Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

Sybil blink

ed. “Pardon?”

“You knew Banks. Denying it isn’t going to work.” She kept her voice low and hard. “Twelve people are dead. Thirteen including Banks. So you’ll tell us. I’m going to read you your rights.”

“Oh God, my God.”

She unlinked the hands she’d gripped in her lap, wrapped her arms around herself as Eve recited the Revised Miranda. “Did you have an affair with Jordan Banks?”

“No! No, no, it was nothing like that. I mean to say, it was only a . . . flirtation. I never—we never—I couldn’t, wouldn’t betray Drew. It’s just . . .”

“Did you meet him in London?” Peabody asked, more gently than Eve.

“Yes. Over a year ago. The baby was only three months old. Jacey was just three months old—and Trey, our boy—had just turned two. We wanted to have our babies close together, you see.”

She linked her hands again. “Drew and Liana are so close, so we wanted to have our babies near in age, so they’d have that kind of bond. And I just . . .”

“Two kids under three.” Peabody offered a sympathetic look. “Exhausting.”

“Yes. Of course, I had help. My mother, a nanny, but I—”

She broke off, pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I have no excuse. Drew was just starting the ground floor of the merger, the meetings, the plans, the trips back and forth to sit down with his father, the board. And I felt overwhelmed and tired and neglected and—and undesirable. Selfish, I was selfish. Two beautiful children, a man I love who loves me and our babies, and I felt neglected because he had important work.”

“You were on leave. You’d been used to having important work outside the home,” Eve put in. “To being part of it.”

“Maybe a little post-baby depression, I don’t know. It’s no excuse, but I bounced back so fast with Trey, and I just wasn’t with Jacey.”

“How did you meet him?” Eve asked.

“There was an art showing I wanted to attend. An opening, and Drew had promised to take me. A night out, just the two of us. An adult night—no feedings, nappies, bedtime stories. I was all dressed, ridiculously excited, and he rang me up, and told me how sorry he was, but he’d gotten caught up in something and needed to deal with it.”

“You were upset.” All sympathy, Peabody nodded. “Disappointed.”

“Crushed, beyond reason really. We’d already arranged for the nanny to stay the night. I’d bought a new frock. I just went. The hell with it. I wanted to go to this opening, I’d just go. So I did.”

“You met Banks,” Eve finished.

“Yes. He was there, and somehow we started talking about one of the paintings. He was so charming and attentive. I flirted, I did, partially because I was angry with Drew, but primarily because it felt so good to have someone pay attention.”

“You’d spent nearly two years of the last three pregnant.” Sticking with the theme, Peabody layered on more understanding. “You wanted to feel like a person, a woman. Not just a mother.”

“Oh, God, yes. It was wrong, but I had a drink with him after, and we talked, about art and literature and cinema. We just talked. He kissed my hand when he put me in a cab. Just my hand. But he said he’d only be in London for a few days, and wouldn’t I have lunch with him. He hated to eat alone.

“So I did. The next day, I left my babies with the nanny and I went to have lunch with him, and flirt with him. And the next day I met him again. A drink, in the middle of the afternoon. It felt so wonderfully wicked. And this time he kissed me, and I let him. In the bar of his hotel. And he asked me to come up to his suite.”

She stopped, pressed both hands to her face. “I almost did. I’m so ashamed of that. Part of me wanted to. But the rest of me was appalled. What was I doing? What was I doing with this man I didn’t even know while my husband was working, while my babies were home with the nanny? I told him no. I apologized because it was my doing, it was my fault. I left, and I never saw him again. I swear to you.”

“What did you tell him about the merger?”

“The merger? We didn’t really talk about—”

“You told him you were married,” Eve interrupted. “You wear a ring. Did he sympathize, say flattering things when you told him your husband was always working.”

“I . . . yes, I suppose so. Yes. He said—something like—he’d never be able to keep his mind on work with such a beautiful, vibrant woman at home. And he asked what was so important it kept him away.”

“And you told him.”

“I . . .” She pressed a hand to her mouth. “I did, just that it felt like the family business was more important than family to him right now, and he was so wrapped up in crafting this deal with Econo, he barely knew I was home.”