Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

“Ms. Karson, I regret to inform you that Jordan Banks is dead.”

“What? What?” She used her good arm to try to push up, winced, dropped back. “Jordan? How? My God.”

“He was murdered in the early hours of this morning.”

“Murdered? How could—how? Where? Oh, my Jesus. I need a minute.”

She covered her hands with her face, rocked, rocked. “Murdered. Dead. I can’t . . . I despised him. I came to despise him. He made a fool out of me, and I hated knowing I’d let him make a fool out of me. Now he’s dead.”

She dropped her hands. Her eyes shone damp, but tears didn’t fall. “We were involved, for about eight months. Up until a few weeks ago.”

“I know.”

“Of course you know. It’s your job to know. I can’t think. I just can’t think.”

“Would you like some water?” Peabody offered.

“I’d like a drink, a goddamn double of anything with a kick. I’d like for an hour to pass where people I know aren’t dead.” She closed her eyes, seemed to breathe herself under control. “How was he killed? Can you tell me?”

“The medical examiner will determine cause of death.” Eve weighed the odds. “I believe his neck was broken.”

“He was in a fig

ht? That’s just impossible. He wouldn’t know how.”

“No, not a fight. How much did you tell him about the details and timing of the merger?”

“I . . . Too much.” As her breathing pitched again, she gripped the sheet in a fist. “Are you saying Jordan had something to do with the bombing? I can’t believe that—won’t.”

“I don’t know that. You gave him details?”

“I thought I was in love with him. I thought he was in love with me. His family . . . they understand business. Jordan’s more interested in the arts—and really that’s not entirely true, either. He’s more interested in women, and how to use them—wealthy women. But I thought he had an interest in my business—a caring interest—and I shared some of my thoughts, plans, hopes with him. He had advice, sometimes it was reasonably good advice. And he listened, he was supportive. And I was an idiot.”

“I don’t think so,” Peabody put in. “You cared for him, and thought he felt the same. You thought of him as a partner, on a personal level.”

“I did. I thought . . . I really thought we had a future together. More fool me.”

“We need to be able to share with our partners,” Peabody continued. “To talk to them, to have them listen. It’s natural and human.”

“I hope I feel that way again someday—when I find someone worthy of trust. But now—I said I despised him, and I don’t say that lightly. But I can’t believe he’d have had any part in what happened. In terrorizing that family, in killing people. I might’ve died, too. We slept together for months, all but lived together.”

“Why did you break it off?” Eve asked her.

She sighed now. “He’d started to ask for money. Just a loan. The first time I didn’t think much of it. Just a few thousand—cash. The second time, those few weeks ago, it bothered me. He’d never paid back the first, and obviously didn’t intend to. I balked, he let it go. But then I found out he’d been cheating. Another woman—wealthy, of course, and married in this case. When I confronted him with it, he shrugged it off. Literally shrugged,” she added, her eyes glittery with temper.

“He’d needed the money I hadn’t been willing to give him, so he’d tapped another source. Really, it was my fault—or so he said.”

“Ballsy,” Eve replied.

“I wish I’d kicked him in them. Still, I did kick him out, then and there. It didn’t seem to bother him a bit. In fact, he said he’d finished with me in any case.”

“Despised seems kind of a wussy word.”

Karson smiled a little at Eve. “It does, doesn’t it? Regardless, he’s not a violent man. A user, an opportunist, a lazy, worthless son of a bitch, but not a man who’d kill.”

“He might have been a man who’d know others who would.”

“Oh, Christ, I don’t know. What time is it? Early.” She answered her own question as she glanced at her wrist unit. “Too early to tag up Juliette. My friend,” she added. “Someone to lean on.”