Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

“It’s implied.”

“And if you push that line, we’ll both have headaches. To add to these rocks in your shoulders.”

“Crap day. Pretty much crap day.” And wasn’t it just fine to lean back into those talented hands? “I ate. I pulled a Roarke and ordered in pizza for the team.”

“So you said when you texted you’d be late. Points for you.” He leaned forward, laid a kiss on the back of her neck. “Why don’t I get you a glass of wine, and you can fill me in.”

“I’d rather have a beer. I’d rather have coffee,” she added, “but you’d make those noises about needing a break from coffee. At least beer’s a cop drink.”

“I’m no cop, but I’ll have one with you. We’ve still some of Will Bannon’s brew. That’s definitely cop beer. How would that do you?”

“Down to the ground, thanks.”

Already the headache receded to an annoyed murmur. The rocks in her neck and shoulders had broken down into irritating pebbles.

The man had a way.

So when he walked back with the beer, sat, she curled into him, wrapped around him.

“Here now,” he soothed.

“It’s nothing wrong. It’s just . . . good to be home, and here. I can take the long, crap days, the multiple DBs in the long, crap days. I can even take feeling like I’m getting basically nowhere after the long, crap days because it’s good to be home, and here.”

She tipped her head back, kissed him, then shifted back to sit hip to hip. Took a swig from the pilsner he’d poured. “Beer’s good, too.”

“It is. And I’ll wager you’ve gotten beyond nowhere.”

“It doesn’t feel like it. And less like it after each notification. Three today seeing as Baxter notified Denby’s wife.”

“How is she?”

“Holding steady. They didn’t fuck her up as much as they did the first one. Broken nose, couple broken fingers. They mostly kept the pounding to her face, especially after she told them she was pregnant. They didn’t spend as much time on the Denbys. It may be Denby broke sooner than Rogan, or it may be they wanted to hit the loading in instead of the actual opening.”

“You lean toward the first,” Roarke commented.

“Yeah, not only because I think Denby broke sooner, but because they found out they had a pregnant woman on their hands. I think they moved up the timetable. They still accomplished what they wanted, but it meant adjustments, and a daylight B and E.”

She drank again. “I’m skipping around.”

She walked it back to the home invasion, moved through the destruction of Richie’s paintings in his studio.

“We’re still checking on rentals of black panel vans, but so far they’re all legit. Maybe they own one, or have access to one, or just boosted one for a couple hours and nobody noticed.”

“Will you have your witness at the loft work with Yancy or another police artist?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think we’ll get anything there. She couldn’t even give us skin color, height, nothing. She’s three floors up, not paying any attention. We’re lucky we got anything. Sweeper’s report lists twenty-two canvases destroyed from the loft—fifteen completed, the other seven partials. And nobody but dead Angelo knows how many more were completed, how many they took with them.”

“If that was always the plan, they may not have had a stash of his paintings ahead of the game.”

“Yeah, that’s another bitch. Still, you know people in the art-collecting world, and people who know people.”

“I’ll poke around there. I can tell you that there will be an immediate boost on the value. As soon as the details and circumstances of his death, and the loss of much of his work, gets out? Well, there are certain collectors who’ll pay considerably more due to those circumstances. Particularly.”

“Maybe you know some of those sick bastards?”

“I may know a few, and of more. If this is the plan—and it follows, doesn’t it—they’d have to know at least one.”

“Yeah. They have a connection. Business world/stock market, art collecting. Gambling. I can’t figure what’s next. They had to have at least one contingency plan, one alternate mark if neither of these worked out. And since they both worked, why not go ahead with the contingency?”