“Well, the Missouri girl, raised by her single mother, the teacher. I think I knew about them moving back to the hometown. And if you know anything about her or the show, you get she’s tight with family—considers her stepfather her dad. I know she started in broadcasting back in St. Louis, worked her way up. She hit pretty big by the time she was like thirty, got a New York gig as part of a morning talk-show ensemble, and brokered that popularity into her own. She’s an icon there. I know she’s been with Bic a long time. Easy to find out how long, but long.”

“We’ll take a look at him, too. He’s devoted, that comes across. Devoted enough, you can do something stupid. Doesn’t ring for me, but we’ll tug that line.”

A lot of lines, she thought, and time to tug them.

* * *

Back in her office, Eve updated he

r board, did a full run on Terrance Bicford.

New York native, law degree from Columbia. Hotshot in a hotshot firm all the way up to partner. Estate law, financial law. One marriage and divorce before Knight. One offspring—daughter, also a hotshot lawyer.

Cohabbed with Knight for—huh—nineteen years. He sat on the board of her foundation, and her company—which wasn’t peanuts.

A lot of money in the Knight world, Eve noted. But then again, he’d had a very nice pile of his own when they hooked up.

It wasn’t about money, she thought. It was about secrets.

She got up to program coffee, sat down, coffee in hand, putting her boots up and letting her mind wander.

At some point, it wasn’t the money for Mars, either. It was the having of it, the taking of it, and the mining for more.

It was the knack she’d had—a kind of primal instinct—for finding vulnerabilities, and for exploiting people who could afford to pay.

Who would pay rather than have those secrets and vulnerabilities exposed?

Hit the rich, the rich and the really fucking rich, Eve mused. A few thousand a month meant nothing. Image? Priceless.

She’d miscalculated. Either sucked too hard and long on a mark, hit on someone who’d kill rather than risk exposure. Or somebody who, under the image, couldn’t afford the payments.

Protection. A child defending herself, a mother protecting her child, a man covering a shakedown, trying to shield the woman he loved.

Another pattern. Marks not just covering themselves, but those they loved. And those they loved protecting them.

Isn’t that what Mars had tried with Roarke? Another miscalculation. Probably she’d made others. And maybe one of those others had flipped her off, as Roarke had. But had also decided to silence her.

Dropping her boots back on the ground, she contacted St. Louis.

It took time, and she had to work her way up to her counterpart in St. Louis Homicide before she got close to anywhere.

“You want us to dig up the file on a john/prossy case from better than forty fricking years ago.”

“I understand it’s more than forty years, Lieutenant, but dead’s still dead. And there may be a connection to an open case here.”

Her counterpart gave her a sour look, added a curled lip. “And how’s that?”

“I don’t know until I see the file. If I could speak to the investigating officers—”

“Forty years,” he repeated. “I can’t even tell you right off if the investigating officers are still alive, for Christ’s sake.”

“I would appreciate it very much”—you lazy fuckhead—“if you’d check on that. I’ll make myself available at any time.” And though she hated pulling the Whitney card, she wasn’t in the mood to screw around. “I can have my commander contact yours, Lieutenant, if that would expedite the matter.”

“We got open cases here, too. We may not be New York City, but cops do the job here, too.”

“And as one cop to another, I need to review that case file and, if possible, speak to one of the investigators. Once again, the DBs were Carly Ellison and Wayne Sarvino.”

“I heard you the first time. We’ll get to it when we get to it.”

Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery
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