Leverage in Death (In Death 47)

“Just terrify them.”

“I did what I could to keep them calm,” Iler countered. “I’d never have allowed Ollie to physically hurt one of the children.”

“How did you plan to stop him?”

“He’d listen to me. We’re a team. The point is, and it’s important. I never killed anyone.”

“Eighteen.”

“No, you see, those men, those two men made a choice. They had a choice. They could have gone to the police instead.”

“And had their families killed.”

“No, no, no, that was a bluff. Just a bluff.”

“‘A bluff.’” Eve opened the file, tossed out photos of both crime scenes. The charred bodies, the pieces of the dead. “A bluff.”

“They had a choice,” Iler insisted. “They could have called the bluff. I admit we bear some responsibility, but—”

“‘Some responsibility.’” She lunged up, lunged across the table. “You had him wired, had him wear a recorder so you could see—and so he could hear his wife and child screaming. You beat the women, threatened rape.”

“I never touched them. I swear it. I swear it. I agree Ollie could go too far, but I held him back.”

“Did you hold him back when he snapped Banks’s neck? Lie to me, you fuck. Please lie.”

“I—he—Jordan was blackmailing me.”

“You killed him for it.”

“Ollie did. I could never—”

“Did you help dump his body in the water? Lie to me,” she urged.

“I didn’t know what else to do.” Tears started seeping down his face. “I didn’t know.”

“Did you and Oliver Silverman break and enter into the residence of Paul Rogan, Cecily Greenspan, Melody Greenspan Rogan with the intent and purpose of imprisoning said family?”

“I . . . yes.”

“Did you or your partner physically assault both adults?”

“Yes.”

“Did you or your partner batter Cecily Greenspan and threaten to sexually assault her?”

His shoulders shook with sobs. “Yes, but—”

“Did you, over the course of time from the early hours Saturday through Monday morning threaten, assault, and coerce Mr. Rogan, keeping his child separated, causing her to cry out for him, with the purpose of making him choose to carry an explosive device into the Quantum Air headquarters, to wear said device into a scheduled meeting, to detonate said device, killing himself and others in order to save his family?”

“We were bluffing.”

“Did you threaten, repeatedly, to kill Rogan’s wife and child if he did not carry out the bombing?”

“Yes, yes, yes, but—”

“I’m going to start considering your stupid buts an evasion and negate this deal. I would love to think about you living the rest of your worthless life off-planet. Deep space, no air unless they pump it in.”

“Please.”