“Sometimes I want to get in his face and threaten and badger, other times I just want to get through it.”

“Understood. I’ll take care of it. Let’s sit a minute.” After he ordered the fire on low, Roarke drew her to the sitting area. “What’s the substance?”

“Painted concrete. I have the brand and—what’s it—psi of the concrete—Mildock—the brand and color of the paint—or the epoxy. Additives therein indicate floor not wall paint, not enough waterproofing for an outdoor area, or around a pool. Most likely a garage or an interior space. Like a basement. I’m leaning basement. Private.”

Sipping wine, sitting with his wife? Roarke considered that a fine transition to his day. “That is quite the break.”

“Yeah. Both the brands are popular, so it’s going to be a bitch to try to narrow down, but once we have her, this’ll cap it.”

She drank some wine, studied the board. “Horowitz doesn’t fit.”

“Pettigrew’s live-in?”

“Yeah, even if I opened this up like it’s a conspiracy—multiple women working together to off cheaters—she doesn’t fit. Geena McEnroy fits better, but she doesn’t fit smooth, either. She followed through,” Eve added. “Tagged her way up the chain to Tibble and the mayor, threatened going to the governor.”

Roarke skimmed a hand over her hair. “And?”

“Got called into The Tower.” She shrugged. “Tibble’s half a politician, because that’s the job, but he’s no dumb-ass. I ran it through for him and Whitney, including the fact you bought the company Pettigrew screwed his ex out of. Laid out the evidence and blah blah. He’ll handle her.”

“No doubt. As to the company, I can give you a bit more on that now. Darla Pettigrew launched her company with backing from her grandmother, who, as it happens, is the completely amazing Eloise Callahan.”

“You know her?”

“Of. And I admire, very much, her work. You’ve seen some of her vids.”

He’d know better than she would, so Eve said, “Probably.”

“I can promise we’ve watched a few together. But in any case the legendary Eloise backed her granddaughter financially. Darla had studied programming and AI engineering in college, worked for advanced degrees. Then married Pettigrew. Reading between the lines of the data I unearthed, she played lawyer’s wife to the exclusion of her own ambitions for several years, but along the way something sparked her idea to start her own company with a focus on creating, programming, and manufacturing personalized domestic droids. Small scale, and with the eye toward quality and affordability.”

“Hers then. He didn’t have the programming chops, right?”

“None at all, but he handled the legalities—and there he set himself up nicely. And,” Roarke added, “craftily. The company had some success—enough for her to repay her grandmother, and build a reputation for reliability and customer service. A solid little company, as I said before.”

“Yours now.”

“It is, yes. A couple of years ago, Pettigrew’s financial manager contacted our acquisitions department. Memos and reports from the time state the company would be on the block due to a divorce.”

“Would be?”

“Yes, we got a bit of a heads-up, an invitation to make an offer. My people did the due diligence, I cleared the offer, and after a quick and easy negotiation, we finalized within a couple of weeks. Simple and standard, no muss or fuss.”

“She didn’t have a choice,” Eve replied.

“So it seems. It appeared, as I said, simple and standard on paper. She’d signed off, and he’d held the majority share.”

Eve rose, wandered to the board. “Because he’d set it up that way, and she assumed he set it up fairly.”

“I’d agree with that. As I said, it was craftily done.”

“I bet. Plus, she was, most probably, focused on the work, the hiring, the getting it off the ground, and left the legal crap to him. Married a lawyer, after all.”

Roarke watched her circle, study. “Hard to see it otherwise.”

“Impossible to, from where I’m standing. And it was hers, the idea—her education—her grandmother’s backing, the work.”

She glanced back at him. “And pride. She’d have been proud of it—proud she’d paid back her grandmother’s investment, proud she’d built something.”

“Quite a nice something,” Roarke confirmed. “A solid little company with potential to grow. She had reason to be proud of it, yes.”

Tags: J.D. Robb In Death Mystery
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