work.”

“And I have entertainment.” He took his wine, went into h

is adjoining office.

8

Eve spent the next three hours picking through the deaths of the desperate and disenfranchised. They ranged in age from seventeen to ninety-four. Street LCs, unlicensed sex workers, addicts, runaways, the homeless, the nameless.

And none of them offered any element of similarity with her victim.

She read Peabody’s results as they came in, found the same.

She started to reach for coffee, realized she’d had her fill. Instead she rose, walked to the glass doors of the little terrace.

The rain had long since stopped, and she could see a few stars, a stingy slice of moon, the lights of the city that never stopped moving.

Kent Abner had been the first. She’d run the probability and the results matched her own gut.

She didn’t hear Roarke come in—the man moved like a damn cat (Galahad excepted)—but sensed him before his hands came to her shoulders to knead at the tension.

“There’s nothing there,” she told him. “Peabody hasn’t quite finished her share, but there’s not going to be anything there, either. You’ve got your stabbings, bludgeonings, strangulations, your ODs, suicides and accidentals, but nothing remotely like Abner.”

“Then you’ve tied off that thread.”

“Yeah.” But she didn’t feel much better about it. “How about you?”

“Ponti’s got some debt—it costs to get a medical degree. He and his wife make ends meet. I’d say they’re reasonably careful about what they spend. Nothing tucked away in a dark corner. No major income or outgo. As for knowledge and skill that applies here, he was a middling student. Not stellar, but good enough. She, on the other hand, excelled. Educationally her work in chemistry—organic, inorganic, pharmaceuticals, biology, her lab work—all exceptional. She did a well-received paper on chemical poisonings in her senior year of high school.”

Intrigued, Eve turned to face him, said, “Huh.”

“From what I can surmise, nursing was her long-term goal, and OR work became her focus in college. She appears to excel there as well.”

“So she’s smart, goal-oriented, would have to be controlled to work in the OR. She has the knowledge. And Abner got her new husband written up.”

“You’ll have a conversation with this Cilla Roe, I take it.”

“Oh yeah, we’ll have a conversation. She was, according to Ponti, home waiting for him at the time of the drop. Poison’s generally a woman’s weapon.”

“Sexist.”

“Statistics,” she countered. “Yeah, we’ll have a conversation.”

“Tomorrow. You’ve done what you can for tonight, and so have I. Let’s put the cat to bed.”

Eve glanced back at her sleep chair, where Galahad sprawled. As if sensing the end of the workday, he opened his bicolored eyes. Yawned hugely, stretched every tubby inch.

Then he leaped down, trotted out of the room.

“He’ll be on the bed before we get there. What a life.”

“Let’s follow suit.” Roarke slid an arm around her.

* * *