Peabody nodded. “Thank you. Again, we appreciate your cooperation in this matter. Interview end.”
She heaved out a breath, went comically limp in her chair. “Thank God that’s over.”
He reached over to pat her hand. “How’d we do?”
“She’ll let us know, believe me, but my take? You were forthcoming, articulate, and gave the details. You’re alibied up to your gonads— Oh, sorry.”
“Not a problem, I like knowing that part of my anatomy is protected.” He glanced over as the door opened. “Now this one may bring out the rubber hoses. But I could learn to like it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d contacted Feeney?” Eve demanded.
“I believe I just did.”
“You could’ve—never mind. Peabody, let’s start those runs, and do a quick check of the other guests at the hotel. I’ll be a minute.”
“See you later,” Peabody said to Roarke.
“I’m going to—”
“Be a while.” Roarke finished Eve’s sentence. “I can find my way home.”
“It’s good you did this. Good it’s done and out of the way. She could’ve pushed a little harder, but she got the details, and that’s what counts.”
“All right, then. About what you owe me? I’ve got my price.”
She pursed her lips in thought. “We’ve probably got some rubber hoses in the basement somewhere.”
And he laughed. “There’s my girl. Go by Mira’s when you’re done.”
“I don’t know how long—”
“It won’t matter. Go talk to Mira, then come home to me.”
“Where else would I go?”
“The gifts? They’re in the boot of your car.”
“That’s trunk in the U. S. of A., mick-boy.”
“Right.” He grabbed her arms, yanked her forward, kissed her good and hard. “I’ll be waiting.”
He would, she thought. She had someone waiting for her, and that was her miracle.
* * *
At her desk with an oversized mug of black coffee, Eve studied the official data on Lombard, Bobby. Not Robert, she noted. He was two years her senior, the product of a legal cohab that had dissolved when he’d been two. His father, when she did a cross-run, was listed as Gruber, John, married since 2046, and residing in Toronto.
Bobby himself had graduated from business college and been employed at Plain Deal Real Estate from that time until eighteen months earlier, when he’d gone into partnership with a Densil K. Easton to form L and E Realtors, in Copper Cove, Texas. He’d married Kline, Zana, a year later.
No criminal.
Zana was twenty-eight, originally from Houston. No paternity listed on her record. She’d been, apparently, raised by her mother, who had died in a vehicular accident when Zana was twenty-four. She, too, had gone to a business college, and was listed as a C.P.A. One, Eve noted, who’d been employed by L and E Realtors almost from the onset.
So she moved to Copper Cove, and married the boss, Eve thought.
No criminal, no previous marriage or cohab.
Officially, they came off as what they seemed, she decided. A couple of simple, ordinary people who’d had some extreme bad luck.