She polished off the waffles, opted for another hit of coffee.

“One of them’s softer. He doesn’t wrap the first kid up tight before they leave, and he reads stories to the second kid. How does the dominant one trust the softer one not to fold unless he’s there, propping him up, keeping the buzz going?”

“And how,” Roarke considered, “does the softer one make sure the more violent doesn’t cross the line if he’s not there to keep him steady?”

“Exactly.” Shaking her head, she rose. “So no, bad risk to separate. And why extend the target area, adding expense with travel, rooms? If they have jobs, how do you get that kind of time off? And this is New York. Anything you need to find, you can find it here.”

She picked up the jacket—black, leather flaps on the pockets, thin leather cuffs on the sleeves—pulled it on over the weapon harness. “The work’s figuring out what or who needs to be destroyed so they can make a profit, and how to connect a devoted family man to that what or who. Eliminate the stock market, the art world, and calculate where they’d try next.”

She studied him as she filled her pockets. “You’re not their kind of gambler,” she considered. “When you gamble in business, you know the odds, the ups, downs, ins and outs. You know the players and the house. You usually are the house. When you gamble for play it’s just that. Play. But still, you gamble. That place you bought in Nebraska, for instance, because we sort of made a bet.”

“No ‘sort of’ about it, and it’s coming along quite nicely.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Real estate’s a gamble.”

“Ah.” He sat back, intrigued. “Interesting. And yes, it certainly is.”

The idea had a little buzz going in the back of her brain. “Blowing up that wrecked farm out in Nowhereville—what would that get you?”

“If I’d insured it well, there’d be that, but you’d only go there if, for a variety of reasons, getting rid of it gets you out of debt or a deal.”

“Okay, shift to a building here in New York.”

“Do I own it?”

“You? Probably. Them, less certain. What would they gain by blowing up a building—or a person or persons involved in that building?”

“Well now, it’s a puzzle you’ve given me without many of the pieces.”

“Quick profit. Nothing long term.”

“Insurance again, but it takes more than a man in a suicide vest to destroy a building. Damage it, yes. Enough its value goes down. You could pick it up cheaply, but that’s a long-term investment, and that piece doesn’t fit. Kill the people who own the building? What does that get you? An interesting puzzle.”

“You own a lot of buildings, and you have a lot of people working for you.”

Now he rose, walked to her, ran his hands down her arms. “And I have security, the sort they’d never get through.”

“You don’t have security on every place you go—a lunch meeting at a restaurant, a meeting at another building.”

“Few have access to my schedule on any given day,” he reminded her. “Summerset, Caro.”

“The people on the other end of the meeting,” she countered. “I don’t see the finished puzzle, either, but say, maybe, we have a few of the pieces here, you could do me a big favor.”

“What would it be?”

“Mix things up today. Change the schedule around. And check on your people, especially any who have access to your HQ, your office. And since you’re you, you can run a check on people on the other side of the meetings you’ve got on your plate. Anybody who hasn’t come into work today, or for a couple days.”

“I can do that, especially if it stops you from worrying. And I’ll play with this puzzle. Real estate’s a world I know.”

“Good. I’m going to head in, get a jump start.” She leaned in to kiss him. “Take care of my business god. Please.”

“Done. Take care of my cop.”

When she left, he checked the time. Far too early to disturb Caro and begin the shuffling of the day’s schedule. In any case, he had another meeting. As he headed to his office, he decided after that and before the post-dawn day began, he’d work a bit on the puzzle.

18

For the second time since the investigation started, Eve drove to Central before sunrise. She wondered if she could train her body and brain to subsist on four or five hours of sleep most nights, like Roarke. Then she could make the commute before the streets clogged with traffic, the skies filled with noisy ad blimps.

Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery
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