The in Death Collection Books 11-15 - J. D. Robb [676]
Red stains, splatters, streams were a virulent horror over the white. Walls, carpet, furniture. He could see where the girl had fallen. Could see where she had crawled. Where she had died.
“Christ, how do you face it? How do you look at this and not break?”
“Because it’s there whether you look or not. And if you break, you’re done.”
He touched her arm. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. “Did you need to see this again? To face this again to prove you could?”
“Maybe. But if that was all, I’d’ve come on my own. Second bedroom and the office are over there. We went through the place thoroughly on the first sweep. But we weren’t looking for a hidey-hole. Now we do.”
She put Roarke in the second bedroom and started on the office herself. They’d taken the data and communication center away, had gone over the work area, through the closet where Greene had kept his extra supplies.
She did it all again, point by point. There was a safe. One of the crime scene techs had run his scanner over it, tagged the combination. She’d found nothing unexpected in it. Some cash, disc documents, a little paperwork.
Not enough cash, she thought now. Not nearly enough. If three clients had come by in the last few days—at least two of them when Greene’s symptoms would have been increasing—where was the payoff?
Would he have sent Wade out with cash to tuck it into a safebox? She didn’t think so. You might bang a teenager, sell her off to clients, but you didn’t put cash in her hand and wave bye-bye.
She took two paintings and a sculpture off the wall, searched behind them for panels.
“Bedroom’s clean,” Roarke told her.
“He’s got another safe. He’s got a hole. This is the logical place. The office is the logical place.”
“Maybe it’s too logical. First place you looked, isn’t it?”
She stopped scooting along the baseboard and sat back on her heels. “Okay, if this was your place, where’s your stash?”
“If I liked combining business and pleasure, as it appeared he did, the master bedroom.”
“Okay, let’s try it.”
She led the way, then stood in the doorway with him, scanning the room.
“Money doesn’t always buy taste, does it, darling?” He shook his head at the black and red decor. “A bit obvious for a passion den.”
He wandered to the closet, opened it. “Well, here at least he showed some level of class. Very nice fabrics.”
“Yeah, and he died in his underwear. Just goes to show.”
“Just what does the city do with this sort of thing?”
“The clothes? If he doesn’t have family, heirs, that kind of thing, they’re donated to shelters.”
He pressed the button that had the first tier of suits revolving to reveal the second. “The sidewalk sleepers are going to be better dressed this year.”
He moved the second tier aside, studied the wall of shoes to his right. Smiled. “Here you have it.”
“Have what?”
“Give us a minute,” he said, running his fingertips along shelves, under them. “Ah, here we are. Let’s see.”
He depressed a small lever. The lower third of the shelves swung slowly open. He crouched. “Here’s your hidey-hole, Lieutenant. And your second safe.”
She was already breathing down his neck. “Can you open it?”
“Would that be a rhetorical question?” he chuckled.
“Just open the damn thing.”
He drew the jammer he’d taken from Jamie out of his pocket. “Well, this is why you’re the cop and I’m not.”
“Because you can pop a safe?”
“No. I could teach you to do it quick enough, even without this handy little toy. Because I thought you were wasting time coming back here tonight.”
“You still think I’m wasting time.”
“I suppose I do, but you’ve found your safe.” The display on the jammer began to flash, numbers zipping by in a blur. Then a series of them locked on. The safe hummed once, then clicked.
“Abracadabra,” Roarke stated, and opened it.
“Now that’s more like it.” Hunkered down beside him, Eve studied the neat stacks of cash. “This is how he stayed out of