Born in Death (In Death 23)

“The next morning. I was in the East Ballroom helping to set up for a luncheon. Jake came in, came to find me. He was crying. I’d never seen him cry before. And he told me. We sat on the floor, right on the floor in the ballroom.”

7

EVE TOOK ONE LOOK AT THE BOXES COVERING the table in the conference room she’d ordered and felt a headache coming on.

“Okay, here comes the monkey work. We’re going to go through the discs and hard copies, memo, memo books, appointment books, everything, going back—for now—two weeks. From the wit statements it was two weeks, ten days, when people started noticing something off with Copperfield, and just under two weeks when the transmission went from Copperfield to Byson that she had something she needed to show him.”

“We’ll get through the names, the notes—eventually,” Peabody said. “But the accounts? We could probably use a numbers guy on this.”

“Probably could,” Eve agreed. “But for now, it’s you and me. We’ll look for repetition, a file or account she went back to repeatedly during the time frame. Any of them copied to her home unit, or any data she copied to Byson.”

Eve glanced unhappily at the conference room’s AutoChef, knowing it wasn’t loaded with her personal stash of coffee.

“Any mention of meetings or appointments with the higher-ups,” she continued. “Appointments with reps of accounts.”

“Going to be awhile,” Peabody commented. “Maybe I should order in some sandwiches.”

“Whatever. Her assistant said she logged in after hours a couple times recently. Let’s find what she accessed after business hours.”

She turned as the door opened.

“Anything?” Baxter asked her.

“It’s looking like she found something off at work, was pursuing it on her own, and shared her concerns with her fiancé. We’re digging there.”

“Want another shovel?”

Eve dipped her hands into her pockets. “What’s on your desk?”

“A few things, mostly leg and ’link work. Nothing the boy can’t handle,” he added, referring to his trainee, Trueheart. “Look, the kid’ll let me know if he needs me on anything active. I’ve got some personal time coming. I can take it to work this.”

“You work it, you work it on the clock. Anything of your own heats up, you’re on that.”

“No problem.”

When her communicator beeped, she glanced at the readout. “Peabody, fill Baxter in. It’s Whitney’s office. I need to update him.”

She was ordered up, and

found Commander Whitney behind his desk. She thought he looked tired, maybe burdened was the better word. His big shoulders carried considerable weight.

Gray was sprinkled generously through the dark hair that was closely cut around his wide, coffee-colored face. He watched her, saying nothing, as she ran through the movements and details of the investigation.

“The data you confiscated is secured?”

“Yes, sir. Detectives Peabody and Baxter are starting the search. Captain Feeney is supervising the e-work, using Detective McNab.”

“Other avenues?”

“Sir?”

“Exploration of this being personal business. Jealous ex?”

“I haven’t eliminated the possibility, Commander, but nothing points to that. While everything points to this being a double murder motivated by something the female vic discovered at her place of employment.”

He nodded. “You understand the sensitivity of the data now in the possession of this department?”

“Yes, sir.”